That post where I offend lovers of the term "orphans"

I hate the word "orphan".
I just hate it.

I can't help but notice how it's been used in the past few years to evoke an emotional response and cause people to MOVE on behalf of children... but I am just DONE with the word.
I'm done with t-shirts and posters and special awareness days using the word "orphan".

Here's the thing, folks...
I've noticed that the people who are pushing these orphan souvenirs (t-shirts especially) are adoptive parents themselves for the most part. Let me get this straight. You go out in public, WITH your adopted child, wearing an "orphan" t-shirt?? Why?? So you leave no doubt in anyone's mind that your child is adopted? So that they look at you like the local orphan-guru, know-it-all, expert-on-all-things-adoption? So that you look better than anyone else?
Yes, we've adopted children. And you know what??
They aren't orphans anymore.
They are my children. MINE.
They have a family.
They have a Mommy and a Daddy.
They are cared for and provided for and most importantly - - they are NOT my ministry. 
They are my children.
They are not YOUR ministry either.

So, we won't be standing under any "orphan" banners in a few Sundays proclaiming the "good thing" we've done.
We won't be showing our former-orphan children off in front of the church and talking about all the kids who we didn't choose who are still waiting.
This is personal.
Their former-orphan status is personal.
They are real children with real stories!!

Shame on us for pimping our our children to further the local orphan ministry.

And what of our biological children?
Are they somehow less important since they've never lost their parents?
Are they somehow less special?
Maybe we need a shirt that says "7 Billion people on Earth. I am one of them." just to seal the deal.
It's like a world of Sneeches. We could get stars tattooed on our foreheads and have a universal code letting people know how many kids we have and how they came to us - just so everyone knows we've survived both forms of family enlargement.

Does this not seem self-serving to anyone else?
I understand wanting to advocate for children with no family of their own... but there HAS to be a way to do this without all of us adoptive mothers (and fathers) looking like a bunch of pride-filled, orphan divas.

Mourning

I lost a niece today.

Her mother is heart broken as are the rest of us. She was supposed to get on a plane to go meet her in three days.

I mourn a world that doesn't understand why this is devastating. I mourn a world that doesn't value her children. I mourn a world that doesn't know that this child, whom we have never met, is still in our family. I mourn.

I go to the library and am asked how I am. "Doing alright," I lie. My niece died. Oh dear! Which one? She's the baby girl we planned to welcome home next month. Oh. I play the conversation out in my head and opt to keep it to myself.

I make the calls and scrape my heart off the floor to play Tomas the Train with my son who doesn't understand why mommy can't stop crying and I even question it myself.

For those people who don't understand adoption, who don't see it as anything but a chance to grow your family should you desire more children, who don't know that if we don't value the next generation all hope is lost, who don't see the value in a soul with special needs (be it chromosomal, color, age, birth defect, or otherwise), they might not understand why we are all crying.

Thank goodness you hadn't met her.
You really dodged a bullet. Imagine if she'd come home and then died.
All things work together for good.

I mourn a world that would see this as anything other than the loss that it is.

Yes, we are mourning a child we never knew.
She died without her mommy.
But she went to Jesus loved.
Her mommy said yes.

But for the Grace of God Go I

I found out this morning that a fellow adoptive mama of a child my child knows was arrested for child abuse.

As I read through the articles about the situation I was sick that I didn't know. Or didn't do. Or something. And the other part of me just keeps thinking, "What if it were me?"

We visited online and she would ask how things were for us and then she would ask if my child did some of the same behaviors and I might say yes or no. We'd promise to pray for one another. We'd say God will get us through this hard season. We'd agree that we knew it wouldn't be easy. And I guess I thought her situation was like mine. Hard, but doable, with many sunshiney moments.

Adopting is kind of like bootcamp. It doesn't matter if you would have been friends if you met on the street, you are bound by your experiences. And we adoptive mamas share our experiences. Probably more freely with one another than with others who haven't been there. I have a whole group of them that I would trust with a lot more information than most others in my life.

And I didn't see it coming.

