The El Salvador adoption?  Hasn’t budged an inch since we heard from them last year.  And while we understand that, on the one hand, we’re getting close to being done waiting for a process that just isn’t processing.  We respect the sovereign right of a country not to select international adoption for its orphans, in theory.  I’m not convinced that the best-interest of said orphans is actually WHY we haven’t heard from E.S.  But there are kids waiting right here in the U.S. who need familes, and as our own kids get older, more and more of them are becoming possible fits for our family.

But that’s a decision for another day.

Today’s post has more to do with the adoption we completed five years ago.  The adoption of the twins who are now totally immersed in our family, our culture, and the U.S. way of life.  While still maintaining a loyalty and affection for the birth family and culture they left behind when they became our sons five years ago.

Ours is one of the adoption “Success Stories.”  We love them, they love us; they manifest none of the really “scary” traits of traumatized kids.

Anymore.  They did.  Now they don’t.  But still…

We recently celebrated our 5-year “Gotcha Day” with the twins (their choice in terminology), and it was a great day of remembering when the four of us became a family.  At the same time, though, it’s one of the stake-in-the-ground days when we all remember that that was Day 1 for “us.”  We all had stories before that day.  January 2007 was just when our 4 stories all intersected.

What I wish we had known 5 YEARS AGO is:

• Goodbyes are important – It took us 3 1/2 years and one trip back to Guatemala to see the end of the panic attacks associated with the boys’s anxiety of being abandoned again.  What were we thinking?!  OF COURSE they needed the closure of saying goodbye to the foster mom who took care of them for 8 months prior to our coming!  And to their birth mom before that…  “Typical procedures” were that the foster mom brought them too us and then slipped away unnoticed.  What a trauma!  We’ve been paying for that one ever since.
• Any link is a good link – We lost contact with our kids’ foster mom after a year, and I really regret that, even though she’s the one who moved and didn’t give us a forwarding address.  We didn’t realize how much it would matter to the boys to have any link to their past, even if it was the transient one of their temporary nanny.  She knew them “then.”  We should’ve maintained that connection better.
• There is no such thing as “Forget the past; you’re ours now.” – Adoptive parents who think our kids don’t think of their families before, their histories before, however brief… we’d be kidding ourselves.  OF COURSE they wonder.  Of course they fantasize.  Of course they desire that connection.  Even if they never mention it.  With very few exceptions, they’re thinking about it.  Even when they’re REALLY young.  Ours were 4 when the questions started.
• We don’t need the birth family – yeah, until we want to know our kids’ medical history, or we want to be able to tell our kids which relative it is, exactly, that they look just like.  Where their original names came from.  Or else your child just looks you in the eyes and says he wants to be able to call/talk to/visit his “real mom” – not even meaning that he thinks you’re “fake” – he just knows there’s a natural link out there he’s missing.
• Birth Families are NO THREAT to Adoptive Families – for the most part.  There are some exceptions in which the child’s safety is really at issue.  But for the most part, our kids’ birth families and the loyalty or affection or just visceral connection they feel to them are in no way a cheapening or lessening of the affection, loyalty and love they feel for us.  Just like those of us who are blessed to have more than one child feel no less love for one child than his or her sibling.  Our kids love two moms and two dads.
• Particularly in International Adoption: There are complexities you just don’t realize you’re getting – For many of us, we are our kids’ parents for reasons of poverty.  Do poor parents not deserve to keep their children?  Do we think that?  Do we deserve to have their children more, because we’re educated, have great homes, can offer them so many possibilities?  Something with which Fred and I have been wrestling lately is that international adoption by U.S. citizens very much capitalizes on the weighing of our “Haves” against the “Have-nots” of parents in other countries.  There definitely are children in other countries who have no family members taking care of them; but it’s sometimes hard to be sure they are who you’re adopting.  Especially when most Americans are looking for infants or, at-oldest, toddlers or preschoolers.  Really, are there no family members able to care for them?  Or have their families been awed by all we have to offer and then subsequently shamed at their meager resources?  In some cases, Internation Adoption (IA) is clearly the best option.  For some of us, though, it’s all rather murky.

And so we’ve decided, in our household, at least, to do the only thing we can do to find the answers.  Since November, we’ve been looking for the boys’ birth family, so we can ask them.  And subsequently (hopefully), we can maintain a relationship with them from here on out.

