To Thine Own Self Be True

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adoptee, adoption, adoption child, daughter, empower, healing, Holidays, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, separation, writing

How can you be true to yourself if you grew up not being allowed to know who you are?

‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. – Polonius in William Shakespeare’s  “Hamlet”

As an adoptee, hiding behind the mask of being “normal,” of masquerading as the “real” daughter, I could never live my life authentically. Early on, I assumed that there was something shameful about not being born to my mom and dad. The best way to behave was to strive for perfection in everything.
No matter how I tried, however, it was never enough. In lieu of facts, my imagination took over. I was competing with that other daughter that my parents couldn’t have: A ghost of a girl who looked like my adoptive parents and resembled them in ways that I simply could not. I had to make them proud, to prove myself.

At age five, I had (symbolically) been “born again.” That old life was just a warm up and I was supposed to forget about it. Never ask about those first parents. Don’t think about those years before being “rescued.” If I wasn’t successful in my role, I could be sent back to careless people who never should have been foster parents. Maybe it was fear that kept me from pressing for answers about my first years.

That said, I had wonderful adoptive parents. They helped me accomplish and excel

Being true to myself meant writing more books!

in many ways. Striving is not necessarily a bad thing. I did well academically, worked at age 16 to save money for college and graduate school, embraced writing at an early age as what I really wanted to do. My ambition was boundless. In many ways, that has served me well.

The downside is that I never “arrived.” Instead of being able to savor my successes, I kept raising the bar. Only now can I relax and quit being an overachiever.

Do I have advice to those who cannot accept their adoption? I can offer only some thoughts I would like to share. Knowing ones parents certainly has value, but if that knowledge must be incomplete or even missing, SEARCH FOR WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

If possible, avoid people who sap your energy. Vow to do something good for yourself every day, even a small act. Try a week of being your own best friend., and see if you start feeling better, especially about being an adoptee!

This above all: to thine own self be true
Read more by clicking here! 

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A Gift to You – The 12 Days of Adoption

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adoptee, adoption, celebrate, Christmas, discover, family, friends, Holidays, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, wounded, writing

NOTE: Because I’m immersed in writing a new novel, December will be mostly a month of republished blogs. This is one of my favorite posts from the past. A reminder of what I appreciate, a song of gratitude. Adoption is a mixed blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. Here’s wishing you and yours a beautiful holiday season!

With much affection, Elaine

*******************************************************************

 

An Adoptee’s Song:
“The Twelve Gifts of Adoption”

With Christmas and Hannakah seasons upon us, music fills the air. From the radio, Mall Muzak or live musicians, we often hear “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” In your imagination, listen to the melody… then read with an open heart as this ADOPTEE offers a different take on a familiar song…

A is for adorable, which is what we all are as babies

D is for dependent, which is what we are, as little ones

O is for the orphans we may have felt ourselves to be when our original parents ! relinquished us

P is for the new parents who took us in and cared for us

T is for transition as we try to fit into a new family

I is for intuition as the adopted child wonders why she was given up or he imagines meeting his birthparents

O is for overcoming negative assumptions about “Why was I given up for adoption?”

N is for NOW, which is the time we have to focus on the joy rather than the sadness

L is for listening to our higher selves, which help us transcend

O is for overcoming even a painful, depressing background

V is for the vitality we experience when we realize that we are more than good enough;we are shining stars

E is for the embrace we give ourselves when we are in a place of LOVE

ADOPTION = LOVE

I Hereby Adopt a Mountain

Tags

adoptee, Climbing, Hiking, mountains, national adoption month, Paths, Santa Fe, Solitude, Vistas

Note from Elaine: In the spirit of hiking for happiness I’m re-publishing  this step-by-step account of a beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico outing. It’s also a chapter in my new book SANTA FE ON FOOT-EXPLORING THE CITY DIFFERENT.

********************************************************************

To celebrate November, National Adoption Month, I hereby adopt a mountain.
Monte Sol (Sun Mountain) gives me inspiration for writing and a new appreciation for simply being alive.

. Allow me to explain…

Readers may know that my favorite short day hike is Sun Mountain, often called by its Spanish name, “Monte Sol.” Along with three other prominent foothills of the Rockies, it offers a distinctive silhouette. The skyline of southeastern Santa Fe goes like this: Picacho Peak, a near triangle topped by a slanted nipple shape; long galumphing Atalaya, a favorite five-mile hike; and Monte Sol, the most perfectly symmetrical of the three.

