Pathetic, I know.

Here's me whining.

I WANT A REFERRAL,

It has only been a week since our agency got home from the Congo with lots of new referrals, but our call has not come yet. Soon.  In God's time.

Until then I've got some medical issues to work out. I've been sick for two weeks with bad headaches and exhaustion. No cold symptoms other than that. I'm not a headache person generally--even with five kids they are rare--but these have been terribly debilitating. So my doc has run a bunch of blood tests and everything cMe back normal. He is now sending me to have an MRI. I'm sure it will come back normal and I will just be diagnosed with some virus. But I do pray for relief.

If you have a minute, could you please say a prayer?  God knows I need relief, and he honors our fervent prayers.

Until I have relief, or a referral, I will be off the blog.

Email from the agency

Our agency has sent some staff to DR Congo to do some training and to provide much needed money and medical care to the kids who wait to be adopted. The agency's waiting child site began to fill up with photos of gorgeous children--even twins!  Unfortunately, I was sad to see that they were all older than 3. So I emailed the director and asked if there were other referrals being made. She assured me that they have received many new referrals and that our referral would be coming soon. She said that we are sitting at #2 in the referral queue. That is AWESOME!  It could happen fast, or really slow, but I cannot wait to see our little girl's face!  

I Think They're On To Me.

Day 2 of homeschooling two kindergarteners, two fourth graders, and one fifth grader:  I'm pretty sure they're on to me already. Sure, I look like I know what I'm doing; I've got the newly sharpened pencils, the professionally bound lesson planners, new text books for everyone--YOU get a textbook, YOU get a textbook, EVERYONE gets a textbook!--even additional supplies for all those awesome science experiments I intend to do. No, really, I've even written them into the lesson plans (in pencil, lets not go crazy here).  And yesterday I got up, had a delicious cup of coffee made by my awesome hubby, grabbed the planners and called the children in for roll call. After everyone was accounted for, we started off with devotions, which would have been so awesome and enlightening if I had not been interrupted eleven thousand times by kids asking if it was going to be hot enough to have a water balloon fight. Yet I was not deterred.  

After devotions everyone went to their desks and dug into their first subject. Meanwhile I sat with The Littles to begin their kindergarten year. "Today we are going to learn about the letter 'S'.  Yes, Josh, I know it looks like a snake, but it's a letter--no, not like 5, that's a number.  Do you know what sound an 'S' makes?  'Sssssssssss', yes I know that kind of sounds like a snake, but it's just a letter for reading and writing. *I now turn the flash card over to show them a picture of...you guessed it, a snake...*. Moving on...let's learn our numbers now. Can you kids count?  You can?  Show me."  After what sounded like a combination of letters and numbers I whipped out the shiny new flash card with a big bold '1' on it. Except it was in ARIEL, like this: l.  Suddenly I hear, "Hey Mom, that's an "L", like 'Lily'."  I quickly responded that is was the number one, not a letter. I had them hold up one finger--no, not that one, and even gave them one gummy bear to demonstrate. Then Josh noticed there was a picture on the back of the flash card showing one animal. You guessed it--a snake!

And so we hobbled through Day one. Today I awoke with an idea for a new approach and a new zest for the school year. Devotions were again interrupted millions of times by silly questions and behavior corrections--I'm pretty sure the kids think we are learning about the Disciple James: The One Who Couldn't Sit Still And Be A Good Listener. Off to individual subjects now and learning how to write. Ok, learning how to hold a pencil. After the 416th time of helping Josh to hold his pencil correctly, he refused to do any more work. Alas I had no choice but to let him walk away. This of course snowballed and suddenly everyone wanted to have the rest of the day off. Absolutely not!  We stumbled through US History, Science--"No Honey, we are not doing explosions this week. Maybe next week we can blow things up", Language, writing, S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G, and reading. And then there was math...Ugh!  I hate it more than they do, but we got through the day with only one major meltdown. When my husband came home I finally let myself out of timeout.  Maybe tomorrow will be better?

Adoption Update:

We have completed EVERYTHING and are now officially waiting for a referral. We have been told that we could be waiting anywhere from 3-6 months for a referral. With the uncertainty of this program it could be longer. The waiting is always the hardest. It could last a few days, or years depending on the country. We don't know who our child is yet, so waiting isn't torture. Once we get The CALL, things will rapidly deteriorate in the patience department. That's it for now. I'm pretty sure my kids will have duct taped me to a chair and proclaimed their freedom from oppression. If I don't update within a week or so, please check up on me. 

Oh Oprah!

