Lesson #2 - Gaining a different perspective

As I wrote earlier, there have been many things brought to my attention throughout this adoption process that I haven't really had to think about until now.  So, what are these things? Well, there are many and here are my ramblings on them...Specifically, I have become more aware of the reality that adopting a child of a different race will bring with it its own unique set of challenges.   With any adoption, there is an added layer of complexity, so naturally throw in a different race on top of the adoption and you have a double layer of complexity!  Some things people have discussed seemed quite obvious, then others seem to hit me right in the gut.

For some examples...

- Hair.  Along this journey I have encountered individuals who, upon finding we are adopting an African American, have asked what I am going to do about their hair.  Prior to these questions, I honestly didn't know this was an important issue.  I knew there would be differences, and I am probably (not probably...I am) naive to what it takes to care for African American hair.  However, I just didn't know to consider this as a process that I would have to grow in as a part of becoming a multicultural family.

- Belonging.  At one conference, one of the dads shared a story of him and his son in Walmart.  They had lost sight of the mom (his wife) and he grabbed his son by the hand and said out loud, "Let's go find your mommy!"  Innocent situation, right?  Well, the man was white and his son black, so when the lady on the aisle heard him say that out loud, she raced over to try to help him find his mom.  It took a great deal of explaining to the lady for her to understand he was the child's father.  I know this seems small, but it spoke reality to me that through the eyes of the watching world, it will never be automatically assumed that our son is ours!  Not the case with our girls who all look alike and look much like us.

- Environment.  I think it quite natural that we tend to associate with those most like us.  But what happens when you adopt a child that with their ethnicity comes additional cultural things you don't know about?  In our transracial training we had to do an exercise where we placed colored beads on a bracelet representing the skin coloring of different people in our lives.  Examples included hair dresser, doctor, mailman, neighbor, pastor, librarian, police officers, etc....  The leader then shared that most likely the majority of our beads reflect colors similar to our own skin color.  While there's nothing particularly wrong with this, she shared that given nothing changing, our son would always be different than most everyone he is around.  This bracelet (which I plan to wear until our son comes home) serves as a tangible, visual reminder for me.

- Birth family.  With the way Bethany allows birth families to select via profile, there is no "closed" adoption....all are open to some degree.  To what degree is determined on a case by case decision between those involved.  I have really come to appreciate Bethany's approach as to how they handle adoptions and how one of their main priorities is to minister to the birth mom/family throughout the process and for as long as needed.  Russ mentioned in a previous post about the panel discussion involving birth moms.  It was powerful to hear their stories and certainly a poignant reminder to me that this is no small decision taken lightly on the part of a birth mom.

These things have helped me begin to gain a different perspective as we continue this journey of adoption.  I love the wording "headed down this road" "as I think about how turning on a road doesn't mean you have arrived at your destination.  It does, however, mean you are heading in a direction towards your destination.  There may be hills and valleys as we take this journey, but as a child of God, He has promised to lead us.  In the words of an Andrew Peterson song...."Holy is the Lord, Holy is the Lord and the Lord I will obey.  Lord help me I don't know the way."  May this be true of our family as we seek to follow God's leading us down this path....

Sacrifice Is a Necessary Evil

It has been a sobering thing to learn about the process in adoption.   As I have begun moving from more of an observer a ways off peering at adoption, to an active participant, my perspective has grown dimensionally.

Often the first thing to one's mind when thinking about adoption is likely that of the beautiful picture it paints.  Perhaps, this is because of the peculiar wonderment that comes of sacrifice.  I mean, consider the war hero who nobly goes to battle presuming they may never return, or return, unlike the way they went.  Or the teacher who gladly, and zealously, gives the bulk of their life to their thankless students only to receive a mere plaque upon retirement for the blood, sweat and tears shed over the years.  What about the missionary that goes with a heart to give all that they have, to pour themselves out as an offering, often in hostile territory, to show the Love of Christ.

Adoptive parents are also often seen as the sacrificial ones.  Particularly the ones that are in the category that our family falls into.  You see, we have not struggled with the torturous situation of infertility, and the desperation that accompanies it (although, we have seen it first hand in those we care about).  We also have three beautiful, healthy biological children that we have been given to shepherd in love.  It would seem that from many's eyes, we have been given a full quiver.

So, why would we possibly seek to adopt a child?  Some might assume that it is due to our great sacrifice in order to take in a child not of our own flesh and blood to save them from a lifetime of want, abandonment and pain.  Although there is some truth in this behind our motives, make no mistake, my understanding of sacrifice has been broadened as we have moved within the process.
   