Monte Sol is right off Old Santa Fe Trail.

Monte Sol is beautiful and convenient. I go there almost every day. When the City of Santa Fe gained permission from landowners for access from the road, they established a trailhead to Monte Sol. It was a landslide victory for local and visiting walkers. The path up Monte Sol became more accessible to not just me (I happen to live practically next door) but to everyone in the world. Often it’s an up-and-down affair, but when I have time, I take advantage of rocky outdoor seating that’s perfect for sunning, meditating, eating a sandwich, writing, or simply watching the clouds drift by.

Though it’s only 8/10ths of a mile to the top of Monte Sol, the elevation gain is nearly

Almost there!
Almost there!

1,000 feet. The steepness makes for a good workout. The final third of the ascent involves over 100 switchbacks and requires one to step up, up, and ever up.

THE HIKE PROCEEDS IN THREE ACTS: a beginning, middle and end. The first section of path is curved but gentle. The second takes the hiker up a series of large rocks and to a view less of the city below than toward other, unnamed foothills. The contours became darker as the day advances. The final act, most demanding, requires careful footwork as the path narrows, at times disappearing. One mounts a virtual rock staircase, finally reaching a ten-foot wide rock that looks as though it might have been an ocean floor.

From then on, it’s a mostly dirt walkway until the “Ah Ha” moment of reaching the top. Surprisingly, the summit of Monte Sol is a flat area the size of a couple football fields. A panoramic view unfolds in every direction, and one can understand why early settlers compared the high desert terrain to a kind of inland ocean. The southwestern palate of green, sage, tan, brown and purple stretch beneath one in layers. Huge white clouds billow overhead.

There, with the city stretched out below, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Pecos Wilderness to the North, the seeker can find peace and serenity. On warm afternoons, it is often tempting to stay awhile, basking in the sun like a lazy lizard.

That said, though one can find solitude here, on this particular Sunday afternoon, I encounter a dozen other hikers. There’s the man with the Irish Setter with a yellow bandana around his neck (the dog’s neck, not the man’s). Along come the mothers of small children who’ve managed to train their little ones to tackle the arduous walk but to make it fun, and the young woman with headphones who is running rather than walking. I can’t imagine how she would jog the steeper boulder sections, but assume she pauses to pick over the rocks before continuing her fast pace.

Then I remember my younger self, a Me who was always running and training for the next marathon. I would not have been daunted by a few precipitous passes. A lifetime ago…I miss those running days. And yet, I’m grateful to be covering the same territory. I’m glad to be out here, slower but still strong.

Enough of Monte Sol musing. It’s time to leave the summit and head back down into the real world. I watch gigantic black birds circling overhead and take a final look at the distant road stretching south to Albuquerque, then hike down to the flatlands. I know my adopted trail much better now, and I feel completely ready for an afternoon of writing.

Do YOU have a path that leads you to serenity and healing?

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Join me on alternate Mondays for reflections on adoption and life. If you are an adoptee or adoptive parent or are planning to adopt, I’ll gladly consider your ADOPTION STORY for publication on my website. Send me an email with your ideas, and I promise to get back to you.~Elaine

Adoption Wrapped in a Pretty Bow

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, blended families, Christmas, diary, discover, empower, family, friends, healing, Holidays, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month

Note from Elaine: I have two books coming out in 2016!: the “remodeled” Santa Fe on Foot and a suspense novel, All the Wrong Places. Because of current writing demands, therefore, my blogging has temporarily taken a back seat. Hope you enjoy this republished but timely message. Wishing all adoptees an especially fulfilling holiday!

For Adoptees, the holidays can be tough. Not only for young adopted children, but  also for adult adoptees. During Christmas and Hannukah season, we are supposed to be happy, filled with joy, relishing family reunions. Tis “the season to be jolly,” fa-la-la-la-la-ing” as we frantically strive to find the perfect gift for every last person on the list.

As described in my memoir, The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries, I was five when my birth mom relinquished me. For all of November—National Adoption Awareness Month—I’ve focussed on my own adoption. It’s been an awakening, and not always a happy one. Though striving mightily to make this a good holiday for my own grown children and their families, I suffer from an all too familiar ache of incompleteness. We adult adoptees can become “orphans” all over again.

