We Are the Truth

I stopped updating here at Instant Family for a variety of reasons: we moved to our new home and the maintenance of a house took a lot more time than an apartment; all three kids were more active and mobile, allowing us to spend more time out and about, away from the interwebs; endless technical difficulties every time I touched a computer; I stink at maintaining any hobbies . . .

Mainly, though, Instant Family started to feel a little Ho-Hum after the first year or so. If you've seen one adorable photo of Twins Plus One, you've seen them all. Plus, I could no longer smuggly say "I have three children under the age of three." I migrated the day-to-day photos and cute kid stories over to Facebook and my urge to document every moment of family life waned as I was busy living out that family life.

There's been a recent round of media attention to problems with international adoption. A few months ago, there was a group of missionaries caught attempting to smuggle children out of earthquake devastated Haiti. Most of the world has heard about the young Russian adoptee who was recently returned to Russia via a one-way airplane ticket. In the face of these stories, there has been widespread criticism of the practice of international adoption and questioning if and how it should continue to take place. In response to these concerns, the Joint Council on International Children's Services has asked bloggers to devote today to sharing their success stories of adoption, under the the theme of "We Are the Truth". So, I'm prompted back to the keyboard to say:

The truth is, when I first heard that Terry Hansen put her 7-year-old adopted son on an airplane alone to Russia, my initial thought was "There, but for the Grace of God, go I." Instant Family struggled when we brought the twins home from China - sleep issues, separation anxiety, medical concerns, and tantrums. W in particular was rather taken aback by the sudden changes in her life and proceeded to scream loudly about it for a few weeks a short while about a year . As we struggled through these early days, wondering how we could get up and do it again and again, we had family and friends helping us, the financial means to pay an army of people to do things like housework and laundry in order to focus on unifying our family and an arsenal of knowledge from hours upon hours of education and research. What if we hadn't had all this on our side?

The truth is, despite all the mandatory education and vetting, adoptive parents are making it up as they go along, just as much as parents from birth. While we were prepared for all the normal issues faced by young children from an institutional background by our pre-adoption education, learning how to parent as an academic exercise is different than being a parent day-to-day in the trenches. It's like attending a workshop on how to run a marathon and then, one day, suddenly being told, today is the day you run your marathon!

The truth is that, now, two years later, dealing with adoption-related issues is (almost) back to being an almost academic exercise for Instant Family. Issues pop up from time to time: the twins are getting to an age where they understand their story and ask questions; we are faced time and again with the lack of a medical history; random people say stupid things, usually in line at the grocery store. But, day-to-day, where we all came from and how we made a family slips away into a lazy routine of nursery school and playdates and macaroni & cheese.

The truth is, these are my girls, my children, and there are three of them.

The truth is, our now "mundane" life is a success story. Because the typical adoptive family won't make the headlines on the evening news, I'm going to start posting again, just to make sure you can hear the news about a happy adoptive family. Even if we are a little boring.