grrlTravels

Sometimes you're up, sometimes not so much

Some days I cruise around my favorite blogs, top down, hair blowing in the breeze. I wave "Hi!" here and there, and blow a few kisses even. I feel loved, understood, connected. On other days I put the top down, pull out of the driveway and immediately feel like I am going the wrong way down a one way street right into a brief, unexpected, torrential downpour.

I haven't had the anti-adoption crew visit my humble little blog, and for that I am thankful. I don't deal well with vituperative comments, no matter how many times my therapist tells me to "consider the source". I have come to this idea of international adoption through a complicated mess of emotions, coherent thought processes, research, misguided hopes, logical thinking, day dreams, and love. I can't explain every step we took to get where we are. I worry daily that we will knowingly or unknowingly inflict great pain on any of our children. Perhaps it's not reasonable to even hope that you won't--perhaps that's just part of the gift of being human.

Adoption makes the process of raising children even more complicated. I believe that inherent in the act of adoption is a terrible loss and sense of grief, certainly for the child and hopefully for the parents as well. I believe that K. and I can help her to work through these feelings with a therapist as needed. I fret over the process of bonding with our daughter, and brood that the bonding won't be going well and we won't notice or want to notice. I agonize that we won't be able to give her the proper balance of being American and being Chinese. I know that she will face discrimination in ways that we never have, and hope that we can give her the tools to deal with it.

Some days I think to myself, "We have made a thoughtful decision which is right for our family. We are doing the best we can. Every life has loss and pain, and we can help our children to acknowlege and accept that. I am a loving, generous person who is not out to hurt anyone, certainly not my own children." That is on my good days. On the bad ones, like today, I have moments of utter panic wherein I think, "What Have I Done? Is it really the Right Thing to remove this child from her culture and forever alter her identity?"

K., who is a pretty practical person, would say, "Life is complicated and pain is inherent. We will help our children to find a way through. Everyone has the good and the bad, and it's up to the individual to choose the way they will respond to both the good and the bad in their lives." I agree with him. We will give our kids all of the skills we have at our disposal, help them to see the good and the bad in this world, and hopefully help them to choose the good when all is said and done. We are not afraid to acknowlege when there is a problem, not afraid to say the hard things to each other, not afraid ask for help if need be. I hope it's enough.