I’ve lost all my parents, both biological and adoptive. My birth parents: They could not have raised me and my brother, and yet I would have liked to have known them earlier in life. When I finally met them, it was too late for us to really form a relationship. Those wonderful people, the mom and dad who raised me: I feel an even keener sense of emptiness at their deaths.

To better explain why the holidays present this adoptee with a sense of deprivation, allow me to quote from The Goodbye Baby:

***

ABOUT EDGAR

Whenever I think I have finally been healed from the wounds of adoption, life serves up a reminder that I am not. It is the opposite of “looking through rose-colored glasses.” When one looks through the glasses of being adopted, everyday events are reminders of loss, betrayal, or abandonment. Through reading all my diaries, I became very aware of the unremitting prevalence of “adoption bruises.”

Elaine’s tribute to her Adoptive Parents

There are metaphors I find helpful in understanding the wounds of my adoption, including disease and death at sea. When troubled by having grown up as an adopted child, I let insecurity and self-doubt take root. Reason eludes me. I have given that negative emotional state a name—Edgar. Like burning flames, Edgar is fueled by his own energy. Like fire, he feeds on everything, which he transforms into negative thoughts about my past, present, future. Edgar is a demonic artist who paints the world in stark tones of black and gray. Like a disease, Edgar undermines my physical well-being.  Edgar lurks, waiting to arise when I am feeling healthy and balanced. When my spirit starts to wane, he is poised for the kill.

Edgar is always keeping score. His message to me: To be considered worthy of living, I have to prove myself “good” every day. If I do not, I might, metaphorically speaking, be sent to an orphanage. Never mind that I lived in foster care for only the first few years of my life. No matter that I should be well over the feelings of abandonment from that difficult beginning.

Fire burns everything in its path. Self-destructive memories add to Edgar’s growing stockpile of ammunition. Edgar thrives on drama and misfortune, not just mine, but the world’s… Disappointment appears and then malaise sets in, a pervasive feeling of things being awry. My stomach feels queasy, my shoulders ache, and my limbs are leaden. Uh oh. Here’s Edgar, I think to myself.”

If only Christmas were a holiday one could celebrate quietly and thoughtfully, I would be happier. That is not going to happen, so I’ve taken responsibility for making this season rich and fulfilling.

Loss, want, privation and melancholy are NOT what I want to give myself for Christmas.

I am taking the holidays as a time to deepen and renew friendships. Every day I will focus on self-care, spending time in nature, drinking more water and beginning each day with a morning stretch and hug. As a friend recommended, I will stretch my arms and legs, sit up and notice that I am breathing. For three or four breaths, I will simply pay attention, breathing in and breathing out. I will give myself a hug, saying “Good morning, Elaine, thanks for taking a minute to just be. Let today be about learning to love—myself and others”

Acknowledging my adoption as a gift

Embracing my adoption is a way of nurturing myself. This year, the holidays will be different. After putting “Edgar” into an escape-proof cage, I will wrap my adoption insights in a beautiful gift box. Knowing and accepting my adopted self is the greatest gift. When I do this, I have more to give family and friends.

***

Some questions for my readers:

Why do you personally think Adopted children find it more difficult to enjoy the Holidays?

Do you remember struggling with your own Adoption when Christmas/Thanksgiving rolled around?

Do you ever remember your parents trying to help you deal with this?

What do the Holidays mean to you?

How do you reflect on your adoption during the Holidays?

Adoptee Stories —>Share YOURS

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Celebrating Adoption, Contest, Guest Posting, memoir, national adoption month, Pros and Cons, Reflections

This Fall, I am inviting first person stories to my site.

