Remember that proverb about the overflowing heart?

So now that I have this blog, the challenge will be to keep writing! I am glad to have a platform that allows me to share my life with people I care about.

So share I will...

I started this blog with the intent to write about our adoption travels, but I guess I really should have done this back in August, or even last January when the decision was forming permanently in our minds. It has been a wonderful and complicated decision, and I didn't quite expect the rollercoaster of emotion and explanation that would attach itself to this personal choice. The world of international adoption is unique and frightening.

The decision to adopt has been a wonderful and complicated decision. But I wasn’t prepared for the rollercoaster of emotion and explanation that would attach itself to this personal choice. The world of international adoption is both unique and frightening.

My husband and I have had countless conversations in our history together about adopting “one day”. The primary reason always boiling down to "there are children already out there who need a family, and we are a family who needs a child". It was simple. Really. Except that sometimes it isn't. Whatever it is, “one day” is now.

We chose international adoption over domestic instinctively, though not without consideration and research. The logic being that though there are children who need families in Canada, these children have their most basic needs met already and some semblance of a family, even though their circumstances are usually not ideal. Often internationally this is not the case. So, I have been asked if we are doing this for humanitarian reasons. And the answer is no. And yes.

Each time it starts getting complicated; I repeat our elegantly simple mantra. "There are children who need a family, and we are a family who needs a child." Some children need a family more desperately. Some mothers need a family to want their child more desperately. Well and truly, sometimes it is a matter of survival. Sometimes it is all is just so desperate that it breaks my heart in half.

I don't know why I often feel the need to let others in on our motivation. Maybe I want them to see our world through our eyes. Maybe I want them to see that is not an unwise move. Or that this should be so accepted and ordinary no one bats an eye about it. It should be a matter of fact that we do things for each other in this world. Adoption should not be something extraordinary. People shouldn’t say “Good for you”. That's the world I dream of, the one I want them to know; the one where people don't starve or die of AIDS; where kids who already exist don't need families that didn't bear them. This is not a humanitarian effort, though I can feel my heart growing around the world the more I learn. My compassion for it is creating something big and powerful within me. I want to do more. I wish I could do more. This is not a humanitarian effort. That is not what this is about. We are a family who needs a child, and there is a child out there who needs a family.

Yet, the further in we dip our feet, the more complex it becomes. We chose Ethiopia because it has a wonderfully functioning adoption program. It appears to be an ethical, safe, reliable, and there is a need for adoptive families. It appears the Ethiopian government genuinely cares for their children and the adoption program is structured accordingly, with the well being of the children at the front of their minds. It is easy to get in when the water is warm. But then realization washes over me like a river. We are taking these children out of their country. Another chapter in this saga; my head was dizzy with concern. Will my baby grow up and wish they still belonged to their country of birth? Will they resent me for uprooting them and displacing them into our white culture? Will they feel alone in their own family? Am I actually doing them disservice? We chose international adoption for all the right reasons. Will it turn out to be wrong?

In my heart of hearts I don't think so. But my discovery of anti-adoption advocates and grown up international adoptees, lovingly embraced into families, who now feel betrayed and alone, a stranger in their own home, shook my world seriously, and we had to do a lot of thinking. Scott and I resolved that there will always be issues between a parent and child and that no matter what issues may or may not arise in our family, we will equip ourselves as best we can, buck up and deal with it. We will not be able to predict what fate has in store for us, only be prepared. We will learn from the mistakes and successes of others. I realize how my role of mother is going to change in a big way. I will expand my horizons and learn about raising a healthy adoptive child. A child who will not look like us, therefore the fact that he/she has been adopted will have to be worn like a badge on our family. So we will wear the badge; a badge of honour. And it will be okay. Deep in the dark red middle of those heavy beats, I know that it will all be okay. These big question marks cannot be answered, only heeded. Really, I think it boils down to the same concerns about having another child, on a different platform. When I was pregnant I had all kinds of fears that I also had no control over. We went with our heart then too. We will be prepared. We will be a strong, proud, multicultural, Canadian family.

And then there is the great big price tag factor; the balking at the cost. What for? Why is it so expensive? There must be a better way? But in our world, that is the only way. People don't work for free. The costs are legitimate. I can sum it all up in a simple comparison. My sister, who I love dearly, had IVF in order to conceive her two beautiful little girls. Each time, the cost was just as significant as international adoption. In her case she paid for the services of doctors and nurses to have her child. We are paying for lawyers and judges. The only difference is that we have a choice to grow our family biologically on our own, she did not.

And another thing about the cost; I know that whenever I have bought a vehicle, took a vacation, or spent a large sum of money on other very different aspects within my life, I have never noticed so much as a raised eyebrow. It seems our culture breeds a society of people who instinctively put more emphasis on possessions than people. The same people who recoil don't even realize the duplicity of their reaction.

I say this also hating the fact that there is a price tag, so to speak, on receiving our third child. Not because of the money, but because there is a child involved. I hate the uncomfortable, sticky feeling that I can't seem to peel away from a monetary transaction that culminates with the reception of a child that I didn't bear. Which is why I have been doing my due diligence trying to pin down how much goes where and what happens when.., how are the children surrendered.., but what if there is family.., what is a kebele, how much for court costs, etc. etc.?????

What it boils down to it there are few things that I know in life for certain. And the following are some of those things. I know our decision to have another child is for the right reasons. I know that we have looked internationally for the right reasons. I needed to ensure that the children are being surrendered for the right reasons. And in Ethiopia they are. Mostly for the same gut-wrenching, tear your heart out, despairingly difficult, poverty induced, hard to ever imagine reasons; reasons that are hard to call ‘right’. These are their babies, and for many, this is a forced decision of circumstance that has life or death repercussions.
As for the ones without mothers, well, that is another situation fraught with a terrible amount of pain, disease and debate. 75% of children born to an HIV positive parent will be born HIV negative. This statistic will leave millions of healthy children parentless every year because a staggering number of people cannot afford the medication that it takes to simply stay alive and raise their families. Nations of child-headed households are battling to survive. Obviously adoption is not a solution to the problem. And yet we find ourselves here in this grey and muddy meantime.

We are trying hard to sift through life's choices making good decisions. Going with our heart has had a history of working to our advantage. We gravitated to adoption intuitively. Like someone was calling. We heard a knock. Now we are opening the door.