Home Study Visit #2

Our second home study revealed an example of how small this world is - our social worker is the daughter of a grad school classmate and a cousin of another.  Nancy had followed a later-in-life dream to go back to school, even if it meant she'd be taking classes with students her children's ages.  She fit in well with her classmates and everyone adored her.  Of course I had no idea one of Nancy's children, whom she talked so much about, would some day help the husband I had yet to meet bring home a new child. 

Aside from that it's-a-small-world aha moment, the home study visit felt like another check off the long list of steps required by law.  Our interview was more a conversation about my life - my upbringing, my relationship with my parents, what I did for fun as a kid, family traditions, how I did in school, what lead me into my current career, my relationship with Chris and so on.  All the questions seemed to focus on what I had already written in my essays.  I know the whole purpose is to help our social worker get to know us better since she will play such an integral role in expanding our family, but Chris and I couldn't help but feel this home study visit was redundant.

Our third and last home study visit will hopefully take place the week after Labor Day.  I had hoped to schedule it earlier, but with Chris's work travel, our vacation plans at the end of August, and our social worker only being in the office Monday-Thursday, we couldn't fit the three visits in before we leave for New Jersey.  And I found out the home study by state law must consist of three distinct home study visits.  Hence Lindsey must come back a third time to "interview" Oliver and Soren and take a look at our neighborhood, even though she's already talked to our kids and is familiar with our neighborhood because she happens to attend the ECFE adoption class at the school down the street from our house.  (Again...small world.)

At least as soon as that third and final visit concludes, Lindsey can start writing the home study report even if we are still waiting on some final documentation needed for the home study, such as medical reports from our kids' pediatrician.  So although I'm feeling frustrated by the delay in what is already a long process that we've just barely begun, I know the end of this stage in the process will come quickly.  Lindsey needs two to three weeks to write the report and have it approved by her office.  She'll then submit the report to our agency's national office for approval and the China team will review the report to make sure it meets all the requirements of the Chinese government, a process that takes another week or two.  Once the national office approves the report, we can mark the home study process complete! 

Soren Update: 22 Months

Soren has hit the Terrible Two's.  I shouldn't be this surprised since I've seen the tantrums before, but Soren is our "mellow" one, so maybe that's what's caught me off guard.  His little outbursts have been cute until this point.  Then Oliver got a new bike, Soren saw it and had a down-and-out 30-minute tantrum.  Nothing could console him and we couldn't reason with him.  Honestly, Chris and I didn't know what to do with him. 

Then there's the shrieking.  Soren used to mostly just shriek with joy.  But now he shrieks if Oliver looks at him funny, comes near him or looks like he might possibly think about taking something Soren might possibly even remotely be interested in.  So that means that if Oliver and Soren are in the same room, there's usually some level of shrieking, crying and/or screaming going on. 

The commotion can reach such a high pitch (and stay there for an extended period of time) that I apologized to the neighbors in advance.  Since our houses are so close together and people often have their windows open, I'm embarrassed by how much my kids are potentially disturbing the entire neighborhood. 

In fairness to Soren, part of the reason behind his mood could be attributed to how often he's been getting sick, including two more times since last month's update. He's possibly been sick five or six times in as many months, but honestly, I've lost track.  The last time I took Soren to the doctor, he couldn't find anything a reason for his high fever, other than that it was probably a run-of-the-mill summer virus.  We were given the usual instructions to keep him hydrated and give him Ibuprofen and Tylenol to control the fever and to be thankful that he didn't have vomiting or diarrhea, which usually accompanies these types of illnesses.  Well, last Monday he was fine when he went to bed and when I checked on him in the morning, he had vomited in his bed and had a 103 fever.  This virus was a least the shortest-lived, but it still gave him enough time to throw up on our nanny and his car seat and require us to do three loads of laundry in 24 hours. 

Tantrums and illnesses aside, there's still plenty of joy and wonder experienced as a parent of a toddler. Soren still imitates everything Oliver does.  Oliver noticed our neighbor's cat sunning herself on the front walk and he bent down to take a look at her.  Soren walked up next to him and bent down and looked at the cat.  Oliver meowed at the cat.  Soren meowed at the cat.  Oliver stood up.  Soren stood up.  And so on. 

Soren is also imitating more and more words.  He picks a random word from a sentence he just overheard and repeats it.  If Oliver says, "I want to go to the park today," Soren repeats "park" softly to no one in particular.  Many of the words I've never heard him say on his own or in context, but it's interesting that he can still isolate a word in a sentence and say it correctly. 

Although Soren can still fit in 18-month shirts and 12-month pants, I might be getting close to boxing those clothes up for good.  I thought he'd never grow out of them. At his last doctor's appointment, he topped out at 22 pounds and three ounces.  He's still wearing size four diapers.

