More Musings:

As we were leaving speech therapy last week, we mentioned our plans to have corned beef corned beef for dinner (for St. Patrick’s Day). Meg’s therapist said, “Are you all Irish?” “Sure. Every last one of us.” Except that, like most witty responses, this came to me after the fact. It’s probably a good thing anyway. Emphasizing the difference would have just made her feel different. She’s also getting to the age of being embarrassed in talking about herself and being adopted, although she seems much more ready to talk about being Korean since we had a Korean student stay … Continue reading →

Resources for Learning the History of Other Cultures

When I decided to adopt from Korea, I knew next to nothing about the culture. In what little mention of them there is in books, Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia are often presented as victim nations, poor and often governed by puppet regimes of other countries. This is not great for self-esteem. (Regarding self-esteem: I’ve always thought some women were too sensitive to non-inclusive language. I’ve always been fine assuming that “all men” included me. But as I get older I see subtle discrimination more than I ever thought I would, and I realize the power of hearing … Continue reading →

Our Adoption Story – The Wait Gets Long

Laney’s agency originally told us that she would be home by Christmas 2006. Now it was Spring 2007 and still no Laney – and no real news either. Then we received the news that our agency had decided to pull out immediately and stop working on adoptions. Naturally, everyone panicked and for several days we thought Laney was not coming home. When I got the email from our agency I turned to my husband and said “That’s it. We just lost Laney.” My husband, being much more practical and balanced than I am, encouraged me not to give up hope … Continue reading →

Our Adoption Story – Starting Again

Little Josiah’s adoption began to move forward, though it was slow going, and as the months went by we began to feel our hearts heal little by little from the loss of Erick. We still missed him but we were starting to get excited about bringing Josiah home. For some reason I also suddenly developed a very strong interest in the country of Liberia. I was looking at adoption programs, talking to adoptive families, etc and the whole time wondering why on earth I was interested in Liberia when we didn’t even have our Guatemalan child home yet. Still, I … Continue reading →

Our Adoption Story – The Beginning

The idea of adopting began with small seeds planted in my heart during my childhood. There were a few books that I read about adoptive families, the sweet couple my parents knew who adopted two biracial infants, a friend of the family whose children spent several months in foster care while I was a teenager. All of it made me start to think that I would adopt at some point in the future Adoption really began to take hold as an option, though, when several years of marriage passed and those pregnancy tests I took continued to be negative. I … Continue reading →

An Intro and An Update

I am so excited to finally be back and writing for Families.com. It has been almost a year since I took a leave of absence in order to work to get my children’s adoptions completed and get them home. I was so grateful to the Families.com management team for understanding and for their offer that I could come back when I was ready. Well, I’m finally ready and boy do I have an adoption story for you! I will start sharing that tomorrow so make sure you check back. In the meantime, let me introduce myself again partly because I … Continue reading →

What Will They Think I’m Doing to One of Their Kids?

Yesterday I wrote about whether when people see me with my kids, they think of my interactions with them as a reflection on adoption. Sometimes I would like to be a bit less conspicuous. There is another situation which brings on an even more intense feeling of being conspicuous. That is when I am around people from my daughters’ country. There are times when I have sat quite demurely patting my child’s back while she screams and kicks the sidewalk at our city’s central plaza. It took her a full half hour to realize she wasn’t going to get what … Continue reading →

Much Ado About a Passport

Thousands of miles away I have a daughter waiting for me. Her name is Laney. She is legally my daughter; she even has my last name. However, I can’t bring her home, at least not yet. The reason seems really simple to an American – all we need is a passport. However, in Liberia, Laney’s country, nothing is simple. Everyone is focused on getting through each day. “Unimportant” things like paperwork often fall to the wayside when people are focused on the basics. Food, water, shelter, safety – these things take precedence. One day, probably in a few months, someone … Continue reading →

I Had No Idea

Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been around for a while. There is a very simple and wonderful reason for that – my dream finally came true! Finally Jayden is in our home and not just in our hearts. Now that I am rested up and beginning to figure out this “mommy thing” I can’t wait to get started writing again. I have so much to share with you and look forward to jumping back into the world of the Families.com Adoption blog. To hold you over until I can post about our first days with Jayden, … Continue reading →

Traveling to Our Daughter, Part Three: Going Home!

Very early the next morning we were scheduled to go home. I entered the meeting room to find the foster mother sobbing over the baby. I backed out quickly to give her some privacy. The social worker gave me a diaper bag and explained the directions on the formula canister and Tylenol bag, which were in Korean. Although escorting our baby ourselves, we had to sign the same forms volunteer escorts do. After the whole homestudy process, it was a bit strange to be signing papers affirming that I “had babysitting experience” and promised to deliver the baby safely to … Continue reading →