The Reality and My Reality

This topic makes me cringe. I'm hoping by writing some of it down I can get it to stop rattling around in my head.

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading on adoption issues, specifically the idea that adoption is morally reprehensible because women are trapped in low economic or social situations with no way out except to relinquish their children to people of higher economic or social situations.

This situation isn't an opinion. This is a fact. I look to the women in Korea, women who are stigmatized and shunned for having a child. I would venture that many, many, many of these women want desperately to be able to parent their babes, and yet, their societies offers them no support. Their children are practically forced out of their hands.

That is a fact.

It's like that in countries all over the world. The majority of children who are available to be adopted around the world are victims of economic and social problems, not a lack of love or caring arms.

To a slightly different extent, it is that way in this country, too.

I don't like reading about it, to be honest, but I am compelled to. I've been lurking on some first mother sites and some adoptee sites. I've read in depth some of the advocates who consider adoptive parents to be akin to kidnappers, and I've read some pretty close minded stuff from advocates who think adoptive parents are the heroes of the world. Both leave my stomach turning.

Then I sit in the middle ground and look up at the nursery door and wonder if I'm part of the problem or the solution. Or either.

Both my children were not able to live with their birth family for reasons FAR from a lack of love. Both my children have mothers in Korea who expressed sadness at not being able to keep them.

That is how my children came to my waiting arms. Not because I could love them more or better, but because I am randomly luckier than their birth mothers in my circumstances.

And that makes me uncomfortable.

But where does that leave me? Where does that leave my children? How can I fix a problem so global?

The reality is that both my children were relinquished and needed homes. They were unable to have a home found for them in Korea. I'm the 3rd best option, and I understand that. But some would argue by being an option at all, I'm still perpetrating the problem.

This is where I struggle. By adopting my sons, I am participating in a cycle that is clearly destructive to mothers and children. But then again, these two children are not hypothetical spokes in this cycle, they are living, breathing children who need and deserve a family....and there was no family in Korea for them at the time when they needed one. I don't believe they would have been better off in an orphanage. I want to think by raising them with as much exposure to their Korean culture and an openness for any type of communication with their birth families that the might possibly have, coupled with a loving home, will be enough to make this 3rd best option better than an orphanage. My sons might some day feel differently...I hope not, though.

But how do I become part of the solution for these yet-to-be-born babies and their mothers? It seems from my research that no one is exactly sure of that. Extremes seem so....extreme, and yet, it stands to reason that only an extreme will force any sort of change.

This isn't about me. Of that, I am sure. I don't have a right to be a mother. I can't give birth to a child, but that does not give me a right to parent someone elses.

But at some point, children will suffer from lack of families if adoption is ended. There will be a gap between the problem and the solution, and children will be caught in the middle. How do we determine which children get the be the martyrs for the future?

That's what I can't riddle out. How can we solve a problem by hurting the very people we are trying to save? But how can we continue to happily pretend that women all over the world have babies and choose to give them up for completely personal reasons and are happier for their choices? How can we pretend that the competent, loving (albeit perhaps poor and young) birth mother and the child's lives are best served by allowing or even encouraging a separation?

I don't know.

I don't know if this even makes sense. I doubt it does. I lay in bed at night and my head does circles as I think about my children and their mothers and myself and how we all fit together.

Ultimately, this is where I am at.

I can't change the past. I can't and won't contact my Little Bug's birth mother and apologize and offer to let her parent Little Bug while I pay her the money I would have spent parenting him myself (which isn't a legal option anyway, no matter what some advocates suggest). It is selfish, but I love my sons and I am glad to be their mother. That's a reality, too.

And until something happens on a larger scale, there will still be children, especially children with special needs, that will need a home. Our wished for Little Sis will, mark my words, be one of those little children. I don't believe us choosing not to adopt again would make any different in the current climate, except to deny a child who legitimately needs a home a family. Individual boycotts are not nearly as effective as other methods of change.