For all the sleep problems we've had the past few months, Soren is finally going to bed without much fuss.  Remaining consistent with bedtime and the routine is surprising proving to be more crucial for peaceful bedtimes for Soren than it was for Oliver, who as a baby and toddler melted down in the blink of an eye if you pushed his limits on his need for sleep.  Soren has to have everything just so - brush his teeth, give him his pacifier, change his diaper and pajamas and let him pick a book.  Then he crawls into bed, pulls his covers over his lap and pats his lap as he waits for his bedtime story.  Where he used to cry and carry on once you left the room, he's now fine as long as he gets an extra-long snuggle.  So after I turn on his fan, close his shades and turn off his light, I curl up with him and hold him snugly against my chest and kiss his cheeks and stroke his face.  He clutches the front of my shirt as if he wants to pull me even closer and I can feel him relax.  I'm honored and humbled to be that person who can calm him with just my presence.  I really do wish I could hold him all night, but I know the little guy needs his sleep to prepare for another energetic day. 

Home Study Visit #1

Our much-anticipated home study visit came and went with little excitement.  Our social worker met with Chris and me at our home, and while I had no idea what to expect, I was surprised that she asked the exact same questions Chris and I had answered as part of our home study paperwork.  At least she skipped over the questions about our experience with children so we wouldn't have to state the obvious again. 

For something that we had taken a half a day off work to accommodate, it was kind of a let-down that nothing new was really covered in our interview.  Since the adoption process is quite intrusive, I had expected more probing questions and at least some follow-up to what we had written in our essays.  Then again, the purpose of a home study is to get to know the family and make sure there's no reason to suspect the family is unsuitable to adopt a child, and while the bar is set pretty high, it probably doesn't take too much digging for a social worker to make that call. 

What I did appreciate about today's home study visit is that Chris finally met Lindsey and heard all the information about the adoption process first-hand.  Like Chris, I'm learning about adoption as I go, and it's hard sometimes to have to relay information when I'm still figuring out myself what comes next. 

Our social worker's visit ended up lasting less than two hours and was pretty relaxed.  Her time here included a tour of our house so she could officially check off that our house has room for another child and no glaring safety hazards. 

She met Soren and Oliver for the first time and Oliver showed his enthusiasm for getting a new brother.  He asked Chris where his brother is and was told we'd have to get on a plane and fly really far away to get him.  Oliver then told us he wanted to go to the airport and fly to pick up his new brother today.  Oh, I wish it were so easy! 

Our next steps in the home study process are to gather the last few pieces of paperwork, finish our first set of adoption prep courses and schedule our individual interviews with our social worker.  After all that's finished, she'll take two to three weeks to write the home study report and then we'll officially be finished with the home study.  I hope we can check this step off our list by mid-September. With the home study completed, we can move on to two more critical steps in the process, submission of our Form I-1800A to the U.S. government and submission of our dossier to the Chinese government. 

Sleeping Positions

I check on my kids before I go to bed because I need to calm my irrational fears and see with my own eyes that they're okay.  It's also a special time of day because no matter how much noise they had created in the hours leading up to bedtime, there's nothing more charming and heart-warming (and quieter!) than observing my kids during the only time of the day they ever sit still. 

 

With Soren, I get an extra treat when I poke my head in his room.  I get to see in what crazy position he's managed to fall asleep!

 

Sometimes he's actually in his bed...



 

Sometimes he just uses his mattress as a pillow...

Other times he plays so hard after lights out that he doesn't even make it back into bed.  Trust me, when we put him to bed, he's tucked in all snug as a bug and then this is how we find him. 

I've even seen Soren fast asleep with his little bottom propped up in the air.  I have no idea how babies manage to sleep like that, but he looked otherwise comfortable, so he clearly made it work.

Yes, You Can Get a Boy From China

When we tell people that we're adopting from China, EVERY SINGLE person makes the "you must be getting a girl" comment.  Every single person.  Seriously.  Sometimes they'll gingerly ask us if this means we're getting a girl, but their tone of voice implies they're asking a question they think they already know the answer to.  Others don't ask. They just matter-of-fact respond that we'll be getting a girl.  My explanation that there are as many orphaned boys in China as girls and that in reality, more boys are in need of families because Americans overwhelming adopt more girls, confuses folks.  "You can get a boy from China? asks EVERY SINGLE person. Well, except for the one person kept cutting me off.   "But you know you're getting a girl," she said in a know-it-all voice.

Clearly news of China's one-child policy has made a lasting impression on Americans' understanding of adoption from China like no other international adoption program.  I knew nothing about adoption from China before we started the adoption process, and for as long as I've wanted to adopt, I've believed the only orphans in China were girls.  The truth is that an equal number of boys enter "social welfare institutes" (orphanages) in China as girls.  

As I learn more about the Chinese adoption process, I've been researching how our society has come to believe that only girls are available for adoption in China and why boys, regardless of the country they're from, are considered harder to place. 

China has two adoption programs, one for children considered healthy (i.e., no identified needs) and the other for children with special needs, which can be anything from "minor and/or correctable" to very serious needs.  China's infamous one-child policy contributes to the disproportionate number of healthy girls abandoned, but with China's rising economy, more Chinese are adopting these orphan infant girls.  And like many other countries, China is putting a priority on domestic adoption, which means the government will try to place orphans domestically first.  That means that the wait time for Americans to adopt from this population of orphans has reached over six years.  

