A Natural Family

Not quite. But close. J successfully defended his dissertation on Tuesday. So, after some edits and turning in a final draft, all of his committee members have agreed to sign off on it and he will officially graduate in May. I did my best to make a weirdly anti-climactic day seem climactic by hosting a small dinner at our favorite Greek restaurant, but J was mostly just tired and worn out from everything. I didn't even take any pictures... well, maybe one, but I don't have it here with me!

What's going on with me, you ask? Well not much but I have still felt totally overwhelmed lately. I am ready for J's paper to be completely done and off his plate. I am ready to know what next year holds for us. I am completely ready for Em to sleep through the night. I have been researching and refusing to pull the trigger on planning a real vacation (that doesn't include visiting any family members-- what?? those exist??) to a warm place where I can sit in a lounge chair, drink in my hand, snack on a little plate beside me, and read a book while getting burnt to a crisp. Aaahhhh... back to work.

What an historic day.

We spent yesterday evening listening to speeches by Dr. King and reading a book about Coretta Scott.

Today we're going into Brooklyn to watch the Oath of Office and Inaugural Speech with friends. We are very excited to participate in this event with others--with our family, but with other people around us.

So, grab your tissue box. Let the power of this day get to you. Let it sink in. Thank God-- For my son whose skin is brown and whose name is funny, for my family who thinks that service is important and American Values are more than traditional conservatives ones, and for me--a little white girl who carried around a black baby doll in a small white Indiana town. Let change come.

(PS--Thank God too for my mom who is sharing the inauguration wonderment with her 2nd grade class at a private christian school in Arkansas.)

Today was our last visit with Wide Horizons For Children. Our last post-placement visit. Wow. It was so anti-climactic. We've been working on this adoption for YEARS now... and to have our involvement with our agency be finally... well... over seems weird. Who will check in on us? Who will ask us about his development, what we are doing to remember his culture, how parenting is going? Crazy.

We went through several social workers while working with WHFC. Their NJ office has been in a transition period with a couple of long-time adoption social workers going off to do other things. But, we loved Laura Stevens who did our initial homestudy and really, I think, influenced who we are as adoptive parents. She asked the hard questions. Made us do some really challenging role playing about how we would deal with the 'race' issue. And, always followed up to see how we were doing. And, our post-placement social worker--Betty. We love her. She came soon after The Sickness (salmonella) and remembers Adu at his tiniest. She is Ethiopian herself and could sympathize with the long plane ride and has first hand info about the best Ethiopian restaurants and Orthodox services. She also knows about what is going on in Ethiopia right now including famine and genocide in the southeast region. We will miss her. I am hoping to do some volunteer work at her office as she'll be doing it all on her own for WHFC in NJ for a little while!

Here are some pictures of Emadu with her today:Don't think, though, that we are completely done with the adoption rigamarole...We are now tackling the re-adoption in NJ court. More on that later.

Apparently several people have something to say about ACT 1 in Arkansas. Check this one by the NYTimes (Editorial section, posted 1/5/09):

W.H., an infant, was reportedly removed from her parents by Arkansas’s Department of Human Services after she was taken to a hospital with injuries that strongly suggested abuse. Fortunately for W.H., her grandmother, a registered nurse, was eager to take her in. But there was a hitch. Her grandmother lives with another woman, and a ballot initiative recently passed in Arkansas makes it illegal for gay and unmarried heterosexual couples to adopt or become foster parents. Arkansas courts should strike down this offensive new law.

Arkansas has a long tradition of allowing child welfare professionals to decide who should become a foster or adoptive parent. Anti-gay forces, however, have campaigned to disqualify gay people. In 2006, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a regulation barring gay people from becoming foster parents.

Last year anti-gay activists promoted Act 1, a ballot referendum that broadened the ban to include unmarried heterosexual couples. In November, it passed with about 57 percent of the vote. The A.C.L.U. of Arkansas is challenging the new law, on behalf of a group of would-be parents and children, contending that it discriminates against gay and unmarried straight couples and that it makes it impossible to place children in the best homes.

The new law is undeniably discriminatory. Under Arkansas law, people convicted of major crimes, including contributing to the delinquency of a minor, remain eligible to adopt children or become foster parents. Single people who have no partner — or who have a large number of casual sex partners — are also eligible. Anyone who is in a committed relationship, gay or straight, but is not married is automatically barred.

The new law also interferes with the Department of Human Services’ ability to do its job of making individualized assessments of prospective parents and placing children in the homes that are best able to meet their needs. As the W.H. case suggests, an unmarried couple could be the most qualified parents. And because of the shortage of foster parents, the ban is very likely to make children wait substantially longer for a loving home.

Arkansas’s new law was a victory for the forces of bigotry and a major setback for the guiding principle of the law in adoption and foster care: the best interests of the child.

(words in bold, bolded by me.)

This is not to be interpreted as a rebellious attack on more conservative members of my family in Arkansas, but as a restatement of something I would want Em to know I feel strongly about if and when he ever grows up and reads this blog. (LOL! You know 'blogs' are going to be sooo uncool when our kids get older.)

This from the Arkansas Times:

Election Day Robbery by Adam Pertman

For many boys and girls, Election Day did not bring new hope; it robbed them of it.