Because there’s no one else who can give us the real story.  And there’s no one else who can give them real contact with their boys – sons, grandsons, nephews…whatever the twins are to them.

And even “only” 5 years in, we’re done with the murkiness.  The lines we believed when we began the process of becoming the boys’ parents no longer suffice.  We know better, at least in our family’s case.  What should have been a quick and easy search already hasn’t been.  The threads we should have been able to follow lead to dead ends, so we don’t know what really happened before we accepted the referral of two cute little almost-two-year old boys, not quite 6 years ago.

It’s a little bit scary, making ourselves completely open to the truth, whatever it is.  But on the other hand it’s also really freeing: it is what it is, and it is what it always was; but now, God-willing, we’ll know.

After some run-around with U.S.C.I.S. (and some procrastination on my part), I have FINALLY acquired the boys’ official adoption paperwork, as submitted when we entered this country nearly five years ago.

And we thought we had photocopies of all the important stuff.

We didn’t.

Pushing past an initial brush-off from our nation’s immigration department, I filed again this past September, loading them up with all the past history of my attempts to acquire our sons’s original adoption paperwork.

And this time, it worked.  And not only do we have pictures of them and of their other mama that we never had before, we now have the names of their maternal grandparents!

The boys were ecstatic!  ”We have 3 grandmoms and 3 granddads!” (They have “known” for years that they have four sets… but the 3rd one just became more real because they have names!]

But the best news?  One of them shares his first name and middle initial with their grandfather.  We know why he has his name!

It’s something birth parents take for granted – the rationale behind a child’s name.  And we were just able to give that to him this week.  He’s seven.

We’re so far behind.  But how grateful are we that we were given the good sense to keep their names?

Their names are their story.  And we just got a little piece more of it this week.

No, we haven’t had any further news from El Salvador regarding our application to adopt there.  Not since they asked for additional information back in February.

Maybe we scared them away with our lack of a nanny?

Pro’ly not.  Seeing as how El Salvador only processed 8 international adoptions to the U.S. in the past 12 months.  More likely we’re just caught up in the stunning lack of coordinated-movement that is the El Salvador adoption process.

Sigh.

So, no, I’m not leaving anyone out of what’s going on here.  There’s just not anything going on here – NEW adoption-wise, anyway.

But our first one has proven to keep providing us with plenty to process.  More on that soon…

Incredible Shrinking Parents

[Discussing the last day of summer camp]

Me: Remember, guys, you need to take your shoes off before you get in the moon bounce, so you don’t hurt someone, ok?

José: Are you going to go in the moon bounce, too?

Me: No, the bounce is just for the kids.

J: Yeah, if the mommies want to go, too, they’re gonna have to shorten up!

_________

Is That What I Sound Like?

[Stuck behind a slow driver the other day]

H: Oh come ON, buddy!

J: Mama, is he just LEARNING to drive?!

[Oh boy...]

__________

PLEASE Just Don’t Cancel the Fireworks!!!

[On our way to the local fireworks show, starting to rain]

Fred: Hey guys, just so you’re prepared in case it happens: if it starts to thunder, they’re going to cancel the fireworks show, and we’ll have to come home.

[Insert much protest from the young men]

Me: Well, guys, I know you’d be disappointed, but they have to think of the safety of all those people sitting out in the field.

Fred: Yeah, it’s not safe to be sitting out in the open if there’s lighting

Heriberto: But everyone could just stick their bottoms up!

[Problem solved... with the incorporation of some very obscure last-ditch-tip from at least a year ago.  Wow.  And then: what a mental picture!]

__________

Gonna Keep Working on That Vocab, If It’s All the Same

[Woke up to a banging sound this morning.  Came downstairs to find the boys in the office, with scissors and a Gatorade bottle filled with solid ice]

Me: What are you doing?!

J: Hey, Mama, we isolated a lightning bug!

H: It was Lydia’s idea.  [Lydia is one of a pair of twin girls with whom we spent yesterday]

[Too bad Lydia doesn't have any better grasp of the English language than we do!  "Isolated" = "Ice-o-lated" = "Froze" ... poor lightning bug]

__________

Higher Math

Fred [who, God bless him, has taken on teaching the boys their basic math facts to memorize over the summer]: What’s 9 + 3?

