Adoption Interview Project 2013: Akers of Love

I have said before - and I'll say it again - that I have learned SO much about adoption by reading about the experiences of others' through their blogs. Therefore, I am really grateful for the initiative of people like Heather over at ProductionNotReproduction  for coordinating the Adoption Interview Project, which is a wonderful collaboration of bloggers from throughout the adoption constellation. I had fun participating last year, and did again this in 2012.

This year, I have the good fortunate to be paired with Abby of Akers of Love. Among other interesting things, she's the momma of toddler Max and new born Sam. Her boys are REALLY adorable (including her husband, Wes!), and as I wrote to her, I don't understand how she finds time to be such a great mom, keep up with her blog, AND look so cute and perky herself!

Somehow, thankfully, she DID find time to respond to my questions. Below is her interview.


I am impressed by how frequently you post and your initiative in connecting with other bloggers, such as your 10-4 Good Buddy project. I feel like I often lack the time and energy to keep up my blog, yet you are the busy mom of a toddler and a new born and you manage it (while still looking so energetic and cute, I might add!). How do you do it?!

Don't be too impressed...I've already stopped doing 10-4 Good Buddy.  I loved the idea and meeting people, but it was too much...especially with our new, little guy.

I usually blog during naptime, but again, don't be too impressed, because sometimes I choose to blog instead of doing what I really should be doing, cleaning, laundry, preparing dinner, etc.

But the main reason I blog is to jot down things I want to remember about my family...mainly my boys.  So a special event or something funny my two year old says are great motivations for me to sit down and write a post.  I know I need to write another post when my husband or mom say, "You haven't written a post in a while..."


How do you envision your blog evolving in the future?

I'm not sure I'm looking for it to evolve.  I don't want to be motivated by how many followers I have or who is reading my blog...although it has been a huge blessing to meet some lovely ladies through the blog world!  My focus is to record our family stories...sometimes a project or recipe I think is worth sharing...and if other's are blessed by what I write, that's a bonus.

How is living adoption different than you envisioned it when you were dreaming of becoming parents?

Well, the main difference is that when I was dreaming of becoming a mama, I pictured my children to look like my husband and me.  Adoption caused me to  break the mold of what I thought our family would like and I love how my family looks!  I pray that others..especially those who are struggling with infertility...will see our family and see how wonderful a family grown through adoption can be.

Your faith is obviously a guiding force in your life. How do you think it impacted your adoptions? How do you think it impacts your parenting?

It's interesting that you asked this questions because adoption/infertility and parenting have been the two areas of my life that have grown my faith the most and made me realize my enormous need to completely depend on God.

My faith impacts every aspect of my life.  Although I fail miserably at times, my desire is to have God be the driving force in every action, word and decision I make.  I remember saying over and over to my husband during both of our adoptions, "I can't imagine doing any of this without a relationship with Godt."  Regardless of the disappointments {and we have had our fair share}, I always had hope that everything would work out according to His perfect plan for our family.

With parenting, it's a daily battle between allowing my selfishness and flesh to take over and allowing God to lead me with my parenting choices.  Parenting is so hard. When I begin my day in prayer asking God to help me be the mom He wants me to be for Max and Sam, my day goes so much better than going about my day on my own.

You now have two children who you adopted, which means you have connections with two different birth families. How are you navigating the differences in their adoptions, and how do you anticipate doing so as they grow? 

You're right!  Our two adoptions are different.  We had a relationship with Max's birthmom prior to him being born, we were in the delivery room to see him come into this world and have had consistent communication with her.  We have also met Max's birthfather and many other member of his birth family.  With Sam's birthmom, we  met her the day Sam was born, we don't know much about her and may not every know anything about the birthfather.

It can be overwhelming to think about how everything is going to work out in the future.  I pray that we can have healthy, safe relationships with both of our boys' birth families.  We trust God that he will guide us in the way that is best for our family and everyone else involved.

I guess I really didn't answer your question, but I really have no idea what our future holds, but our desire is to have a relationship with both birth families.

I believe that you and your husband are white parents raising children of color. Do you have any advice to share with others considering transracial adoption?

It's not a necessity, but find other families that look like yours.  Maybe you can connect with other families that have done transracial adoptions through your agency.  We are blessed that our very good friends have a transracial family through adoption.

Don't let it scare you.  If that's God plan for you, He will give you the wisdom and grace to deal with any issues that come along.
 
Is there something you think readers should know about you that they wouldn't learn from reading your blog?

I was a kindergarten teacher for 8 years.  I loved it, but my dream job has always been to be a mom.  Being a teacher to a room full of 5 and 6 year olds taught me so much about parenting and I am so thankful that God allowed me to have a part and hopefully make an impact in over 170 kid's lives.

