how we got here

i announced on facebook that we're adopting again, but i wanted to share a little more.

when i went to uganda in march, i didn't have adoption on my radar. we were a couple months away from celebrating one year home with kal and buma, and it just didn't seem like we were ready to grow in that way again any time soon. we were, however, ready to try a go at pregnancy. since having a basketball-sized cyst and my right ovary removed in september, i'd been fretting about my health and whether my other ovary would hold out long enough to have a biological child. so after talking with my doctor, we resolved to start trying to get pregnant as soon as i returned from uganda.

let me pause here and tell you how planning to get pregnant has worked for us in the past. when we had been married about six months, we started talking about having children and decided we'd start trying to get pregnant after we'd been married a year. about a month after that discussion, we started feeling a tug toward adoption and never looked back. three years after that, kal and buma came home.

so it seemed kinda funny when i got to uganda and started feeling that little voice in my heart speaking to me about adoption. the second day we were there, we visited the baby's home where my friends, scott and erin, volunteered in 2006 and eventually adopted two of their children from. my experience there was a re-awakening of sorts. i'd been in the business of daily mothering and really had forgotten the reality of orphans. i think it happens to most of adoptive parents -- once your kids our home, once they aren't orphans any more, once they do normal kid stuff that drives you crazy,...you forget that many, many children still live this utterly devastating existence of orphanage life. what i mean by that is that you forget that kids aren't being loved every hour of every day by a mom and dad. so when i had kids fighting each other to sit on my lap, and crying hysterically when i'd have to put them down, i started feeling convicted about how crappily i parent my kids sometimes...how much i forgot that they were once kids just like the ones i saw in the baby's home in uganda. i also felt convicted about the fact that i'd written adoption off as something we "might do again one day, but certainly not any time soon" as if we were immune from being called again because "we'd already done our part."

it wasn't until the last stop we made in uganda that the calling to adopt was really solidified in my heart. we visited a baby's home run by a friend of scott and erin's in a little, tiny town a couple hours from kampala. scott and erin's non-profit, the mighty river project, had been helping with a few benevolence projects in and around the town, so we went there to check up on things. the director of the baby's home had been telling erin about these two children who she thought erin should adopt, and when we got there, she immediately placed one of the kids in erin's arms and said, "here's your son." we went around to find the other child (his older sister), and when we saw her sitting on a blanket eating lunch, all i could think was, "wow, she looks just like kal."

i don't believe in romantic love at first sight, but i'm now solidly a believer in love at first sight in the family sense. the holy spirit began planting seeds in my heart about those kids from the moment i saw that little girl. and when we got to interact -- when she sat on my lap every chance she could get, when she gave the biggest pouting face in the evening when i had to leave her to go eat dinner, when she cried when the other kids crowded around me and she couldn't get through to me -- i knew God was doing something special. but i was scared and admittedly thought adopting two more was insane. so, despite what i felt in my heart, i posted on facebook and resolved to advocate for them until a family was found.

the morning we were leaving, i went out to tell her goodbye. she had watched our luggage being taken out as she sat on my lap, and erin had heard her asking in luganda if we'd be coming back. she also heard her say about me, "mommy mine." we had fred, our ugandan friend, tell her i'd be leaving to go back to america. she got a sullen look on her face, one that kal gets a lot when you know she wants to cry but is trying not to. and then she held on to me for dear life and had to be peeled off by a nanny. in that moment, i could hear my heart screaming john 14:6 "i will not leave you as orphans, i will come to you." i wanted to promise her that. but as erin and fred said goodbye to all the nannies and the rest of the children, i just stood by the van, out of her sight, in tears. in the van, erin said to me, "i've never cried about a kid i've had to leave in africa except the two that are mine."

when i got home, jamie and i talked a lot. he (understandably) wanted to make sure what i was feeling wasn't like the high you get when you go to summer camp with your youth group. he asked me a lot of questions about how i knew we were supposed to adopt the little girl and her brother and not any of the other children i'd met while in uganda. we discussed how this would impact kal and buma. we had a huge parenting disagreement about a situation with buma that led to more questions about if we are really cut out to be "adoptive parents." we wondered about money. what we concluded was simply God was calling us. the wise counsel we sought was overwhelmingly encouraging about moving forward. i never "came off the mountain" in terms of what i felt for the kids and what had happened in my heart those last couple of days in uganda. and we saw the chunk of our adoption tax credit we'll get as part of our tax refund this year as a huge financial confirmation.