After learning of Oprah's allegation that a Swiss shop was racist when it refused to sell her a handbag, I decided to send her a note. (Please note that I do NOT agree with racism in any way!  Everyone deserves equal treatment.)

An open letter to Oprah Winfrey.

Dear Oprah,

I was shocked to hear of the treatment you received in Switzerland while shopping for a hand bag.  While I certainly don't know all the facts, because I wasn't present, I do understand that a sales lady refused to show you a $38,100 crocodile-skin handbag designed by Tom Ford. I was simply appalled at this story!  $38,000 for a purse?!  That is ludicrous!  I was at Kohl's just last week and saw a lovely handbag for $59.99. It was fancy and had lots of pockets and storage areas--it even came with a cell phone pouch. Now, I'm not a purse-carrying girl but if I was, I would wait until it went on clearance and save a bundle. We both know that the Tom Ford purse did NOT cost anywhere near $38,000 to make. Even if it came with an actual crocodile it wouldn't be that much. (Note, I do not advise that you purchase a live crocodile. They are not nearly as friendly as dogs.)

So, here's some advice:  Shop local, never pay for brand name, and for goodness sake DO NOT follow fashion trends!  That hand bag will be out of style by spring and will end up relegated to a coat hanger in your closet until your summer yard sale. 

Thoughtfully,

Sharon

P.S.  $38,000 could feed thousands of orphans, provide much needed vaccines to third world countries, and help give homes to the homeless. 

Dossier is done!

We sent our dossier--minus the FDL--off to the agency this week. I applied for the I-600A on Thursday. I hope to have a fingerprint appointment within two weeks.

As a distraction to the waiting--and there is so much waiting in adoption--I am finishing a room in our basement as a family room. With six kids in the house we definitely could use more room.
I have framed, powered, switched, insulated, and am now working on the drywall. Hopefully I will be ready for carpet by next weekend.

That's all for now. Going to hang out with Tisha Alexander with www.aheartdorkorah.blogspot.com tonight. Can't wait to see everything God is doing there!

Adoption tips for friends of adoptive parents.

How to be the village
By Jen Hatmaker.

Sometimes being ever-so-slightly in the public eye is rough. With a mouth and discernment problem like mine, you can imagine. I basically offer my life on the altar of criticism daily, then douse the sacrifice with plenty of fuel to make disparagement a lay-up.For instance, Brandon and I attended a Halloween party last weekend with the theme “Heroes and Super villains.” Our friends came in such costumes as Captain America and the Joker and Kim Possible. They were all very polished and adorable. We came as washed-up, possibly strung out Superman and Supergirl complete with ripped fishnets, smeared makeup, and pistol tattoo drawn with Sharpie. We may or may not have had unlit cigarettes dangling from the corners of our mouths.These choices are often met with disapproval from the watching masses, as you might well guess. I know you wish I would only dress up as Little Bo Peep or Mary Mother of Jesus, but Brandon and I are very, very silly and immature, and I’ve been trying to tell you people this for some time.But usually I am grateful for the connection to the greater world, if only through social media and the miracle of emails (plus embarrassing transparency). For example, just a few days ago, I received this email:

Our good friends just returned from Ethiopia last night with their two little boys. Ok, they’ve had their “airport” moment and we were right there with them. What are some things we can do now to support them in the “real life” journey without overstepping our boundaries? Thank you so much for your transparency and honesty. Everyone can benefit when you share from your heart.

I was so moved by this email. Having benefitted from a community that practically smothered us with support throughout our adoption journey, I am so grateful for all the other good friends out there, loving their people and asking how to help. Since reading this email, I’ve been marinating on her question, and I’ve decided to write this Field Guide to Supporting Adoptive Families. (And it will be brief because I will try to remember that this is a blog and not a manuscript and the rules of blogging include succinctness, so that is exactly how I’ll proceed today, except for the exact opposite of all that.)

Let’s break this down into two categories:

Supporting Families Before the Airport

Your friends are adopting. They’re in the middle of dossiers and home studies, and most of them are somewhere in the middle of Waiting Purgatory. Please let me explain something about WP: It sucks in every way. Oh sure, we try to make it sound better than it feels by using phrases like “We’re trusting in God’s plan” and “God is refining me” and “Sovereignty trumps my feelings” and crazy bidness like that. But we are crying and aching and getting angry and going bonkers when you’re not watching. It’s hard. It hurts. It feels like an eternity even though you can see that it is not. It is harder for us to see that, because many of us have pictures on our refrigerators of these beautiful darlings stuck in an orphanage somewhere while we’re bogged down in bureaucracy and delays.