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Thank you, Abby! It was a pleasure "meeting" you. I look forward to following your family's story and wish you all the best!!

Sometimes, I forget

Last Friday I spent a really lovely afternoon at the beach with Dylan and the mom. We splashed and played in the sand where it met the water and my son squealed when the tiny waves in the bay created by the wake of the boats rolled onto him.



At one point, my mom - always prepared with a healthy snack - offered some grapes. I surprised myself by decadently responding that what I'd really like was an ice cream. She surprised me by encouraging me to got get some for both of us.



And so I slipped on my sandals and found myself reveling in the summery feel of sand rubbing between my toes as I walked the short blocks to the little liquor store on the peninsula.



Coming off the sunny sidewalk, my eyes adjusted to the dim store as I slid open the cooler's door and the frost tingled my salty face. I browsed through the treats before selecting a foil-wrapped drumstick for my mom and a plastic covered ice cream sandwich for myself. Classics!



Out of the shop, I headed back and let my happy thoughts drift to our plans for the weekend. Then they shifted darkly to news my mom had shared about a friend who is ill.



Stepping off the boardwalk and back onto the sand, my thoughts refocused as I saw again my mother, still sitting at the edge of the water. And there next to her was a very little boy, his floppy white hat reflecting the bright sun. The sight of him startled me.



I realized that for a moment, I had forgotten him. I had forgotten this little child, that I have a precious son.



How is it possible that from time to time, I forget? All those years hoping, waiting, and working to bring a child into our lives, how can he slip so easily from my awareness?



While I find this forgetfulness remarkable, I don't feel guilty about it or find it disturbing. It's always fleeting, and certainly the reminder is pleasant. For so long, my identity was tied to being a single woman, and then to being infertile. I just figure that it will take awhile to fully integrate this new me, to always know that I am a mother.

A Few to Spare, Perhaps?

Since late January of this year, I have joined millions of other Americans in an absurd obsession: an irrational fascination with Octomom. When I first heard the announcement that a woman had given birth to healthy octuplets, I didn’t realize that she would touch my life in so many ways.

My immediate reaction was, “Wow! Clomid overdose! Someone wasn’t being appropriately poked and prodded.” Clomid is the “gateway” fertility drug, often doled out before there is any real diagnosis of the problem conceiving. Its main function is to boost the number of eggs that ovulate during each cycle. Responsible doctors and clinics will require their Clomid patients to come in on a regular basis (like every other morning during some weeks, in my case) so that their egg follicle development can be monitored closely via vaginal ultrasound. This monitoring has a couple of very important functions. First, it should reveal when there is a follicle ready to ovulate – thereby indicating a good time to meet up with sperm, either via Intra Uterine Insemination (IUI) or the other, much more romantic way. Second, it should show how many follicles are ready to go.

In most cases, if there are more than two or three follicles of a certain size, health professionals will cancel insemination and strongly discourage intercourse. The most catastrophic side effect of Clomid and other follicle stimulating medications like it is multiple births. So, when I heard about the octuplets, I assumed that either someone had made a huge error in counting developing follicles, or the mother had ignored the advice of her doctor. (Of course, we’ve now learned that I was wrong about this; Octomom conceived through the reckless implantation of at least six embryos during IVF, while the best practice for a woman her age is implantation of no more than two or three.)

How can I call eight healthy babies a catastrophic side effect? Well, of course the births of healthy multiples aren’t that for the parents who so desperately want children. In fact, I bet many subfertile parents of twins and triplets feel like they hit the jackpot. After all, if they’ve always envisioned having more than one child, the prospect of repeating treatment for a subsequent baby must be daunting, and multiples are often welcomed as an “instant family.” (In some circles, boy/girl twins are considered the gold standard.)

But I’m not talking about twins, or even triplets (although study after study shows that even their gestation can be very dangerous, for them and for their mothers). I’m talking about higher order multiples, which have skyrocketed in the last couple of decades and are a hot topic among fertility specialists and medical ethicists.

So when I first heard about Octomom, it was with some sense of connection and gratitude that I had received more responsible care than I supposed she had. Then I learned that her children were born at the same hospital where we went for our treatment! It came out later that she arrived at Kaiser Bellflower already very pregnant, but for awhile there, I wondered if it was MY docs who’d goofed!

My sense of a bizarre personal connection was further strengthened when I learned that she lived in the town to which I’d just moved. In fact, her mother’s home, where she was reported to reside, was less than a half-mile from my office. When we learned Octomom’s name, I discovered the weirdest of all my personal connections. Her last name is what we call our precious cat! (Maybe I’ll share how Suleyman got his name sometime. For now, I just want to be sure everyone knows he got it long before Octomom’s 15 minutes of fame. As proof, his name is spelled differently than hers.)

