There's no mispelling in the title. I am an ant, metaphorically speaking.
Tuesday was a difficult day in the small adoption world I am a part of. It started with my having to deliver difficult news to a family who was waiting the court date for a little boy they had met in Russia in March and were hoping would be their own any day now. As it turns out, the boy's biological family is attempting to regain custody that was taken from them by the Russian courts when he was merely weeks old. It's an extremely difficult part of my job to deliver news like that. Not the way to start the week after a long weekend.
Later in the day, we learned that the pastor we are working with in Pakistan to start our orphanage was arrested. He is accused of blasphemy...an extremely serious crime in Pakistan..one that carries the death penalty. We don't know any other details at this time. We do know that this not only jeopardizes his life, but likely the life of his wife as well. I feel so much shock and sorrow.
It goes without saying that his life is first and foremost in our thoughts and prayers. Then thoughts turn to the work we were doing together...no one knows at this time if it can or will continue.
All of this ickyness led me out to my back yard Tuesday afternoon. The weeds are running rampant and I really needed to step out of the office to breathe, think, and accomplish something..anything even if just to make a small patch of the yard look better. I put on my gloves and started pulling the weeds from the rocks near our cement patio. The birds scatter seed there and it takes root and grows amazingly well in the rock. Thankfully, the task was easy given the recent rain and the fact that roots can't grow too deeply in rock. As I pulled the weeds I began to notice that where they grew most thickly, small black ants had built their miniature ant hills. This was no revelation, believe me, I've pulled my share of weeds and seen a fair share of these mini ant hills.
What I did begin to notice though, was how the ants reacted to my uprooting their home (you'll have to indulge my anthropomorphizing here). Some ants got "angry" for lack of a better description and ran about trying to defend their crumbling home. Some ants clung to the root of the weed, refusing to let go. This led to their demise or at least to their significant relocation in the heap of weeds that I tossed. I didn't notice at first, but there was a third set of ants. They came to the surface later after I'd uprooted their home and the other ants had reacted. These ants began to rebuild the hill. They seemed to work together once the chaos had past to try once again to make something of their lives.
I couldn't help but reflect on how like the ants I was on Tuesday in thinking of the affect the news out of Pakistan might have on our own adoption. My immediate reaction was to cling to the root...the plan we have in place...regardless of the realities of the situation. "It is our plan to adopt a little girl from Pakistan, we'll stick to it no matter what." As the immediacy of the response and news subsided, I felt a moment of anger at the situation. This is not the first time we've experienced set backs in our own adoption journeys and I felt angry that this was happening to us. I need only think of the family and the Russian boy from earlier that day to get past this angry, defensive response.
So now I strive to be like the third set of ants. To wait patiently as we await news and to begin to rebuild this dream of adopting a daughter. Maybe the anthill of our adoption won't look quite the same as it did initially. After all, does the country of our child's birth matter? Does her skin color? What about her age? Maybe we are not meant to adopt again at all? All things to ponder in the waiting and the rebuilding.
A little over a month ago I wrote "I record this here mostly for myself so that as that wheel hits bumps and crevices along the way or becomes stuck in muck or even possibly bounces off onto another path " Perhaps we're at one of those bumps taking us to another path. It's hard to know.
But for now I strive to be an ant....the kind that waits and rebuilds one small piece at a time.
Showing posts with label Adoption Blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adoption Blog. Show all posts
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
We Are The Truth Adoption Blogger Day
The Joint Council on International Children's Services (JCICS) has asked those who blog about adoption to blog about their adoption experiences. http://adopt-abroad.com/pdf/Call_To_Action-We_Are_The_Truth.pdf This is mainly an attempt to show that a great majority of adoptions are positive experiences (even if there are struggles along the way) rather than what the mainstream media has been trying to portray over the last week in response to one family's atrocious actions.
And so, here is my adoption blog. My husband and I are the proud parents of 5 (eventually to be 6 if we are so blessed) children. Our three oldest were born to us and our youngest 2 were born to their first mothers in Guatemala and came to be our children through international adoption. We will soon be celebrating the 6th anniversaries of their home comings (their family days). While our children joined our family as young infants (5 months old and 6.5 months old), the process itself and the adjustment period (yes, even with infants there is an adjustment/bonding period) had it's difficulties.
There were many nights that I held my sweet 5 month old daughter and felt like a "fraud". It felt more like babysitting than parenting at first. But she fit into our family seamlessly. She fell right into the rythmn and routine of our bustling household. I on the other hand struggled for weeks wanting to feel maternal toward her. Some how, in the act of feedings and diaperings and playing and running from here to there together I got there...I felt like mommy.
