I Forgot

There are so many emotions and thoughts to juggle when you are growing your family through international adoption. Big highs and big lows. Everything all at once and months of nothing.

And for a long time we were waiting. We were matched with the girls in May, and then we heard almost nothing for six months. I had pictures, and monthly updates with weights and small milestones, but I wasn't aware of any movement in our adoption. (we hoped the papers were moving through offices, but until the papers exit the IBESR you don't know what is happening.)

While I was waiting I did a lot of wondering and worrying. Here's a smidge of what was floating through my brain: I wonder what the girls are like. I wonder what it will be like to have little kids again. Can I do little kids again? Am I too old for this? How are we going to pay for all this? I wonder when we'll get to meet them. Will I know how to raise black children? I wonder if they'll like us. Is our adoption ethical?

Lots of wondering.  Lots of worrying.

But in the middle of all that wondering I forgot something. I forgot the girls were waiting for a family to adopt them.

Saying grace before dinner.

One of my earliest motivators to adopt internationally was because I knew the planet is full of little people who are being raised with out a family. Orphans. And even if they are raised in a great orphanage, it's still an orphanage.

Always lots of kids to occupy laps.

But then I got busy adopting and I forgot. I was worrying about so many things that I forgot the big thing. That these two girls in my pictures, need a family. That the very same adoption that is a source of joy for me means that they have had a lot of sadness and loss in their life.

There are so many ugly things that can happen in an international adoption. There can be corruption, child trafficking, bribes and extortion.  I got stuck worrying that I might unintentionally be a part of that ugly problem. Most of the online buzz about international adoption is bad press. And there's good reason for it.  All the things that can go wrong, do go wrong.

Often.

I've seen corruption, heard first hand stories of children who have been trafficked, met many children who shouldn't be in an orphanage, have knowledge of bribes and understand how extortion proliferates in these situations.  And I've only been paying attention to international adoption issues for a few years.

(My love for Kofael (www.kofael.org) has grown out of this deep concern about unethical adoptions. There are thousands of children in Haiti who could move home tomorrow if we would could find a way to support their families. If you want to make a big difference, look at this organization, their slogan, "Creating options, not orphans" sums it up nicely).

But, all the horrible things that happen in international adoptions doesn't mean that there aren't children out there that need families. There are. There are thousands of kids on the planet that need a family. You have to pay attention, and be sure to deal with organizations that are upright, but there is such a thing as an ethical adoption.

I hope my girls adoption is ethical. But I'll never know 100%. I think I asked all the right questions, and I think that Canada follows a very clean procedure, but there is always a chance that it's not.

Worrying about that took up so much mental real estate that I forgot.

And then I got to their creche (a type of Haitian orphanage) and I remembered. It smacked me right in the face that these little girls don't live with a family. That my five year old is primarily responsible for the emotional well-being of my two year old. That my two year old might cry with out anyone to pick her up and tell her it will be okay. That on a daily basis they spend a lot of their time without the kind of adult attention that we know children need. That if they should remain in an orphanage it would greatly affect their long term trajectory. That it's a big deal to grow up in an orphanage.  That they've had a story of heart break and disappointment.

The girls creche is really nice by creche standards. They get three meals a day. They see a doctor when their sick. They have aunties who love them.  They have clean clothes. There are things I would do differently (shocking, I know) but for a Haitian creche, it's top notch. But it's still an orphanage.

So, now I remember. I remember that my two girls are living apart from us. I remember the loss they have been through in their little lives. I remember that we will be their family, and they are not with us. I remember and it hurts in a way that I didn't expect, right to the core of my being.  I'm not sad for myself, I'm a big girl and I can take it. But they're not, they're little, and they're living in an orphanage, and every day they're there is a day they aren't with us.

And now that that truth has really settled in, it makes this waiting even harder.