These coincidences piqued my interest. They also generated a lot of conversations around me, many of which I found fascinating, and some of which I found very disturbing.

To be sure, this case of a woman - who already had six young children with the help of a sperm donor and a fancy Beverly Hill doctor, who was manipulating public assistance - brings up controversial issues about reproductive freedom, the role of government intervention and support, medical responsibility and liability, privacy, and good parenting.

One interesting conversation I had was about selective reduction, which some would say is the recommended medical procedure in pregnancies with high order multiples that removes one or more fetus so that others can thrive, and to prevent sometime life threatening complications for the mother. Others would say it is the heartless murder of innocent life. At the risk of getting overly political here – and even worse, spouting off about something I’ve never been faced with, thankfully – to me it seems ironic that many of the people who become pregnant with multiples but refuse selective reduction for religious reasons are the same people who relied on extreme medical technologies to achieve conception and pregnancy. Why does Octomom think it was God’s will for her to have eight babies at once, but not His will for her to be infertile?

Perhaps the most interesting – and heated – conversation I got into about Octomom was with another waiting adoptive mother. We began by only half joking that it seemed she should share her good fortune with us, and that we’d be glad to take a few of her children off her hands. It led to discussing whether the government has the right – or the responsibility – to remove some or all of Octomom’s kids. And then in meandered even further, to whether the government has the right – or the responsibility – to prevent Octomom and other parents deemed “unfit” (by whom?) to have more children. Yes, I agreed with my friend that it is horrible that abusive/drug addicted/homeless women sometime seem to get pregnant without any concern about the difficult lives to which they have almost certainly doomed their progeny. But I vehemently disagreed that it is the role of my government to sterilize such women. (I must say, I believe I have more faith in my government than most Americans; I feel that – for the most part – it is still a democracy of, by, and for the people. But I suppose I don’t trust my fellow citizens enough to make such deeply personal reproductive choices. And I imagine most of us can identify atrocities committed by leaders of nations who were democratically elected.) This increasingly difficult chat with my buddy ended when I blurted out a somewhat non-sequiter: “So, you don’t want your tax money to be used to ensure everyone has access to good health care, including safe abortions. But you do want it to be used to eliminate the opportunity of parenthood to anyone who’s made some bad choices at one point in life?!”

By far the hardest things for me to hear about Octomom, though, have been the angry statements that she and her family should not receive any further support. To me, what gets so lost in the outrage about Octomom are those eight (errr…make that fourteen) innocent little children.

All of the vitriol does not help them. And they need help. As distasteful as it may be to swallow, ensuring that their likely unstable mother has the resources to keep them in school, receiving attentive care, eating well, etc. is probably the best chance they have in life. Unless she is truly neglectful or abusive, removing them from her home and placing them in (and out, and back in to) foster care - separating them from each other and their extended family - would not improve their lots in life.

Truly, I wish Nadya Suleman and all of her many children the very best. Perhaps I’ll invite one or two of them over for playdate someday.

The Biggest Loser?

This post is pretty personal, and I feel kind of vulnerable putting it up for all to read. But one of the things that has frustrated me most about our experience with infertility is that, for some reason, in our culture so many people suffer in silence. (By the way, I think this is especially true for men.) It can feel lonely and isolating.

My gut tells me that if more people were more open about infertility, we'd have better treatments, better regulation, and better insurance coverage! I also suspect we might have less depression and divorce. So, I want to do my part to make "talking" about infertility more acceptable.

I have read (somewhere, oh where?) that there are many losses associated with infertility, and that evaluating which are most meaningful can help determine next steps in family building, be they further treatment, deciding to live childfree, or moving on to adoption, as we have.

With apologies for the misquoting, non-attribution, and forgetting several key points, I'm sure, the losses include:

Loss of a genetic link to your descendants. M. and I agreed that this isn’t important to us. At first we boasted about how “good” our genes are and thought it would be a loss to the gene pool, but upon further examination, decided that there are plenty of things from all sides of our families that we’d rather not pass on. In fact, the “random” genes of our child are likely to be just as “good” as any of our own.

Loss of a genetic combination. I DO think it would be really cool to see a combo of my physical and other traits with M.’s (and I’m guessing we’d have a pretty cute bio-kid, judging from M.’s baby pictures). But, this was not a tough one for either of us to get over. We’ve also heard other adoptive parents say that their expectations for their children are healthier because they aren’t rooted in assumptions that their children are “mini-me’s.”