this adoption process will probably look nothing like our first. we'll be doing what's considered an independent adoption and using a lawyer in uganda to facilitate the ugandan side of things (which is totally ethical if done with care taken to ensure the lawyer you are working with has a good reputation, and we know ours does), while we essentially do all the US paperwork without the help of an agency (except for the home study part, which we are about to start work on). as i said, we will be able to cover a large portion of adoption costs with our tax credit, but we will be fundraising for travel, so we'd love it if people started giving us their junk for a yard sale :)

i do want to say that (a) we'd still like to have a biological child at some point (subpoint...we never planned to have this many kids), so i don't want anyone thinking we think everyone should give up or delay pregnancy to adopt (ie, this is our story and our calling) (b) we don't think all people who adopt have to adopt two at the same time (again, our story, our calling) and (c) we aren't rock stars or anything, and i'm being really honest when i say that i still crappily parent kal and buma sometimes and see this adoption not only as God's plan for growing our family, but also as a refining process for me to become the mother i need to be for all my children.

a plea to adoptive parents

i was just scrolling through a facebook group for ethiopia adoptive moms and noticed a decent amount of agency or adoption-program bashing taking place in the comments.

"that agency is bad news."
"that agency is so unethical."
"that country is rife with trafficking. no one could have an ethical adoption from there."

i'm not saying there aren't problems with some agencies or some adoption programs. but honestly, i'm tired of the generalizations and the accusations. i'm frustrated with how quickly people criticize another family's agency or adoption without sure, hard facts.

some people think our former agency, cwa, was pretty bad (in fact, one of the "bad news" comments was about cwa). cwa got some bad press a few years ago. cwa filed bankruptcy and closed recently. i'm sure some people had crappy things happen with their adoptions through cwa (which, you know, people tend to blame on the agency rather than the beast that is international adoption). we had issues with cwa on a few occasions and readily admit that the stateside staff sucked at communication. but i won't -- without sure, hard facts -- say cwa was unethical or bad news.

so here's why i'm writing today: i'm pleading with adoptive parents -- but everyone, really -- to stop the bashing. to not say anything at all unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's true. if someone asks you what you think of a certain agency or a certain country's adoption program, share your experiences or the experiences of people you know. but, for the love, don't spread the hear say.

i've been on both sides of this issue -- on one side as a gossiper and slanderer, and on the other side as one hurt by others' comments. the reason i make this plea particularly to adoptive parents is that we spend so much time trying to preserve and protect our kids' stories, yet don't hold our tongues when it comes to false or exaggerated (yet often juicy) information that has a direct impact on another child's story. when i read or hear things about cwa, i hurt for my kids because i fear that one person's gossip will be the thing that makes them question everything about their past. bottom line: if i worry for my kids, i should watch what i say for the sake of someone else's kids.

so again, i'm not saying we can't ever say anything negative. i'm just asking that we all keep our mouths shut unless we know something to be absolutely true and have proof to back it up. that way, people like me won't read something and almost have a panic attack or existential crisis about adoption.

 

march, you're a big one.

two big firsts for me this month:

1. i'm going to uganda! it's my first time to uganda, and the first time i've (a) gone to a foreign country without jamie and (b) left my kids for several days. our dearest friends, scott and erin, started a non-profit called the mighty river project a couple of years ago that serves ugandan women and their children. the vision of tmrp is simple: empower women, prevent orphans. right now, they are fundraising to be able to move there and serve full-time. in the meantime, they buy products from four women and pay them a fair wage salary each month, then sell those products in the states to raise funds for tmrp. those funds will ultimately help them get on the ground there, but the money is also used towards benevolence projects in uganda. you can read more about tmrp (and you should definitely visit the store!) by clicking the button over on my sidebar. erin and i will be in uganda for nine days meeting with the women tmrp currently supports, checking in on families and individuals who have been served through the various benevolence projects, and making connections with others who may become part of tmrp in the future. i'm also hoping to visit a family who went to our church but who now serve at an orphanage/school in uganda.