When the publisher of The Goodbye Baby suggested a Goodreads book giveaway, I seized the opportunity to relaunch my memoir. Rather than”A Diary about Adoption,” it would now be subtitled “Adoptee Diaries.” The book comprises four decades of my personal journals as I came of age, as I accepted the reality that the wounds of adoption had to be healed. It’s been a fascinating journey, one that has shaped my life and continues to impact future writing.
In that spirit, I am opening the door to the adoption stories of others. These must be first person accounts, submitted online (see instructions below). They can be written from the point of view of the adoptee him or herself, parents wanting to adopt a child, birthparents searching or in reunion with their biological children.
The submission period runs throughout the rest of September and early October. Acceptance for publication is up to the editor. During the five Mondays of November, I’ll publish the best of the stories, and I will also send you a present (one of my published books) by snail mail.
If you’re adopted, here are the questions to consider:
* How old were you when you were adopted?
* Was it an open or closed adoption?
* Were siblings adopted with you?
* In what ways has growing up adopted affected you? Why? Or, if being adopted has not affected you, why not?
* Did you meet your biological parents, and if so, how did that go?
* Do you feel that adoptions be open? Why or why not?
* What misconceptions about adoption have you encountered?
* What is the most positive aspect of your personal adoption? Negatives?

Story entries may also include accounts from those who want to adopt a baby or older child, birthmother/birthfather experiences, accounts by adoptive parents.

Your personal account can range from 250 to 400 words. Please edit carefully before submission. Avoid an angry or accusatory tone; keep your approach conversational. Humor is always welcome. Remember that your story may make all the difference to readers who might be struggling with “being adopted issues.” Deadline is October 20. The top five submissions will appear on TheGoodbyeBaby website during November, which is also National Adoption Month. Please indicate whether or not you grant permission for use of your piece in a future book.

Along with your story, include a brief bio and a cameo photo. E-mail queries and submissions to deardiaryreadings@me.com.

Celebrity Adoptions make a Difference

Tags

adoptee, adoptive parents, blended families, Cate Blanchett, Celebrating Adoption, Charlize Theron, Sandra Bullock

Cate Blanchett, one of my favorite actresses, recently adopted a baby girl, Edith

Every adoptee is given a new beginning

Vivian Patricia. Edith joins three male siblings, ages 6, 10 and 13. In a sense, baby Edith is given a chance for a whole new life. As an adult adoptee, who was given a second chance at age five, I cannot help but be happy for baby Edith.
Recently, I’ve heard a rash of negativity of celebrity adoptions. Critics bring out the commodification of adoption, e.g. the money that sometimes enters into the “transaction.” They would say that when the stars adopt, it does not really help the overall rights of adoptees, birth parents and the adoption situation in general. I beg to differ…
There are 145 million orphans in the world today, boys and girls who will have to grow up without the love and guidance of parents. Any situation which allows even one of these children to gain a family is a victory, a triumph, a cause for celebration. Celebrity adoptions call attention to the option, when a couple or single parent cannot or chooses not to have children in a traditional way, of “the adoption solution.”
In my opinion, Celebrity adoptions have helped improve attitudes toward adoption as a viable way to build a family. Magazines and newspapers feature photographs of movie stars holding adopted children. Often these little ones were adopted internationally.  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, for example, have several children of their own and three from other countries (Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam). Madonna’s tots are from Malawi. Sandra Bullock and Charlize Theron are some of Hollywood’s adoptive moms.

Will they find a forever family?

To those who claim that celebrity adoptions do not help the overall causes of adoption, I would say this: the adoptions make a profound difference to the children who are chosen. Think of…
The Starfish Story
A ten-year-old girl is walking along the ocean and sees a beach on which thousands and thousands of starfish have washed ashore. Further along
she sees a grandmother, walking slowly and
stooping often, picking up one starfish after
another and tossing each one gently into the
ocean.
“Why are you throwing starfish into the
ocean?,” asks the girl.
“Because the sun is up and the tide is going out
and if I don’t throw them further in they will
die.”
“But, grandmother, don’t you realize there are miles
and miles of beach and starfish all along it!
You can’t possibly save them all, you can’t even
save one-tenth of them. In fact, even if you
work all day, your efforts won’t make any
difference at all.”
The grandmother listened calmly and then bent
down to pick up another starfish and threw it
into the sea. “It made a difference to that one.”

Join Elaine every other Monday for her take on adoption and life!

 

The Rocky Road to Adoption Recovery

Tags

adoption, adoption stories, adoptive families, birthparents, Family history, Internet adoption community, rocky roads, stumbling blocks

You may walk a rocky road.

