Postive Adoption Language

This post is written in response to the Adoption Love Link Up  that I joined a couple of months ago.  The topic for December is:
 What are your views on appropriate adoption language? (examples: Birth mom vs. expectant mom, was adopted vs. is adopted, etc.) Have you had any personal experiences with inappropriate adoption language? How, if at all, did you help educate those involved?

How often do you hear people say "she gave up her baby" or hear a pregnant woman being called a "birth mom"? These are examples of incorrect adoption terminology. Some people are okay with these terms, but technically neither are correct.

Gave up or giving up has negative connotations. Like how I gave up on grad school or gave up before the end of a race, because it was too hard. When a woman decides to look into adoption for her unborn (or sometimes already born) baby, she is looking out for the best interests of the baby, not giving up on the baby. The correct terminology is that she is "placing" her baby for adoption. You can say she is finding her baby parents, or finding parents for her baby or finding a family for her baby.

I will admit, I grew up hearing the phrase "giving up for adoption". It is a hard habit to break, so if you say it to me, I won't get mad, I will simply correct you in a way that is educational.

On that note, a birth mother is someone who has already placed her baby for adoption. Before that, she is an expectant mother, just like any other pregnant woman. Some women may think of themselves as birth mothers before they place, but that is their decision, not ours. We can't assume that she will definitely place her baby, as she has every right to parent after baby is born.

When I write about "birth mothers" on this blog, sometimes I over simplify it for the general reader. I may say our future child's birth mother/potential birth mother or sometimes I use the term "first mother". Ultimately, these terms are all ok, but I would defer to our child's birth mom (once we have a child of course) as to what she would prefer. She may prefer for me to refer to her on the blog by name or even prefer that I do not mention her at all on the blog, which is fine as well. That is the beauty of open adoption, we can communicate and work out these terms rather than just making assumptions.

Positive adoption language applies to the adoptive parents as well. I use the term adoptive parents on this blog to make it simple for readers. When my child and I are at a play group, you wouldn't refer to me as his/her adoptive mom would you? No, I would be his/her mom or mommy or mama. Plain and simple. John would be dad or daddy or whatever term we end up using. I don't mind being called a future adoptive mom, it is a description that fits the situation. We are indeed future adoptive parents. But referring to us as (insert child's name)'s adoptive parents is not going to cut it once we are parents.

Likewise, if I hear anyone referring to our child as the "adopted child", some heads will roll. Sure, our kid will always know that he/she is adopted, but the correct way to say it is Sarah and John's child. There is no need to place "adopted" before describing our kid. Asking us if we will ever have our "own child" will get you an eye roll and a lecture from me personally. Actually, anyone saying anything that makes our child feel like he or she isn't a true part of our family will promptly get an ear full and repeat offenders just wont be in our lives. Our kiddo comes first. Always.

There is your lesson in positive adoption language. I am sure I have left some things out, so visit this link for more examples!

Those Happy Little Moments

There are a lot of really happy and exciting moments in the adoption wait. Last night as I was trying to sleep, i realized that I never really share that sort of thing on the blog.

These are my favorite "adoption wait" moments:

When you find that perfect onesie by chance and add it to your stash of perfect onesies.

When you have flashes of what it will be like meeting your baby for the first time.

When your email is loading and you imagine an email from an expectant mother will pop up saying "let's get to know each other better!"

When a strange number shows up on your phone and for a split second you imagine it being THE CALL

Tiny sock collecting... TINY SOCKS!

Sitting around talking about baby names. Laughing at each other over most of them and then that hmmm moment... put it on the list! 

When you mention it to near perfect strangers and they have an adoption story. Thank you Starbucks drive thru lady... you have no idea how much that made me smile.

Imagining playing Santa Claus and sneaking gifts under the tree late at night.

Imagining that new Christmas stocking hanging on the mantle. Then imagining filling it with tiny toys, chocolate reindeer and the requisite socks and undies.

