That was the reaction Adam and I had when we read this article we saw in STLtoday.com:
Adam and my prayers are with the Rhotens. Everyone who has adopted internationally or knows of someone who has adopted internationally, should be praying for the Rhotens. We can only imagine what they’ve gone through and how bad it had to have been for them to have felt they had to take the actions they did, whether they were right or wrong.
People have asked why we should have to take parenting classes, and we’ve even joked about it. Well, folks, this is why we have to take parenting classes. This is why we WANT to take parenting classes. This is adoption, not natural birth. While natural parenting instincts are good, they don’t always work with adopted children. I don’t know if any amount of parenting classes would have helped the situation the Rhotens are in. For all we know, they may have done much more than what we are going to do.
:-(
Last Thursday, March 13, was our 9th Anniversary. We were going to celebrate by going to one of the Ethiopian restaurants. I got home from work early, and Adam said he wanted to wait a little bit before going. I sat down and promptly fell asleep. No Ethiopian restaurant. I guess we’re an old married couple now. I don’t need children to get tired and fall asleep at
Good friends of ours also had a baby boy on the same day. They and another couple we are friends with were all trying to get pregnant at the same time. One had their baby, a boy, on Valentine’s Day and the other on our anniversary. Maybe we’ll have one around the same age so they can all play.
We finally made it to the restaurant on Saturday. The food was very good. I’m not big on chickpeas or lentils, but I would eat those chickpeas or lentils any time. Couldn’t tell if they were toning the spice down for us, but we did get a side of a spicy paste that added quite a bit of heat. There are a couple other restaurants in the area we want to try, and we also want to bring our friends, but when I described the experience, not many have been interested. A few have, so we’ll get a group together. We think we can get used to eating without utensils - Adam had the idea that when the kids would have friends over, we would take them to an Ethiopian restaurant, so they can go home and tell their parents that we’re the cool parents because we let them eat with their fingers!
Ok, I’m getting ahead of ourselves with the parenting stuff. We haven’t exactly been matched with children yet. I guess it’s still ok to dream. We’re currently working on our autobiography. That has to go to the social worker, before the home study starts. We’re both just about finished, but we had a couple questions about it that just got answered, so we need to polish it a little. I’m sure she wants our sentences to be complete and flow a bit. We should have it to them before the end of the week.
Meanwhile this story in the news kind of freaked me out: http://www.wibw.com/news/headlines/4756211.html We did insemination with donor sperm before starting the adoption process. Now, we went through a bank, and the donor was anonymous and had signed a contract, so what is happening in the story probably could not have happened to us. However, I am reminded that it is still a pregnancy option that is not heavily regulated. I have nothing against other people using that option or any other option to start a family. We did it 6 times with no success, but friends of ours have two beautiful children from doing it that way. It’s just a reality check when you can’t have children the old fashioned way.
Didn’t mean to end this on a bad note. We’re still psyched. Hope everyone has a great and blessed Easter.
The loan papers are signed, and we are amazed at how good a rate we got. Adam used to work with the loan officer. The adoption agreement and home study agreement have been signed, checks are written, and all will be mailed tomorrow.
Tomorrow we start working on gathering the stuff we need for the Dossier and Home Study.
Tonight we have margaritas!
I’ve been working on this blog for a while trying to give the best answer. I like what I read in another blog - “because our son is there!” How about because our child(ren) is/are there! I don’t really like stealing what other people say, but that’s a great answer.
I do have a confession to make. When Adam and I started looking into international adoption, this wasn’t our first choice. However, as we did our research, we felt more and more led there.
(from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia)
When we were deciding where we wanted to go, one of the things we were seriously considering is whether we wanted to adopt 1 or 2 kids. After a lot of thinking and praying, we decided we wanted to go for 2, which narrowed the choices considerably between
While there are so many cultures and ethnic groups, Ethiopians as a whole value their children as “more precious than gold.” My husband and I just found that profound in our decision making.
As we get further on our journey, we’ll share more about what led us to this country. There’s a lot more to it than this.
There’s one decision we didn’t think we would make for quite some time. I think we know who one of the godparents is gong to be. We’re still going to think on it a while - there’s plenty of time for that.
Meanwhile, we had a great weekend visiting a friend of ours out of town. Good times were had by all. Neither of us want to go back to work tomorrow.
Note to self - get those darn forms mailed out this week!
Cheers!