Today, I had a baby shower at work. We had the priviledge and honor of introducing our new kids to my co-workers who have all been so supportive and encouraging! As soon as I told my co-workers about the children, within a couple of days, they had organized a baby shower and today, we were totally blessed with all the gifts we got. We got car seats, tons of clothes, bottles, cups, bibs, gift certificates, and lots of other stuff. The organizers even remembered to include my son and he got to open his own gifts. He had a blast and was so caring about his siblings and making sure they had their snacks and bottles. The babies were such troopers-they missed their morning nap, but were so friendly and not cranky at all. I was so moved by everyone's generosity. I am so blessed to work in a place where people get adoption. I only knew of one other adoptive parent at my job, but found out that one of the attorneys at my job is also an adoptive mom. It is amazing the sense of community and kinship you feel with other adoptive parents, because they "get" it. My husband got to spend the whole afternoon with all three kids and he was even getting adventurous and wanting to go to the store with all three kids until he remembered the crazy logistics of trying to hold two super heavy kids (no double stroller yet) push a cart and make sure a four year old is in his line of vision. He quickly let go of that plan!
Everyone has been so encouraging and I have only gotten a few bizarre comments. One person who was very "concerned" for me told me how much work three kids are (she only has one grown son) and asked me if I still had time to change my mind???? I was a bit at a loss - it is not exactly like you wake up one morning and decide that adoption seems to be a good thing to do. This coming from some one from India which has the largest number of aids orphans in the world and where infanticide of girls is rampant. Living in a country where there are so many resources and where having female children is not considered a drain on a family's resources, I would have hoped that she would have gotten more empathy for the fatherless. I guess this view of children as just more work or a financial burden is what causes the apathy that allows 143 million children in the world to be forgotten. Another bizarre comment I got was why I did not just have another biological child or children. When I explained my reasons, the person said she would also look into adoption since her sixteen year old would be leaving home soon and she would be lonely. I did not like how long and involving the home study process was, but I am thankful that people with such reasoning get weeded out from the adoption process. My sister's well meaning co-worker who I have never met also wondered if I had done my research because she knew of a person who adopted a child and had a lot of issues. I was not sure what research she meant - i.e. the 24 hours of classes or the endless hours I have spent researching adoption issues. How much research goes into our bio children before they come home? If our bio children have issues, is it because we did not do enough research or what is the recommendation of these well meaning people? Not to have bio children???? Another Christian lady could not understand why we were adopting and said we should be very careful since this was not just about us, but our bio son and the twins who were not blood relatives????? This is supposed to be a mature Christian lady, but I explained how we are adopted into God's family, the scriptures calling for us to care for the fatherless and also that we as adults are the ones who teach children differences. All my son sees now is that these are his siblings. It was clear that I did not make headway with this lady and I was sad. She has 2 children from 2 different dads, yet the children love each other very much and if there was a person who I would have thought would have gotten it, it was this friend who has been a Christian for decades and who goes for every Christian seminar and fellowship. Where is our compassion? Where is the life application of what we are hopefully learning?
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