J [after a pause]: I don’t know.  I ran out of fingers.

Open Adoption Roundtable #26: Talking about siblings in adoption at Mama C and the Boys on discussing biological siblings of adopted children with the adopted siblings of those children (got all that?).

Birth Parent Bias? at SocialWrkr24/7 : Eyes Opened Wider which I appreciated reading because when I did children-and-family therapy, before I was an adoptive parent, it used to frustrate me to no end how many times courts would reunify kids with their parents only for them to be re-abused repeatedly.  She presents the other side of that thought process.

He Has Had Enough, Thank You Very Much at The Dalai Mama on her son’s response to her making sure he has plenty of opportunities to play with other kids who look like him.

Crazy, Emotional Week at Elaine’s Blog – on being the secret granddaughter in her biological family (she was adopted into another one, but is reunified with her first).

Something to Think About at Linda’s El Salvador Blog (not an adoption topic – yes I do read other blogs, too!) – on the “luxury” of trash removal.

Parenting While Not Noticing Race at Adoption Talk (why she’s against it).

For little hearts to heal at Rileys in Uganda discusses the child-trafficking issue that intersects with our adoption world.

I want a mom who never goes away at Percolated Paradox by an adult foster-care “graduate” on the effects of never having a permanent family.

Living with the mess at Pound Pup Legacy provides personal perspective on why foster and adopted children sometimes hoard food or other items – worth the read for anyone parenting one of these kids.

I’ve written before about how involved we’ve gotten with our church’s Hispanic ministry.  I’ve mentioned my now-very-close friend Reina a number of times, and that she escaped February’s house fire out a second story window while 6 1/2 months pregnant.  Well, for months before the fire I was driving Reina to her pre-natal appointments and helping with paperwork and with understanding the insurance system here in our state.  ‘Cause it’s daunting even when you’re used to living here.  Completely overwhelming when you speak another language, haven’t been here long, weren’t planning on a pregnancy, and reside squarely in the working-to-survive class.

Then add a house fire and the loss of every dollar and every identifying document you own, two and a half months before your due date.

“Vulnerable” doesn’t begin to describe it.  For nearly a month after the fire, she was so stressed out that the only thing she could keep down was bananas and a little bit of water.

But, because of our already-blossoming friendship, I got to be one of the people she and Carlos trusted in the process of preparing to bring their first daughter into the world.

A little gal who’s half Salvadoran.

They’re poor.  They don’t have nearly my masters-degree-level of education.  They’ve had a couple landlords take advantage of how desperate they were to find housing in time for the baby’s birth.  And life is going to present some really tricky twists for their family in the future, too.

But they’re family.

It wasn’t lost on me that if we weren’t stuck in waiting-mode in El Salvador I would never have been as available to be present with them as much as I was. Nor would I even have known them if we weren’t already adoptive parents of Latino kids, waiting to adopt more Latino kids.

But we are, and we are.  And I met my newest little friend Diana at the hospital just a fews hours after she was born and introduced the twins to her just a few days later.

Adoption, happily, was never placed on the table for this family.  They gathered the support they needed, they remained together, and they’re working out the details.

But – because of how we became friends in the first place - I thought of the many families of kids adopted from Central America who didn’t remain together.  My own brother’s and sons’ first families included.  And then of birth families anywhere – even here in the States.

Families – birth mothers, at least – who were convinced (usually by others, in addition to their own self-doubts) that they couldn’t possibly provide what was best for their kids.

And maybe some of them really couldn’t.  Maybe some of the kids truly would have died, would have suffered tremendous set-backs in life, or would have been unwanted.

But I wonder how many of those birth families were just families like this one that I know:  not prepared at first for a pregnancy, economically stretched already, and/or belonging to a racial or ethnic group that suffers discrimination and can’t see a way around that disadvantage.  But without the friendships Reina and Carlos had already formed with people who then wanted to help.

A support network of folks who just happen to have “connections” they need.

As I spend all this time my friend, I can see myself through her eyes.  That doors open easily to me.  That I think nothing of walking into an office with an application for assistance and expecting that if I follow the process, my request will be granted.  That I know where to find information online, can read all of that information in English, and understand it.  I have a map in my phone, a van with seating for 7, an extensive education, a credit card I can swipe at any time and buy whatever I think I need, U.S. citizenship… and fair skin and blue eyes.