Designing the nursery. Making it soothing and calm and absolutely perfect.

A work in progress of course!

Having a mini movie play in your head about how you will announce to friends and family that baby is here! You know, just in case they don't hear you beaming from the hospital.

When your friends ask how it is all going and you can say "sure it is hard, but we are making it."

When you are hanging out with your friends and they start giving your recommendations on baby stuff. It makes it SO REAL.

Developing a stash of baby supplies! WE ARE SO READY.

Having our almost 3 year old nephew finally decide he wants us to have a baby more than a horse. True story.

The amazing friendships you make with other people in the adoption community. Trying not to scream YOU GET ME! YOU REALLY REALLY GET ME!

Picturing your spouse snuggling a baby, calming a screaming baby or even getting pooped on. Dreamy! Amiright?!

Dreaming of finally putting Yoda hat on baby instead of Waffles the cat.

Good things are coming everyone. We may not know a specific day or even month or year, but good things are coming. Our adoption agency's holiday party is on Tuesday, so we are really looking forward to hanging out with our adoption friends and possibly making some more.

This weekend our nephew Henry turns 3. Three years of watching him grow and develop his amazing little personality. He has perfect comedic timing and endless energy. He and I once had a 20  minute conversation about how peanuts are made into peanut butter. It ended with him saying "and peanuts make cookies crunchy". Words to live by, little man. We love this kid more than we can say in words.

Newborn Henry:                                                                                  Almost 3!

Happy Birthday Henry Huggybear!

The Truth Is In The Turkey

Repeating in my head, attempting to convince myself: I am thankful, I am thankful, I am thankful. 

It is happening. Thanksgiving is upon us and we are still baby-less. Some deep breathing and then some searching for things to feel good about. Our family, check. Our home, check. Our jobs, check. Ok, those things feel good. Really good.

Repeating in my head: We can do this. We can do this.

It is really difficult to process how we should feel in this time. This limbo carrying over into the holidays. Last year we did our best to enjoy what we hoped to be our last holiday season as a family of two. We did the same the year before that. And the year before that. Do we set ourselves up for that thought again? THIS is the last holiday season just the two of us? Setting ourselves up for disappointment perhaps? It is basically impossible to celebrate without taking these thoughts into consideration.

Repeating in my head now: Relax Sarah, it is out of your control. Relax, relax, relax. 

Ugh, nope, still feel tense. My chest is heavy and tight. That feeling that comes along with dread. How do other people who are waiting to adopt get through this time that is supposed to be all cheerful and full of family traditions, food, and fun? I know how people who haven't waited long get through it. Been there. You just keep that feeling of hope in sight. What happens when that feeling seems so distant?

Repeating in the very back of my mind now: Stop contradicting yourself.

Always. We are always hopeful. We are always sure it will happen. It is the word "eventually" that gets placed after "happen" that makes the holidays so darn hard. I can say time and time again that the hope keeps us in the right mindset. It really does. We are dependent on that hope.

So what is on my mind now? 

Well, despite all of the stress of waiting and the unknowns and what ifs, we have so much to be thankful for. We are healthy, well fed (too well fed if I am going to be honest), and have a huge network of friends and family. We have our cats, who love us unconditionally. We have each other, which is the most important thing.

Our Thanksgiving traditions are being switched up a bit this year. Usually, my (Sarah's) family gets together and sometimes John's too if they have the opportunity and we eat and eat... and eat. Either traditional Thanksgiving fare or more recently we do brunch foods - quiche, fruit, potatoes. This year John and I are staying home and catching up on some house stuff and watching movies. We feel like we need an "us" day.

My dad and I try to run a turkey related 5k every year. This year the Acworth Turkey Chase 5k was on the 22nd, so it is out of the way. I might challenge myself to try to get at least that much in anyway, since we will have the whole day to fill up with activities.

Here are pictures of my dad and I at the Turkey Chase in 2013 and 2014. Hard to tell the two apart as we are literally wearing the same outfits in both. Guess you can't call us unpredictable!