Loss of faith in your body. This was a hard loss for me. I’ve been such a healthy person, and to learn that my body is out of my control and not doing what I want it to do, and really not even what it is supposed to do, has been a real shift that’s tough to accept. It has certainly made me much more aware of my body (in not always negative ways) and have much less confidence in it. I feel much older now than I should with the few years that have passed. Of course, this loss isn’t much of an issue for M., because we assume that he could procreate if he was with a fertile partner. (He is always very sweet to reassure me that MY infertility is OUR infertility, as I know I would if the shoe were on the other foot, so to speak.)

Loss of…hmmm…what do they call it?...maternal stuff. This, I think, is the hardest loss for me. Since puberty, I've taken to heart that I have “birthing hips,” and always assumed I’d be pregnant, and labor, and nurse. I’ve had many, many friends re-assure me that I am not “missing” much by never experiencing stretch marks, or a compressed bladder, or 24 hours of active birthing. But I am so sad that I will never know what it’s like to create and sustain another human being. I want to watch my belly swell (from something other than ice-cream) and for M. to watch in awe as our fetus visibly turns over under my skin. I want to understand what it means to bring someone new into the world, and the closeness that comes from a newborn’s nuzzle. I think that one of the attractions of open adoption for me is that we may be able to witness our child’s birth, and I know that will be an incredibly bitter-sweet moment.

So, what do you think? If you learned that having biological kids wasn't in the cards for you, how would you feel? Would you experience a sense of loss? Why?

It's Not a Total Loss

I'm in the midst of drafting a post about the losses of infertility. What a downer! So I thought I'd pause for a moment and reflect on the things I've actually gained through this experience.

A greater sense of compassion. I believe that infertility has made me much more sympathetic and less judgmental of people with all kinds of struggles, not just those related to family building. If someone acts like s/he is having a bad day, or week, or life, I now suspect it is because s/he is having a tough time.

Attempting to model the behaviors of others that have been helpful to me, I've become a better listener and don't always try to "fix" an unfixable problem that a loved one shares with me. I've become less prone to avoid people I know have experienced something tragic and more ready to offer a simple "I'm so sorry you are dealing with this. You are in my thoughts."

I realize now something I should have clued into much earlier: you cannot judge a book by its cover in regards to painful life experiences. I know some people who've managed through some incredibly difficult situations who have wonderful, sunny dispositions. And I know others who seem to live charmed lives who still manage to see the glass half empty. Through coping with my own challenges, I now recognize that I really have no clue what other people are going through or have experienced - or how it has shaped their world views - unless they tell me.

A stronger sense of self. Not being able to have biological children has forced me to ask myself all kinds of questions that I could have otherwise avoided but are undoubtedly healthy to explore. I've pushed the boundaries of my ego, redefined personal success, made peace with many of my limitation, and been reminded again and again to try to live in the present rather than the past or future.

I've also proven to myself that I am a tough cookie with a good head on her shoulders and an open heart.

More time with M. When I'm feeling down, I often reflect upon all of the great things I've been able to experience with M. that I couldn't have if I had become a mother nine months after we started TTC. Chief among them is all of the amazing trips we've taken (including Turkey, Guatemala, and Ireland) and the camping we've done. And there have been so many nice evening runs, weekend hikes, museum visits, bottles drunk, meals prepared and consumed together, and lazy weekend naps.

While we'll try hard to continue many of those small and big adventures as a family of three, I know that life will be very different once a little one arrives.

A stronger marriage. Throughout the process of preparing for parenthood and adoption, M. and I have REALLY had to be good partners. We've had to learn to ask for some extra support when we needed it, and even better, we've learned to recognize when the other needs some extra support and offer it lovingly. We've had to sort through our own feelings and share them with each other when we were most vulnerable. We've had to negotiate and readjust our dreams for the future. And not to be understated, we've had to get a lot done - mountains of frustrating paperwork and other sh*t - together.

I feel lucky every day that I am sharing my life with such a wonderful person. Our ordeals have provided proof again and again that he will be not only a fabulous husband but also an incredible father. So, in addition to looking forward to parenting with M., I know there will be a great time to look forward to when our little one(s) has flown the coop and we will again be able to snuggle together as late as we'd like on Sunday mornings.

New friends. Searching for others who could truly relate, I have been prompted by infertility to connect - in "real life" and online - with people I might otherwise never have encountered, and I am richer for it.

A better sense of how my body works (and doesn't). I've charted my cycles and recognize what little changes signal. I've seen ultrasounds of my insides. I can talk more knowledgeably than anyone without an diploma from a fancy medical school should about cervical mucus, trailing follicles, and estradiol levels.