Sure, great sacrifice is made from the adoptive parents, but I believe even greater sacrifice can be reflected by the birth parents.  Often times in adoption, the birthparents are villainized as the ones who should be ashamed of themselves, while the adoptive parents should be exalted.  In the process we have gone through to this point, we have had the pleasure and privilege in meeting those who God has used to confront our own ignorance in this.

In one of the trainings we attended, we met two older birthmothers who had given their babies for adoption when they were young teenagers several years ago.  The emotion that they exhibited as they told their stories was overwhelming.  Surprisingly to me, they still carried the scar from years prior.  They spoke of the process they had to go through, and were still going through, despite being at peace with their decision.  They spoke of the sacrifice they made, and continue to make everyday, as they live in the reality that their own flesh and blood, this eternal, tangible person lives and exists apart from them.  As a father myself, I imagine mothers can grasp this reality even more fully than fathers can.  But what I can grasp has brought into focus how much I admire these women and how heroic their sacrifice is.  

It is unfortunately true that not all birthparents have exhibited such thoughtfulness and angst over a decision so important.  The stories most often heard and held up are those involving birthmothers leaving their child to die alone in a dumpster or some other horrible circumstance.  But, the more unfortunate truth is that there are plenty of other birthmothers that carry around a hidden scar that is a daily reminder of what they gave up.  It does not go away, nor does it fade.  And by my estimation, the pain only becomes more bearable as it mixes with joy of knowing that their sacrifice enabled their child that they love deeply to receive what they knew they could not give themselves.

I say that these birthmothers are the true heroines and should be celebrated.  We pray that for the sake of the child that God has for our family, we might be able to celebrate their birthmother for her sacrifice in this way.

Lessons learned.....

I really don't know where to begin writing about this journey we've been on with adoption this past year, but as the saying goes, "You gotta start somewhere", so here I start! Russ gave a great overview in his first post of kind of how we got here, so I won't go into that...I'll let you read his post.  :-) But I want to share a little of what God has been teaching me as we wait and prepare for our next child.

My First Lesson: Not on my timetable!!

Those who know me know that I really enjoy structure, timelines, deadlines, organization, etc.... Well, adoption has REALLY stretched me!  From the beginning, we started off headed in the direction of international adoption and have now been redirected to domestic (stateside) infant adoption.

That was a drastic shift, but as Russ wrote about, one that we both felt confirmation in. So, in our next step of paperwork and education, we attended an educational day on the topic of transracial adoption. This was a very enlightening day for me. I went expecting to get a few more "tools" in my belt in regards to adoption, however, I left with a completely new roadmap for the whole process!  Some things were brought to my attention that I didn't even realize I wasn't aware of (obviously).  I hope in the days to come to share more on this.

On to the home study process.  Although it was a pretty painless process as far as getting it done, it was a painful wait for this inpatient momma!!!  UGH!!  The wait to be assigned a case worker, the wait on documents to be filled out and returned from outside sources, the wait for the "official" letter to wait.....you get the picture!  There was a lot of waiting going on.

But even in this waiting, God was gracious to give us the foresight to use this time to pray.  Pray for our future child, pray for the birth family, pray for our agency workers, etc..  And now, once again we find ourselves in the waiting stage!  But this time, waiting for the arrival of our child!

As Russ stated, we have no clue when this will happen.  It could be today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year!  Yikes!!!  These unknowns have really stretched me again!  I jokingly tell people, it's like I'm pregnant, but nobody has given me a due date?  Am I 2 weeks pregnant, 20 weeks pregnant, 38 weeks pregnant?  In the past I have had some general idea of a timeline so this is a new, exciting (but also a little stress inducing) scenario.

Please join with our family in praying that God continues to give us His peace and reassurance that (as the song goes) "In His time, in His time, He makes all things beautiful, in His time..."

Adoption T-Shirts for sale!!!

Well, here she is!  Finally, we have lift off for the shirt orders.  Truth be told, this has been an exhausting process.  With the help of some technologically astute individuals (to you, here is a heart felt "thank you"), we have finally gotten the blog up with all the things needed to show off the design (above), connect gadgets that allow people to see shirts in each of the colors, and gadgets to connect the ordering and payment of the shirts.  Now, I can only suspect that there are people reading this (because I know of some of you out there!) that are chuckling to yourselves because what has taken my wife and I hours and hours of google searches, trial and error, and more trial and error to figure out could have taken mere minutes for you.  The sad part for me though is that if I had to do this again, it would still take me hours and hours to figure out!  Ah, but alas, we have made it to this point, which means, YOU CAN BUY TEE SHIRTS NOW!!!!

We will be taking orders through the rest of this calendar year.  At the beginning of January, we will close out the first wave of orders and send to have printed.  These orders should be received either by mail or hand delivery by the end of January 2013.