For about seven or eight years now, most Americans adopting from China are now doing so from its special needs program.  When you look at the gender make-up of this group of kids, it's more an even mix between boys and girls.  The one-child policy can actually help explain this too.  If parents can only have one child, and they prefer that child to be a boy, they want a healthy boy. 

But if the gender make-up of the special needs population in Chinese orphanages is more evenly split, why do more American families adopt girls, not just from China, but from every country with an international adoption program?  China's one-child policy is no longer a reliable explanation for why more Chinese girls join American families than Chinese boys.  China allows adoptive parents to choose the sex of the child they want to adopt and I've heard as many as 80% of families choose a girl.   The social workers I spoke to from various adoption agencies confirmed that more families request girls, and also said that boys are considered harder to place, but no one could explain why.  I stumbled upon a Slate article written in 2004 that finally started to piece apart why this is. 

"For years, it's been common currency in adoption circles that girls are far more popular than boys among adoptive parents," the author writes. 

What are the reasons for this?  There's a societal belief that girls are easier.  I'm sure my friends who have little girls get their fair share of "You have your hands full!" comments when they mention the ages of their kids, but I hear time and time again that I have my hands full because my young children are boys. 

And maybe the one-child policy does play a part indirectly in reinforcing the belief that girls are easier.  American parents might sub-consciously interpret the reason for abandonment differently for boys than girls.  As one researcher was quoted in the Slate article as saying, if you believe that biological parents like sons better, there's an underlying notion that 'boys will tend to be put up for adoption when there's something seriously wrong with them, but many girls will be put up for adoption simply for being girls.'

The author suggests yet another theory why families overwhelmingly choose girls. If parenting is about nurturing, then parents "adopt girls out of a common perception—however accurate or inaccurate it may be—that girls respond better to nurturing than boys do."

The theory that resonated the most with me is that American families more often indicate a preference for girls because woman are the driving force in the adoption process.  We tend to assume that women want daughters and men want sons.  An author and executive director of an adoption think tank is quoted as saying, "It's usually true that the women are filling out the paperwork, going to the conferences, the support groups." He adds, "If I speak at a conference—whether it's on adoption or family issues—at least 80 to 90 percent of any of these audiences are women."

This is sooo true of how the adoption process is shaking out in our household.  If I had wanted a girl more than anything else, I would have selected "girl" when asked about gender preference on our application and that would have been how we'd be proceeding. 

Instead, I ended up sending this e-mail to our social worker right after we sent in our application to the agency:

"Although we have already indicated that we are open to adopting a child of either gender, I was told to mention how open we are to adopting a boy from China.  We have two boys now and would be truly overjoyed to welcome another boy to our family.  Everyone assumes that because we have sons that we must only be adopting because we want a girl, which is the farthest from the truth.  My husband and I would be equally as happy to have another boy."

And me mean it.  Except no one really believes us.  At least two or three times during the application process we had indicated our gender preference as "either."  Yet the no-nonsense intake coordinator at our adoption agency became practically giddy when I told her that our "no preference" really did mean exactly that.  She was the one who suggested I send the e-mail to our social worker to make sure it was clear that we just weren't selecting "either" and hoping for a girl, but that we do really want a boy. 

Sadly, even some Chinese orphanages believe that Americans only want girls, as the author of the blog series The Changing Face of China's Orphans writes.  Even though they know the reality is that orphanages have as many special needs boys as they do girls, they use their limited resources to promote the children they believe they can find families for and those are girls.

As tired as I am of answering the girls question about Chinese adoption, I patiently share what I've learned so far about how many boys are orphaned.  The more people who know that boys need families just as much as girls, the more likely a prospective adoptive family will open its heart to a boy.

Freedom to Marry

How sad it is that I had so little faith in the state of Minnesota that I thought it'd be decades before all people in our state would be legally allowed to marry?  Less than a year ago our state was actually voting on whether to use our state constitution to discriminate against a group of our fellow residents.  I was actually surprised, but elated, when the majority vote was no.  I was so proud of Minnesota. 

Today I have more reason to be proud.  At the stroke of midnight, gay couples were finally able to receive the same recognition from the state that Chris and I have had for nearly five years.  They have shown their commitment to each other by the years (or decades) they've been together, the children they raise together and the homes they own together.  Until today, they shared the same responsibilities as Chris and I have, but without the protections and recognition we take for granted.

I'm relieved the struggle to achieve marriage equality in Minnesota is finally over.  It was tiring and depressing to listen to all the hate spewed.  Of course the hateful comments and bigotry aren't going to disappear.  But for all those complaining that gay marriage is going to threaten the sanctity of marriage and ruin the moral fiber of our state - that's all just background noise for me now. 

I'll leave you with a quote from Mildred Loving, who along with her husband, whom she had legally married in Washington D.C., were arrested in Virginia in 1959 for violating a state law which prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia.

"I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry... I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about."

- Mildred Loving, June 2007, on the 40th anniversary of the issuance of the Supreme Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia