Spring Speaking Tour: Part I

The panel presentation at the Resolve conference last weekend went well. I met some really great people, including a couple who have 6 kids (2 bio, 2 from Russia and 2 from China -- yikes!), and another couple with 2 boys from the same birth mother. Such lovely people. I was thinking on the drive home that truly some of the kindest, most thought-filled (people who think things through a lot; not necessarily thoughtful, although usually they are that, too) people I know are adoptive parents. Not saying we're saintly or any of that, just that I think if you go to this much trouble to be a parent, you probably REALLY want to be one, have thought about it and your own life and what it all means a lot. Hell, you have to, if you want to fill out the paperwork in any meaningful way. But I digress. The participants were lovely, too. I so remember being one of them -- tons of questions, not sure if this is your path or not, wondering if you can really give up on "treatment" (as we in the biz call it) and move on to adoption with joy and hopefulness after so much heartbreak. I wanted to gather them all up in my arms and say, "Just do it; you won't regret it one bit."

Friday Links

I don't have anything to report today, so I'll just share with you some good stuff off the interwebs:

Pandora. I'm probably way behind here (I usually am when it comes to all things techie and/or hip), but this is a very cool site where you create your own "radio station" by typing in a song or artist/band name and it plays songs similar to the one you typed in, or songs similar to the ones the band you typed in plays. Are you still following me? It's all based on something called the Music Genome Project, which I won't even try to describe here but it's very cool. Anyway, I like it because I listen to the radio via the Internet at work every day and was getting really sick of the repetition, as well as the crappy quality (buffering, always buffering). You can create more than one "station" so you can listen to a different genre, depending on your mood. Right now I'm listening to the station I created by typing in "Duran Duran" (nothing gets me through a Friday afternoon like some 80s pop). I also created two other stations by typing in "Ben Folds" and "New Order". Oh, and there are no commercials and no fees. Kinda cool.

Inappropriate Yoga Guy. I started taking yoga 10 years ago and although I haven't taken many classes in the last couple of years, I do still like to practice at home (not as often as I should). Anyway, if you've ever taken a yoga class, this will crack you up. And if you haven't, you might find it amusing, too. This is a new Web series based on a YouTube video (not as good as these).

First Sentence

Lauren's been talking up a storm for a while now. Every day she says new words and is doing a great job of putting 3 or 4 words together so we can really communicate. Her favorites are "Where sun go?" and "Bath time NOW." and "I pee in potty."

The talking was especially helpful yesterday when she was able to tell us that her ear hurt (she's had what I thought was a cold, but after a trip to the doc, found out that basically the whole left side of her head is a mess -- sinus infection, ear infection and something lovely coming out of her eye).

Anyway, last night as I sat up from being flat on the couch, she looked at me with glee and said, clear as day, "Mommy, your hair is a mess!"

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been asked to speak in public. In April I’m going to serve on a panel of parents who’ve adopted domestically, at the RESOLVE Great Lakes Conference. It feels a little funny to be on this side of things. I attended 2 or 3 of those conferences several years ago and got a lot of great information, as well as the boost from meeting people who “get it” when it comes to infertility. Now, I’ll be answering their questions about what it’s like to adopt. I hope I don’t scare the crap out of them. I also hope I don’t feel pitied – I have this sense that to someone who’s still holding out hope that she’ll get pregnant, I’m her worst nightmare: I tried, it didn’t work, so I adopted. I am proof that fertility treatments don’t always work. But I’m also proof that if you want to be a parent, and you’re willing to go through a lot of bullshit and pain to get there, you can. I hope they feel hopeful after hearing us adoptive parents speak. I will try to tone down the “pain and bullshit” stuff (but really, they need to know that it’s not all sunshine and roses; I don’t know anyone who’s adopted who would say that the process was easy, that waiting was no big deal, that they didn’t encounter any roadblocks or disappointments along the way). And I am not inclined to give them the “it was all worth it in the end” line, either. Yes, I would go through all of that again to get Lauren, but saying those kinds of things to people who are just now starting to even consider adopting is not helpful. I’m sure many of them are already hearing “just adopt” from their friends and family members, and there is no “just” in that process, trust me.