I can't change a global climate. I can't change the way a country supports unwed mothers or their children. I can help by supporting causes and organizations that are working on a bigger scale to make change. One of our new annual donations this year is to an organization that supports unwed mother's rights in Korea. We make our donation in honor of Little Bug's mother.

I can help by continuing to be aware of issues and talking about them. I can help by not putting on my rose colored glasses and reading books about how baby, we were meant for each other, as if everything and everyone beforehand was only a means to our end.

I love my sons. I love my family. I love the way our family bonds are created. I don't love the reason for adoption to be necessary. I don't love the hurt of two families that has resulted from it. I don't love the gaping hole in my sons' hearts that I will never be able to fill.

But even after it all, I come back to the thought that I am grateful for my children. I am grateful for my reality. God, I love Little Bug so painfully much. I know I will feel the same about Little Bro.

I owe it to everyone involved to try to make our blessings count, to pay it forward. I think that starts with having some hard conversations with myself and using my lucky circumstances to advocate for those who have less resources.

Eye on the Prize

For 3 months I have had my eye trained on today, Little Bro's 15 month birthday. We had been told that after his first birthday he would only go in every 3 months. Although we have been super lucky to get pictures from traveling friends on his 11 and 12 month birthdays, we've not actually received a development update or official pictures since he was 8.5 months old.

So really, all we know is that he can stand without support, has at least 5 teeth, wasn't walking on his first birthday, and is ridiculously cute.

The secret truth is that I am a little gun shy after what happened with Little Bug. I need a development update telling me he is still on track and hasn't plateaued. I need my faith in our agency to be reaffirmed over and over this time around.

We had a care package waiting for him, and I was sure that he would have official pictures and an update done this month. Sure of it. I've spent the last 3 months mentally crossing off the days waiting for today so I could start stalking my e-mail in the hopes of an update popping up.

Earlier this week, just as I was really keyed up for the week, I found out our information was wrong, and the children go in every other month, not every 3 months.

Which means Little Bro went in for a check up last month.

And we didn't hear boo.

The good news is that he will be going in more often, which means we will have a greater chance at updates and a more robust medical history when he comes home.

The bad news is my heart has to wait another month to even begin to hope for an update. I'm so not a patient person when it comes right down to it.

We've decided to burn one of our two update requests on the check-up next month. I've literally got to hear something. Even if we don't get pictures (which would be such a bummer but is possible because I most likely won't have his next care package there in time for the check up), I just want to know he is walking and talking and playing age appropriately. And if he isn't, I want to know that, too.

Someday soon this will all be a distant memory. New pictures will come from the agency and then old pictures from the foster family and finally new pictures from my own camera. In the grand scheme of things, these updates don't matter, don't change the course of our lives or how we are living them.

But it sure would be nice to be able to add a couple more pages to my brag book.

Happy 15 months, my baby big star. I hope you enjoy a day of not having to go to the agency and be poked and prodded.

The Real World Sucks

This morning when I dropped Little Bug off at school, a small group of boys noticed he was heading over to play with them.

En mass, they all started chanting, "No, Little Bug, No" and hiding all the toys from him.

Little Bug stood there at the edge of the "friendship carpet" with a sad look on his face while these four boys chanted their cruel taunt. I know he probably doesn't get the full social implications of what they were saying (nor do these other little 2 years olds who are chanting it), but he gets "No, Little Bug, No" and he gets when kids don't want to share with him.

And it makes him sad.

I started to bend down to the little boys and nicely tell them we play with all our friends when the teacher swooped in to set them right.

Just in time because I was near tears. My heart was hurting so badly for my baby in that moment.

I gave Little Bug a light kiss and blew out of there, desperate to keep the tears from falling until I reached the car. The cool Fall air was the only thing that saved me. The minute I got in the car, I began to cry.

How will I ever be able to do this?

How can I spend the rest of my life waking up and letting my children leave my side when I know they might face teasing or taunting or bullying or hurt feelings. How can I bear knowing they might be sad or feel bad about themselves?

The plight of a parent, I suppose.