 You know, it really is going to be ok. The wait completely and utterly sucks, but it will only make us cherish our child more when the time comes. We can tell stories of how hard we fought to create our family. We can look back and feel stronger for all of these trials and say that we did it!

Baby Farrar, we know you are out there. We are saving a place for you in our home and in our hearts. Hurry up though, there are only so many 5ks, bonspiels and trips we can take to distract ourselves from waiting for you.

Everyone, have a delightful Turkey Day and make a point to truly be thankful of what you do have rather than dwelling on what you don't.

Q&A Part Deux

Lately, I have had a lot of people asking unique questions about the adoption. I thought I would compile some of them and do a new Q&A post as a follow up to the one I did in February. This could get wordy.

       I think the question I get most often is “Why are you not adopting through the state or county?” 

It is a pretty loaded question, because we think that foster to adopt is a wonderful way to expand a family. We have talked about the possibility of doing that in the future. So why not now? I can say that it all comes down to what feels right in our gut. When we looked at different types of adoption, domestic infant open adoption clicked with us. We also want the experience of having a newborn and all of the sleepless nights that come along with it. It really isn’t so much a choice, but a drive coming from deep within.

We have had criticism that it is selfish to not be open to foster to adopt at this point. I don’t agree that we are being selfish. I think that what is right for one family is not right for another. At this time in our lives, this is our path.

  What makes you think you can raise a child of a different race? 

This question is huge. I can sit across from someone and say the race of the child doesn’t matter to me and mean it 100%. I think the bigger question is how we will help it to be ok with our child as he or she gets older. Since we have zero experience with having a transracial family, all we can do is continue to keep ourselves updated on the transracial family dynamic through education and community involvement. We plan on keeping our child’s culture and heritage alive, no matter the race or ethnicity. 

Our community and the people we keep in our lives are very diverse. We have friends with transracial families and plan to keep in contact with our friends who are adopting children of all backgrounds. I know it is not a perfect plan, but I also know that times have changed and continue to change. The picture of a modern family is so different than it once was. We are aware that there could be additional challenges to us and our child, be we feel prepared to tackle those challenges head on. 

     Can you adopt from any state in the US? Why don’t you just go get a baby from another country? 

We can adopt from the 48 contiguous states. This means no Alaska and no Hawaii. As much as I would love to sit through two weeks of waiting for the government to clear us to go home in Hawaii, we won’t be adopting and couldn’t afford to live there for two weeks anyway. Our agency has offices in many states and those states would be ideal, because the legal stuff would be easier. This does not dissuade us from adopting from “non- IAC” states though. Nothing that is truly worth it is easy, so we will do what we have to do to in whichever state we end up adopting from.

As far as international adoption, there are a couple of reasons we decided not to go that route, but I will explain the main one. The number one reason is that most of them will not accept me as an adoptive parent. In other countries, kidney transplant recipients don’t necessarily have as good of outcomes as they do here in the US. Some countries, especially the countries that Americans generally adopt from, will not let you adopt until you are 10 years post-transplant. I had my transplant at age 30, so at 40 we could have applied and then at 45 we MIGHT have had our child. Sorry, no, I can’t do it. You wouldn’t want to know me if I have to wait that long. 

Since here in the US we know that kidney transplant recipients can live long, normal lives, it is not a problem to be approved and adopt domestically. An enthusiastic letter from my doctor and we were well on our way! Also, can we all leave the word JUST out of any adoption talk? Or infertility talk? There no simply just do this or just do that. It is so much more complicated than that.

      How much is this adoption going to cost you?

Sorry, that is personal. If you are legitimately looking to adopt and want to know, so you know what you are getting into, contact me privately. It is not cheap, but the costs cover the legal stuff we need to make sure everything is done ethically. There are extra costs involved that may or may not apply to your situation as well. Take into consideration legal, agency fees (they have to pay their employees and provide services to expectant mothers and adoptive parents), travel costs, materials (such as printed dear “birth parent” letters, cost of a photographer to get a good shot for your profile), background checks, and many other incidentals. 