But, if you miss the cut off above, don't worry!  We will start a second wave of orders while closing out the first wave.  Another housekeeping note, if you order online and you receive your shirt by hand (instead of via mail), we will plan on returning the cost of shipping that you paid upon paying for your order via the web.  Hopefully, this won't be too much of an inconvenience.

In case you missed it, the design above is original to our family thanks to the fine folks at Global Screen Printing in Brandon, MS.  However, the adoption triad symbol (ATS) within the design above was not our creation.  I'm not sure who actually created it, but it appears to be something pretty familiar within the adoption circles.  The ATS has a triangle where the three sides symbolize:  1) the birth parents, 2) the adoptive parents and 3) the child.  Now, having collided in a specific moment within time and space, these three groups from the point they are introduced to one another are connected forever.  The heart that weaves through the triangle is exactly what you would think: a love and respect shared for one another and the role each has within the process.

We hope you like the design and it fires you up enough that you want more than one!  :-)  Our desires through selling (and more importantly, your purchasing!) the shirts, are to provide you with a way to promote awareness for adoption, give you a tangible reminder so to keep our family in your prayers, to give our girls some opportunity in participating in the adoption by selling tee shirts and to seek your financial partnership and help in this endeavor God has called us to.

Thank you for all the prayers sent on our behalf.  Please don't be afraid to share this blog with your friends and family and DON'T BE AFRAID TO PURCHASE SOME TEE SHIRTS!!!!  WOO HOO!  God bless.

Headed down a new road....

Thank you for checking out our blog. This is the place where we hope to keep those interested up to speed on our experience with adoption. We entered the process in February of this year (2012) by attending our first adoption informational meeting at Bethany Christian Services in Jackson, MS. At the time, we were pursuing an international adoption from China. After some bumps in the road, and eventually a road block (which we'll have to tell you about later), the Lord revealed to Rachel and I that without us even having spoken to each other about it, He was aligning our hearts towards dreaming of a domestic adoption. More specifically, an African-American son. When we discovered that we both were thinking and praying over the same thing, we sensed a peace towards this redirection.

This lead to another informational meeting for domestic adoption through Bethany in March and we completed our application and awaited being assigned a case worker. Our case worker, Cassie, was assigned in June and we began the home study process. Honestly, I'm not sure how, or if, there is a difference in other agency home studies...Bethany began with a 63 essay question packet that Rachel and I both had to complete separately. I kidded with Rachel that the home study requirements felt like a sort of Senior project! The questions probed into several areas such as our family of origins, personal pasts, marital union and relationship and parenting approach with our children. As a therapist myself, I found it fun to reflect on these things, and it continued to teach Rachel and I about each other. For one, it was really scary how the majority of our answers were like one person writing them. I'm positive that Cassie must have thought we consulted each other before writing about our perspectives of our marriage and parenting styles, and even our perception of our children. It was encouraging to us both as we compared our writings AFTER we were finished. This definitely further bound us together and re affirmed the call to continue to head down this new road.

We were able to complete the packets by the end of August. Then came the individual interviews from Cassie. It was funny how Rachel and I prepared ourselves for this step in the process. I was again, looking forward to processing and sharing so many of the things that God had taught me in my life through both difficult and faith producing experiences. I always feel so overwhelmed by God's goodness and faithfulness when I reflect on the experiences of my past and see how God has woven them together in the greater story and purpose in my life. Rachel, surprisingly, was nervous. Rachel is much more of an external processor than me so for her to be nervous about externally processing was somewhat confusing to both of us. However, she went, she thrived, she conquered! Well, that is me talking for her anyway. I'm sure she would describe it with much less dramatic and anti climactic semantics (it sounded better from me, huh?).

A couple weeks later in the month of October, Cassie came to our house for the final stage of the home study...THE HOME STUDY. No, no, no, she didn't go around with a white glove on. It involved some paperwork, signatures and meeting our three daughters. Then, we waited for the official license from Bethany in order to officially wait some more!

That came in the form of a mailed letter around a month ago now. SO, we are officially official to wait...and possibly wait...and possibly wait some more. It is really as if we just found out that we are pregnant but we know the due date could be anywhere from, well, today to...whenever! Crazy, huh? It is almost surreal that today I lay my head down as a father of three and possibly tomorrow I lay down as a father of four! Either way, we have embraced this process and God continues to reveal that our only hope is found in the fact that He is directing, leading, strengthening, sustaining and preparing us for today and what is to come. We would covet your prayers and are so thankful for those of you who we know and love and find tangible efforts of support from, as well as those who we might get to know as you travel down this road with us in the blogosphere! God bless.