What kind of adoptive family we are.

Can you seriously believe Roland has his ransom?!! Our wonderful friends are still doing a couple of fundraisers to cover initial medical costs until our tax credit comes in, but we have the ransom!!! I'm just amazed! I thought this would be a huge financial burden. Really this doesn't look like it will cost us a single extra penny! Adoption made easy! Brought to us by hundreds of people! Overwhelming!!!

Thank you! From the bottom of our hearts! Thank you.

Now what was I saying before that quick "brb" to raise a trillion dollars? Oh yeah, talking about my son and adoption. :)

So I wanted to share my view on our situation and our adoption. I read a great quote today (trying to track down the source) that went something like, "There are as many ways to be a mother as there are mothers." I like that. And motherhood has this initial phase (usually the pregnancy) that everyone seems to have opinions on, but no two pregnancies are alike. And just like every pregnancy is handled differently, so is every adoption. And different does not mean wrong.

But I'm going to focus on two views of adoption from two groups of adoptive parents: the emotional adopters and the calculated adopters. Emotional is good. Calculating is smart. But both camps don't really understand the other, so here's my attempt at explaining them both.

An emotional adopter sees a child's picture on a website, commits to him with lots of paperwork and then, as if they birthed him themselves, he is their son. No unknown condition he has present at "birth" (aka when they see him for the first time) matters. If they show up and he's missing four limbs, half his face and is a different color--he's their son. They take him home and deal with it.

This is our adoption. We would not call him our son if these were not our feelings. That would be wrong.

A calculating adopter is a good person who wants to do good in the world. They see pictures of children and see what the best fit is for their family. If they travel and this child requires more than they can handle, they move on and try to help someone else or re-evaluate their situation. My husband is a calculating adopter, but has run our adoption as an emotional adopter; often times against his better judgement. :)

An emotional adopter can have traits of a calculating adopter and vise verse. And I think social workers tend to try to encourage families to become the best of both. With little success I imagine.

A calculating adopter raises funds towards "their adoption," and the emotional adopter raises funds towards "their son." A calculating adopter gets in trouble if they use the phrase, "God led us to this child," because they don't mean that the same way an emotional adopter does. An emotional adopter gets in trouble if they... get emotional. Let's face it, you look crazy when you cry over some picture of a child you've never met whose plight you've never experienced.

What I can't stand are people in one group judging or harassing the other. For those who say to the calculating adoptive family, "How could you not choose that child! You left him there!" Hey, they did not leave him there. Not them. A system left them there. A birth parent left him there. Not them. Are you going to adopt him? Is he your son? Are you in their shoes? They were out there. Doing something. Doing more for that child than anyone else, and families like that usually become that child's biggest advocate afterwards!

How they run their adoption is between them and their supporters.

And to those who say to the emotional adoptive family, "How stupid to fall in love with a picture! That's not your real child." Hey, how a mother is motivated to adopt and bond with this unknown child is important and vital. He is as much their child as your son is yours. You not understanding is inconsequential.

The adoption community can really be an anchor for moms who often feel like the "odd ball out" in mommy circles. My hope is that this community can continue to be supportive, or at least basically kind, when we see those who do it differently. There needs to be understanding. For me it started with gaining a lot of respect for the people who can go out and do good without that super emotional kick-in-the-pants so needed for my own adoption. For my husband it was understanding (and then falling prey to) how knowledge about someone's needs can lead to emotional bonding, even when it's one-sided.

Some of you know the catalyst for this blog. Some of you after experiencing a different kind of adoption than you thought best were still kind and supportive, even when you felt hurt and didn't understand. You are my heros.

And this is so important because there's an orphan crisis. A real crisis. And we need all kinds of adopters. I'm serious. We need to be better to them.