How can you help? By not saying or doing these things:

1. “God’s timing is perfect!” (Could also insert: “This is all God’s plan!” “God is in charge!”) As exactly true as this may be, when you say it to a waiting parent, we want to scratch your eyebrows off and make you eat them with a spoon. Any trite answer that minimizes the struggle is as welcomed as a sack of dirty diapers. You are voicing something we probably already believe while not acknowledging that we are hurting and that somewhere a child is going to bed without a mother again. Please never say this again. Thank you.

2. “Are you going to have your own kids?” (Also in this category: “You’ll probably get pregnant the minute your adoption clears!” “Since this is so hard, why don’t you just try to have your own kids?” “Well, at least you have your own kids.”) The subtle message here is: You can always have legitimate biological kids if this thing tanks. It places adoption in the Back-up Plan Category, where it does not belong for us. When we flew to Ethiopia with our first travel group from our agency, out of 8 couples, we were the only parents with biological kids. The other 7 couples chose adoption first. Several of them were on birth control. Adoption counts as real parenting, and if you believe stuff Jesus said, it might even be closer to the heart of God than regular old procreation. (Not to mention the couples that grieved through infertility already. So when you say, “Are you going to have your own kids?” to a woman who tried for eight years, then don’t be surprised if she pulls your beating heart out like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.)

3. For those of you in Christian community, it is extremely frustrating to hear: “Don’t give up on God!” or “Don’t lose faith!” It implies that we are one nanosecond away from tossing our entire belief system in the compost pile because we are acting sad or discouraged. It’s condescending and misses the crux of our emotions. I can assure you, at no point in our story did we think about kicking Jesus to the curb, but we still get to cry tears and feel our feelings, folks. Jesus did. And I’m pretty sure he went to heaven when he died.

4. We’re happy to field your questions about becoming a transracial family or adopting a child of another race, but please don’t use this moment to trot out your bigotry. (Cluelessness is a different thing, and we try to shrug that off. Like when someone asked about our Ethiopian kids, “Will they be black?” Aw, sweet little dum-dum.) The most hurtful thing we heard during our wait was from a black pastor who said, “Whatever you do, don’t change their last name to Hatmaker, because they are NOT Hatmakers. They’ll never be Hatmakers. They are African.” What the??? I wonder if he’d launch the same grenade if we adopted white kids from Russia? If you’d like to know what we’re learning about raising children of another race or ask respectful, legitimate questions, by all means, do so. We care about this and take it seriously, and we realize we will traverse racial landmines with our family. You don’t need to point out that we are adopting black kids and we are, in fact, white. We’ve actually already thought of that.

5. Saying nothing is the opposite bad. I realize with blogs like this one, you can get skittish on how to talk to a crazed adopting Mama without getting under her paper-thin skin or inadvertently offending her. I get it. (We try hard not to act so hypersensitive. Just imagine that we are paper-pregnant with similar hormones surging through our bodies making us cry at Subaru commercials just like the 7-month preggo sitting next to us. And look at all this weight we’ve gained. See?) But acting like we’re not adopting or struggling or waiting or hoping or grieving is not helpful either. If I was pregnant with a baby in my belly, and no one ever asked how I was feeling or how much longer or is his nursery ready or can we plan a shower, I would have to audition new friend candidates immediately.

Here’s what we would love to hear Before the Airport:

1. Just kind, normal words of encouragement. Not the kind that assume we are one breath away from atheism. Not the kind that attempt to minimize the difficulties and tidy it all up with catchphrases. We don’t actually need for you to fix our wait. We just want you to be our friend and acknowledge that the process is hard and you care about us while we’re hurting. That is GOLD. I was once having lunch with my friend Lynde when AWAA called with more bad news about Ben’s case, and I laid my head down on the table in the middle of Galaxy Café and bawled. Having no idea what to do with such a hot mess, she just cried with me. Thank you for being perfect that day, Lynde.

2. Your questions are welcomed! We don’t mind telling you about the court system in Ethiopia or the in-country requirements in Nicaragua or the rules of the foster system. We’re glad to talk about adoption, and we’re thankful you care. I assure you we didn’t enter adoption lightly, so sharing details of this HUGE PIECE OF OUR LIVES is cathartic. Plus, we want you to know more because we’re all secretly hoping you’ll adopt later. (This is not true.) (Yes it is.)

3. When you say you’re praying for us and our waiting children, and you actually really are, not only does that soothe our troubled souls, but according to Scripture, it activates the heavens. So pray on, dear friends. Pray on. That is always the right thing to say. And please actually do it. We need people to stand in the gap for us when we are too tired and discouraged to keep praying the same words another day.

