Friday, May 29, 2009

TGIF or Thank God I finally got a Cavs win!!!

We won.....HALLELUJAH....we won!!!
OyVey....these play-offs are getting exciting folks!!!! The game on Saturday should be a good one! I will need to remember to stretch and take lots of throat lozenges BEFORE the game!

Been rather quiet in this old brain of mine - Can you actually believe it?
I think I am still reeling a bit from last weekend.
Working through and processing. The mood is slowly improving each day which I am thankful for. Trying to keep my mind off the bothersome stuff which is no small task.

We finished up another of our adoption classes last night (again, thank you to Kim and Jenny for the Cavs texted score updates- LOVE YA)

Class was on cultural/racial issues in adoption. Pretty interesting stuff. We did watch a video for class and I am really glad our instructor gave us a "heads up" on it before watching. She told us to keep in mind that the people in the video were in their early 20's and were VERY outspoken in their beliefs. She wanted us to focus on the overall message and not get put off by the individuals. The men and women in the video were themselves transracial adoptees who were possibly considering becoming adoptive parents themselves. They were speaking to their experience and difficulties in being transracial adoptees. Many good points were made in the video and I was able to take away some good food for thought.

I will share however that one of the comments made on that video bothered me to no end.
(I am sharing my opinion completely here - sorry if you disagree )

This woman's comment was a sweeping generalization about couples who come to adoption as their family building choice. She basically said (and I am paraphrasing here) that most couples who come to adoption do so because of Infertility issues and that by the time they are at adoption, it is their "plan B or second choice" The feeling she seemed to be expressing was that an adopted child would always be "second best" for these couples and that the adopted child would grow up feeling like they were the "second choice".

I jumped into the discussion we had after the video. Please understand that all of the couples in our class already have biological children and that Jim and I are the only "infertile childless" couple there.
I felt a great need to make sure I shared some of OUR story so that I could "clear the air" about that comment.
I shared that when Jim and I decided we wanted to start a family, part of our discussion at the very beginning was about adoption. We discussed all of our family building options well before we actually knew we had IF issues. Adoption was put on the table at that time as a possibility.
It was always one of our family building options rather than our "fall back plan"
We just chose to go ahead naturally at first. Simple as that.

I would never consider adoption as our "plan B". If God willing we do end up with an adopted child, I will know in my heart that part of the greater plan for us was to build our family THIS way. Our child will be our child 100%, no matter what path we took to build our family.

I believe there is great power in words - power to mislead and hurt as well as to clarify and heal.
That is why I felt a great need to put our point of view out there in class as well as on my blog.
I feel better for having done so!

Not much else going on - heading off to work soon.
Promise to catch up a bit more this weekend. Have a good one and don't forget to watch Saturday's game.

GO CAVS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MOOD REPORT:

1 comment:

Beautiful Mess said...

YAY for a win!!! Biting my nails in anticipation for Saturday..EEK! I disagree that adoption is "second best" or an adopted child will feel that way. I mean I GUESS I could see how that would happen, but I don't see it ACTUALLY happening. Why would a couple or a person go through everything it takes to adopt a child and have it be "second best"? It's just a far fetched idea, in my opinion of course. That's not to say it couldn't happen. I totally disagree and frankly, I'm a little offended someone would even suggest such a thing. Oooh look at me, getting all riled up. I had no idea I felt so strongly about this! I'm glad you cleared the air and I agree words can be both hurtful and healing. Good for you for using your to heal! That's one of the MANY things I love about ya!
*HUGS*
P.S. I have another picture of Darth for Zoey, I'll email it to ya. It's a crazy funny pic!