The other thing I was asked to speak about is related to the last two blog posts, about the new Butler County Children’s Services policy to give preference for foster and adoptive placements to hetero married folks. I’ll be speaking at Nexus Church in May, where I attended on and off last spring/summer. This will be good for me, because as an intuitive-type person (INFJ, if you’re into Myers-Briggs stuff), I “know” things in my gut that I can’t always articulate off the top of my head. I need to write it out to get clear on my thoughts. I’m looking forward to doing it and feel honored to be asked.

Natural Selection

And so the story continues and the good people of southwestern Ohio comment.

Here’s one:
“These people are defective and should not be allowed to adopt. If you can't conceive naturally as nature intended you shouldn't be adopting/or let someone else bear your child (a surrogate). This is natures way of telling you, NO ! I don't hate gays also not religious but nature rules.”

Huh. I guess that not only applies to gay and lesbian folks, but folks like me. So if you ARE able to conceive “naturally,” then you must be the cream of the crop. Your genes must be superior to the genes of those who can’t conceive. And I guess that includes these people*:

• A 40-year-old man who sexually abused his 19-year-old son who is physically and mentally handicapped and cannot speak.
• A 28-year-old woman who murdered her newborn daughter by putting the baby in a microwave oven.
• A 30-year-old man who shook his 4-month-old son so severely the baby was critically injured.
• A 19-year-old who was charged with taking her baby to a drug deal.
• A 25-year-old woman who shook her 3-month-old daughter so severely that she left the child blind and developmentally stunted with little hope of having any quality of life.
• A 26-year-old man who badly injured his infant daughter, including giving her multiple rib fractures and a severe brain injury. Now 23 months old, she has the motor skills of a 1-month-old and the language skills of a 4-month-old.
• A 19-year-old who was charged with killing his 4-week-old son. The child died from a skull fracture.

Yes, I can see how their superior genes deserved to be passed on.

* I did not have to search long for this list. Unfortunately, all are local people and all but one story is from within the last few months. So imagine what’s going on in the rest of the state and the country and the world.

Livid

I came back from lunch and read this article about adoption in my county.

The moron in charge of this agency is a career politician with a bachelor’s degree in education. He is not qualified to even run this agency, let alone make policy decisions that are NOT based on research. He is a conservative Republican who is trying to advance his own moral agenda at the expense of children – children who need loving parents. Period.

I posted a comment to the article under the screen name gusdog-1, and added a link to this executive summary of research done on adoption by gays and lesbians. I sure hope the “leadership” of the agency reads it and learns a thing or two.

Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, I do have a long-standing beef with this agency. Years ago, when I got sick of waiting for an adoption to come through Catholic Social Services (the adoption agency I was working with), I called Butler County Children’s Services and told them I had an approved homestudy and was interested in adopting through the county and asked what I needed to do. You'd think they would've jumped at that, with all the advertising they do about needing foster and adoptive parents, but the two or three people I spoke with were completely disinterested in talking to me. They said I had to go to the state of Ohio adoption web site, "surf" for a kid, and if he/she lived in Butler county, to give them a call. Way to be proactive. Clearly, they’re putting children first.

My Album

Yes, I'm posting twice in one day. Anyhoo, this cracks me up. It's a Facebook thing.


What would your own album look like if you were in a band?

Follow the directions below and find out...Here are the rules:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RandomThe first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7daysThird picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

I don't have Photoshop on this computer, so I just used Paint. Here's my album:

Obviously, my band is some sort of eastern European/British new wave hybrid. Pick it up today -- A Good Deal of Rubbish -- new from Bank of Slovenia.