It’s been easy for me to help her get through a process that felt impossible for her to navigate on her own.  It just takes a lot of time.  That’s been the hard part for my North American brain to accept: that there is no short-cut or more efficient way to be present for a friend whenever she needs it (within reason).  And that the reward is the relationship (well, that and the awesome Spanish tutoring she quietly provides every time she corrects my grammar).

So this spring, physically I was driving folks around while they applied for housing or went to an appointment, helping with English, collecting and delivering donations to the victims of the fire back in February, throwing a baby shower, and pretty much pitching in wherever my gringa-ness and social network could be helpful.  But at another level, I realized I just got to be a part of what is, in my opinion, the better solution than adoption: helping families connect with resources, so they don’t have to separate to begin with.

There’s no way I could spend this much time with another person, too.  Especially not as a home schooling mom.  But I don’t think I have to.  I think Reina’s my one person, at least for this season.  [And when it comes to helping a "Gringa" raise Hispanic sons, I'm hers.]  And for this season, even as we re-update our adoption paperwork for a third time, I’m thankful that these friends of mine aren’t one of the adoption statistics like my kids, their other family, and we are.

We obviously believe adoption is the best thing for some kids, or we wouldn’t do it.  And, yes, we’d like to have more kids right here in our own family.  But while reflecting on all of that, I find joy in working in this situation so that adoption never needs to come up in the first place.

Where’s this Heading?

[My sister Amy and I were leveling out our picnic area in the backyard for our other sister's wedding a few weeks ago.]

Heriberto: Mama, can we help?

Me: Sure!  Here are some rakes; just try to make the dirt smooth and flat, like we are.

[Minutes later]

H: Mama, how ’bout we just use our feet and stomp it flat.

Me: Ok, whatever.  That’s fine.

[Minutes later]

H: Mama, can we take our shoes off and stomp in our bare feet?

Me: Umm, sure, why not?

[Much dancing and whooping and digging of toes in the dirt ensues, and then...]

H: Mama, what happens if we just get down in the dirt and snuggle it?

[???!!]

Equals One Mile

[The boys learned about distance measurements in school this year, and "feet in a mile" has become their favorite measure for "A LOT."  Some examples:]

1. “Do we need 5, 280 moms to help out with our class?”
2. “Mama, are you 5,280 days old?”
3. “I’m going to keep saving my allowance till I get $5,280 in the bank!”
4. [Not that I ever get frustrated with them, but...] “Mama, are you annoyed ’cause you’ve already told us that 5,280 times?”
5. “Wow, I’m so hungry, I can eat 5,280 quesadillas!”

[José previously went through a phase where everything was "134," so this is apparently a trend.  At least I can tie it back to some actual learning this time!]

‘Cuz That’s How They Roll Out There

[While playing with a Lego city they Heriberto had just built:]

José: No, Bear!  Your cars are going the wrong way on the road!

H: No, they’re not!  They go over here!  Mama, don’t they go over here?!

Me: [noting the left-side-of-the-road placement] Well, guys, if they’re in  most countries, yes, they’re fine.  But José’s right that here in the U.S. we drive on the right side.

J: [moves car to the right] Yeah, these guys are in the U.S.

H: [moves car back to the left] Yeah, they’re in the U.S., but they’re in Chicago.

[And for some reason, José was fine with that explanation, and the cars stayed left.  Guess they've heard about the politics out there, then.] 

Not That We Can Relate to This Experience or Anything

[We recently hung a suet feeder from our tree near the deck, hoping to attract more birds that we can watch and learn about... but we have a squirrel problem healthy squirrel population here in our neighborhood, so I opted for a hot-red-pepper suet block to keep them out of it.]

J: We put up the spicy pepper block because the squirrels don’t like it?

Me: That’s right.  And the birds don’t mind the spiciness, so they’ll come eat it.  In fact, they really like the hot pepper flavor.

J: Even the baby birds do?

Me: Well, I don’t know.  But maybe the parent birds tell them it’s really good, and so then they try it and like it.

