Five: Holy Crap, Really? *Updated*

The blog that I'm highlighting tonight was shared with me via email and I have to tell you, I've been thinking about what I wanted to write all day.  I'll probably keep it short and sweet since I'm trying to ease myself back into the blogging swing of things but jeebus, I'm flabbergasted by this woman's reasoning.

The blogger apparently got a couple questions passed on to her by one of her online friends...so far so good.right?  The first question was innocuous enough...what has she been up to?  Nothing miraculously interesting so let's move on to the next question. 

"A new blog friend (Hi, Ruth!) read about our youngest girls' names & wondered about K'Tyo's name...where it comes from, how you say it, & what it means. I couldn't believe I had never blogged about it, but looking back, I can't find a post about it anywhere! I am blaming jet lag after we came home with him for my oversight. :o)"

Here's her response and where I realized things were seriously messed up:

"K'Tyo's name is pronounced /k/ tie-yo. Honestly, we weren't sure what we were doing about his name before leaving for Ethiopia. For us, it was hard because he was 4 years old at the time, & obviously had quite the personality."

Holy crap, really?  Ummm, not only did he have a personality, HE HAD A NAME. 

"All of our children's names begin with a "K", so we wanted to incorporate that somehow (how we got going on K's is still a mystery). His Ethiopian name is Sintayehu, which means "much I have seen" (pretty intense, huh?). We love it's significant meaning, but knew in America it would be butchered."

Holy crap, really?  So, even though the name he had since birth had significant meaning,  you figured, we'll completely change it and stick a "K" in front so he matches the rest of our brood?

Ugh.  Just...yuck.

UPDATE:

The blog author has written another post, "Why Do I Blog?" in response to my comment on her blog, expressing my disgust at another comment someone had posted and at her post in general.

I'm saving my opinions to myself because I'm in an odd place tonight and my thoughts are a bit scattered.  Read her post for yourself and tell me what you think.

Four: Holy Crap, Really?

Background on the blog author: Married..has five children entrusted to her care.  Three biological, two adopted from Ethiopia.  Large following on her blog...most comments on her posts are full of  "Oh, you're so awesome..." and "Oh, I feel the EXACT same way..".  What's scary is that the commenters probably DO feel the exact same way as this author.  

~~~~~~~~~~

I'm really, really glad all my kids are back in school.

There. I said it. The three children that I birthed and nursed and raised from scratch, and the two children we begged and cried and screeched for and fetched from Africa...all five of these kids are in school. And I am happy, so happy, happy, happy, happy, hip-hip-hooray Mary Poppins happy. 

Holy crap, really?  Fetched???  Like a dog fetches a bone or a ball???  I can't fault her for being glad her kids are in school...but honestly, I was annoyed with this post the minute I read that.

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She then has pictures of the children she "fetched" from Ethiopia at the airport on the day they landed.

Underneath the photo of the girl, she captions it with this:


"I am crying with joy. R is ready to sprint like FloJo from the screaming white people."

Holy crap, really?  First of all, why do some adoptive parents do that?  Why subject a child who has just flown across the world, taken from all that they've ever known..everything familar..to a loud crowd of Rah Rah cheerleaders with signs and balloons at the airport?  Wouldn't it make more sense, if you're going to take a child from his/her country of origin, their home, and bring them to a strange place to keep things quiet so they have a chance to adjust?

~~~~~~~~~~

Another picture, captioned:

"Insert audio of yelling and cheering. GAH, why was she so clingy?"