“Emergence” by Candyce Garrett- Santa Fe Botanical Garden

My road may twist and bend.
We’ll share all our stories when we get together,
Together tomorrow again. -From Tom Chapin’s “Together Tomorrow”

Traveling the Internet for the past year, I discovered an online community of adoptees dealing with perplexing questions similar to my own. “Why was I given up? How can I fit together the puzzle pieces of my past?”
Thanks to online magazines such as Adoption Today, perceptive blogs about adoption, and excellent sites such as Don’t We Look Alike and Adoptee Restoration, I am, at last, staring down issues that have plagued me for a lifetime. What a world of difference this confrontation has made!
And yet as Deanna Shrodes of Adoptee Restoration said, “You wake up and you’re still adopted.”
Setbacks can occur any time, at the slightest provocation. For example, when I watched a program on public television about finding ones family tree, my outsider status syndrome immediately kicked in. How fortunate, I thought, to even possess a genealogy that you could call your own. Growing up as an adoptee, I longed for a so-called “family tree.” I’d been to Italy with my birthfather Giovanni Cecchini. After our reunion, we travelled to Abruzzi, where he was born. I met my non-English-speaking cousins, aunts and uncles. Following the journey to Italy, my birthfather’s second wife (not my birthmother) helped me secure a detailed listing of paternal relatives. And yet, I had a written copy of my adoptive family’s genealogy. How could they both be true? Did one cancel out the other?

When I was young, I made up a myth about why I was adopted.The underlying theme was “Oh, poor me.” That was a way of reacting to everything, seemingly as fixed as the stars in the Big Dipper or the belt of the constellation Orion. However, I was not a fixed star and I could shape a new truth.

Walking that rocky road can help one develop resilience. Online networking has the ability to turn emotional boulders into the beginning of wisdom. The harder the adoptee road, the more strength it takes to move forward. Even boulder fields can lead to emergence. As we approach November, National Adoption Month, how will you turn obstacles into opportunities?

Elaine is the author of 5 fiction and nonfiction books, including The Goodbye Baby-A Diary about Adoption

Guatemala Gift: Part Two

Tags

adoption, child adoptee, family, Gay dads, Guatemala, international adoption, successful adoption, transracial adoption, two dads

CHAPTER TWO-by Kim Straus

Jose steps into his new life

Remember my saying that we as older soon-to-be dads were not prepared to take on the special needs of a special needs child?  And don’t get me wrong, I’m in awe of those parents who do and I’ve met adoptive parents who have raised multiple special needs children.  Well, we quickly learned of José’s special need.

José arrived in New Mexico sound asleep in his umbrella stroller.  He and Jack were met at the airport by me, Jack’s Albuquerque cousins, and our good friend and my boss, who would later become José’s godmother.  One of the reasons we felt so confident in becoming parents was the support network we had in Santa Fe.  As we went through the adoption process we met other adoption families, including several gay dads, with whom we formed a small support group.  We felt Santa Fe would be a great place to be gay parents and had read a statistic that Santa Fe had the second largest per capita number of lesbian and gay parents in the nation after San Francisco.

Not only did we get support from other gay dads and lesbian moms but also many straight friends, including a number of close women friends.  One of Jack’s former colleagues from his time teaching at Zuni Pueblo lived with us for a year before she bought a home down the street.  We still belong to an adoption group that consists of straight and gay families – and several Guatemalan children.

One recommendation we received from parents who had adopted internationally was of a pediatrician in town who understood health issues that might arise in these children.

We took José to see her a few days after his arrival for a good check-up which proved extremely, I mean extremely, fortunate.  She ordered a blood test and when she received the results, called us immediately.

José had hypothyroidism.  Basically, José’s thyroid wasn’t working at all.  This explained his small size and lack at seven months of some basic early motor skills. It may also explain why our adoption process went so quickly.  We speculate that the doctor seeing José for his check-ups in Guatemala either knew or suspected something like the hypothyroid condition and urged the process move quickly.

All babies born in this country get checked for this and perhaps those up for adoption in Guatemala do, too, but the diagnosis isn’t revealed for fear it would jeopardize the adoption. Most adopting parents want a perfect baby unless they specifically request a special needs child.

Our doctor said run, don’t walk to the pharmacy for medication which José takes daily and will probably for the rest of his life.  Our wonderful pediatrician also connected us with an amazing pediatric endocrinologist in Albuquerque; we all love our visits with her.  José’s development is on the normal scale although as a Guatemalan Mayan, he will never likely be very tall.

