The Life in Lifestyle – Adoption

I told Jordan that I would like to write a mother’s response to her adoption post, and this is it:

 

Jordan and I call our blog  “the mother/daughter lifestyle blog”.  It seems, though,that we spend a lot of time on DIY projects, decorating, before and afters, recipes, etc. but not a lot of time on the life.  When we first started writing it over three years ago, we didn’t even use our real names.  I was “Autumn”, and she was “Spring”.  We decided that I am in the autumn phase of my life, which I am, and that she was in the spring of hers.  So, that’s how we came up with our names.  Now that I think about it, that was soooooo corny.  We didn’t know how much to let you in and how much of ourselves to reveal.

 

 

As a journalist and former reporter, I was trained to tell the story objectively and let the reader form an opinion.  Journalists are never supposed to put themselves in the story.  It isn’t about them – ever.  So, putting myself – ourselves – into our blog and letting you in has been difficult.  After writing The 2 Seasons for about two years, Jordan and I wrote a post about ourselves and revealed some facts/tidbits that we had not told you before.  You all loved it, and our numbers went up.  Go figure.  We relaxed some, and little by little we have opened up our lives and homes to you more.  Heck, we have even introduced you to family members.  You all know Mr. Right, and Yankee, who was formerly known as Mr. Spring.  You’ve met the grandmas, Grandad R., our son Cory (Jordan’s brother), and the newest member of the family, Josie.

 

 

 

When Jordan revealed to me that she and Yankee were having difficulty having children, we kept that info under lock and key.  We decided she could blog about it if and when she was ready.  Well, eventually, they decided to go the adoption route and wrote about it here.  I told her that I would write a response about how I feel as her mother about the situation/process, so here it goes.

 

 

 

All of you mothers out there know that we only want what’s best for our children.  We want them to be happy, healthy, educated, successful, be surrounded by good friends, be good citizens, be empathetic and sympathetic, and to be kind, loving parents, if they choose to have children.  Our kids have checked off all of those boxes except the parenting one.  Since our son was just married a little over a month ago, he gets a pass.  Jordan, on the other hand, shared with me her fertility struggles during one of our spa days over a year ago.  By that time, they were ready to consult with a fertility expert.  After a few visits and tests, they opted to pass on his offerings and try the holistic approach that they learned about through a book written by a New York City fertility expert.  She recommended vitamins and acupuncture as part of her conception formula.  Months into the process, they realized it wasn’t working and began scouting for an adoption agency.  My heart was breaking for them, but I knew the only thing I could do was listen, support, encourage, and listen some more.

 

 

 

When they found an agency that they were comfortable with, they also selected the country they would focus on.  They learned that the process from beginning to end would take about two years, a mountain of paperwork, and a truck load of money.  That’s two years of their lives and their child’s life because it has already been born, as far as we know.  The irony of all of this is that we volunteered in orphanages in Burma and Egypt where we saw beautiful children who need and want homes.  The Burmese government does not permit adoptions outside of their country, and neither does Egypt.  We volunteered with nuns in Argentina and India who told us that mothers will leave babies in the shubbery surrounding their convent because the mothers are too poor to take care of them.  We saw mothers in Africa and India who were holding starving babies and begging us for food.  My husband volunteered in an orphanage in Haiti where the children had actually been thrown away by their parents.  As gruesome as this is, some even tried to have their children murdered in order to sell their organs because they could make money that way. There are children out there who need families, but because so many horrible people have abused babies and children through human trafficking, the rules have stiffened, thankfully.  In fact the Hague oversees adoptions in many countries to insure that the babies are being legally transferred to their new homes.  The Hague’s involvement increases the paperwork, and therefore, increased the amount of time the whole process takes.  Jordan and Yankee only considered countries that are Hague approved, and because of that, their child will be around two years old when they meet it.

 

 

 

 

Do I wish that my daughter would have the experience of growing a child and giving birth?  Of course.  Do I wish my daughter could raise a child from its infancy?  Yes, again.  But, that is not the card they were dealt.  I haven’t heard her complain once or ask “Why me?”  I always talked about my desire to adopt a little Asian girl into our family but never did anything about it except talk.  It was alway just talk.  So, I am thrilled that my daughter and her husband will have that opportunity.  They will become parents of a toddler who will eventually know only them as its parents.  Their bond will be one that grows from a different kind of beginning, but the love they will all share will be as deep and real as any.

 

 

 

So, there is a little bit of the life in our lifestyle blog.  This is what our family is living right now.  We are so hopeful for the future and look forward to next spring because that is when Jordan and Yankee hopefully will be “matched”.  They will find out who their child is and get a picture of it in around nine months.   They will find out if it is a boy and girl, and they will be able to start communicating with it through letters, photos, and gifts.  The bonding process will begin for all of us, and we couldn’t be happier or more excited.

 

Thank you for stopping in, and thank you for reading this large post.  Now I just have to get up the nerve to push “publish”.

 

Take care.

 

(All art is by artist Gerard Richter, and I photographed it at the Pompidou Center in Paris).