Holy crap, really?!?   Is she really that ignorant that she could even say that?

~~~~~~~~~~

And then, surprise surprise, she laments about the end of the honeymoon period with the girl:

R gave us about 12 hours of honeymooning until her terror burst onto the scene. Sometimes her fear is so palpable, it literally takes my breath away. New places: terror. New faces: total insecurity. Transitions: help us, Jesus. She has asked us every single day since July 22nd if she is going back to Ethiopia. Every. Single. Day. When I discovered cashews to be a winning legume for her impossible palate, I told her:

"Yay! Good job! Cashews are good for you and will help you grow big and strong!"
"Big? Ah-Rrrremy? Big? Cashews?"
"Yes!"
She pushes them away and starts crying.
Once again, I am bewildered and befuddled.
"No! No Ah-Rrremy grow big! Me big, then go back to Ethiopia! No! Dis is no!"

Holy crap, really?   My heart weeps for this poor little girl. 

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And then we find out how she really feels:

 "Actually, I haven't had a shower in three days, I lost my temper with my uncontrollable daughter this morning and had to walk outside, I'm constantly cleaning up pee because uncircumcised tee-tee goes sideways onto walls, and sometimes when my two littles are asleep and we're downstairs with the original three kids who are so stable and healthy and easy, it creates a nostalgia so intense, I think I might perish. But enough about me. How are you?"

Holy crap, really?  Nice...refer to your biological kids as the "originals"...and excuse me if I don't feel bad that she's dealing with an uncontrollable daughter and not a stable, healthy and easy adoptee.  It's just so sad.

 

Three: Holy Crap, Really?

This.is.horrifying.  (And now the icon actually links to the site..sigh...I'm technically challenged).

The author of the post is an adoptive mother..of a girl from Guatemala. 

Let's break the post down, shall we?

"Earlier this month, a family’s world was destroyed. A Liberty, MO family received notification that a

Guatemalan judge had ordered the return of their seven-year-old adopted daughter.
This story caught my eye because I have a six-year-old Guatemalan daughter, and Liberty is only 40 miles away from where I live. So, it was hitting rather close to home. When I first read about the case, my heart went out to the family. For five years, they have loved a little girl they had adopted. I am sure they had official paperwork, and had jumped through all the hoops required in an international adoption. They hadn’t done anything wrong."

Holy crap, really?  First of all, a family was destroyed the instant that the little girl was taken from her mother's arms.  For five years, the family from Liberty, MO was taking care of a kidnapped child.  Not a child that had been put up for adoption...a child who was kidnapped.  Admittedly, to some of the adoption community, the lines between adoption and kidnapping are blurry anyway but this seems pretty clear cut.  And how the hell can the family have "official paperwork"?  It's paperwork based on lies and omissions...and it's pretty sick to support the hoops that were required in this case...since they were lies too.


But, a judge 1700 miles away ruled differently. According to CNN International, the little girl was walking home with her mother when she was snatched and disappeared into a taxicab. The mother exhausted every effort to find her child, ending in the review of 2000 international adoption case files. Once she found her daughter, DNA tests confirmed the little girl in Missouri was hers.  And she wants her back.

Holy crap, really?  "And she wants her back."  Yeah, annnnnd?  If my child was snatched from my grasp and given away by kidnappers I'd want her back too.


After reading stories about Baby Richard and birth mothers changing their minds and wanting their children back, my husband and I decided to adopt internationally. We assumed that once the adoptions were final…they were final, and we needn’t worry that one day, someone would come back and demand the return of our daughters.
When I read about the family in Liberty, I had a disconnected feeling about the case. It was happening to someone else and it had no effect on me personally. But, then I thought…wait…I have a Guatemalan daughter and she is six. Could something like this happen to us?
I get sick at the thought.

Holy crap, really?  You know what they say when you assume, right?  How does this adoptive mother know that the girl she's raising as her own doesn't have a mother and father back in Guatemala who are weeping tonight because their daughter was taken illegally?  Answer:  She doesn't.


I keep wondering what is in the best interest of the little girl. I realize she was kidnapped at the age of two. But, she has been in the US for five years. She has a family that loves her. If she was returned to a birth mother she probably doesn’t remember, she would be taken away from her family, to a country where she probably doesn’t speak the language. What effect would that have on her development? On her emotional health? Would it destroy her?

Holy crap, REALLY?  She had a family that loved her in Guatemala.  She wasn't given the chance to grow up with her natural mother...she was KIDNAPPED.  Who is anyone to say what a two year old remembers about her mother...and why does that matter at all anyway??  She was taken away from her family...taken away to a country where she didn't speak the language.  I'm sure that had a huge effect on her development..both physical and emotional.  I can't speak for the little girl in this case, but I can tell you that as an adoptee, the thought of anyone supporting her staying with people who had a part in taking her from her homeland destroys me and hurts my heart.

Two: Holy Crap, Really?

Apparently I'm back in the game folks...lol.  I was going to write one HCR post a week but the blogs/sites keep falling in my lap.

I was perusing my Google Reader yesterday, right after I wrote my last post, and came across this gem.

Actually, I could just post the title of the post, "You Know You Are Ready to Start Thinking About Maybe the Possibility of Adoption When…" (Holy Crap, Really?) and leave it at that but I'll choose some of the items from the list and go from there.