I know I can't protect my kids from this childhood reality. Every child will encounter it in some form. Every child will probably be the perpetrator at some point, too. Even mine.

All I can do it give Little Bug the best self esteem possible and hopefully teach him how to push past these incidents in a positive manner. How I will do that....I'm not sure.

I do know that me crying won't help.

So I've gotten it out of my system. I'm truly aware now that no matter how nice of a school or how experienced a teacher or how cushy the room, Little Bug is going to experience times where he is the odd one out. That's the nature of childhood.

I cannot protect him from the real world.

And the real world is going to suck at times for him.

But OH how it hurts my heart to think of it.

Unicorn Fluff

So this sleep book...the one about unicorns and kittens and rainbows and slumbering babes....it's still annoyingly upbeat and positive while our nights are not so much.

But it's actually really illuminating.

In the grand scheme of sleep issues, ours are minimal. To be frank, the reason I even started modifying the routine is because I want to be able to deal with the sleep-issues surrounding the upcoming (HA!) arrival of our second son without dealing with Little Bug, but I wanted to give myself months to deal with this transition to avoid having him just cry it out and keep me up more than he is. My selfish goal is to be able to have him go to sleep by himself and stay there all night long. I want that for him, of course, but even more, I don't want to be dealing with two crying babies on my own. I'd like to be able to deal with them at night in an orderly and smooth way.

Rainbows, unicorns, dancing fairies.

And as much as I like the warmth of my baby in my bed, my husband's chest is pretty warm the 3 nights a week I get to share a bed with him....and yeah.......I'd like that back, too.

Ahem.

So this sleep book. It claims that there is a certain amount of sleep most children inherently need each night. It states that if your child is getting wiggy around bedtime, instead of saying "Oh, poor Little Bug is starting to get tired" and going on with your evening, you should just put your kid to bed.

Kid is tired = parent should put kid to bed. No matter when the botanical garden closes.

Rocket . Science.

Sadly, this no brainer statement really hit home for me. Little Bug's 8 pm bedtime was arbitrarily chosen because it worked for my schedule and he seemed to do fine with it.....minus the 30 minutes beforehand when he would start sucking him thumb and whining. I just thought that was what kids did in the evening; it never connected with me that I might be keeping him up past the time his body inherently wanted to be up.

Another instance of "I'm a first time mama and have no idea what I am doing" with a healthy dose of "I'm being unintentionally selfish and inflexible."

Sigh. I hate you, book.

So this week I've been watching Little Bug in the evenings to monitor his mood and when he starts to go down. A few nights ago, when he started to get fussy and whiny, I just started his bedtime routine early and put him to bed.

He was deeply asleep 30 minutes before his "bedtime."

And mama is a believer.

It's going to be an adjustment for us all. As a working mama, my evenings are so precious with my son, and I am going to be giving some of that up. We've still not even attempted anything serious with the going to sleep alone or staying in bed during the night or the waking up during my morning showers and pounding on the door while sobbing "baf, Baf, BAFFFFFFFF" pieces of our life, but those will come. I also know that every kid is different and that what is working for my kid would never work for another kid, including Little Bro.

Kids are lame and awesome like that.

So although this book is just a big pile of unicorn fluff, it is giving me a new way to view my child and how much of his routine I can attempt to control, which has been very illuminating.

And possibly the stuff of unicorns, kitten, and rainbows....we shall see.

The Campaign for a Television-Enjoying Child

I think I might be the only parent in the world who is actively trying to teach my kid to watch television.

As part of some therapy, we've been asked to start trying to get Seth to sit still for periods of time. He doesn't have ADHD or anything like that, but after almost 3 years of a constant, almost-every-minute movement therapy-lifestyle, coupled with the fact that he is a toddler, Little Bug has a problem being able to sit and focus for periods of time. Television was suggested as a way to get him comfortable with just being still.

However, Little Bug has never shown a preference for the TV. He has a set of musical DVDs that he will watch religiously, and one 8-minute animated version of "Wheels on the Bus" that we had to hide for fear the DVD would break, but other than those programs and the 3-minute part of the Glee episode where they cover Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", he's not really interested.

