in case you're reading

If anyone is actually reading this......

I want to direct you over to my real blog. I have kept this one (although i haven't kept it very well) in addition to a blog where I actually post about our life as it is now. This blog was for my dream of adoption. I really don't have the ability to keep up with both anymore. Honestly the dream of adoption is painful right now since it remains an impossibility at the moment and I don't feel like blogging about it much.

so, if you actually read this and would like to follow my real blog then you can find it here

i will be closing this blog down soon.

Sweet Pea

Is it just me? or do these two children look like siblings?

The little Sweet Pea on the left is listed on Reeces Rainbow. The the little stinker on the right is my sweet Dima.

Now, is it any wonder that my heart is aching to make Sweet Pea a part of our family???

opportunity

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. ~Milton Berle

A Dream Revived

I thought I had finally accepted the fact that we would not adopt again. Turns out I was wrong, because the idea has once again been very heavily placed upon my heart.

There have been so, so many things pushing the idea back into my mind lately. First there was this, and then this and then someone threw out this quote......
"I have come to realize more and more that the greatest disease and the greatest suffering is to be unwanted, unloved, uncared for, to be shunned by everybody, to be just nobody (to no one)."-Mother Teresa of Calcutta
which is a quote that seems to keep popping up in my life in a variety of places and really hits me hard every time I hear/read it.

Last night while chatting online with my husband (he is out of town for work) the conversation came around to adoption. How we both still dream of adopting again. I mentioned how I really need to stop looking at the kids listed on Reece's Rainbow because when I do it breaks my heart because I desperately want to adopt one of these children but can't afford to do it. He clicked over to the site himself and we began chatting about how each of us had one certain child whose photo really seemed to cry out to us. After a few minutes of chatting we realized we were referring to the same child.

I would love to take all these things as a sign that this is truly where we are meant to go. I'm still so afraid that it's just wishful thinking on my part and I am just trying to make "signs" out of coincidences.

Before we finished chatting, I told my husband that we shouldn't bother to even discuss it because it's just not possible for us now. He responded by saying that we can always dream. As true as that is, I am simply weary of my fourth child being only in my dreams!

tugging at my heart

I felt on the edge of tears while reading a blog just a while ago. A mom waiting to be reunited with her daughter half way across the world. I was near tears for her. I know what she is feeling, as it is what I went through between trips when we adopted Dima. Some say you leave a huge chunk of yourself behind. That's not really it though. What you are leaving behind is your child. There is no part of myself that will ever be as important to me as my children. Leaving behind your child is far more painful than leaving behind a piece of yourself.

There was another reason I was near tears though. It's because I am truly beginning to let go of the idea that we will ever adopt again. It saddens me. Still, I think it may be time to let it go. There would have to be several major changes in our lives to make it a real option.

I am starting to realize that maybe I am being called to help the orphans in another way. I am not totally sure what that is just yet. I can certainly advocate for them. That is a given. Something I will undoubtedly do. I feel there is more though. Much more. Why else would I feel this huge tugging at my heart?

Hopefully the answer will come to me soon. I feel as though my heart is all tied in knots. I have thought it was an empty place waiting to be filled with love for another child of my own. Now I am not sure that's what it is.

losing faith

I've been feeling lately as though another adoption will never happen for us. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Part of me is really sad because I want to adopt again. I want Dima to have a sibling close to his own age. I want to be Mommy to a little one in need. I guess I'm just not sure that having four kids is right for us. Or maybe it's just that I am starting to think that no one else thinks it is right for us.

I don't feel like we would have support from extended family this time around. I know we wouldn't have the support from the community that we had before. That fizzled and died on us even before Dima was home. In fact it was as though most of them turned on us and vilified us. That's another story I guess. There were people who began to say our fundraising was a scam and that we weren't really adopting. They felt it was taking too long and seemed to be costing too much. Just shows how little they know about international adoption! Not sure what those people had to say for themselves when Dima did in fact come home.

My family has seen the financial and emotional strain we went through to bring Dima home. I believe they don't want us to go through that again. They've also seen the anxiety that sometimes comes with raising a child with special needs. That don't seem to get why we would want to adopt another child with special needs. I often think they don't know how we deal with the one we have. Just because they couldn't do it themselves I guess.

I know that I still want one more child. I think I've just lost faith that it will ever happen.

pass it along

From another Group. Please pass this along!!!

There is a horror slasher film being released July 24 (Orphan) about a family who adopts an older girl who “is not what she appears to be. Warnings about her go unheeded until it is too late…for everyone”. The film is being promoted now (http://orphan-movie.warnerbros.com) and the adoption message being sent is extremely negative. There is actually a line in the trailer that says “it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own”.

Without having seen the movie or read the script, it is hard to know if the entire movie is sending a ghastly adoption message, but the trailer certainly leads us to believe it is. This feeds the notion that older adoptees are very troubled and you should beware.... that's not an image any of us want the general public to have of our kids. It plays into people's deepest fears.

There is a growing group pursuing a boycott of the film, sending out emails and posting on online bulletin boards. I urge you to forward this email to others personally involved in adoption, help disseminate the boycott message and write to the producers and distributors expressing your displeasure with the message being sent.

The backers of this movie have deep pockets. It is being released by Dark Castle Entertainment with Warner Bros. set to distribute. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, which developed the material, is also producing.