Rethinking Adoption in an Unconventional Way

I don't know why I have been the biggest blog slacker in the history of the world, but I have been. I'd love to blame the fact that I am finishing the last chapter of the novel, but that's been just as slow-going. I blame S and his 3-day weekend--wonderful to have him home and around, but it really messes up my online-routine. My friend Kerry just bought her domain name, something I have been contemplating doing, and I wonder if that would give me the push to be less... douchey about my blogging.

Yesterday, we had our final yard sale; it was also our most lucrative. E and I went to a birthday party, and while we were gone, S brought in about $60. We got back, and he made another $15-ish, bringing our total yard sale earnings somewhere near the $100 mark. I'm a little disappointed--I would have thought we would have done much better, especially with the baby items we had. No one who came by even looked at the two strollers we had, much less the toddler clothes we had with the tags still on. Unused jar candles from Yankee Candle and Bath and Body works? All now at Goodwill. I would have sold them for $1 each, but no one wanted them...

Oh, well. Hopefully, Goodwill will be able to do some good with them, and when I write it off my taxes, I will just put that money in the adoption jar.

Blogger refuses to make this photo right-side-up.... which it is everywhere else. Oh, well... E goes shopping. Ironically, she is doing to with 2 Victoria's Secret bags that were free-with-purchase on Black Friday and were some of the only items we sold (they were tagged as being $75... but... yeah).

 

Having finished up the yard sale, we had some quality adult time after putting E to bed last night. It gave us a chance to talk about adoption, our plans, etc. Part of this came up after S learned some new information pertaining to his own adoption. I'm sure I have mentioned it before, but he was adopted as an "older child" through the foster care system when he was about a year-and-a-half-old. He has an older biological brother and sister who were adopted by a different family, but remained together. We found them about 7 years ago, and they have all struck up a sort of relationship. What little information he knows about his biological family has come from them and the snippets his own parents have released, which isn't much at all. Very recently, the three of them have gained some additional insight into the events that led up to their adoptions, and to say that it was the complete opposite of what everyone believed is a bit of an understatement.

Anyway, that's his story to tell, not mine. I would love for him to write a guest post or two about his own experiences as an adoptee, one with attachment issues, and what it is like to be an adult adoptee... Whatever... But I'm not sure he'll do it. We shall see, shall we not?

Back to my point. So, while talking about it all, I asked if this changed his mind about adoption at all. He said yes; that it made him more certain that he does not want to do a domestic adoption. This came as a surprise to me since only a few hours before he heard "the news," he had said he wished domestic adoption was a more attainable option for us as a military family, since it was how he found his family. I'm not sure what his reasons are for feeling this way, and I don't wish to speculate, but the whole thing has me considering the whole process in a less than glamorous light.

It's easy to get caught up in the idea of  "saving" an orphan. Articles like this one make it easy to forget all of the stuff that led a child to become an "orphan," and that all of that just doesn't "go away" when they are adopted into a new family. Even when a child is as young as a year-and-a-half, their past will come back to "haunt" them, whether it is in a good way or a bad one. Living with S has shown me that, and even then, it's easy to forget. "Saving" a child from a future that is not much of a future is only a small aspect of adding them to a family.

Because the family they had before doesn't just... disappear. If we adopt from Eastern Europe like we plan, it is very likely that child will have other siblings, whether they know it or not. It's very likely their parents will still be alive, that they were released from their biological family for similar reasons as my husband was released from his. It's likely that we will never have much information on that family to give to our child. We'll also be taking them from the only family they are likely to know--the other children and caregivers of their orphanage. And that must only add to all of the fear an anxiety of being an adopted child.

So... yeah. I don't know how to end this.

I'll go with a question... Do I order another Wittlebee Box? Or not? Because I really can't decide...