Really, the worst part of adoption, is the waiting.
I feel like a kid that has a new sled, but is stuck indoors on Christmas break watching a blizzard. Gosh, when it stops snowing, it will be beautiful and fun, but watching the snow fall is the killer. Out of all of the virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary that I try to emulate, I think that heroic patience was the one that I bombed at. When I talk to my father-in law about striving for peace and patience, he says that when we were lining up before God for virtues, I probably refused to wait in line because it was too long. I think he hit the nail on the head.
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And in
case you do not know what the ten virtues are, here is a quote from my favorite
spiritual book… "Acts of love, pious affection for the Blessed Virgin, imitation
of her virtues, especially her profound humility, her lively faith, her blind
obedience, her continual mental prayer, her mortification in all things, her
surpassing purity, her ardent charity, her heroic patience, her angelic
sweetness, and her divine wisdom: "there being," as St. Louis De
Montfort says, "the ten principal virtues of the Blessed Virgin."
If you strive to attain higher levels of one virtue,
your strengths in other levels will rise as well. Have you ever met a sweet person who was not
both charitable in her actions, and patient with her words? Have you ever met someone who was truly
living a lively faith, but who was not sweet, pure, and charitable? Anyway, just a thought on how I try to live
my life, and TRY is the operative word. I finally just stopped praying
for patience because God kept putting me in situations to test my
patience. Now I strive for charity,
kindness, and wisdom and hope that my patience creeps up as well.
Don’t worry though, the Agency and the SW give you lots of
reading and educating to do in the mean time.
Because they are a Hague accredited Agency, and because they do not want
a poor opinion of them or for parents to feel shell shocked once the child is
home, and of course because they do not want the child to suffer at the hands of
an ignorant parent, they give you a ton of things to read.
The books I have on order are:
1. The Connected Child,
by Karyn Purvis
2. Black Baby White
Hands: A View from the Crib, by Jaiya John
3. Does Anybody Else Look Like Me?: A Parent's Guide to Raising
Multiracial Children ,
by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
4. Inside Transracial
Adoption, by Gail Steinberg & Beth Hallinan
5. Different and
Wonderful: Raising Black Children in a Race-Conscious Society,
by Darlene
Powell Hopson and Derek S. Hopson
I will give you an update as to whether the books were worth
the read or not. I have heard great
things about The Connected Child, so
I am excited for that to come. I wanted
to just get them on my kindle, but all of the books were not there, and then I
get these for free, and since we are saving up for the adoption, every penny
not spent on necessities is sent to our Agency.
We also have to go to the following websites and read all of
the information:
And last but not least, we have to sign up at www.hagueadoption.org and register for
the Intercountry Adoption Journey, and then take an online seminar from UAB
called “Preparing Families for International Adoption Seminar.” These two classes were under the Dossier part
of the budget because each one cost at least $150 to do.
Hopefully these things will help us prepare for racial
issues/stressors that the child might feel as he gets older and starts dealing
with comments/questions from other people or from students in school!
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