How is adoption working for us?

I was visiting with a friend recently and we got onto the topic of adoption. I've learned over the years to be patient with the comments and questions people have about something we poured our hearts into...the decision to adopt. So here are some of the things people have said or asked:

Why Korea? (Why not? But there is a more serious answer too...which I'll share in another post later.)

Will you tell Gabe he's adopted? (Hmmm...methinks he will notice someday!)

Are you okay? (I assume, a question about my health and ability to bear a child. Yes...I was okay. And so was Dan.)

What do you think your kids will think? (Let's see...probably the same thing as if I was biologically having a child. Probably.)

Will we have to teach the child to speak english? (It was a serious question. Umm...well, I taught my Bio kids english, so why not. It beats me having to learn and teach the family Korean.)

How much did he cost? (Not a question I ever liked. Especially when asked in a Wal Mart store where Amercian made is cheeper. Let's just say that some people spend more on a car they trade a couple of years later. It was a matter of setting priorities.)

He's a lucky baby. (No...I'm the one who is blessed. No luck involved...divine blessing alone.)

Do you think you will love him the same...or maybe more than the others? (Makes it sound like a litter of kittens vs. a litter of puppies. I adore them all...just love them and since I don't think I should have to validate how much I love each of my children I'll refrain from explaning or validating how much I love Gabe.)

Will you let him meet his mom? (We refer to her as the Angel. She is our biggest hero...and yes...I'm completely unthreatened and pray that someday, if our son wants to, he will meet his birth mother. She blessed him with life, and blessed us to guide it...and those are blessings that cannot be repaid with an earthly reward.)

Don't you think it's a blessing that he looks a little like Dan? (Honestly, I never really think about what he looks like or needing to have him look like us at all, for that matter. He is a beautiful human being who is amazing to talk with (if you can get him to talk...he thinks more than he talks). Our hearts, on the other hand...how our hearts knit together...now that's amazing.)

So...these are only a few questions or comments I've gotten. Some have been outragious, like the man in Wal Mart...I had taken Gabriel to get his first picture taken about three days after we had held him for the first time. I was so proud of our baby boy. I took him to the Wal Mart studio and then picked up a few things in the store. Gabriel was in his carrier in the basket when I went through the line and an old man got in behind us. He looked down in my cart and caught a glimpse of Gabe and said, "Well...that one ain't American made!" I was speechless, trying to figure out if he was being insulting or trying to be funny. I smiled and said, "isn't he beautiful?" The man just smiled and said nothing more. There was another Wal Mart incident a couple of years later, when my babysitter took her daughter and Gabe who were the same age, and someone asked if they were twins. Well...she was very white with blond hair and Gabe was very Asian with black hair, so no. Not twins. But my sitter was very offended and actually dropped our son from her daycare because she was embarassed and didn't know how handled all the stupid questions. "You owe them nothing," I tried to assure her. But she couldn't handle it...which seemed very irrational to me.

The other day, I had a close friend ask if I was happy we adopted. How was it working out for us? Hmmm...have I ever asked someone if they were happy they decided to have children? Have I ever asked, "so...are those sleepless nights interfering with your ability to love that little baby, eh?" Unthinkable and substantially weak line of questions, isn't it? Would it even dawn on me to wonder such a thing? Honestly, no. But as we walked, I tried to hear the real question...I think she was asking if it was worth the risk?

You know, I just don't consider Gabriel and his place in our family as different from the rest of us. The subject of adoption has never been celebrated as a specific topic in our home, any more than the process of giving birth. It was a way to get to Gabe...just like there was a way to get to Zach and Miriah. It's a natural process...it just wasn't a biological one. I had to apply for Gabe, I had to pay funds in order to get him into my arms, I had to wait just like a pregnant mommy for him to be born, but then I had to wait for him to be officially assigned to me, and then I had to do what most biological moms don't; pray like crazy because he was halfway around the world in an area of Korea that was experiencing border wars. This caused the process of transporting the babies to America to be disrupted and we were anxious not only for his safety, but to raise him which was being done by a foster parent because the wars prevented him from being able to fly home to us. It was a spiritually challenging time. Trusting in God took on a whole new look for me as I gazed at the picture of my beautiful son and had to let God be his provider because my hands were so far away from him. My body was in America, my heart was in Korea.

I cried and cried, and called and called the agency. My...how sick of my voice they must have been. How much longer? When, when, when? Everyday they lovingly said, soon, soon, soon. Soon became a placating word but the only hope I really had. Soon, was certainly a better word than others. I had bad dreams of my baby crying for me and I was tied in a chair and couldn't reach out to him, I had a dream that someone in the airport picked up my baby in his carrier and left me wandering around trying to find him, I had a dream that the Korean woman who carried him off the plane decided I wasn't fit to be his mother and refused to hand him to me. All my fears became nightmares, and all my prayers became sob-fests of begging and pleading for my little boy to be brought quickly to me.