4. If you can, please become telepathic to determine which days we want to talk about adoption and which days we’d rather you just show up on our doorstep with fresh figs from the Farmer’s Market (thanks, Katie) or kidnap us away in the middle of the day to go see Bridesmaids. Sometimes we need you to make us laugh and remember what it feels like to be carefree for a few hours. If you’re not sure which day we’re having, just pre-buy movie tickets and show up with the figs, and when we answer the door, hold them all up and ask, “Would you like to talk for an hour uninterrupted about waiting for a court date?” We’ll respond to whichever one fits.

Supporting Families After the Airport

You went to the airport. The baby came down the escalator to cheers and balloons. The long adoption journey is over and your friends are home with their new baby / toddler / twins / siblings / teenager. Everyone is happy. Maybe Fox News even came out and filmed the big moment and “your friend” babbled like an idiot and didn’t say one constructive word about adoption and also she looked really sweaty during her interview. (Really? That happened to me too. Weird.)

How can you help? By not saying or doing these things:

1. I mean this nicely, but don’t come over for awhile. Most of us are going to hole up in our homes with our little tribe and attempt to create a stable routine without a lot of moving parts. This is not because we hate you; it’s because we are trying to establish the concept of “home” with our newbies, and lots of strangers coming and going makes them super nervous and unsure, especially strangers who are talking crazy language to them and trying to touch their hair.

2. Please do not touch, hug, kiss, or use physical affection with our kids for a few months. We absolutely know your intentions are good, but attachment is super tricky with abandoned kids, and they have had many caregivers, so when multiple adults (including extended family) continue to touch and hold them in their new environment, they become confused about who to bond with. This actually delays healthy attachment egregiously. It also teaches them that any adult or stranger can touch them without their permission, and believe me, many adoptive families are working HARD to undo the damage already done by this position. Thank you so much for respecting these physical boundaries.

3. For the next few months, do not assume the transition is easy. For 95% of us, it so is not. And this isn’t because our family is dysfunctional or our kids are lemons, but because this phase is so very hard on everyone. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to constantly hear: “You must be so happy!” and “Is life just so awesome now that they’re here??” and “Your family seems just perfect now!” I wanted that to be true so deeply, but I had no idea how to tell you that our home was actually a Trauma Center. (I did this in a passive aggressive way by writing this blog, which was more like “An Open Letter to Everyone Who Knows Us and Keeps Asking Us How Happy We Are.”) Starting with the right posture with your friends –this is hard right now – will totally help you become a safe friend to confide in / break down in front of / draw strength from.

4. Do not act shocked if we tell you how hard the early stages are. Do not assume adoption was a mistake. Do not worry we have ruined our lives. Do not talk behind our backs about how terribly we’re doing and how you’re worried that we are suicidal. Do not ask thinly veiled questions implying that we are obviously doing something very, very wrong. Do not say things like, “I was so afraid it was going to be like this” or “Our other friends didn’t seem to have these issues at all.” Just let us struggle. Be our friends in the mess of it. We’ll get better.

5. If we’ve adopted older kids, please do not ask them if they “love America so much” or are “so happy to live in Texas.” It’s this simple: adoption is born from horrible loss. In an ideal world, there would be no adoption, because our children would be with their birth families, the way God intended. I’ll not win any points here, but I bristle when people say, “Our adopted child was chosen for us by God before the beginning of time.” No he wasn’t. He was destined for his birth family. God did not create these kids to belong to us. He didn’t decide that they should be born into poverty or disease or abandonment or abuse and despair aaaaaaaall so they could finally make it into our homes, where God intended them to be. No. We are a very distant Plan B. Children are meant for their birth families, same as my biological kids were meant for mine. Adoption is one possible answer to a very real tragedy… after it has already happened, not before as the impetus for abandonment. There is genuine grief and sorrow when your biological family is disrupted by death and poverty, and our kids have endured all this and more. So when you ask my 8-year-old if he is thrilled to be in Texas, please understand that he is not. He misses his country, his language, his food, his family. Our kids came to us in the throes of grief, as well they should. Please don’t make them smile and lie to you about how happy they are to be here.

6. Please do not disappear. If I thought the waiting stage was hard, it does not even hold the barest candle to what comes after the airport. Not. The. Barest. Candle. Never have I felt so isolated and petrified. Never have I been so overwhelmed and exhausted. We need you after the airport way more than we ever needed you before. I know you’re scared of us, what with our dirty hair and wild eyes and mystery children we’re keeping behind closed doors so they don’t freak out more than they already have, but please find ways to stick around. Call. Email. Check in. Post on our Facebook walls. Send us funny cards. Keep this behavior up for longer than six days.