unsurprisingly, there are lots of nerves about this trip in our house right now (mostly me for the kids and vice versa), but i'm so excited for this trip. you can't really be friends with scott and erin without starting to love uganda yourself, even if you've never been there, because their love for it is so contagious and real.  three things that give me a lot of joy about this trip:

-- sitting at the feet of ugandan women and hearing their stories (something i really wished we'd gotten to do more of in ethiopia, because i think that's really how you get to know a country and a culture). we had a pretty insulated experience of ethiopia (though, not totally, since we did have the opportunity to visit korah, the neighborhood located within addis ababa's trash dump...and, well, just riding down the streets of addis is startling in many ways), but i look forward to being with people in their homes, in their villages, etc and seeing how daily life is lived in uganda.
-- getting out of the mommy-box. i love my children and love staying home with them, but i get so excited just thinking about getting to serve and give to and love and minister to someone other than them for a bit. stay-at-home mothering can feel all-encompassing sometimes, and i like knowing that this trip will be an outlet of sorts for me to do something else i feel passionate about.
-- laying over in ethiopia on the way there and back (we're flying ethiopian air). maybe it sounds silly, but there's an emotional little spot in my heart that looks forward to being on ethiopian soil, even if it's just in the airport, for a small amount of time and being able to see the land that means so much to our family.

obviously, erin and i would love prayers for our travels and for our time in uganda to be fruitful. because scott and erin are only able to travel over there a couple of times a year, lots needs to get done while we're in country (you can also pray for tmrp and consider giving since being fully funded would entail scott and erin being able to move over there and serve full-time). but i'd also love prayers for my kids and jamie as he's with them most of the time i'm gone (with some help from my mom). these types of things aren't easy for most kids, but they're especially difficult for kids who have a lot of baggage and trauma around a parent leaving (because, obviously, our kids wouldn't be our kids if that parent had come back).

and now, something nowhere near as exciting or as significant as going to uganda, but still a big deal for me...

2. i'm running my first 5k! i emailed one of my college roommates recently and said, "i really wish all the girls could see me now since i wasn't much of an athelete...or an exerciser for that matter. i think a lot of the reason why i didn't play sports or even really exercise was that i lacked a lot of self-confidence (and i could get away with it because i had really good metabolism and walked a lot around campus). after having a basketball-sized ovarian cyst removed last september, i wanted to commit to exercising regularly for my health. i started out using our elliptical, but then i saw a blog post about the color me rad 5k, and i knew i wanted to try it. i've been following a couch to 5k plan since january with some girls in my small group, and i have been amazed at what a little commitment and discipline can do. before i started, i was convinced there'd be no way i could run three miles in a decent amount of time. now that i've done it a few times, i've gotten over the psychological hurdle of "i can't do this" and am now working on bettering my time. i've actually realized that i enjoy running, and my confidence has grown enough that i think i want to shoot for a longer race in the future.

cheers to march!

on not homeschooling

today was an exciting day in the dean house, because it's official:

kal is going to school! [in august :)]

we have been talking about homeschooling since before our kids came home. we had a lot of reasons why we wanted to do it, and a lot of those reasons still stand (meaning that we haven't ruled out homeschooling for the future).

but right now, we have a kid who has been asking about "going to school" for quite some time now. she's an extrovert (she doesn't get that from me), and the more we've come out of the cocoon we've been living in the last nine months, the more i've seen that the community of a more traditional classroom might be good for her.

it's been hard to make this decision, especially because (for me, at least) pride is involved. from an adoption standpoint, i want to shout, "my child is attached enough to do this! i love her even though i'm sending her to school! she won't think her school is an orphanage, or her teacher is her new mommy!" (and if she does, we will pull her out. duh.) from a we-said-we-were-gonna-homeschool-but-now-we're-not standpoint, i want to shout, "we didn't decide this because homeschooling was too hard! we didn't just 'see the light' and realize homeschooling is crazy! we might still homeschool kal or buma or any future children!"

