Learning While Waiting

To combat the challenge of waiting to adopt, I've been working on flexing my mental muscle to focus on the positive.  I do still, definitely, allow myself little pity parties too.

I'm learning to care for myself by prioritizing exercise.  Primarily through RUNNING!  Seriously, it has never felt so great.  Getting treated for asthma recently helped just a tad.  I ran five miles last night: woohoo!

I breathe deeply.  

I enjoy eating healthy foods that fuel my body.  (This is a HUGE change!)  For the first time in my 37 years I'm losing weight by caring for myself.  Not shaming, blaming, despising, hating.  Geneen Roth's work has resonated and taught me that caring for myself comes BEFORE losing weight, NOT after. 

I'm learning to exist in now.  Enjoy the moment I'm in.  Not dwelling on past moments or wishing myself into an unknown future.

I'm giving up control, over and over and over.  Anne Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne describes God as "one crafty mother."  I like this...a lot.

I'm contemplating this adoption journey.  Anticipating.  Praying for birth parents everywhere.  Learning about relinquishment.  Thinking about phrases and words that describe adoption.  Contemplating the adopted child's grief and loss.  Thinking about inefficiencies of the whole adoption system.  Hoping that we'll have open adoption(s).  Learning a lot about transracial adoption.  Praying for wisdom for all adoptive parents, including us...someday. 

I'm learning to live vibrantly, even while embracing grief.  Multiple years of infertility and three miscarriages have not only taken.  They have molded, impacted.  Added depth. 

Although not a new concept to me, I am beyond-words-thankful for loving, listening, joyful and authentic husband, friends, family and community.  The joy of embracing new friends into our lives is pretty darn amazing as well!

I'm learning who I am, and gently feeling my way to who I want to be.

I'm leaning into life.

Open heart.  Open mind.  Thankful.  Loving.  Learning.

Let's Talk (AND LEARN) About It: Transracial Adoption

I met a woman at the mall kids' play area recently.  We started chatting about her grandson and little M, watching fondly as they played.  I told her that we are waiting to adopt; that we're learning a lot.  She said, in a positive voice, "I was adopted!" 

I inquired, "and how was that experience for you?"  She was shocked at that question.  I dare bet she'd never been asked.  She stared at me, speechless.  I quickly said "you don't have to share, if it's too personal."

She paused.  And started.  And stopped.  Then the floodgates opened.  "I was adopted into a white family; they thought I was white," she said.  "Look at this picture of my daughter; does she look like me?"  (I didn't say anything because I didn't want to assume anything.  But after a George Costanza moment, I later wished I'd said something about families being made in a lot of different ways and looking different.  Not that her question required a "Comback," but I often find myself wishing my brain and mouth had a closer connection.)

She went on:  "I was raised in the Netherlands Reformed Church.  The pastor told me when I was very young that I am a bastard and I am going to hell.  So I tried to be good.  But I ran away at fifteen.  My family disowned me because I married a black man."

"I didn't have any idea what my background was.  I joined the army at 18.  A woman I didn't know identified me on a form as white.  Later, a drill seargent told me that people may look on that as trying to pass for white.  So from then on I identified myself as multiracial."

"And now I have my own rainbow family.  I don't need my adoptive family."  I felt a stab of her pain via the look in her eyes.

We chatted a bit more, shook hands, exchanged names, wished eachother well and parted ways, each of us with our sweaty and exhausted kiddo.

It gives me a lot to think about.  I appreciate learning.

I'm livid with that pastor.  I'm angry at her parents for not accepting her, supporting her, preparing her.  It may demonstrate the vast change in transracial adoption in the United States in the last fifty years. 

It's a shame that her family wasn't able to help her.  That the adoption agency didn't help the family.  That she didn't even know her own race.  That she didn't have loving people, of many races/ethnicities to hold her hand, encourage her, teach her to be a multiracial person in a racist society and to love her for who she is.  Through Rhonda Roorda's work, I have learned much from adult transracial adopees.  They say that they welcome their parents boundless love, but transracial adoptees need role models at church, at school, and in their neighborhoods that look like them, take them under their wings, teach them, support them.  Love them too.

I hope to have many more such opportunities to connect, learn, open my mind. 

I'm reminded of this quote that I appreciate; I first encountered it hanging in my friend Brandy's office:

"The world in which you were born is just one model of reality.
Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit." --Wade Davis