Ready, set, go!

This photo is of me and my foster mother. Thank goodness I grew into my head. Sheesh.

After we selected an agency, the first step was to take the required training, which for our agency is a full day pre-adopt class. It's lead by parents who have adopted internationally through the agency. Having just moved (there's a lot to the story of how we got to where we are now settling in and those of you who know of our moves, stop snickering and save the jokes because we've heard them all!) and losing both of our babysitters to new jobs in different states, we had to find a new sitter. So we found her and we threw her into the fire by making her babysit for 9 daytime hours (i.e. the boys were awake the ENTIRE time!).

We were actually a little nervous on our drive there. What would we have to do during this class, who else would be there. Wait, and more importantly, what do we do for lunch? We showed up a few minutes early and, gasp, our names aren't on the sign in sheet. Crap. I thought for a minute maybe we didn't make the cut. We did, in fact, have to send in an adoption application prior to signing up for the class. Deep breath... "uhh, excuse me, our names aren't on the list." Reply "oh no, that never happens. Well, just write it in." Whew!

There were about 5 couples in the class. The introduction was awwwwkward. We had to introduce ourselves and tell what lead us to consider adoption. When I say awkward, it wasn't for us because we have kids and we're comfortable and confident in our decision to adopt. It was awkward for the rest of the group. The wives would stammer a bit and say something like "well, I've just always felt I would adopt someday." read "I am not here by choice. My body and I don't agree and I would rather my body provide a baby but she feels differently about it." And the husbands were the worst. Here their poor wives were trying to keep their infertility secret because why, I don't know, there is no shame in it. It sucks. Period. It's not fair that so many of us easily conceive while others cannot. And it makes my heart sad that these women are seemingly embarrassed by it. So anyway, the wife would make something up then the husband, who as is typical, wasn't really paying attention to what had already been said and would blurt out "yeah, so we've been trying for what, honey, maybe like 4 years to get pregnant and nothing has worked so we're here." Yep, awkward. So when it came to us, we almost felt bad because here we are all cheery, ready to adopt! and we have to admit that we haven't struggled at all, and in fact have 2 great kids at home torturing the new babysitter. Teensy bit awkward.

The class covers just about every aspect of adopting. The less important stuff gets glazed over. The more important stuff we talk through in more depth. Like the travel and what it will be like... it's not sightseeing folks! You get to your country of choice and they bring your kid to your hotel then it's man to man coverage for the remainder of your trip. Which may be 2-4 weeks depending on the country. Gulp. And your child will be grieving the loss of the life she once knew. Grieving? Dang, we just kind of assumed they'd be jumping for joy because they get love and attention all day, every day. Or maybe that they get their own bed. Clean clothes. Toys! But no, in all seriousness, life in an orphanage is all they've known. And it's over at that moment they're handed over. They may have only had a few minutes of adult interaction a day but those were precious minutes to them with maybe the one person they've ever felt love from. And that person is no longer there for them. Everything is different. Sights, smells, everything. They also may have shut down emotionally which means you get nothing. Not a peep, not a cry, not a word. Or worse, they hate you because you are a big scary white person that ruined their life. That's the reality.

We also discussed the pages and pages and pages of paperwork. Some you have to get notarized, others apostilled and yet others authenticated. Okay you lost us after notarized. There was an attorney in the group and she kept right up, knew exactly what they were talking about. Basically there are three levels of verifications so to speak - first is just getting a document signed and notarized - next is getting it signed and apostilled at the state capital - and last is getting it signed and authenticated at the embassy for the country in which you plan to adopt.

There was a little time spent talking about countries. Not all agencies provide adoption services for all countries. Agencies must have some sort of relationship with a country or a specific orphanage in order to provide adoption services. One of the reasons we chose the agency we did is that they have programs for India and Ethiopia. Both countries we were interested in learning more about. At the pre-adopt class level of adoption, many couples haven't yet decided on the country. One couple in our class was interested in adopting from Colombia as the husband was born there (raised in France) and another couple was interested in India. A third, quiet, meek couple, both Chinese, were interested in China and were visibly disturbed by the revelation that the wait time for a healthy newborn from China would be about 6 years. 6 freaking years to get 1 of the thousands, probably more like millions but the Chinese government would never admit to the number of orphans they have forced upon their people...

The last big chunk of time was spent on how you plan to incorporate your child's culture into your life. We then watched a video on becoming multicultural. The video was awful. Sassy, punk kids all angry about not knowing "who" they are and not having an identity. Well, that is not adoption's fault kid! I have more thoughts on this, being an adoptee myself, but I'll save those for another post. Anyway, the video totally sucked but it did get us thinking and that's important enough.

At the end of class we walked out to the car with our huge and intimidating binder. It was like graduating from college. Here's your diploma, get on your way and yet you have no idea where to go or what to do because it's so overwhelming. Well maybe that was just for me... but that's how I felt. I had this huge task of getting all of this paperwork going and even though we just talked through it all, I had no idea how or where to get started. But as is my life, I started in on it that very night. My next post will be all about "the binder" and all its lovely forms

I'll close by overviewing how we came to decide on the country from which our daughter would hail from. We initially hoped to adopt from India. Why? Well, there are an estimated 15-25 million orphans in India. India also has I think about a third of the world's poor. There is some info out that says a few states in India have more poor than a couple of dozen African nations combined. That's a lot of hungry, needy people. India wasn't in the cards. As much as we hoped it would be we were gingerly advised that while it would be possible, that it would take a long, long time. That's due to the fact that we aren't people of Indian descent. India primarily wants their orphans to stay in their country and be adopted by their people. And if that can't happen, they want them adopted by Indians living abroad. And if that can't happen, then they may consider Indian people who are from other countries. And if that isn't the case, then they will consider prospective parents who are of Indian descent. Lastly, if they can't find any of the above, i.e. INDIANS! , they may consider whiteys like us. Yes I'm poking fun of us so don't get offended by that term. The term they use for people like us is probably worse anyway.

So then we looked into Ethiopia, which was our second choice. It COULD be an option but the program has been put on hold. The story we got is that there is a backlog of paperwork. But the insider scoop is that a certain organization that we've all heard of and maybe given charitable donations to, caused a big, ol' problem in Ethiopia. They basically gave the Ethiopian government a little bit of money, and by little bit, I mean in the millions of dollars range, to shut down their international adoptions. And so they did. For now. Sad.

So during a nice conversation with one of the women at our agency, we decided the best route for us would be China. She basically put us in our places and let us know that if our goal is to add a child to our family, have predictability of the process, and change a child's life, that there are thousands of kids in China that would fit the bill. So we are proud and excited to say that we are adopting our daughter from the Waiting Child Program in China. She will have minor to repairable special needs and we can't wait to meet her!