For a long time, that was okay, good even. He was sitting still and listening to music, which is his biggest sensory stimulator.

But he's not learning much.

So it was determined we needed to switch it up and add some shows that have....words...into the mix. We tried all sorts of things, but nothing seemed to stick.

Wiggles...so, so. Thomas the Train....only when the trains are moving and not talking. Everything else...totally not interested. Even the shows that have a high singing:talking ratio.

You're killing me, Little Bug. Stop being such a perfect, anti-TV child, already!

Little Bug's godmother recently bought him the Thomas movie, and we've been trying to add that into our evening once a week or so. The most we have managed is about 3-5 minutes...basically until the trains stop moving and the plot starts.

Last night we had a pretty ominous storm roll through. Ever since an admittedly scary camping storm incident, Little Bug gets very nervous when storm clouds roll in, scared when thunder hits, and petrified when lightning lights up the sky. Little Bug made it clear last night that he was planning on riding this one out from the safety of my lap with my arms locked around him, courtesy of his baby death grip.

I'm only mildly ashamed to admit I used his fear to my advantage.

Knowing he was more likely than normal to stay close to me, I turned on our new movie and hoped for the best.

1.5 hours later, Little Bug was clapping as the credits rolled.

Do I think this means he will sit angelically through a movie whenever I need to turn one on in a pinch? No. Do I recognize that the storm has a huge impact on his choice to sit still? Yes.

But he did stay engaged with the show the whole time, "choo chooing," "ohh ohhing," and clapping in all the right spots.

So I'm declaring a small step forward in our quest to commercialize our son.

Mhnk, Mhnk, Mhnk

And thus ended Adoptivus.

Last night we were working on some sleep training. I've selected a program that is meant to "gently" ease my child over the course of months into wanting to sleep like a champion in his own bed.

How lovely and charming and idealistic. Rainbows, kittens, unicorns, slumbering babies, blah, blah, blah.

This book makes it seem so easy.

Stupid book.

Last night was bad. Like, very bad for our normal. Little Bug woke up at 11 pm and was seriously ready to play until 3 am. Appa and I got about 3 hours of sleep between us.

It was bad.

I was mad.

Forget this "gentle" crap....at about 1:45 I shut Little Bug in his room and held the door shut, hoping he would sob and pound and tug on the door enough to tire the umph right out of him.

Instead, he pitter pattered quickly to the door and did the last thing I expected.

He knocked.

He knocked over and over again, occasionally saying "mhnk, mhnk, mhnk" for emphasis. For about 3 minutes.

It only stopped when Appa and I could no longer suppress our laughter, and we let him out to come lay in our bed.

The rest of the night sucked, but those 3 minutes were enough to remind us that we actually liked him enough to want to try the "gentle" approach.

Adoptivus: The Prayer

My son was honored to have the founder of his Korean agency and one of the most amazing souls ever to grace this planet privately pray over him before he joined our family and left the only family and culture he had ever known.

"Precious lives, our angels, we send away these lives to foreign countries, with scarred memories of their homeland.

Please forgive our sins and allow Korea to be a better country, so that we will be adopting children from other countries, instead of us always sending ours away.

We send them for care. So please protect these lives and help them lead a happy life in their new homes. Always provide them with grace and intelligence, lead them to live by the rules of Jesus Christ, to have luck, to help benefit others, and to return the glory to our Lord.

It is our sincere wish that these lives will not forget their home country and the love of the people who took care of them.

Father, please remember the foster families who worked hard whether it is favorable or unfavorable conditions to protect these lives, and give them blessings for the benefits they provided with. By your blessings, these adoptive families will be full of love and be under your protection.

Now the children are leaving: Please make their way as easy as possible, lead them to the most pleasant life.

In the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen. "

I wonder if Dr. Kim knows just how much his own humble life has changed the course of so many others' lives forever.

Like mine.

감사함니다, Dr. Kim, for loving my son.