Adoption News

We haven't actually posted about the adoption in a while. Not because it's stalled. Or forgotten. It's just a very. long. wait. Very long.

Our log-in-date was October 9, 2007. Which means we'll have officially been waiting for two full years come next month. We waited 6 months for Casey. 12 months for Marcie. And even if the trend were simply to double the wait time for each additional child, we'd at least be getting a referral in another month. But that's not the case. In fact, recent "predictions" put us getting a referral in 2015.

When I see numbers like that, I wonder why anyone would want to adopt from China. Since you can't submit your paperwork until you're 30, it means that you'd be getting your child at 37. Of course, as an almost-37-year-old myself, it's not that I think that 37 is too old. It's just not that young, either.

So who knows what we'll do. But for now, we're still standing in line.
We actually renewed our I-171H last spring. It was set to expire in March 2009. Because we knew we'd be waiting more than another 18 months, we had the option of letting the paperwork expire and then just updating everything, under the new Hague rules, when our turn gets closer. But it seems easier to just keep things current, so that's what we've opted for. We had to do additional parenting/international adoption classes to meet our homestudy agency's Hague requirements, but we're still filed under the old I-600A regime, which will expire again in another year.

Renewing the I-600A was a little bit confusing because our local USCIS office has changed how it does things but directing people to different office based alphabetically. Using Jason's last name, it would have meant sending us as far south in the county as possible. But because we filed under my full last name (my maiden name and my married name), we kept our "central" location, which is a couple blocks from my office. We filled out the paperwork, wrote a letter, met with our homestudy agency to get the updated homestudy, and walked in all the paperwork. They gave us a new fingerprint form, and once we completed it and turned it in, they processed the new I-600A. A little time consuming, but nothing too painful. And because we were "grandfathered" in and this is our first extension, we even got a waiver on the renewal fee.

In other news, it appears that our paperwork has finally made it through the review room in China. We didn't get any questions, so I think we're in the clear. On the one hand, I'm a little disturbed that China is making decisions on information two years old-- which will be somewhere around 5 years old when we ultimately adopt. On the other hand, I'm grateful we don't have to update it because it's a super big hassle. And the United States requires us to stay current on the information with the State every 18 months, so it's not like we can have a major life change that isn't tracked.

We don't talk much about the China adoption anymore. It just seems so distant, it's easier not to dwell on it. The kids understand it, vaguely, but it's really not worth emphasizing. Some days I think that we're just meant to be a family of four, and I'm okay with that. But deep down, I just don't feel like we're "done" yet. So we wait. And wait. And wait.

Congratulations to our dear friends, or What Does It Feel Like to Adopt a Child?

We have very good friends who have been waiting a while for their daughter from China. They turned in their paperwork a little over two years ago, and were delighted to receive a referral in late June (almost exactly 3 years after we learned about Marcie!).

They leave on Friday for China. With their four-year-old son. Our kids are, admittedly, a little jealous. They'll get to go to China, too. Just not this summer.

In the meantime, we've been reveling in the excitement of Lila's referral and pending arrival. Watching my friend Grace go through the experience has reminded me a little of what it was like, and it got me ruminating the other day about how foreign the concept of a sudden "birth" in the family must seem to some people. Here's what I came up with:

I don't know what it feels like, emotionally, to give birth. Do new moms feel an overwhelming love for this child? Or does the love slowly develop over the course of the pregnancy, and you love him before you meet him? Are you stunned and overwhelmed, and you know that you have great things in store together, and so you love him at birth, in anticipation of really getting to know him?

I don't know that you can define the moment you first love your child. Really love him. And I don't you have to give birth to love a child at the moment he is born. Otherwise, we would say that fathers don't love their children from birth. But we know they do- and probably even before that.

And so I think it is with adoption. You don't really have the months of living with becoming a parent. Yes, you wait a long, long time. There is a lot of paperwork. And even after you see the pictures and learn about your child's daily routine, you still must wait to meet her. Some adoptive parents say they love their child the moment they see her. Maybe that's true. But I don't think it has to be that way. And I don't think it's that way for a lot of people. I remember the day after we met our girls in China. I was sitting in the bank waiting to give our orphanage donation. Only two mothers were there (all the rest were dads). The other woman was a single mom, in China alone with her new daughter. I could see the look on her face, the almost-vacant stare of total fear in her eyes. So I started talking to her. (I'm paraphrasing below, of course- it was several years ago, now.)

"There's no right way to do this, you know," I told her. "Love doesn't have to be an immediate, intense, all-consuming feeling. Sometimes it comes slowly."

She looked at me, a little startled. And I knew it wasn't my business, but I couldn't help myself. "When we adopted our son, the adoption counselors told us we might not love him right away, but that we had to go through the motions, that the love would come. It's not that you don't love them right away, though. I think you're just in shock at first."

There was a long silence, and then she finally spoke. "I feel terrible," she admitted. "I have this beautiful daughter, who I've been waiting for for so long. But all I can think about is my cats. It sounds awful. But I miss them."