Three months after bringing home our daughter, we traveled back to Guatemala to bring home our son. I expected to feel the same way, but knew that "fraud" feeling would pass. But surprise! I instantly felt like mommy to this big bundle of joy! He on the other hand, at 6.5 months old was having nothing of it! I did not look, smell, or sound like the mommy he had known his whole life. He went on a 24 hour hunger strike that only ended when we figured out that he would take a bottle from us if we turned our heads away and made no eye contact. Oh, he would look at us at other times, but definitely not meal time! Again, time was our friend and within a week we could gaze deeply in each others eyes as he took his bottle. The nights of waking to him screaming in terror, however, last for months....but eventually those passed too.
My "babies" are now both 6 years old. They attend kindergarten and have friends and enjoy typical 6 year old activities. They are truly and fully integeral parts of our family. We would not/ could not be who we are without them.
They have different approaches to their own adoptions. Our daughter is constantly curious and open about talking about her adoption, Guatemala, and her birth family (who we do not know). Our son on the other hand turns his back when we speak of his adoption. That is until recently. In one special moment recently, he began talking about the volcanoes of Guatemala. This was our opening to discuss Guatemala and even led to him asking questions about his birth family and adoption. We were happy to share it with him. And to take that moment when his defenses were down and he was open to really listening to instill a pride in who he is that we pray will continue to grow.
Adoption has been an amazing thing for our family. It has brought us together. All of our children are growing up in our family where adoption is just another way someone becomes family. There's nothing less or more unusal about it when compared to being born into a family. In fact, sometimes our biological children feel slighted that they don't have two countries or two moms and dads. I love that we can all view adoption so positively.
I dare venture to say that the great majority of adoptive families feel similarly, including the approximately 100,000 Russian children adopted by parents in the United States over the years. Now to convince the mainstream media of that......
And so, here is my adoption blog. My husband and I are the proud parents of 5 (eventually to be 6 if we are so blessed) children. Our three oldest were born to us and our youngest 2 were born to their first mothers in Guatemala and came to be our children through international adoption. We will soon be celebrating the 6th anniversaries of their home comings (their family days). While our children joined our family as young infants (5 months old and 6.5 months old), the process itself and the adjustment period (yes, even with infants there is an adjustment/bonding period) had it's difficulties.
There were many nights that I held my sweet 5 month old daughter and felt like a "fraud". It felt more like babysitting than parenting at first. But she fit into our family seamlessly. She fell right into the rythmn and routine of our bustling household. I on the other hand struggled for weeks wanting to feel maternal toward her. Some how, in the act of feedings and diaperings and playing and running from here to there together I got there...I felt like mommy.
Three months after bringing home our daughter, we traveled back to Guatemala to bring home our son. I expected to feel the same way, but knew that "fraud" feeling would pass. But surprise! I instantly felt like mommy to this big bundle of joy! He on the other hand, at 6.5 months old was having nothing of it! I did not look, smell, or sound like the mommy he had known his whole life. He went on a 24 hour hunger strike that only ended when we figured out that he would take a bottle from us if we turned our heads away and made no eye contact. Oh, he would look at us at other times, but definitely not meal time! Again, time was our friend and within a week we could gaze deeply in each others eyes as he took his bottle. The nights of waking to him screaming in terror, however, last for months....but eventually those passed too.
My "babies" are now both 6 years old. They attend kindergarten and have friends and enjoy typical 6 year old activities. They are truly and fully integeral parts of our family. We would not/ could not be who we are without them.
They have different approaches to their own adoptions. Our daughter is constantly curious and open about talking about her adoption, Guatemala, and her birth family (who we do not know). Our son on the other hand turns his back when we speak of his adoption. That is until recently. In one special moment recently, he began talking about the volcanoes of Guatemala. This was our opening to discuss Guatemala and even led to him asking questions about his birth family and adoption. We were happy to share it with him. And to take that moment when his defenses were down and he was open to really listening to instill a pride in who he is that we pray will continue to grow.
Adoption has been an amazing thing for our family. It has brought us together. All of our children are growing up in our family where adoption is just another way someone becomes family. There's nothing less or more unusal about it when compared to being born into a family. In fact, sometimes our biological children feel slighted that they don't have two countries or two moms and dads. I love that we can all view adoption so positively.
I dare venture to say that the great majority of adoptive families feel similarly, including the approximately 100,000 Russian children adopted by parents in the United States over the years. Now to convince the mainstream media of that......
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