Last Shabbat on the way home from shul Kevin and I were talking about the future. Like, as what to do in 8 or ten years. This is something new for us: we have always taken it one day at a time, and the longest we planned ahead was 9 months, due to the uncertainty that my health issues carried with them. We knew we wanted at least one more child. Hopefully a girl this time after our three boys. We knew that J (the mother of my twin sons and loving mom by choice to K's son) wanted at least one more child, hopefully a girl this time after the twins (and C, of course).
For the last couple of days I have been saying aloud that I want several more kids. This has been something I always wanted, but not till I was older and wiser. And for now I have 3 boys to raise, possibly rabbinical school to get through (or whatever I end up doing with the inspiration, I just know what I feel like I should do, even if I don't get a paper, maybe just buy a coffeeshop?), a website to help with the "kick off", major surgery and rehab afterwords... and a lot of money needs to be saved.
I never thought that K shared this desire to expand our family through adoption. We are both adoptees, two Jewish kids raised by Christian (Catholic/LDS) family members, and neither of us had a very good experience with our own adoptions. That's why I was surprised when he said, "we need to this." We need to do this, but not now, not yet. However, this is the time to start to prepare for the adoptions of the future: prepare ourselves, our kids, our homes and last but not least, our finances.
So the plan was we were going to start the adoption process in about 6-8 years. In 8 years K will be 42 and I'll be 35, our eldest will be 18 and the twins 14. And maybe same sex couples will have an easier time to adopt in the countries of our first choice.
Since then, during one short week, we realised that we have options that would make our dreams work concurrently. So while we are not about to start adopting right away--we do need to save money first!--we can have a full house sooner rather than later. So watch out, world, soon there will be a dozen little Cohens running around!
hi hevel,
ReplyDeleteforgive me if my question is too personal.., what was the biggest obstacle you faced as an adopted child?
Hi, Dionne!
ReplyDeleteThe biggest obstacle I faced as an adoptee was not being me. I had been a micropreemie, and spent the first 6 months of my life hundreds of miles from home and I already had attachment issues with my birth family. Upon adoption my name, my religion, and practically my birthday were all taken away and from that point on rebuilding my identity was extremely difficult. Attachment never really happened with my adoptive parents and because of that I became a lonely child as well. So I was just a very odd kid.
I also ended up with an abusive situation that didn't help much either.
Hi Hevel,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing, and I am sorry to hear that your adoption experience was difficult. I've been reading through some of your older posts and it sounds like you're trying to provide something better for your family. That's encouraging! Rather than walking away from a process that left you with some scars, you seem to face it with courage and optimism. That is inspirational. :0)