On top of all my work and personal life stuff, ornaments orders have been rolling in. Of course, this is great and I'm thrilled to be raising more money for the Thigpen's adoption, but please be patient as I'm a little backed up on orders right now.
This week's prize giveaway is coming from me. One lucky ornament purchaser will win this adorable "Santa" door hanger and a smaller snowman door hanger-just in time for putting up that Christmas decor.
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I'm Elizabeth and I'm so honored that Megan asked me to share a bit of our adoption story! My husband, David, and I adopted our 18 month old son and were blessed to have brought him home from the hospital with us when he was just 2 days old. He is a constant joy and we are eternally grateful for the gift that he is to us even when we are sleep deprived and exhausted. :-) If you want to read more about our story, what led us to adoption and his birth and adoption stories, please head over to my blog, Waltzing in Galoshes.
Megan also asked that I write about our experience with transracial adoption. You see, both my husband and I are white and our son is mixed race. He is mostly African American, but also part Arabic and part Caucasian. The blending of his ancestries gives him the most gorgeous skin and hair and we’re convinced that he’s best looking child there ever was (although I guess we might be kind of partial).
From the time we started the adoption process we were very open to being a transracial family. We knew the sad truth that children with dark skin are often harder to place in adoptive families. Not only did this break our hearts, but it confirmed for us that we would welcome a child into our family no matter what the color of his/her skin color. But, with it there was a lot of fear. Not fear that I would love my child any less or that our family pictures would look different than others’, but fear for our son. I often wonder, “Will he be glad he grew up in our family? With parents that look so different from him?”.
At 18 months we don’t know the answer to this and won’t for a long time. We know he’s glad to be in our family right now because he gives us lots of hugs and kisses! He’s very well attached to both of us as his parents and to his grandparents, aunts and uncles too. But, I think these fears and concerns are real, and in order to be open to a transracial adoption we had to be open to these new realities it would bring into our life.
We knew we would have to be open about talking about race and creating a family environment where differences are celebrated. Recent research shows that being “color blind” actually creates more stereotypes and racism than openly discussing race with honesty and love. So, we already talk with our sweet son about his beautiful skin and that it’s different than ours because he grew in his birthmother’s tummy and not in mommy’s. We know he doesn’t understand this all now, but we’re building a foundation, as we never want to have “THE” conversation about his race or adoption story. Instead we want there to be an on-going conversation about our differences, similarities and our love and appreciation for all of it.
At 18 months we don’t know the answer to this and won’t for a long time. We know he’s glad to be in our family right now because he gives us lots of hugs and kisses! He’s very well attached to both of us as his parents and to his grandparents, aunts and uncles too. But, I think these fears and concerns are real, and in order to be open to a transracial adoption we had to be open to these new realities it would bring into our life.
We knew we would have to be open about talking about race and creating a family environment where differences are celebrated. Recent research shows that being “color blind” actually creates more stereotypes and racism than openly discussing race with honesty and love. So, we already talk with our sweet son about his beautiful skin and that it’s different than ours because he grew in his birthmother’s tummy and not in mommy’s. We know he doesn’t understand this all now, but we’re building a foundation, as we never want to have “THE” conversation about his race or adoption story. Instead we want there to be an on-going conversation about our differences, similarities and our love and appreciation for all of it.
I also fear that as my son grows people will make assumptions about him. Especially following the Trayvon Martin case I began to fear if people would assume my son was “up to no good” just based on his skin color. How can I teach him to be confident in his skin when many in our society make horrible judgments when they see a black man? Right now everyone we meet tells us how adorable and sweet he is, but I wonder when there might come a day when people will look at us with more questions and watch him more carefully when he’s in a store to be sure he doesn’t shoplift. You may think I’m just sounding negative, but unfortunately, racism is still very common, and although I may have lived the first 28 years of my life in (mostly) blissful ignorance, these are the realities that our son will face as he grows up.
As parents we all have the responsibility to teach our children that they are special, loved, wanted, beautiful and created by God for a specific purpose! But, in addition we now have the added responsibility to make our son aware of stereotypes or judgments people may have of him and that he must believe he is who GOD tells him he is and not what the world tells him he may be. We also need to be sure there are people in his life that look like him and that give him these same messages. We are blessed to have several members of his birthfamily who are a part of his life and are able to instill these beliefs in him as well.