i just realize how much i care what people think about me, even when i'm still confident in the decision i'm making.

but enough about pride, let me tell you about this awesome school.

it's called the children's center, and i've loved this school since i worked in the daycare there for a summer in 2008. the school primarily serves children from birth to elementary age who have physical and/or developmental disabilities. however, they also have integrated classrooms where typically-developing children learn alongside children with disabilities. recently, the school added a kindergarten class for typically-developing children. because the school is part of the county school system, the curriculum is the same as any other public school kindergarten (thus, kal would be on track if we eventually switch her to a public school). however, because the school serves children with special needs, it gets a lot of unique special programming that the children in the typically-developing kindergarten class also benefit from.

for us, this is perfect. we knew if we were going to choose something other than homeschooling, it would have to be a little off the beaten path. we love that kal will go to school with lots of kids who don't look like her, kids who she can learn from and vice versa. diversity (not just racially, but in other ways) is important to us. it also seems perfect for our family, as disability is part of our family's identity (since jamie is blind). we want kal to see disability in positive ways. but we also love that while she will get a traditional education in some ways, she will be exposed to a lot of different "specialities" that she may not get in a traditional public school.

there are also benefits for our whole family in this. buma is still behind in language development and probably needs more one-on-one time with me, perhaps even some therapy. we have talked seriously about adding to our family sooner rather than later due to the fact that i'm at an increased risk to develop another huge ovarian cyst (and have already lost one ovary). so while i could homeschool with all that going on, i think this (for now) helps every child (even future ones, if there are any) get the most of mommy.

even though this is not what we planned on, we are so excited. i literally got teary-eyed as i walked through the school today because what is happening there is so beautiful, and i can't wait for kal to be part of it.

for today

today is martin luther king jr. day.

it's also the second inauguration of barack obama, our nation's first black president (i don't care what your political views are, this is something to celebrate).

there are few things i can say that haven't already been said.

when we first began our adoption, i asked other black people for advice about how to successfully be a transracial family. one thing that came up over and over was that we needed to ensure that our children knew the history of black people in this country. "take them to the juneteenth celebration," one woman advised.

i had no clue what a juneteenth celebration even was.

later, when i found out that a juneteenth celebration honors the day black people were freed from slavery, i said that it made no sense for our family to partake in such a celebration, not because we don't rejoice that slavery was abolished, but because slavery wasn't our children's (or their ancestors') story.

my how i was wrong.

the history of slavery and the oppression of black people in america is the story for every person in this country with black skin -- regardless of how long they've lived here or where their ancestors are from. this is why telling my daughter about why today is so special feels like an epic task. i told her, even knowing she won't understand such concepts for awhile, how people with skin just like hers used to be slaves for white people -- how they weren't free. i told her that even when the government passed a law saying black people couldn't be slaves anymore, they were still treated badly and unfairly. i told her about how there used to be separate schools and restaurants for white and black people. i told her about MLK and how he stood up for what was right and got killed because some people didn't want to believe all people are created equally. i told her that if MLK hadn't fought for justice, we wouldn't be a family.

today is a day to celebrate, no doubt. but it's also a day to remember that racism still exists. in my wanting my daughter to see the greatness of MLK's work, i forgot to mention that many black people (and really, people of any color other than "white") are still treated badly. i don't have to look much further than social media to see that ignorant, arrogant people still use the n-word. and, in our brief experience so far as a transracial family, we have experienced people compartmentalize race so much in their minds that they make statements such as "your children won't be like them," suggesting not only that my children are somehow different from other black people simply because they have white parents, but also that there is something inherently wrong with or undesirable about being black.

my children will bear the effects of history until people start to believe the words found in our declaration of independence that obama referenced in his speech today: we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

i've cried tears of gratitude today as i've watched news coverage of the inauguration because my children do live in a country where they are free. i hope and pray that the freedom we all talk about does not come with conditions for those who have historically been considered unequals: black people, the poor, the disabled, the homosexual, etc.

because i don't want to be lying to my kids when i tell them they can be anything and do anything.