I'm a believer that knowledge is power, and I appreciate all I've learned about the human - particularly the female - body. It's amazing, interesting stuff. And it's so complicated, it's now hard from me to understand how anyone ever actually does conceive successfully.

Better preparation for parenthood. The delay in becoming a parent has given me more time to "marshal our resources" for when we eventual have our kid. Specifically, we've been able to make more money and have now been able to afford to buy a great home for our little family.

I've also had more time to learn about what it may eventually be like be a mom. Obviously, I've done a lot of reading and talking with friends and family members with kids. Particularly, I've done a lot of observing, and M. and I have done a lot of reflecting on parenting, which I think will be very helpful. (If I've learned one thing, it's that I can't truly predict what it will be like and need to be prepared to take back my "I'll-never-do-that-with-my-kid" assumptions!)

No more fear of needles. Yeah, that's one small benefit of becoming a human pincushion.

Adoption? Why Don't You Just Have Your Own Kids?

Stop. Don’t read any further unless you can accept that our child – who we expect to come to us through domestic open adoption – will be our own kid. M. will be our son or daughter’s real dad and I will be our son or daughter’s real mom. And by the way, our child’s birthparents will also be her or his real parents.

We came to adoption down a long and bumpy road (although, I have learned, not as bumpy as most). M. and I are both “late bloomers,” and didn’t know ourselves well enough to commit to a life partnership until well into our thirties. Of course, before we were married, we talked about our plans for the future, and we agreed that we wanted them to include children. We also agreed that while it would be nice to just enjoy our adventures as a couple before buckling down to parenthood, we (well, me especially) heard the old biological clock ticking.

We were married in November 2004 when I was 35, and I knew enough about physiology not to assume I would get pregnant as soon as we were ready to staring trying. So, shortly thereafter I began to make plans to try to get and stay pregnant (you know, eating right, medical exam, vaccine update, etc.), and a few months later we began a new time in our life: trying to conceive - TTC, for those in the know.

I wasn’t surprised when I wasn’t pregnant after the first month of unprotected sex. Or even the second…or fifth. By the ninth month with not even a "glimmer," even after more deliberate “trying,” I made an appointment with my doctor at Kaiser, who referred me to their infertility clinic. That was weird.

To enroll in the infertility program at Kaiser, you and your partner must first go to a class where they provide very basic information about conception and all of the things that can prevent it. M. and I sheepishly showed up (scorning the directional signs that said “infertility” along the way. I mean, common! Couldn’t they throw us a bone and call it “fertility” class instead?) It was the first time we sat in a room with other people struggling to build their family. I was struck by how diverse the group was, in terms of age, ethnicity, and apparent education. That was reassuring.

I could ramble on now for quite awhile – and perhaps I will at some point – about the medical “assistance” we got from there. We both have mixed feelings about it. Long story short: after four IUI’s (including two that were “medicated” e.g. shots in the arse), we flunked out of Kaiser’s program. They suggested that our problems may be due to “low ovarian reserve” (that was tough news), and counseled that our options were: to live childfree; to pursue the much more invasive – and expensive - route of in vitro fertilization (IVF), particularly with donor egg, since mine seem to be cooked; or adoption.

We felt like we’d reached an important fork in our road. As is our way, we began to research. We read books and articles, talked with a few people, and explored some pretty strange corners of the internet. There was even a time when I was fantasizing about an IVF “vacation” in Thailand, were babies could be made more inexpensively, all while getting a tan.

Anyway, the more we investigated and searched our souls, the more comfortable we felt with the losses of infertility and closing the door to a biological child, and the more comfortable we became with adoption. Conversely, the more we learned about IVF, the more uncomfortable we became with it.

We went to an adoption conference sponsored by RESOLVE, the national infertility group. They had guest speakers representing all parts of the “adoption triad” – adoptive parents, a birthmother, and a young woman who was adopted as a baby – and they were really helpful to hear. During the breaks we could wander around to the various booths of different attorneys and agencies and such and gather more info. I had already been reading some about open adoption, and so I was particularly interested in getting more info on that.

We came back and read, and thought, and talked some more. We realized that with adoption, if we stuck with it, we would certainly become parents...we just wouldn’t know when. On the other hand, with further treatment, we could invest many more hours, and dollars, and tears without any assurance of achieving our “goal.”

We were convinced: we would love a child, however s/he comes to us. So, adoption was the best path for us. The day I put the enrollment packet and a big check in the mail to our agency, I was giddy. I think that was the closest I will ever be to what it feels like to get a positive on a home pregnancy test.

I became an expectant mother.