Where Do We Go From Here?

Where do I take this blog from here?  It began as a way to communicate with family and friends, some that that live far from us, to share our family's adoption story.  Growing In The Family Way became a suprising cathartic forum for emotions, thoughts and feelings about waiting to adopt.

Now we have sweet Mica.  Our son.  Malia's brother.  Grandson.  Cousin.  Beloved.

Now we know Nichole.  Mica's birthmother.  Nichole's sisters.  Open adoption. 

We have what we had been seeking.  We are at peace in a way we haven't been before.

Now we have a multiracial family.  Before Mica, race could slide to the background for our family.  Now it's in the forefront.  We embrace this change, but are cautious about navigating it in a country where race-relations, civil rights and equity seem, some days, so incredibly broken.  Wholeness and true acceptance of differences can be so elusive.

We still live in the same home, the same city. Malia goes to the same school.  We go to our same church home. 

But we are sssoooo different than we were 13 short weeks ago.  In so many ways.

Isn't this what life is?  To be open (or sometimes go kicking and screaming) to transformation.  To embrace the change.  To enjoy this life and fully be present for all it has to offer.  Isn't it? 

But it hasn't always been this way.  Years of heartwrenchingly painful infertility.  Five babies miscarried.  Many, many long months waiting to adopt.  Wondering if it would ever happen.  Watching other families grow, while it felt that ours just experienced more pain, loss, waiting and wondering. 

Hoping.  Praying.  Crying.  Stomping.  Anger.  Joy.

I think this blog could still be useful.  I think I have more than a few things to share.  Lord knows I have a TON to learn. 

But I'm not quite sure yet if I'm prepared to share them in such a public forum.  Opening my soul to the world makes me feel naked on the street corner.  Just a tad exposed. 

These are the issues I'm grappling with and learning about:  facets of grief and joy, transracial adoption, learning to be a multiracial family, thoughts and feelings about open adoption, and working outside the home while parenting young children.  Just to name a few.

I trust I'll figure it out.  And in the meantime, we'll walk through this messy life with arms wrapped around eachother, praying for God's continued guidance through the pain and joy.  And I'll probably share my musings, when they bubble to the surface.  When I'm brave enough.

May love, joy and peace be yours.

~D

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