adoption 101

We had to do a lot of trainings in order to be approved to adopt. Most of the training hours are part of the home study process, which also includes writing assignments, several interviews, a home tour (we had to do this part twice), fingerprinting, background checks, and many, many other steps. As we get closer to bringing our daughter home, we find ourselves wondering whether we should be reviewing some of those training videos, or perhaps reading one or two of those books we bought way back when.

We'll probably email a video or two directly to those of you that will be spending time with her in the early months, to help you understand what it's like to be raised in orphanage and what children experience when they are (essentially kidnapped to be) brought to an adoptive home.

She will, without a doubt, be very confused. Experts recommend that to limit confusion, we need to limit the stimuli. For example, keep the toys and other material items to a minimum. And, especially, keep the new faces to a minimum. Having new people come in and out for the first month or two will only confuse her more, and may delay attachment to her adoptive parents (yep, that's us!). So, don't be offended if we ask you to take a step back and avoid visiting until summer. We know you're excited, but please keep in mind that this child will be experiencing considerable trauma and we need to do everything we can to help her feel safe. That is, after all, our job as her parents.

We can't really predict how she'll react, but the trainings will hopefully help us to keep some perspective if she rejects one or both of us (more likely mom!), initially. If you're interested in more information, just ask!

In the meantime, here are a couple of the books we'll be reading over the next month:

The Family of Adoption, by Joyce Maguire Pavao
Parenting your Internationally Adopted Child, by Patty Cogen

In other news: the remodel continues to drag on. Should be (better be) wrapped up in less than two weeks. And we just learned we need to replace our furnace. Yippee!

fundraising update #2

well, we're making some significant fundraising progress thanks to your generosity! we're now at 35% of our goal, which means we're more than a third of the way there!

that's not the only news. we recently received an indication that we may be traveling sooner than expected. of course, nothing is certain at this point. we should know more in another week. which means tatsuko better get to work on her visa application!

it also means we've got a lot of other work to do! the kitchen is nearing completion, but finding the time to hammer out the final projects (yes, thats a pun) is proving impossible. anthony is away at training for 2 weeks and then will be in start-up mode the moment he arrives back. tatsuko has been working a whole lot of 12 hour days through the legislative session. all this means that we are woefully unprepared to bring a toddler into this house.

life couldn't get much crazier. we are surely gluttons for punishment. can't wait to get that girl home and spend some time re-focusing. in the meantime, we'll be working to make sure our kitchen is functional and she has a room to sleep in. and that the outlets are protected from curious fingers. the rest will take care of itself, right?

-isms: part 1

There are a lot of "-isms" we're grappling with while also coming to terms with the fact that we're becoming parents. But the most egregious one we're facing these days is racism. (Yes, we've gotten a number of racist comments and questions, already.)

Our daughter is Chinese. She will be raised to know that she is Chinese. We will raise her as an American, because we are American. But she will know she is Chinese. We will give her every opportunity we can to explore her Chinese identity. And we expect everyone that we share our lives with to understand and respect that.

Here's an excerpt from our agency: "Sometimes families hope that by adopting from an Asian country, their child won’t have to deal with racism or racial issues as an Asian in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Even “positive” stereotypes can be very hurtful. Many children who are adopted transracially deal not only with identity issues related to adoption, but also identity issues related to race."

And here are some recommended books:

Yellow: Race In America Beyond Black and White by Frank H. Wu

The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism by Rosalind S. Chou

We can only hope our daughter faces less racism (than Tatsuko and her family) as she gets older and people of color become the majority population (hallelujah!). We encourage all of you to get educated about transracial adoption and consider what our child will be experiencing as she grows up outside her country (and her family) of origin. At some point she's going to have an identity crisis (or more than one if she's anything like her adoptive parents), and we hope all of you will be there to help us support her in exploring how she identifies and how that might change over time. 

fundraising update #1

Wondering how the fundraising is going? We're 13% of the way to our goal! Each donor has been very generous, and we are so thrilled by the love and support we've received. Thank you so much!

If you are still interested in donating but are waiting for your next paycheck or just have a mountain of other things on your to-do list, we totally get it. (Really we do - but the good news is we have appliances again and were able to cook real food last night! But I digress...) You still have time! We likely won't know our travel dates for another few weeks. But, we should note that we've been surprised by this process many times over (like the time something was supposed to take a few days but took 4 months, or the time something was supposed to take 8-10 weeks but took 5 days), so let's just say this blog post serves as your friendly reminder. We're really just grateful to have you along for the ride!

"children know when they're being rejected"

We heard this story about the adoption of a little boy on StoryCorps, and it hit right to the core of why we're adopting. Every child deserves a loving family, no matter the circumstances of their birth or the path their lives will take. Knowing that this man would do it all over again gives us hope that no matter what difficulties we may face as parents, it's all worth it.