          I get a lot of being saying that I am “strong” or “brave”, because they feel like they could never get through this process. I want to address this.

John and I are strong and brave, but not because we can and will get through this process, but because we are just that sort of couple. We get through things. I think our 13+ years together has proven that we can get through things even harder than this. The fact is that we want a family and are doing what it takes to have one. It is much like putting yourself on auto-pilot and flying through the storm.

There are moments where we lose that strength and let the pressure of it all get to us, but no one can be strong 100% of the time. 

       People ask about the dynamics of open adoption a lot. I think the question that comes up most often is “How can you share your baby with the birth mother? Won’t it hurt to have another mom in the picture?”

It is very hard to explain open adoption to someone who doesn’t even have the slightest idea of what it is all about. Open adoption is not joint custody or co-parenting. John and I will be the legal parents. Generally speaking in open adoption, you find something for the child to call the birth mom that is not “mom”. I would be mom. A lot of birth moms I have read about have the kids call them by their first name, while some have special name that is only for them and their child and the adoptive parents. 

If all goes according to what we would like, the birth mom will be in the picture in some way. We would love to know her on a casual basis- emails, phone calls, texts, even visits. I think it is pretty typical to agree on a few visits a year.

We would hope for holidays, birthdays, other special occasions if we are close enough to work it out. We know that not every woman who places wants that much contact, so we would be flexible with the amount of communication we have. 

          Here is my favorite (sarcasm!) comment I get from people. This one is happening a lot lately: “Why don’t you just accept the fact that God didn’t want you to get pregnant and learn to be happy with no children?” 

Okay, not to shock anyone, but we aren’t religious. No, our lack of faith in organized religion is not the cause of our infertility either. I won’t believe for a second that there is an all-powerful god deciding the fate of my uterus, but I do think there is a deeper meaning to it all, bringing us together with our baby. I am sure that if the adoption never happens for one reason or another, we could find happiness just the two of us, but we have to give this our most determined of all tries, because this is what we want. 

       Ending on a light hearted note, people are always asking what we will name our baby. 

That is a good question. We have our favorites and we have our disagreements on which favorites line up. We would like to stay flexible in case our baby’s birth mom wants to have some input or has a name that means a lot to her that we can incorporate. It is hard to choose a name without having a timeline for baby’s arrival. I promise we won’t choose something crazy like "Rocketship Koopa Paratroopa” or anything. We are huge fans of simple and classic names. We would prefer that our kid not have to go through life having to spell their name to everyone, though I still do and my name is Sarah….go figure.

Holy moly, that was long. I even had more questions to add, so I guess I will do a part three soon read  part 1 here. Let me know if I left anything out or there are questions about what I have said or why we wouldn’t name our little one after a Nintendo game.

John takes over the blog!

Hello everyone, John here. It's been a while since I've written one of these. Sarah does such an amazing job on the blog capturing our thoughts and feelings, but with the busy holidays coming up I wanted to take some time to say a few things.

Sometimes I look at my calendar for the week, or the month, and I think about how busy I'm going to be. Between work, curling, and the occasional band practice, it sometimes feels like I'm never at home. Some of you are probably wondering, how I will fit it all in when we adopt a baby? I realized that I've been keeping myself busy to keep my mind off of the wait. Drive to Memphis for a concert? check. Curling weekend in Wilmington or Knoxville? check. I look forward to when we adopt and the focus of our lives shifts to a child, taking care of their needs and wants, and watching them grow up.

I've been finding a lot of inspiration from new music lately. I find myself ignoring the latest Foo Fighters and Weezer albums in favor of Chumped, Roomrunner, and Free Throw. These are some of my favorite songs.