I mean, you say stuff. This kid is driving me crazy. I'm so, so tired. I'm waiting for the beautiful. Can you believe he tried to pull this? When will they learn to use toilet paper? Another meal rejected. When will they eat my food without fake vomiting? I say it. Others say it. But mostly it is a momentary thing and you move on.

I haven't talked with this mom in several months and hadn't really thought about her, I'll be honest. But as I read through the list of stuff charged against her I could itemize most of it against some known older child adoption behavior and wonder....was it simple discipline gone wrong? One behavior, one consequence might not have racked up charges. The compilation of many could. At what point should she have called in crisis management and said, "I can't do it?"

I am fortunate. My children irritate me, but their behavior is generally manageable. And when it isn't, we all go to bed early. I might raise my voice. I might make threats of no playdates ever again or other things that I'll have to reneg on. We might all cry. But my kids are just kids. Some are more hurt emotionally than others because of stuff that happened to them before me, but they are generally emotionally healthy. Generally well behaved. Most rottenness here is just "kid," not "adopted kid."

What if they hadn't been? What if they'd come to me having rages, spitting food, refusing to use a toilet, hitting, kicking, biting, threatening, pulling knives, killing animals, breaking windows, stealing, lying, damaging and who knows what else? You go to conferences and you hear that this stuff happens. I don't know about you, but I hear it and wonder how I would handle it. Would I handle it?

When you choose a child off a photolisting, you have no idea what you're gonna get. You have no idea how your family will react. You have no idea how the chemistry will work out and whether the child will love you or hate you. You are throwing complete dependency upon God and hoping for the best.

Could it have been me?

But for the grace of God go I.

The Motions

 A sibling group of seven came available for adoption in my state last week. Ages 15-3. To look at them, you'd think they'd fit right in to my biological family. They would "match."

Seven.
Kids.

I need seven (more) kids like I need a hole in my head. Even if we did intend to have a baker's dozen when we were young and ignorant of how all consuming children can be.

The thing is: there are seven kids that need a mama.

It's not about me.
It never should have been about me.
I think that's what people don't get.

My child has been home with us for five months now and it has been a rough five months. Some, many, days we are like sandpaper to each other. It's been hard, hard, ridiculously hard, crazy hard, hard. And I have thought, more than once, What have I done to myself? I had a nice life. My kids all liked me and I finally had everyone eating my food (most of the time). Why did I think I needed to add another child who would clearly rather be living on the streets than with a woman who has rules, for pete's sake?

But this week, I again heard The Motions, like I've heard hundreds of time since it came out and I heard the words again like I heard them the first time when they struck me dumb and tearful. And I remembered....I remembered how empty I felt four years ago. How I would ask, Is this all there is to life? This self-serving, good Christian mom and wife, nothing remarkably different than the masses but Clean Livin', Scratch Cake Bakin', Bible Study Goin', Biblical Disciplinein', Don't Let Anyone Catch You Sinnin', unremarkable suburban lifestyle?

I was empty and I felt....nothing. The living dead.

This life we have chosen is HARD. In more ways than the adoption, but the adoption sure factors in. It HURTS. I cry. A lot. And I'm ANGRY. And people don't get it. They don't get me.

But this? This feels like a whole lot more something than the nothing I felt before. And on my hard days, when I hear The Motions and I want to throw my rolling pin at the radio and smash it to pieces because it pisses me off that I wasn't happy dead, when life was easy, I'm still glad we went for it.


The Motions, by Matthew West

This might hurt, it's not safe
But I know that I've gotta make a change
I don't care if I break,
At least I'll be feeling something
'Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life

I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,
"What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?"

No regrets, not this time
I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind
Let Your love make me whole
I think I'm finally feeling something
'Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of this life

'Cause I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,
"What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?"

take me all the way (take me all the way)
take me all the way ('cause I don't wanna go through the motions)
take me all the way (I know I'm finally feeling something real)
take me all the way

I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,
"What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?"

I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,
"What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?"

take me all the way (take me all the way)
take me all the way (I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go)
take me all the way (through the motions)
take me all the way

I don't wanna go through the motions