More blather about babies

My neighbors told us quite a while ago that they were expecting. I forgot about it (we have a rather large grudge against these neighbors), although every once in a while I would see the wife and notice she certainly didn't look like she was expecting. Then the other day Phillip sat next to the dad on the bus and found out that his older daughter is adopted from Kazakhstan and they are waiting for their referral for a new daughter from China. A quick perusal of my morning reads tells me the referrals are in (to a certain date, at least) and now I'm expecting to see a new baby fairly soon. Perhaps I need to rethink my grudge because gosh, I really like new babies.

The last time I talked about adoption here someone asked me why I want to adopt. And I have been thinking about that. I don't really have an answer. Unless "because we really want to" is an answer. Which it isn't.

The first time I ever thought about adopting was when I was in high school and read a news story about a bunch of Chinese baby girls who'd been packed in SUITCASES and carried onto buses to be sold to people in different cities. I have absolutely no idea if this story is true. I don't remember where I read it or what the context was. But I was horrified. And my first instinct was to instantly fly myself to China and adopt every single orphan baby girl in sight. I remember telling my mom that I wanted to adopt Chinese babies when I grew up and my mom said, "Oh, I would like that!" (Because, at the time, I believe I'd informed my mother that I was never getting married and definitely not having children and her grandmotherly heart must have leaped  joyously at this small bit of hope.)

I admit there is definitely a part of me that wants to "rescue" babies. I know that is Not Cool in adoption circles, and parents who are adopting want to dissuade other people from labeling them as 'saviors'. I'm not positive about this, but I would bet that most US citizens who adopt haven't been able to have biological children, for various reasons, and they aren't "doing a good deed", they just want children. In addition, they don't want anyone to look at their baby and see a charity case, which totally makes sense to me.  Those babies are people, not statements or proof of saintliness. At the same time, it's hard not to also give thanks that an orphan baby now has a home.

So I can't ignore that part of me wanting to adopt: there are many many babies without homes and I am readily available!

I was very nervous two years ago when Phillip and I wormed our way into an invitation to an orphanage run by westerners in China. I was certain it would be worse than the European orphanages I'd visited. I'm not even sure why we wanted to go so much, other than simply thinking that we were extra sets of arms to hold the babies. I think we felt like we were going to do some ministry, like babysitting kids while their single mothers attended job training, or making sandwiches for the homeless men at the St. Martin de Porres shelter.

I was expecting something like a Communist prison, not this:

We were not allowed to take pictures of the outside so I asked for this stock photo. The sky wasn't as blue (and I have to believe that was Photoshopped, because the sky was NEVER blue in China) and it didn't look quite so Disney-ish (although still rather bizarre as it was a huge pink building with turrets in CHINA, surrounded by construction and dirt and torn up landscaping). We were only allowed on the second and third floors as these were run by foreigners. The other floors were Chinese only and off limits so I can't say I've seen a "real" Chinese orphanage. However, the two floors I saw were beautiful, brightly colored and as warm as the employees could make them. But it sort of doesn't matter how many murals and toys and blankets there are when you walk into the Toddler Room and see 20 little cribs all pushed up against each other.

But it was during my couple of hours at this orphanage that I think my heart changed from "I could give one of these babies a home" to "one of these babies could be mine." Specifically, this one:

This is May. You can't see her very well because she wouldn't hold still. I'm not going to write about her all over again. I will just say that nearly two years later, I still think about her and pray for her and hope that she was adopted. Hopefully May is running around some house in the Midwest, or in England, or in Germany, wearing her parents out and getting applesauce in her hair.

I hate to speculate too much about what we'll actually do, or why we'll do it or what contingency plans we'll have in case the original plans don't work out. And this is SUCH a sensitive subject to begin with. I really don't know what God has in store for us, other than a sense that Phillip and I could be good parents, whether our kids are biological or adopted or fostered. I know a lot of people feel strongly about the genetic tie. I've grilled and tested myself on this subject many times, especially about not having a family that looks alike. I have four brothers and sisters and while we think we look nothing like each other, there are still people who mix up my little sisters, who think pictures of Rebecca are pictures of me, who see pictures of us as little kids and can't tell any of us apart. I think I look exactly like my dad. How much of that do I subconsciously expect in my own family? But plenty of genetic families look nothing like each other. And I'll bet my biological children won't look anything like me (or Phillip) anyway.

As for bonding with or loving a baby who isn't genetically mine... that's not even a consideration. I can't tell you why. It just... isn't. Am I just clueless? I held May for maybe 15 minutes and only the surety of the Chinese government coming after me with big sticks and tear gas kept me from taking her back to our apartment in the taxi.

This little one looking up at me is Daniel.

This is Renee.

This is Frank (aka: FrankWhoBecameASmallHumanGrowthOnPhillip'sLeg.)

Maybe I'm being ridiculous and not Thinking Things Through, but I'm pretty sure we would have taken any of these kids home and made them ours.

(I've kept these photos in a password-protected Yahoo album since our trip because I didn't think I should plaster them all over the internet. But these kids are two years older now, and most of them are probably adopted. They most likely have different names and different faces and live all over the world. And because I once read a post on an adoption blog where some awful person had lambasted the future mom for decorating the nursery and buying clothes and toys and baby things long before she'd received a referral or "knew that the baby existed". These babies exist. And I would have loved to have been able to hold one of them and tell him his mom was waiting for him to come home, setting up his room and getting him cute clothes and things to play with and spelling out nis name on the wall with those ridiculously expensive wooden letters from Pottery Barn Kids.)

(Also because you can't see TypePad sites in China. At least you couldn't two years ago. WHICH, if you are reading, Chinese government censors, TRULY AND STUPENDOUSLY SUCKS.)

Comments

[baggage]

You know, people ask me ALL THE TIME why I decided to adopt Bug. And really, my answer is "Because I wanted to." That's a good enough reason. Sure, you need to prepare yourself, educate yourself, etc. But why do people have biological babies? Because they want to. Adoption is really no different.