With Thanksgiving less than two weeks away, everyone is going to be posting things that they're thankful for. I see a lot of families at work this time of year, and while sometimes it's a painful reminder of what Sarah and I don't have, it also gives me something to look forward to. So to those of you with children, especially if they're adopted, I hope you enjoy every minute of the next month or two and take time out to realize how lucky you are. I'm lucky to have Sarah and our families and friends, and hopefully soon we'll have a child to share the holidays with.

World Adoption Day

Edited for clarity, because this is my blog and my perspective and apparently World Adoption Day has triggered some upset. All other perspectives welcome, but I will delete comments that are not productive or contain offensive language and accusations. REMEMBER, my perspective here, not speaking for the human race. I have no intentions of offending anyone, but I am leaving the post up.

Today is the first annual World Adoption Day. Created to celebrate all forms of adoption and all people involved in adoption... adoptess, birth families, adoptive families, and extended families and friends who have been touched by adoption. If you search #worldadoptionday on Instagram, your mind will be blown by all of the people participating and the stories behind the photos. The mission is to take a picture with a smiley drawn on the palm of your hand, take a picture, hashtag it and share. Simple right? Well sort of.. It is a simple way to show we support adoption. I know that not all people agree with this shiny happy way of doing this. Everyone has a story. I am choosing to spread the smiley, because this is my perspective on it so far in this process.

 All I can say, is that no matter how difficult this experience has been, I am so grateful to be a part of it. I am grateful to have met all of the wonderful people who are sailing along in the same boat as John and I. I am even more grateful for the birth mothers I have spoken to about their experiences. I am overwhelmed by the openness of friends who have come out of the woodwork to let me know that they were adopted to share so many differing perspectives with me. All of these experiences will only help me to be the best parent I can be to our child.

I am still feeling renewed in my hopefulness. This time of year is rough for hopeful adoptive parents. I have touched on this before... probably many times, but the holidays are rough when you expected this set to be enjoyed with your little one. We will get through it with the support of our friends and family and our adoption agency.

A few updates here that don't involve my emotions spewing forth. We are narrowing down a destination for Christmas. Probably Chattanooga or Blue Ridge. Somewhere close JUST IN CASE we get that call. We are new to the last minute list, so I don't think we are quite ready to stray too far, as we aren't settled in the hows and whens. We can't stay within 4 hours of home forever, so that is something we will have to become comfortable with over time. Looks like we might be attending another bonspiel for John's curling club in January. We have to talk about logistics and possibility of baby being in our lives and fun travel costs vs. adoption costs.

Let's see... another fun thing is that my friend Amy, sister in law Heather and I did the Esprit de She 5k at Piedmont Park on November 6th. They both kicked my butt, though I have legit reasons for hoofin' it slowly. There was an after party that was too crowded and just really too late, so we left and went to the OK Cafe for some quicker grub. I crave milk products after races, so I have a side of mac n cheese, which they are known for and a coke float. Don't judge me, I earned it! My time was officially 45:05 walking. Yeah, I walked it. I am missing some red blood cells in my blood right now, a common kidney transplant recipient trade off.. anemia. I wanted to be mad at myself for not being able to run long distances, but let's face it, I am a human with other people's kidneys in my body and I am still trying and succeeding. More than I can say for a lot of people with their original kidneys! Can't get too mad at myself.

This is Atlanta from the starting line. She can be quite the looker at night! 

All riled up to run or walk, whatevs.

I had to take this lovely little lady to the vet this morning. A shot of antibiotics and some very expensive food later, she is resting comfortably.  There was an embarrassing amount of yowling that had everyone staring at us in the parking lot and waiting room. She has quite the set of pipes on her.

Displeased to say the least.

So, happy "World Adoption Day" in the way we can celebrate the fact that women even have the option to place their babies in our society. Despite the issues with adoption in the US, it is much more difficult and often there are more unethical practices in other countries. We need reform in the US, particularly pertaining to open records for adoptees. We need national laws rather than state to state laws. We need more laws protecting both birth parents and adoptive parents. This is something I want to learn more about as time goes on. I am open to education on the topic if anyone wants to point me towards some resources.

