My Experiences with, “You’re not my real mother!”

My last review was of the book You’re Not My REAL Mother! I think most adoptive parents hear this at some point. Unfortunately, it is often hurled at a parent by a teen or “tween”-aged child casting about for anything that will get our goat. I think we’re lucky if we get hit with this while our kids are young. That shows that our kids are able to express to us any doubts they may have. And they may be more willing to listen to our replies. I dreaded the phrase and imagined that hearing it must be excruciatingly painful. … Continue reading →

Tears in Heaven

Meg, my eight-year-old, is saying some very wise things lately. Last night we came across a baby’s T-shirt that I was saving because Regina’s foster mother had sent it with her. Meg wanted to know what clothes I’d saved from her own days in Korea. I mentioned the snowsuit that covered her pink outfit. This reminded Meg of the story she’s heard us tell of how her foster mother, after a moving prayer in which Meg was transferred into my arms, snatched her back again and covered her more warmly. “You know, Mom,” Meg said now, “I think she was … Continue reading →

Is This Really an Adoption Thing?

My husband once asked me, “How do you get enough ideas for your blog? Our kids are just not that screwed up.” (As you can probably tell, we have one of those opposites-attract, writer-mathematician sort of marriages.) Of course, I agreed with him—our kids are doing pretty darned good. I explained (after telling him that he should read my work more often!) that I try to write a mix of informational and personal-experience blogs, and adoption was a big subject (actually three subjects: domestic infant, foster care and international adoptions—not to mention book reviews, family dynamics, and a few dozen … Continue reading →

ON THE CUSP OF THE MILLENNIUM

A young woman gave birth alone Strangers surround her, hold you first In the bright glare of a sterile room One room In a large hospital In a populous country In a huge world. Yet fireworks lit the skies all over the world the night you were born There were prayer vigils and champagne and parties to end all parties. All the hospital staff know and remember you, Happy Jade, jewel of the future; First baby born at that hospital in the New Millennium. A Korean friend remembers a news story about the first New Year baby– Was it you? … 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 →

“Being Adopted Means Being Born in Another State”….??

It’s hard to tell what kids know, remember, or are in denial about. My almost-eight-year-old is very intelligent. She has pictures of her foster mother and a whole scrapbook about her adoption, which she presented to her preschool class. She seemed happy to have me read books explaining adoption to her first grade class last year. Recently a new friend, who wasn’t at the school last year when I did the presentation, asked me (in front of Meg), “Is Meg adopted?” I tried to deflect the question to Meg, trying to avoid a repeat of the “Can she speak English” … 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 →