I won’t deny that becoming a parent later in life is a real challenge.  You get set in your ways, used to your routines, thinking about a future that never before included diapers, play dates, baseball practice, science fair projects, and PTA.  I admit that tucked way back in my brain was a bit of resentment about such drastic change in lifestyle.  But all this was greatly overshadowed by the joys that happened every day, some of these I think of as miraculous and magical.  When José would fall asleep in my arms as a baby, reading bedtime stories and singing songs, and, yes, going to baseball games.

José attended a pre-school in our neighborhood and every morning I would pull him to school in a wooden wagon made in the Wisconsin town where my mother, who turned 100 last year, was born.  The miracles and joys still happen and I am still amazed at being a parent.

José is thriving, as best we can tell, and so are we.  We are having unimagined

Jose says “Two Dads are better than one!”

adventures.  Last year we took José to Disneyland and I did something I swore I’d never to do again  — went on not one but several rollercoaster rides. What we won’t do for our kids!

One last adoption story for now, at least:  When we were going through the process, one of the forms for Guatemala Jack had to submit and get certified by the New Mexico Secretary of State was a doctor’s statement that he was “in good health and showed no signs of homosexuality.” 

Jack’s own doctor requested that he not have to do it, so I asked my doctor if he would sign the statement, to which he agreed.  My doctor was not only a hero in the gay community for his early treatment of people with HIV/AIDS but was soon to retire.  He was not worried about any ramifications.  Besides, the statement read, “shows no signs” and since Jack was not his patient, my doctor could truthfully say after an examination that Jack was in good health and ‘showed no signs.’  As Jack sat in the waiting room for the appointment, he casually picked up People magazine. Then he realized that might be a sign, and quickly picked up Sports Illustrated.

Warmest hugs to all you adoptive and adopting parents from two very lucky dads.

Guatemala Gift

Tags

adoption, family, Gay dads, Guatemala, international adoption

Guest Post: Kim and Jack adopt José Toxpop

CHAPTER ONE – by Kim Straus

Our adoption story may be like many others experienced by two gay men, but then every story is different.  Ours began in 2004, the year José was born.

It was early February.  I had just finished reading the book, Gay Dads.  My dentist, his partner, and their two sons were featured in a chapter.  As I closed the book that evening I turned to Jack and said, “We could do this.”  Well, the next day, Jack was on the internet looking up gay adoption.  When I made that comment I had no idea of the depth of Jack’s feeling about wanting to be a father, about wanting to start a family.  While we’re both from big families, his is very close; mine is not. He had far better role models for parents than I did; I likely always feared being the inept parents mine were.

And, you see, most gay men of our generation grew up thinking that we’d never be fathers.  For us adoption was still a relatively new and uncommon idea.  And when we did hear of gay adoption, it was often a news story involving discriminatory state laws and hateful attitudes.

Nevertheless, despite a few reservations, we plunged into the process of endless forms, background checks, home studies, parenting classes, affidavits, etc.  One of the first decisions we made was that we would do an international adoption.  We knew others who had made this choice and we felt it would be safer.  We’d heard those stories of domestic adoptions that had been reversed by distant relatives of the child.  And, sadly, we knew that there was the chance that a child put up for adoption in this country could have fetal alcohol syndrome.  Jack and I are not spring chickens – he was turning forty and I was fifty-one.  We did not feel we could truly handle a special needs child.  But then all children have special needs.  As it turned out, ours did, but it was something we could handle.

We connected with an adoption agency here in New Mexico that prided itself in helping gay people adopt (the same agency my dentist and his partner used) and we soon learned that New Mexico has one of the best records for gay adoption in the nation.  We examined the countries that would allow a single man to adopt a child  – no countries that I know of allow a gay couple to adopt.  Our choices were somewhat limited.  Fortunately, one of our best choices was Guatemala.  Jack had spent two years in the Peace Corps there.  He knew the people, customs, places and Spanish.  His Mayan dialects were rudimentary.  Because this was to be a single parent adoption at first, it was logical for Jack to be the adopting parent.  As far as Guatemala knew, I didn’t exist; or if they knew about me, it was that I happened to be another man living in the same house.  We didn’t have to hide our relationship in this country.

In August we received photos and a video of a small plump Kekchi Mayan boy named José Felipe Tox Pop from the Cobán region.  He was three months old and living with a foster mother in Guatemala City.  Jack and I were asked, would you like this boy to be your son?  How could we say no!

