Sunday, February 27, 2011
An Inappropriate Plea
Because we are adopting baby Jude from a country which is a signee to the Hague Adoption Convention, both my husband and I must complete many hours of online study meant to prepare us for the health and developmental risks that attend the institutionalization of children. The readings, some of which are medical journal articles, others of which are personal/anecdotal accounts, are sobering and heartbreaking. I don't have time to write a lot about it now, but I want to make a statement that is bold and probably inappropriate: if you are reading this blog, please consider -- even if you've never thought of it before, and if it is in any way at all feasible for your family situation -- adopting one (or more) of the many thousands of little ones waiting in orphanages abroad. These children desperately need you -- need us.
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13 comments:
I strongly doubt it will ever be feasible for us, but thought I'd mention that upon waking today I'd remembered to pray for you and your Jude regarding this situation in a while, as I asked my own son's name saints Jude and Joseph to pray for us. Recently I hadn't been praying much and had slipped into "putting off a needed Confession mode" and, difficult as it is to explain in an appropriate-length comment, combing through the archives of your blog is one of the things that helped encourage me back in the right direction. Perhaps I'll both remember your situation more often now and in turn remember to add prayers for the other children you mention and the families that may be able to help them.
Thank you so much, Ex-New Yorker, for your prayers for us and for all. The medical reports and articles by specialists who see and treat adopted children for all sorts of issues break your heart. The children who are adopted from Eastern Europe seem to have the deck stacked against them in especially hair-raising ways.
Mrs. Darwin recently suggested doing a novena to St. Joseph as the patron of people whose lives haven't worked out the way they anticipated. I like that thought. I hadn't anticipated being the mother of any special-needs kids, for instance, let alone more than one. But institutionalization truly gives children that classification a priori. At least I'm already an experienced advocate for my first son's special needs, and have good relationships with some of the people who serve special-needs children in our community . . .
How could such a plea be inappropriate? God bless you and strengthen you.
Thank you, GretchenJoanna.
We hope to follow in your footsteps in a couple year's time - God willing!
Mrs. C, it's because of you that we are walking this path. Before I read your post on October 26, 2010, we were not even thinking about doing an international adoption!
I really envy you the ability to do this. But I also thank you for doing it.
A Facebook friend sometimes shares updates from a friend of hers about their efforts to adopt and otherwise help a little girl in an Eastern European orphanage: http://bringingkatyahome11.blogspot.com/
It sounds like bureaucratic paperwork stuff and a special needs diagnosis that may not be accurate are issues. They asked to spread the word about the blog, and remembering this post I thought you or others who end up reading here might be interested in the link.
Oh, and -- I hope this isn't annoying, but thought you might be interested -- just happened to see this browsing today's Google Reader, and I don't see this blog on your blogroll: http://theocoid.blogspot.com/2011/03/prayers-for-anthony-and.html
The blogger and his wife are apparently considering adoption of a little boy he's been reading about at yet another Catholic blog posting about special needs/overseas adoption, ironiccatholic.com. I know you don't have a lot of time right now, but I tend to eat up others' accounts of similar experiences when I am going through something big, so I thought you might like having the links on hand. Interesting that this topic is coming up in so many places I read.
Thank you for the links, Ex-New Yorker. I will look at them a bit later on today. It's true about time -- I feel pretty slammed for it right now -- and today I'm feeling like I have to steel myself for the annoyance of a particular time loss incurred by the weekly visit of a well-meaning-but-inept social worker who comes to my house to do what is supposed to be "family training" for my son (she always tries to schedule it for when he's already at school, and she treats it as a sort of parental hand-holding, when what I'm trying to do is to streamline some behavioral plans for him . . . but I digress). I will browse these links today! Thank you!
Ex-New Yorker, if you can give me a little more information about the family trying to adopt Katya, I'll write a post about them. It appears that their website is targeted towards people who already know them and what they're doing.
We want desperately to be able to afford to adopt an institutionalized child from Eastern Europe one day. I have discerned a clear call to this, and am just waiting for God to give the nod that it's finally time. We struggle with a lot of debt from a period of unemployment a few years ago, and have 4 little ones of our own at home, so I suspect that now's not our time. But we'll do it as soon as He provides the means! I've got my eye on some of the little dears from Reese's Rainbow.
God bless you, Rebecca! I'll pray for your intentions.
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