It's weird how we cope with these sorts of events. I knew Marcie was meant to be mine from the moment I saw her picture. But once I got her and held her in my arms, I immediately missed Casey more than anything in the world. I knew he was safe at home, and in my head I felt like I should be the happiest woman on earth. But a part of me was in shock. With Casey, who was already 3 1/2 by then, I knew what to expect, even if it wasn't always easy to parent him-- and I loved him. But Marcie was an introduction to the total unknown. And as ready as I was, and as happy as I was, I was still a little freaked out.

Love comes in all forms. Sometimes it's immediate and overwhelming. Sometimes it sneaks up on you, suddenly. And sometimes it takes a while to grow. But the important thing is that you're open to it, and that the love endures. And that we acknowledge that whatever kind of love we feel for our children, it's okay.

That's what becoming an adoptive parent means. It's probably what being a parent means, generally, too. There's just, ironically, less time to emotionally prepare for this child who is yours already and soon joining your family. Less time to grow into it.

My Future Family

So now that the brunt of the cold seems to have passed, I can get back to more important things, like blogging. Jason has cautioned me against writing too much in a single post (which I apparently am already generally guilty of), so I'll have to break it into a bunch of smaller posts over the next few days. Despite being sick last week, I do have things to write about-- like Casey's new shoes (compliments of Grandma Linda and Papaw Jim), the bachelorette party I sort of hosted, and an image of Casey's name-writing abilities.

For those of you who don't know, the wait in China is growing by the minute. We knew when we opted to return to China for B.S. #3 that it was probably a 2 - 3 year wait. But now we think we may be looking at more like a 4 or even 5 year wait. As our paperwork was submitted in October of 2007, it means getting a referral in around October of 2011 and traveling in early 2012. And that puts at least 6 years between Marcie and B.S. #3, a few more years of an age difference than we planned or are even prepared for. We've decided to pursue an interim, concurrent adoption. And though it's not definite, for the time being, we're contemplating Ethiopia. We are not planning on withdrawing from the China program. And we're not planning on beginning this next adoption process until the summer, probably. The plan is to be home with B.S. #4 (out of order, we know) some time in mid-2010. We'll decide what to do about our adoption from China as we acclimate to being a family of 5. If we decide to proceed (which is our current plan), instead of a 6 year age gap, we're looking more at a 2-3 year age gap. Not sure how we'll afford four kids. Or where we'll sleep them all. I mean, our house isn't tiny, but it's not roomy either. Four bedrooms and 1700-ish square feet feels crowded awfully fast. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anyway, I'm documenting our Ethiopia journey (in case that's the ride we decide to take) at Seeking Baby S. in Ethiopia. I'm pretty must just posting Ethiopia-adoption-related items there right now, but who knows how it'll grow.

Now you may be shaking your head at us for mixing and matching children from different cultures into our family-- or even contemplating doing so. And you're certainly entitled to your opinion. We're no Brad and Angelina, and we don't have the means to traipse the globe with our klan of kids, reminding them of their roots and integrating cultural information and traditions into our daily lives with great consistency. This is something I struggle with because of course I want my children to feel attached to their places of birth-- it's part of who they are. But in the end, children from Ethiopia need homes, and we have one we'd like to share. So there it is. For now.

Anyway, all this is a very long-winded introduction to two photos my good friend snapped today (unbeknownst to me!) when we were out in a suburban strip mall for lunch with our kids. Because there was no music class today, I took the kids down to Lucas's house for a play date. That's where we stayed during the fire storm, and Casey loves visiting Lucas because Lucas has two cats. And also because Lucas lives near the boats, trains, and airplanes. When I announced we were going to Lucas's house for a play date this morning, Casey's eyes got wide and his jaw dropped open: "REALLY!?!" he cried. And he raced off to get dressed immediately, then proceeded to hound me for the next thirty minutes while I got ready to go.

After music class each week we've been eating lunch together with Lucas's family at Quizno's, which happens to be next door to the music class. Casey was the first one to notice the sandwich joint from their sign. He kept telling us, "It's toasty!" It took me a while to learn that's the advertisement for Quizno's. Apparently Casey has seen this on T.V. and it's made an impression. Anyway, with no music class this week, we decided to at least keep the lunch part of our routine. But the parking lot was a bit crowded, and I parked pretty far away from the Quizno's.

When lunch was over, and it was time to go, I walked the three kids over to my car. Casey had driven to the restaurant in Lucas's car, and we needed to transition his booster back into the mini van. But of course none of the kids wanted to be separated. So Grace drove her car over to mine, and I walked with the kids. And here's how she captured me on film:


Is this my future? I can only hope that in the years to come, when I am crossing busy parking lots and intersections with my children that they, like these three kiddos today, will listen and follow my directions when I call out "Freeze" and "Stay close" and "Hold hands." I should only be so lucky . . .