Here’s what we would love to hear or experience After the Airport:

1. Cook for your friends. Put together a meal calendar and recruit every person who even remotely cares about them. We didn’t cook dinners for one solid month, and folks, that may have single handedly saved my sanity. There simply are not words to describe how exhausting and overwhelming those first few weeks are, not to mention the lovely jetlag everyone came home with. And if your friends adopted domestically right up the street, this is all still true, minus the jetlag.

2. If we have them, offer to take our biological kids for an adventure or sleepover. Please believe me: their lives just got WHACKED OUT, and they need a break, but their parents can’t give them one because they are 1.) cleaning up pee and poop all day, 2.) holding screaming children, 3.) spending all their time at doctors’ offices, and 4.) falling asleep in their clothes at 8:15pm. Plus, they are in lockdown mode with the recently adopted, trying to shield them from the trauma that is Walmart.

3. Thank you for getting excited with us over our little victories. I realize it sounds like a very small deal when we tell you our kindergartener is now staying in the same room as the dog, but if you could’ve seen the epic level of freakoutedness this dog caused her for three weeks, you would understand that this is really something. When you encourage us over our incremental progress, it helps. You remind us that we ARE moving forward and these little moments are worth celebrating. If we come to you spazzing out, please remind us where we were a month ago. Force us to acknowledge their gains. Be a cheerleader for the healing process.

4. Come over one night after our kids are asleep and sit with us on our porch. Let me tell you: we are all lonely in those early weeks. We are home, home, home, home, home. Good-bye, date nights. Good-bye, GNO’s. Good-bye, spontaneous anything. Good-bye, church. Good-bye, big public outings. Good-bye, community group. Good-bye, nightlife. So please bring some community to our doorstep. Bring friendship back into our lives. Bring adult conversation and laughter. And bring an expensive bottle of wine.

5. If the shoe fits, tell adopting families how their story is affecting yours. If God has moved in you over the course of our adoption, whether before the airport or after, if you’ve made a change or a decision, if somewhere deep inside a fire was lit, tell us, because it is spiritual water on dry souls. There is nothing more encouraging than finding out God is using our families for greater kingdom work, beautiful things we would never know or see. We gather the holy moments in our hands every day, praying for eyes to see God’s presence, his purposes realized in our story. When you put more holy moments in our hands to meditate on, we are drawn deeper into the Jesus who led us here.

Here’s one last thing: As you watch us struggle and celebrate and cry and flail, we also want you to know that adoption is beautiful, and a thousand times we’ve looked at each other and said, “What if we would’ve said no?” God invited us into something monumental and lovely, and we would’ve missed endless moments of glory had we walked away. We need you during these difficult months of waiting and transitioning, but we also hope you see that we serve a faithful God who heals and actually sets the lonely in families, just like He said He would. And even through the tears and tantrums (ours), we look at our children and marvel that God counted us worthy to raise them. We are humbled. We’ve been gifted with a very holy task, and when you help us rise to the occasion, you have an inheritance in their story; your name will be counted in their legacy.

Because that day you brought us pulled pork tacos was the exact day I needed to skip dinner prep and hold my son on the couch for an hour, talking about Africa and beginning to bind up his emotional wounds. When you kidnapped me for two hours and took me to breakfast, I was at the very, very, absolute end that morning, but I came home renewed, able to greet my children after school with fresh love and patience. When you loved on my big kids and offered them sanctuary for a night, you kept the family rhythm in sync at the end of a hard week.

Thank you for being the village. You are so important.

One week

There's only a week left in our first fundraiser!  It has gone by so fast. But don't worry, you still have time to purchase your tickets. Just click the Donate button and make a $10 contribution. It's that easy. Next Sunday at 5pm EST we will draw a winner.

Adoption status update:

I head for my physical on Tuesday and then we await the homestudy approval. Unfortunately, our SW is going on vacation for 3 weeks and can't sign off on it until July 19th. : (  I was pretty bummed since that's all we are waiting on to apply for CIS Approval. Then a few weeks later our dossier is off to Congo. I'm predicting that we won't have a referral until around Christmas.

The big kids are headed to camp tomorrow for four days!  We are all excited about that. Mike and I will have a little time with just the two littles. It will feel very empty until Thursday, and it will certainly be quiet.   Just gotta keep busy to pass the time.