You find yourself noticing families that don’t obviously match and wonder if they were created by adoption.

Holy Crap, Really?  Yeah, actually I do the same thing...and then I think about the child and weep.

You make note that these families act kind of like other families.

Holy Crap, Really?  Funny how necessity is the mother of invention.

You make a second note that these families, especially the parents, look happy.

Holy Crap, Really?  Wait...WHAT???

When you hear of a tragedy in another country, such as the Haitian earthquake, rather than just thinking “How sad”, you think “Hey, there may be kids who need parents, and here we are parents-in-the-waiting who need kids. Humm, I wonder???”

Holy Crap, Really?  YOU DON'T NEED KIDS.  Period..end of story.

Just the tiniest little piece of you is more curious than afraid of the thought of adopting, while the rest of you is still terrified and feels like adoption would be giving up.

Holy Crap, Really?   Wow.  At least this person is honest, right?

You start to find those lists of famous adopted people fascinating http://www.creatingafamily.org/adoption-resources/famous-adoptees.html. Who knew that Steve Jobs and Faith Hill were adopted? They even seem pretty normal.

Holy Crap, Really?  "They even seem pretty normal."  Oh, what, as opposed to all of us angry, bitter adoptees floating around the blogosphere??

One: Holy Crap, Really?

The blog that I have chosen to highlight for my first HCR post is that of a Potential Adoptive Parent.

The nursery is being painted..furniture is being bought...paperwork is being completed...the fate of seeing "their" baby's face is in the hands of another person...and if you don't watch your back, she'll call her Case Manager on you!

Holy Crap, Really?

This couple is going to be adopting from Ethiopia.  Currently, they are 15 in line for a girl and 5 for a boy.

She offers up several reasons for why things might slow down for them though (I'm not quoting all of them here but you can read the post for yourself):

It is the "rainy season" in Ethiopia. This happens every fall for about two months. This season means that courts are closed, so families that have not been to court will have to wait until October when court reopens to go or be given a court date. This always causes a backlog, so the next few months will slow down. Add to that, the Ethiopian MOWA department is processing fewer cases than years before, so families are not typically passing court when they go- a specific letter has been delayed for most families so the families have to come home from the first trip and wait until they get court clearances to then be given an embassy date... this means the whole process of the two trips takes longer. So the babies that are already at Hannah's Hope will be there longer than "normal" so it means less children are coming in... does that make sense?

Holy Crap, Really?  I mean, this woman is actually lamenting the fact that there will be less kids coming into the orphanage???  And damn those court backlogs too...Don't they know that nothing should keep a person from getting child?  Not even the Ethiopian rainy season!!

Several orphanages closed in Ethiopia, including one that AGCI contracts with. Hannah's Hope, the transition home that our baby will come from, partners with several government orphanages including one that just shut down. These orphanage closures were for many reasons, including the Ethiopian government wanting to find an alternative solution to the orphan problem aside from international adoption.

Holy Crap, Really?  Let's gloss over the fact that the Ethiopian nation probably wants to be sure that the kids they are giving away weren't actually stolen from their families, shall we?  Shame on their government for wanting to get away from child trafficking, right?

Some families have been referred children that were at one of these now closed orphanages, and their cases will require more time and work- so these children won't come home on a "normal" time frame. (Please pray for these families and children!!!)

Holy Crap, Really?  I mean, REALLY?  I'm supposed to pray that orphanages open back up so children "come home on a 'normal' time frame"?  What the hell does that even mean?

And then there is this:

We knew we had a desire to adopt, but we didn't know from where. The domestic options were much more affordable, but they tend to be much more unpredictable and sometimes a longer process. Additionally, we do not know how long we will live in North Carolina, so we didn't feel that a domestic adoption would suit our situation.

So with the decision made to go international, the options seemed to be too numerous to count. However, we quickly realized that our options were actually very small. Each country has certain criteria you must meet if you want to adopt. We realized that our age, our length of marriage, and our income limited us to only two countries: Bulgaria and Ethiopia. After conversations with our friends who have adopted from Ethiopia as well as our agency, we decided that Ethiopia was the right choice for us.

Holy Crap, Really?  They aren't adopting domestically even though it's cheaper because it's a longer process...WE WANT A BABY NOW!  Their options were limited though because they didn't fit certain criteria...they are young, haven't been married long enough and they don't make enough money.  Excuse me if I don't have ANY sympathy for this couple.

And yes folks, they WILL be celebrating Gotcha Day..you can bet on it.

Milestones. As an adoptive parent, milestones are treated differently. You may miss significant milestones, like the first smile/craw/laugh/walk/birthday. But with adoption, you get to not only celebrate birthdays, but can also celebrate "gotcha days" when a baby finally becomes an official part of the family. With pregnancy, you get to watch the milestones from the beginning, even with the development in the womb during ultrasounds.

Name Change

I get bored easily.  And so, maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that I’ve decided to table the format for the Blog O’ Shame awards.  It’s forced me to step out of my boring ol’ routine and come up with a better way to get my points across.

The new and improved award will now be titled the “Holy Crap, Really?” award.

::grin::

Stay tuned...working on the first HCR post.