on giving

when i was in college, i worked at a lifeway christian bookstore for about six months. one evening, a woman came in the store, distraught and asking for money to help bury her child she'd just lost. i told her i'd ask our manager if we could help, and i gave her what little cash i had in my wallet. moments later, i had to tell her our store could do nothing to help. it wasn't our "policy."

after she left, the guy who was working with me that night said something along the lines of, "you know you just got duped. what an irresponsible way to steward a few bucks." i wasn't naive. i knew there was a good chance the sad story about a dead child and funeral costs had been made up. but, in the back of my mind, i had to wonder: what if it was true? what if she really needed help?

the question of how christians should respond in these situations probably comes up more often around christmas than any other time of the year. i have seen more people on street corners in my city with signs reading "broke and hungry" this month. i was approached two days ago in the parking lot of a local shopping center by a woman who said she needed help feeding her two children. i know there is real need here (several months ago, we were named the #1 city for hungry children in america...not something you really want to be #1 for), but sometimes i still hear that voice in my head: "you know you just got duped."

i don't like that christians make other christians feel guilty about being generous. and i don't want my children believing that we put conditions on how we give and who we give to. i want them to know they should never feel guilty about helping someone who they think is in need.

i love these words from the sermon of a 19th century scottish minister (found in tim keller's excellent book generous justice: how God's grace makes us just):

"now, dear christians, some of you pray night and day to be branches of the true vine; you pray to be made all over in the image of christ. if so, you must be like him in giving...'though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor'...objection 1. 'my money is my own.' answer: christ might have said, 'my blood is my own, my life is my own'...then where should we have been? objection 2. 'the poor are undeserving.' answer: christ might have said, 'they are wicked rebels...shall i lay down my life for these? i will give to the good angels.' but no, he left the ninety-nine, and came after the lost. he gave his blood for the undeserving. objection 3. 'the poor may abuse it.' answer: christ might have said the same; yea, with far greater truth. christ knew that thousands would trample his blood under their feet; that most would despise it; that many would make it an excuse for sinning more; yet he gave his own blood. oh, my dear christians! if you would be like christ, give much, give often, give freely, to the vile and poor, the thankless and undeserving."

 

a confession

let me confess: sometimes i torture myself by reading blogs of people whose parenting skills and children seem more advanced than mine. i'm pretty sure women, and mothers in particular, are really bad about comparing.

the most classic "lauren gets angsty every time she reads a blog like this" example is as follows.

the mom who does a billion crafts with her two-year-old and documents each craft with a picture post but never includes any pictures of the two-year-old ACTUALLY DOING THE CRAFT.



this is buma. he just turned two (and i never wrote a birthday post). this kid doesn't sit down for more than five seconds unless he's feeling particularly needy that day (and even then, he wants nothing to do with anything except being held).

the last time we did a craft (which was more than 2 months ago), i literally had to restrain him just so i could trace his hand. and then he had a major meltdown when i tried to put his finger in paint.

his favorite things to do with just about anything you give him are (a) put it in his mouth/eat it or (b) find a bigger container to put it in and then dump it out and then do that all over again or (c) throw it.

sure, he's maybe a tad behind developmentally (someone recently told us they thought he was 14 months old), but from what i know about most typical-didn't-spend-16-months-in-an-orphanage-two-year-olds, his behavior isn't too far off the curve.

so please, if you have a two-year-old that does crafts, at least post pictures that show your kid actually doing the craft so we know he did it and you're not just passing off the work you did as your kid's. or take and actually post some pictures of the mishaps that most certainly did occur when you let your two-year-old try to glue popsicle sticks together to make some holiday-themed bobble.

or you could do what i told my mom to do when she and my dad babysat recently and did a christmas craft with my kids: lie and say that your kid, like most of the rest of ours, can't do a craft yet.*+

*this post was written mostly in jest (i don't really condone lying). but in all seriousness, all the mom bloggers out there should make a pact that says everything you post about your parenting and your children can't be perfect. because perfect just ain't real life.
+buma laid down in the floor and tantrumed when my mom tried to get him to let her paint his hand for the christmas craft.