The One Where Everything Changes Yet Stays The Same

After almost three years, we finally got a glimpse of exactly who is going to change our lives. Thousands of miles away from here is a child who we will call our own, a child who we will willingly sacrifice everything for, a child who will fill our hearts as we will do our best to fill hers.
Meet our daughter........meet Jade.....

So now that everything has changed, everything is still the same. Our agency still does not have our translation. They were kind enough to give us a copy of the original Chinese paperwork (which they could have done more than a week ago, and I could be working with an "unofficial" translation) and I'm awaiting the translation via e-mail. I need the translation for the consultation with the doctor, who only does consults on Wednesdays, and who needs the paperwork prior to the Wednesday evening appointment. If the translation doesn't arrive today, I will have to reschedule the appointment for the following week, and delay our acceptance for another week. This will also hold up travel plans for the rest of the families. Le Sigh......

As usual there has been no acknowledgment of the current events in China, just an e-mail that Bill, his family, and the adoptive family traveling with him are alright. Nevermind the waiting families who's travel may be delayed due to the events...and nevermind the condition of the referred children and their Welfare Institute. We feel very blessed in an odd sort of way that our daughter is currently in the northernmost province of China, an area that was virtually unaffected by the quake.

There is also the fact that we appear to be the only family with a child in that province, and our agency has never dealt with them before. It could be complicated....there is no acknowledgment of that....

I've been thinking about yesterday's post, and as I sit here now, I'm more committed to my position than ever. My child will be two and a half years old before she finds her way to her "forever" family. We know that at least twenty-five of those months have been spent in the Welfare Institute, under the watchful eye of her caregiver, and for that, we feel lucky. But, it does mean that in the whole grand scheme of things, I will be my child's third mother. She will have her birth mother, her "house" mother, and her last mother. It makes me a non-mom mom people.... and I'm perfectly alright with that. It makes me different from other mom's, it makes my kids vision of the world a bit different than that of her peers. My child is old enough to have memory of at least one of these women and their contribution to her life must be acknowledged. There is a woman out there who has tended to her every need, loved her, watched her roll over, crawl, helped her stand, watched her take her first steps, fed her, taught her to feed herself, laughed with her, cried with her, kissed boo-boos, and shaped who this tiny child is. We owe her not only a debt of gratitude, but a measure of respect for everything, and every little piece of her soul she has given up.

Many of you have adopted your children as actual babies. Maybe they were months old, maybe they were a year old, but they passed milestones and developed in many ways with you. My child will develop with me as well, but not in the ways that other children and "regular" moms do. And, I'll never pretend that she did. I may want to, I may have those moments of insecurity where I may crave the validation, but I promise, I will not allow myself to be that weak. I will not be weak for my child and I will not be weak for myself. I hope to send my grown child out into the world with an unshakable sense of self, and an appreciation for all that the world and the people in it have to offer. For those reasons, and a few more, I will relish the title of non-mom, and I will celebrate the women who have contributed to to life of an amazing child.

I've read so much about this topic in the last few days, and my thoughts and opinions certainly won't win me any popularity contests. I am the grown adopted child. Adopted by a woman who was adopted herself. I am the child who looked nothing like her Mom. (I was tow-headed with skin so light it was almost clear, my mom was olive-skinned with black hair) I am the grown-up child who was asked repeatedly throughout my life if that was my real mom and if I was adopted. I am the child that knew for as long as I can remember that someone else gave me blue eyes, someone else brought me into this world, but someone else, my mom, gave me a family. That's the part that's important, and that's the part that's different. And that's also the part that will always be different, no matter what path I walk in life.

For all of you that find judgements in labels, for all of you that scrabble to join the ranks of the ordinary, I beg of you, get over yourselves. For your kids sake....cowboy up. Live the life that you were given and embrace it. Stop trying to slap the square peg into the round hole. None of this is about you, it's about your child and their vision of themselves and their family. It's time to get right with who and what you are, it's time to get right with your reality. The world is never going to be as PC, or as kind, or as considerate as you might like it to be. Prepare your kids for that. In retrospect, my parents gave me all the tools from the very beginning. In retrospect, I used them fearlessly. I remember being in kindergarten and one of the other children saw my mother and asked me if it was my "real" mom. I told the kid it was my "real" mom and then I was asked why I didn't look like her. Fearlessly, I answered that the mom he was looking at was out of eggs, so she had to use an "egg" mom. Ms. Huizenga (the kindergarten teacher) is probably still in therapy to this day because she had to explain to a kindergarten class about eggs and babies.......it remains, to this day, one of the finest scenes I have ever created. The point here is that my mother was different, and when it was acknowledged that she was different, it no longer became an issue, for her, for me and for other people around us. I was different, it was acknowledged and everyone moved on. Adoption, the idea of having another mother, never seemed any different than having 10 fingers and 10 toes. It was the reality, and it was embraced.

Enough for today...