Adoption Books

I will start with an update on where we are in our adoption.  We have the application and fee ready to send.  We have been putting this off because our first priority was paying off our credit card.  That should be done in January or February, and then I can shout that we are debt free!!

Another reason for the delay I can only explain as God.  Even though I'm anxious to have a little baby in our home, I feel like God wants us to move slow, be patient, and enjoy the process.  So although it is on my mind a lot, I also have peace about where we are in the process.

As soon as our credit card is paid off, we will send off our application and await our first interview of our home study.  During that process, I will post lots of details for those of you interested in adopting some day.

During this time, I have started reading adoption books.  I wanted to share with you the first one I have finished.  The first books is called The Strength of Mercy by Jan Beazely.

                   

I loved this book so much that I read it in 2 days.  All Christians should read this book, even if you don't plan to adopt.  As Jesus has called us in James, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:27) And this book about more than adoption, it is about trusting in God.

The author of this book is both an adoptive mother and the founder of an adoption agency and Christian relief ministry.  She takes you through her own journey to adopt.  Jan Beazely started out as a mother or 4 biological children.  Thinking she was finished having children, God spoke to her to tell her to make room for one more. Months turned into years, as she dealt with her own children growing up and her family falling farther from God.  Her oldest daughter was troubled, and all she knew was to run back to God.  As Jan and her husband leaned more on God, they realized that boot camp was what their daughter needed. God used this boot camp to great a great soldier for him.  Their daughter ended up leaving high school, moving to Europe to attend a Bible school, and then became a missionary in Eastern Europe.  Through their daughters work, although very scary at times, they found the child that God had planned for them so long ago.  The story ends happy, but Jan and her family went through many trials.  The most important focus of this book is that God's plans are not always our plans, but they are the best plans!

Santa. Do you believe?

So this is a conversation that happened in my kitchen this week:

Monkey: Boogie, I need to tell you something. (Monkey says this with her teacher voice.  I'm not sure where she got that.)
Monkey: I need to tell you something important.  But you have to promise that you won't tell anyone.  (At this point, Boogie is not the least bit interested in the conversation.)
Monkey: Ok. Santa is not real.  It is just Mommy and Daddy giving us the presents.  But you can't tell ANYONE. Because some kids don't know that and we can't tell them.

OH THE HORROR!! That might be what you are thinking... that I'm in shock, that my 6 year old just told my 3 year old that Santa is not real.

Actually, I thought is was rather funny.  Monkey thought she was giving Boogie some important insider information.  And Boogie didn't really care.

However, there were some unfortunate events two years ago. Monkey was in preschool.  She was newly aware of that fact that Santa wasn't real, I'll explain why later.  And as most preschoolers, she is proud of any information she has and wants to share it with everyone.  I guess we hadn't made it clear to her that most of her friends believe that Santa is real.  So she decided to tell them the truth.  I think the the teacher was mostly able to keep it under control.  However, she also decided to share her information with my best friend's children whom she rode home with.

My best friend was concerned so I had a talk with Monkey that afternoon.  My friend and I thought that maybe if I explained that Santa was based on a real person, that she would quit saying he wasn't real.  After using stories from the internet to explain this to her, she said, "Oh, so Santa was real but now he is dead." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this point.  I had to explain that, yes, St. Nicholas is dead, but he is a little different than the Santa most people believe in.  We discussed him being a made up character similar to those on movies.  But the most important thing was that she doesn't hurt her friends feelings.  Since we love our friends, we don't want to tell them the truth and hurt their feelings.  Also, and this is what made her able to keep quiet, all children will know that Santa is not real as they get older, but it is up to their parents to tell them that.  That is a parents' job, not yours. For some reason that worked for her, and she has kept quiet since.

So now here goes the hard part...I'm going to say some stuff that some people may not like.  Please remember that I am NOT saying that if you do your Christmas differently that you are wrong.  And please don't judge my parenting by the following...

We don't do Santa.  That's it, I said it. When Monkey was three, we decided that Santa as a real person was not going to play a role in our celebration of Christmas. At this age, Monkey didn't understand much until the next Christmas when she was in preschool. We decided that if we wanted our children to focus on anything at Christmas, it would be Jesus.  We want them to believe in a man that loves them, cares deeply about children, cares deeply about them, and wants to bring them a great gift.  That man is Jesus. Second to that is we are very open and honest with our girls.  If we play games, they know they are games. I want them to always trust us, and always know when we are serious and when we are playing.  I think the truth is the best, and I think kids can handle a lot more than we think.

Do I try to protect my girls from bad and scary stuff? Yes! But when they want to know something, I give them an open, honest answer with as much of the information that I think they can handle for their age.

Do we have fun and play pretend? Yes! But when we do, the girls know it is pretend. When it comes to Santa, we still talk about him.  We read stories about him.  Monkey and Boogie both say that they can't wait to see what Santa brings,while often adding that they know it's just us.  I knew who Santa was by first grade. My mom still played Santa until I was a teenager.  We loved every minute of it, and I'm not scarred for my belief being "ruined" at an early age.

So as this Christmas season begins, we are hoping to teach our girls more about Jesus and giving.  As you celebrate or don't celebrate with Santa, I ask for you to remember that God, in all his glory, came to be with us, as a tiny, little baby, who would one day take on all of our sin, so that we may be restored to a right relationship with him.  What an amazing love story!

Common Myths of Domestic Adoption

In this post, I will go into some of the myths that people believe about domestic adoption.  It wasn't until I started to research myself that I realized I was wrong about so many things.

Myth #1: Domestic infant adoptions take years to complete.

In reality, depending on how picky the adoptive family is, domestic infant adoptions can take a few months to 18 months.  The average is usually around 1 year.  This is actually much quicker than an international adoption. International adoptions typically take over a year and sometimes as many as 3-4 years.

Myth #2: Domestic infant adoption is much more expensive than international adoption.

In fact, in most cases it is much cheaper.  The average cost to adopt an infant from the US is $28,000. And 40% of the adoptions fall below $20,000.  International adoption often costs much more than that. An average adoption from China is $30,000, South Korea is $32,000, Ethiopia is $28,000, and Russia is $59,000.

Myth #3: In domestic infant adoptions, birth parents can get their baby back at anytime.

Once the adoption is finalized, the adoptive family is recognized as the child's family by law.  There are short periods after the babies birth that the mother can change her mind.  Each state varies on the length of time.  In Georgia, it is 10 days.

Myth #4: There are no infants available for adoption in the US.

After reading Myth #1, it should become obvious that there are many infants available for adoption.  The current estimated US born newborn adoptions each year is 18,000. Compare that to the approximately 9,000 international adoptions each year.

Myth #5: Birthmothers are typical teen moms.

Birthmothers are actually usually in their twenties and already parenting other children.  They are typically single and struggling.  They are choosing adoption thoughtfully and because they want a better life for their child.

This is only a small selection of the many myths I have heard.  I believed all these except Myth #4.  I am NOT saying Domestic Infant adoption is better than International adoption.  In fact, when we started the adoption process, I thought International was a much better option.  I still think it is a great thing to do.  This post is to hopefully open your eyes to how we often believe what we hear without checking the facts.  And to let you know that Domestic Infant adoption may be much easier than you expected. What have you heard about Domestic Infant Adoption?