I remember being pregnant with my two older children. Glorious. Wonderful. But I had many of the same fears, and prior to each of their births I began to question my ability to raise them properly...and once they were here I was amazed at their beauty and their individual personalities, but so afraid I would somehow ruin them. Raising them well was my biggest challenge...but in each case the most wonderful adventure. Ironically, not one time did someone ask me if I was happy with my choice to have them. They treated me like a natural mom. But I have to say, that adopting my son was every bit as natural...and those natural connections didn't have to be intentionally made, they just were. When he came off the plane, he was smiling. I was crying like I had been spanked by the doctor! I reached for him, and he was mine. We cuddled, I put a bottle in his mouth, I changed him into clothes I had bought for him right in the airport. That baby was mine and he was going home in his new outfit just like the other two. We all huddled around him...and when we got to the hotel, he slept between his daddy and me and we stayed up early into the morning, counting fingers and toes, laughing, crying...thanking God. What a beautiful, natural thing to adopt our baby.

I'm not offended by the questions, but I do analyze them. I've found that people don't ask what they really want to know and that's probably because they feel odd even engaging in the conversation their curiosity forced them into. The best conversations I've had about our son has been with people who admit their curiosity and then we can delve into the reality of the experience and abandon the "topic". Those conversations are deep and aren't about the process as much as they are about the people. Those conversations end with me realize how much love God has for me and our family. How could he bless me with such a wonderful husband and three beautiful children without thinking I'm just amazing and deserve the best? I have it, so He must be thinking something about me that I can't comprehend. I don't know what I did to find His favor...but I pray it on others. My life is amazing because of the variety of powerful experiences I've had. I answer the question "Is adoption working out for us?" with a question. My question is, "did my adoption as a child of God bring about this wonderful gift?" Which I empatically answer, Yes!

Neat and Tidy...Groan...

I took a walk to get a cup of coffee at Casey’s this morning. I love living in a neighborhood where I can get out and walk to a business; any business…doesn’t matter. I care less and less for suburbia every day. I want people…all kinds. I want to pass them and wonder why they won’t look at me, or talk to them and walk away trying to figure out what the heck they just said, or joy upon joys…find something in common with someone that doesn’t look like me or live the way I live.

I love my new house. It’s warm and inviting and nicely situated in a good neighborhood with tons of friends for the kids and for us. But it’s still suburbia. I won’t go so far as to say that it isn’t reality…it’s real enough, it’s just so planned and neat and tidy. It makes me wonder what’s hidden. Hmmm…the squirrels in the back yard have taken a chunk of bird food coagulated in peanut butter and placed it in my pond. I’m almost excited, and wondering how strange I must be? My neat and tidy was just disrupted by a squirrel. Perhaps they were a gang who rivals the birds? The furs and the feathers fighting and disrespecting each others turf…and food. Now they’ve upset the goldfish in my pond so the war is spreading. Fish don’t like their water murked up by furs…I predict a large “scale” effort of retaliation is coming. It could get dangerous.

For as disruptive as the furs, feathers and fins are, the human condition in my neighborhood is neat and tidy and mostly good. Oh, people have their problems, no doubt, but they keep them safely stored inside pretty houses surrounded by manicured lawns, decorated by floribunda of every kind. It makes it so palatable. Life. Life is more palatable if it is frosted like a cupcake with sprinkles and a cherry on top. That’s my neighborhood. The streets are clean, the people drive pretty cars (yellow seems to be the color of choice here), and the people talk about one thing…their jobs. What do you do? What does your wife or husband do? What do I do? I’m cynically bored. I admit it. It Doesn’t matter who they are, they want to talk about what they do to make money. Even the kids—what does your dad do, what does your mom do? Groan and humph.

Why am I not satisfied? Why can’t I just accept this wonderful gift of calm and be happy with it? Around the world people are fighting to keep what they have, little as it might be. They fight to keep their children—in Kenya little boys are being abducted and forced to join militant groups. In other places, little girls are taken to serve as sex slaves. I should be grateful. But me…no…I walk in my bare feet when others wear shoes just to feel different. “I’m not like you…I’m an implant…just wanna make sure you know…by my feet…that I don’t belong here!” I wonder how they would react to seeing my dirty naked feet…when the street is so clean. “Hmm…how did her feet get that dirty in our neighborhood?”

How I would adore talking to someone who was as bored with neat and tidy as I am. Bobbles and trinkets mean nothing to me. I kinda feel sick looking at all my pretty things…I would rather look at people’s eyes. Try to figure out what is going on inside of them…I want to talk to people who want to talk about something other than how to make money. I want to hear about life; it’s realities from perspectives other than what I know so well. I want to learn to love all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons…see down into their souls and hear the echo of life from their wellspring. I want to be in touch with what is going on outside of my world. I’m just so worn from neat and tidy.