In honor of world adoption day, please spread the word that we are still waiting to adopt through open adoption. Share our blog, our profile, tell your neighbors and complete strangers. We are level headed, normal and caring people who just want to have a family. 

Not looking forward to the weekend ending so this is fitting -- requisite Frank Turner song (I'll make fans of you all somehow):

My Kingdom For A Horse (errr Baby)

Okay, I am going to get a little emotional here. It's just going to happen and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I am going to be 100% honest, John gets the brunt of all of these crazy ups and downs I have had and continue to have in this adoption process. I am a terrifying erupting volcano of emotions spewing happiness and sadness and whatever else hits me randomly. This is not a lifetime affliction, it is an adoption specific condition I find myself in. John often comes home from work to find me in a puddle of my own despair and has to figure out how to pick me back up again.

I work really hard at finding ways to stay happy, despite our lack of success so far. I can tell myself again and again that we aren't outside of the average wait time yet or that everything happens when it is supposed to or even that the right person just hasn't come across our profile yet, but ultimately, that doesn't end the hurt that comes along the serious lack of any contacts from people considering us to parent their babies. Sure there have been contacts, but how do you count them as real when they end in so many questions?

There is this Frank Turner lyric that rings through my head when I have fallen all the way down to the bottom of my emotional state. It's from the song My Kingdom For a Horse and it goes:

So if I tell you all the little things that I think that I need, 
Will you tell me how to tell the world from the woods from the trees? 
Because I've been stuck inside my comforting familiar disease, 
And I need you now because I can't get out.

It really makes me think of John and I and the roles we have played in this adoption wait. I keep looking to him for clarity, because he is so level headed and rational. I am always wanting him to tell me exactly what I am looking at, since all I see is uncertainty and can't always seem to see the light at the end of this. I see the little things that individually make this whole thing seem so hard, like a Facebook news feed full of friend's kids in their Halloween costumes, baby showers I cannot bring myself to go to, the pregnant woman at the Thai restaurant demanding special treatment based solely on the baby on board and I fail to see that these are the good things in life. But they totally are.  

I get angry at the thought that for once in my life, something is too stressful to "smile and nod" through. I totally thought I was made of steel before this. Seriously. I thought I could get through anything with a little wine and dinner out with my friends and some exercise to burn off the negativity. This experience goes so far beyond that. The further we get into it, the more I see that John can't always pick me up when I am down, because he is down too. I see the changes in his demeanor and the changes in the way he looks at me when I am yet again discovered in that puddle of my own tears. The look of "yeah, I am there too".

We feel pretty left behind by our friends. We met so young and got married before pretty much all of our friends. We had the thought to adopt years before we tried to get pregnant and years before our friends started having babies. We fought through some fruitless fertility stuff and watched as our friends had baby after baby. Now we fight through adoption and watch as they celebrate holidays and birthdays and more babies being born with their families. We don't always get invited to things anymore, because we are childless. We have officially been left out and left behind.

We do know that it is going to happen. We do know that we will make superbly awesome parents. We do know that there actually is some sort of "fate" in how people are brought together and that will include our baby and our baby's first family. It's a matter of coming to terms with the fact that fate doesn't always happen on our watch.

This is a really harsh lesson in patience and self acceptance. Accepting the fact that you don't always deal with things with humor and strength is a lot harder than you would think. I am working on accepting the fact that it's ok to melt into your own little puddle and grieve, as long as you find a way to pick yourself back up at the end. I am learning that I have to pick John up too sometimes, because he can't always do all of that on his own.

There, I did it again. I wrote super sad and emotional blog post. I always say I wont do it again. I want to portray happiness and optimism. I also have always said I would stay true to how adoption really is. I wouldn't want to read someone's adoption blog and only see the glossed over happy bits. I would want to see the truth.

The truth is -- We are hopeful and optimistic. It sometimes is hard to let that shine through.