That was certainly the case in Arkansas, where voters decided to slash the number of families available to provide safe, caring homes for abused and neglected children languishing in the state's foster care system. They did that by approving a referendum — aimed squarely at gays and lesbians — prohibiting unmarried, cohabiting couples from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

Viewed through the prism of what best serves the interests of children who need homes, the debate about gay and lesbian parenting (within or outside of marriage) is not a close call. The research is clear: Children grow up far better in families than in temporary care or institutions, and their outcomes are comparable whether their parents are straight or gay.

A new report by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, “Expanding Resources for Waiting Children,” which I head, points out some critical facts:

• About 129,000 children in foster care are legally free for adoption, and not enough adults are filling the need in any state; the 25,000 who “age out” of the system each year face a very high risk of negative outcomes such as homelessness, poverty, incarceration and early parenthood.

Gays and lesbians, studies show, are more willing to adopt children with special needs — which most boys and girls in foster care have — than are heterosexuals.

• Adoption from foster care yields between $3.3 billion and $6.3 billion in savings nationally each year, while a nationwide ban on foster parenting by gays and lesbians would add $87 million to $130 million in total costs for states to find other caretakers.

The report suggests that joint adoption (when both parents adopt at the same time) and second-parent adoption (when a partner or spouse later adopts the child) should expand from the handful of states where they are currently permitted for gays and lesbians to become the norm from coast to coast. The arguments for doing so are based principally on the benefits to children, ranging from health insurance to legal protections to the emotional security of feeling part of a “normal” family.

Because these arguments apply to marriage as well, many child advocates are concerned about the results of Nov. 4 voting in California, Florida and Arizona to allow only heterosexuals to marry. But the most direct, problematic result for children that day clearly took place in Arkansas.

While the referendum was aimed at gays and lesbians, it also removes qualified cohabitating heterosexuals from the pool of prospective adoptive parents. It is an audacious action that undermines the prospects for needy children to get homes, made all the more unnerving by reports that its advocates plan to build on their “success” by working to repeat it in other states.

Whatever anyone may believe personally about parenting by lesbians, gay men and unmarried heterosexual couples, can it really be acceptable for some children, by law, to be granted less of a shot in life than others? Most troubling, can it really be true that there are people who think a child is better off with no parents than ones who are living together outside of traditional marriage?

On the eve of a new presidency, if we as a nation are to bring real hope to vulnerable boys and girls who have so little of it, we need to finally address those troubling questions.

Adam Pertman is executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute is well known for being a leader in the field of adoption advocacy and research.

Last night we were lucky enough to spend some time with some of our close friends who live in Brooklyn. Every now and then, we talk (*guilt?*) them into coming down to lame New Jersey to hang out with us and Em. They make Em giggle like NO other couple can. I don't know what it is about them and him, but we don't hear him belly laugh so much as when they're around.

We went to our favorite Greek restaurant for dinner. The conversation quickly turned to the rapid changes our group of friends is undergoing as everyone... yes pretty much everyone... is pregnant. Not me. Not my friend at dinner. But, pretty much everyone else. Now, it is one thing for one couple in a group of friends to have a baby (like me and J for instance), but it is different for most people to be pregnant and planning for little ones. It makes some people feel distanced. It makes some people feel closer together. It makes some people feel different, and some feel more the same. Moving into a different life stage with friends around you can be comforting or confusing. People who like to do the same things when they are hanging out pre-babies may have drastically different parenting styles or expectations when the babies arrive. How do people navigate it all? I guess it just takes extra work. We're lucky that we have friends with whom we actually want to do the work that is required to maintain worthwhile relationships.

Along with that, has anyone else noticed that there is something special about the first baby that you are close to after you're married? J and I got really close to one particular family not long after we moved here. They were not necessarily in the same stage of life baby-wise as us at the time. They were on their second who was born not long after we were introduced to them. But, man have we ever been very invested in them as a family and we still feel a strong connection to their kids even though they now live on the otherside of the world... I mean country. I think this may be part of what makes our Brooklyn friends special--they have a special connection to Em--the first baby they've loved as a married couple.

I think that it is these particular kinds of relationships that allow us to explore the idea of loving someone intensely who is not legally or biologically related to you. I know it was/is our relationship with our friends' children that solidified our ability to adopt.

The snow has come and gone today. Only half an hour until I am not primary on-call anymore... here's hoping that I get to stay in, warm and cozy in my pj's!

Em has decided to boycott sleep. The past *several* nights he has been waking up every couple of hours. He rolls to his stomach, outstretches his arms, and pops his head up looking around. He does not go back to sleep without help which usually entails one of us getting up to rock or cuddle him or getting him a bottle depending on how many hours it has been since he last ate, etc...

The reasons we've come up with for why this might be happening are the following:
* teething? yes, yes... my 10 month old still doesn't have any teeth so I'm not sure what 'teething' looks like for him as he's been chewing and drooling on things for the past four months.
* still off schedule from our onslaught of family members a week or so ago? (he does sleep best at night when he naps well during the day--it is all interconnected, right??)
* ready to transition down to one nap during the day? (this is hard to believe since he is still *tired* at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. consistently.)
* the family bed co-sleeping thing doesn't work for him? maybe he's a light sleeper and would sleep more soundly if he weren't next to us. (also hard to believe b/c he was doing something similar although not as frequent when he was in the c.r.i.b.)

Thoughts?