J: Or MAYBE the baby birds don’t really like it, but then the mommy birds just tell them to “muscle through it,” and so they do.

[Huh, you'd think that last bit was auto-biographical...]

We Drink What?!

[Picking them up from swim team practice]

Me: Good news guys: I got almost all the grocery shopping done, so we don’t have to do that later today.  Except we’re going to have to stop somewhere to get milk.  Walmart didn’t have any.

H:  You mean they didn’t even have any Fat milk or Skin milk?

[No, definitely not... though I do think they prefer the terms "Whole" and "Skim"...]

Should’a Sprung for the Chest X-ray:

The boys and I were out trimming back some plants in our front gardens, when José asked me, “Mama, what was it again that our bushes had and then you had to dig them out and throw them away?”

[Correct answer: Gall.]

Heriberto (with full authority of tone): José, you know the answer to that question. It was tubarkulosis.

[Or that.]

The Purpose-Driven Side-Effect:

José (humming to himself, then starts singing): Chemotherapy, chemotherapy, chemotherapy…

[yeah, he does that with long words, sometimes]

House Guest : José, do you know what chemotherapy is?

José:  [deer-in-the-headlights look]

Me: Yes he does; we’ve been talking about that recently. José, what do people use chemotherapy to get rid of?

José (lightbulb!): Their hair.

“My Salvadoran Crocodile Dundee” at Latina-ish – is a funny account of the valience of Tracy’s marido (husband) in saving their family from a very persistent snake.

“Love and Regret” over at Adoption Choices – A hopeful and inspiring post about the reality of living in an open adoption (while honest that it’s not always easy).

“We are here!” at Our Little Tongginator – After 5 years of waiting, my friend Tonggu Mama is on her adoption trip (with husband, mom and daughter) to bring home their second Chinese-American daughter.

“First-world problems that are ruining the lives of my children“ at Rage Against the Minivan - echoes conversations I’ve had with a number of my friends, lately.

“Dylusions – Day 6“ at 1036 Art – my “real-life” friend Ellen became my “blog-life” friend over a year ago when she started her own arts-and-crafts blog.  I check it regularly, and I really liked this particular piece (partly because I need that reminder on a regular basis).  But wander around her blog for a while – she’s exceptionally talented!

“Picking your parents: Adult adoption on the rise“ at Pound Pup Legacy.  Since we have one in my immediate family, this article landed near my heart.

And a series from a little while back by my friend Danielle in El Salvador:  “Trip to Morazán – Part One – Museum of the Revolution “, “Trip to Morazán – Part Two – Guerilla Military Camp“, and “Trip to Morazán – Part Three – Memorial at El Mozote“ – covering a piece of Central American history of which we tend to be unaware here in the U.S.  Yet the repercussions are with us today – most visably in the current “immigration issue” debate.

And this afternoon’s break just happens to coincide with our completing the last step of our 2nd annual Home Study Update.  That’s right, we’re now rounding out our 3rd year of this adoption process with El Salvador.  Still no decision one way or another from our most-top-of-mind Central American country, but that doesn’t mean we get to let our paperwork lapse here in the States.

I wrote last year about the process and paperwork involved in completing a Home Study Update here in Maryland.  This year, though, we had the added pleasure of needing to re-do our home Sanitation and Fire Safety Inspection in addition to the rest of the updates.

I requested ours 7 weeks ago tomorrow.  Today was the first available date.

So this morning, promptly at 9 a.m., a very nice man named Merle – who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ron Howard, so I have the theme tune whistle from The Andy Griffith Show stuck in my head, thanks Merle – scrutinized our house from top to bottom.  Just in case we’d decided to let it go to pot in the last two years.

We hadn’t.

Though I will admit that the boys’ bathroom does smell a little like a New York subway station, thanks to some aiming issues we’re still working out.

We passed.

And $600 from now, we’ll have our report all freshly dated.  Again.  Just in case THIS 12-month season is the one in which we’re matched with someone(s) in El Salvador who need(s) an increasingly-Spanish-speaking-and-Latin-American-culture-immersed U.S. family.

The boys still pray just about every day for their “brothers and sisters in El Salvador.”  (The “limit-two” clause in our immigration approval doesn’t phase ‘em from asking for more.)

“Lord, please let this be the year.  Amen.”