Right now our current struggle is living in a very white community. We love our neighbors and friends, but we don’t want him to feel different in his family and when he goes to school and church. We know we definitely want to adopt transracially again not only because we want more children, but also because we want our son to have a sibling that looks a little more like him than we do. We also want to raise him in a community where differences are common and celebrated! Finding this community may be quite a difficult task, but we are up to the challenge for the sake of our son and future children! We may not be putting our house on the market this winter, but this idea is certainly in the back of our minds as he grows up.
As parents we all have the responsibility to teach our children that they are special, loved, wanted, beautiful and created by God for a specific purpose! But, in addition we now have the added responsibility to make our son aware of stereotypes or judgments people may have of him and that he must believe he is who GOD tells him he is and not what the world tells him he may be. We also need to be sure there are people in his life that look like him and that give him these same messages. We are blessed to have several members of his birthfamily who are a part of his life and are able to instill these beliefs in him as well.
Right now our current struggle is living in a very white community. We love our neighbors and friends, but we don’t want him to feel different in his family and when he goes to school and church. We know we definitely want to adopt transracially again not only because we want more children, but also because we want our son to have a sibling that looks a little more like him than we do. We also want to raise him in a community where differences are common and celebrated! Finding this community may be quite a difficult task, but we are up to the challenge for the sake of our son and future children! We may not be putting our house on the market this winter, but this idea is certainly in the back of our minds as he grows up.
Even though adoption is a gift, we can’t forget that it can only be a picture of redemption because it starts with grief and loss. In a perfect world everyone who wants to have children does and all children stay in birthfamilies that are happy and healthy. But unfortunately, in this world there is brokenness, sadness, grief and loss. Our son bears the loss of not being raised by the parents that gave him life, and we struggled through the losses of infertility. His birthparents have the grief of not raising their son.
But, Jesus is the Great Redeemer! He brings redemption and grace from all of our stories of loss and breathes life into them. We are parents to an amazing son, he is being raised by parents who smother him with love, and his birthparents are able to stay in communication with him through the gift of an open adoption. We love this sweet boy more than we ever imagined we would love a child we conceived ourselves. We are reminded every day that he truly fits in our family when we spend an evening together and he “plays” the piano while singing along just like his dad. Or when he throws back his head and giggles uncontrollably just like I do.
Life brings with it a lot of loss, but adoption is a picture of God’s redemption. And no matter what obstacles raising a child of another race brings we are grateful for them because we have been given these obstacles as part of the greater blessing of being his parents! Even though we will have challenges due to the fact that we are a transracial family, it doesn’t make him any less our son just as we are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). Praise God that through his Holy Spirit WE have received our own adoption to sonship in Christ (Romans 8:15) and that he has allowed us to see just small picture of that through the adoption of our precious son.
But, Jesus is the Great Redeemer! He brings redemption and grace from all of our stories of loss and breathes life into them. We are parents to an amazing son, he is being raised by parents who smother him with love, and his birthparents are able to stay in communication with him through the gift of an open adoption. We love this sweet boy more than we ever imagined we would love a child we conceived ourselves. We are reminded every day that he truly fits in our family when we spend an evening together and he “plays” the piano while singing along just like his dad. Or when he throws back his head and giggles uncontrollably just like I do.
Life brings with it a lot of loss, but adoption is a picture of God’s redemption. And no matter what obstacles raising a child of another race brings we are grateful for them because we have been given these obstacles as part of the greater blessing of being his parents! Even though we will have challenges due to the fact that we are a transracial family, it doesn’t make him any less our son just as we are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). Praise God that through his Holy Spirit WE have received our own adoption to sonship in Christ (Romans 8:15) and that he has allowed us to see just small picture of that through the adoption of our precious son.
2 comments:
I enjoyed reading Elizabeth's story! I think they're doing a fabulous job in being aware of what's reality when it comes to their son. Very good to keep the communication open at such a young age. He is super duper cute! :D
What a sweet family :) I totally feel ya with the busyness! Hope your track break arrives soon!
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