From there the process became one of Guatemalan courts and lots of money.  We began hearing stories of adoptions that dragged on for months so we figured it would be the following May at the least before we could dream of bringing our son home.

However, in November, nine months after conceiving this idea, we got the call from the agency that José was ready for us (Jack) to come get him.  Wait, we’re not ready!   Jack’s a teacher and wanted to finish out the semester.  And we’d just bought tickets to spend the holidays in Guatemala.  So we asked if Jack could pick him up at the beginning of January and the two of us spent ten days beforehand seeing the country Jack had told me so much about.  I returned to Santa Fe the day before Jack was to meet our son. We thought it best for me not to be there and, after all,  I had to assemble the crib.

I’ve heard Jack’s recollections many times of that moment when José was put in

Family life is a win/win situation

arms for the first time.  Scary, exhilarating.  But this man is lucky.  Who should be at the Marriott Hotel in Guatemala City where most of the adopting families stay but a woman he knew who had served in the Peace Corps a year ahead of Jack’s group.  She was there visiting the child she was adopting; she helped with that first diaper change and gave sound advice on bottle feeding and getting José asleep that first night.  As it turned out, José preferred sleeping in the umbrella stroller we had brought with us.

Two days later Jose and Jack were on a plane bound for home.  After a stay-over in Miami they arrived in Albuquerque on January 7, 2005.   One exhausting journey was over; another joyful one was just beginning.

What Does Adoption Month Mean To Me?

Tags

adoptee, adoption, adoption child, celebrity adoption, diary, discover, empower, family, healing, national adoption awareness month, national adoption month, New Mexico, reading, separation, wounded, writing

Let me count the ways… 

Ever since the publication of The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption— I am honoring the importance of November as National Adoption Month. This recognition feels positive, and the publication of my memoir is a way of bringing the month alive.

Elaine and her favorite baby.

My November focus on adoption has brought a seismic shift in attitude. Rather than something to hide, adoption is now a status to acknowledge, embrace, explore and celebrate. After years of playing down my growing up as an adoptee, I am now highlighting it. In the process, I have become aware of how many variations exist around the word “adoption.”

First of all, the adoption of a child is usually considered a positive action, bringing a young child from instability to security. From foster care (or no care at all) to a home with Mom and Dad, two Mommies or two Daddies or a single parent. It might be an aunt and uncle, grandparents or even neighbors who take in the orphaned or unwanted. But the point is that the child has a better chance in life with a parent or parents who choose to take on parenting.

I’m not saying that all adoptions are totally successful. Sometimes the child’s invisible injuries, feelings of abandonment, unanswered questions or feelings of inadequacy never heal. Still, there is hope.  I recently attended an adoption discussion group that included members from every part of the triad: birthparents, adoptees, and adoptive parents.  It seemed that participants were disappointed about failed communication, painful misunderstandings or less than wonderful reunions.

The Author with her favorite youngster

On the other hand, the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters in the meeting were supportive and understandingtoward one another. Stories were shared and support was abundant. The group members “adopted” each other and provided comfort.

Perhaps adoption is only as positive as the adoptee makes it. Personally, I’ve expanded my idea of adoption. When I awaken in the morning, I choose to adopt an “attitude of gratitude.” Most days, I walk for an hour or hike in the mountains, taking in the lovely northern New Mexico scenery. I find myself energized and inspired, having “adopted” nature around me.

When deer wander into the back yard to enjoy apples that have fallen from my beneficent tree, I symbolically “adopt” them. The two magnificent bucks I’ve named “Jake” and “Fred” were recently jousting, heads down, right outside my living room window. I never get over my surprise at these visitors from the forest. Could it be that they have “adopted” me rather than the other way around?

Jake, the deer who came to dinner.

What I have learned this November is that life is far richer than I thought possible. The adoption that happened to me at the beginning set my life in motion. For the first two thirds of that life, I suffered feelings of abandonment. As I’ve mentioned in previous essays, I finally decided to “adopt” myself. I shook off chains of the past and started to live in the present. It may sound overly dramatically, but it’s true.

A question for adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents interested in a whole month dedicated to adoption: What are YOU learning from this focus? What are YOUR possibilities?