The PBS show Point of View aired the documentary “Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy” by Stephanie Wang-Breal about a New Jersey family adopting an eight year old from China.  I thought the documentary was fascinating and provocative.  I thought the comments and internet chatter about this film were even more fascinating and provocative.  Unlike many commentators, I am not so quick to judge the family or the film.

Donna and Jeff Sadowsky had two teen sons by birth and a 3 year old daughter adopted at 14 months from China.  The documentary starts pre-adoption when they have decided to adopt an eight year old Chinese girl, Fang Sui Yong, with a repaired club foot and unspecified disabilities to her arms (the Chinese doctors called her condition “dropped wrists”).  Fang Sui Yong was abandoned at age 4, and as is the case with many Chinese orphans with special needs, she was being raised in a foster home rather than an orphanage.

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I think most adoptive parents are on board with the idea that children should be told that they are adopted from a very early age.  We start incorporating the word “adopted” into our vocabulary from the beginning.  We make and read their Life Books to them after their baths as they sit on our laps in their cute little footy pajamas.  Naturally we are pleased as punch when our toddlers proudly tell the world they are adopted with nary a self conscious hesitation.  Yes, we pat ourselves on the back, we have aced this adoptive parenting business.

As our children age, they outgrow their Life Books or at least the sitting on our lap while we read it to them part.  They don’t openly announce their adoption status to the world.  They become busy with growing and mastering and all the other parts of being a kid, and then a tween, and then a teen.  It’s easy to believe that our job is done.  We’ve told them, they’ve accepted it, now let’s move on.

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A while back I published a blog titled “Why Not Just Adopt” about why adoption wasn’t a cure for infertility and was not a viable option for everyone.  The blog was popular and I continue to get comments and emails.  Last week I received an email from a woman which read in part, “Thanks for understanding that some of us are not up to parenting a kid with lots of problems.”  Sigh.  Mark Twain was right:  “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

I don’t know why the myth of the troubled adoptee is so prevalent, but it is.  Another Twainism sums it up well: “A mistruth can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”  At times I want to scream, but instead, I’ll share the facts, and hope they help the truth tie up its laces and get the heck to the starting block.

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The last two weeks I’ve posted blogs (Why Not Just Adopt and Adoption is Not the Same as Having a Child of Your Own) in response to statements made in the comment section of a New York Times essay on the grief experienced by many infertile women on Mother’s Day ( A Non-Mother’s Day ).  In both blogs, I took exception to the sentiments expressed, but also to the word choice of some of the comments.  The funny thing is that I’m the least likely candidate for being the word police. (And yes, for the record, I do recognize the hypocrisy in that statement after readily assuming that role for the last two weeks.)

As a general rule, I hate the hyper-focus on using just the right words.  As Lisa pointed out in the discussion we had on the Creating a Family Facebook group about the blog Why Not Just Adopt, we are all guilty at times of offending someone inadvertently.  Sometimes we simply don’t know the correct words to use, and other times we speak or type without thinking of the impact of our words.  I know this better than most since I am on the air every week, often talking about sensitive subjects.  We have consciously decided to not avoid topics that we think will help someone for fear of offending others or for fear that I’ll put my foot in my mouth.  I do my best, but I’ve make mistakes.  We all have.  Most times people don’t mean to hurt.  But words matter, and words often reflect deeply held beliefs or misconceptions.

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Last week, I blogged on some insensitive comments posted on an essay about the pain felt by many infertile woman on Mother’s Day.  (“Why Not Just Adopt”)  It wasn’t, however, just the infertile that were maimed by thoughtlessness.  A number of comments by infertile people in response to the questions of why not adopt echoed Maire: “Adoption is not the same as having a child of your own.”

The statement that adoption is not the same as having a child of your own is both remarkably accurate and remarkably wrong.  The first part—“not the same as”—is quite true.  Adoption and giving birth are two very different ways of creating your family.  Just as New York City and Paris are two different vacation destinations, or chocolate and vanilla are two different flavors of ice cream.

Adoptive parent don’t get to experience the joys and pains of pregnancy and birth.  They don’t have the visual proof of impending parenthood and the communal sharing this elicits.  They miss out on the wonder of seeing a tiny foot or head or butt make waves across the belly.  They don’t get to indulge in the pregnant parent’s favorite pastime–playing Guess the Gene. “Whose nose she will have” or “Will he get grandma’s gigantic feet?”  They likely won’t get to breastfeed exclusively.  The expense of adoption, while often similar to the expense of giving birth, is covered by the adoptive parents rather than insurance.  And then there is the worry about the unknown–prenatal exposures, genetic conditions, emotional state of the expectant mother, and on and on.

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The pictures make my stomach hurt. A confused looking little boy in a bright yellow jacket staring with vacant eyes into the camera after flying half way around the world.  A photograph of a smiling woman playing with a happy little boy at a table in an orphanage pre-adoption belying the tragedy just a few months away.  A front door festively decorated with a Happy Easter sign, when it was anything but a happy Easter for this troubled family.

The facts simply don’t add up.  Torry Hansen, a thirty- three year old single woman and registered nurse who lives near her extended family in Shelbyville, Tennessee, adopted Artyom Savelyev from the Far East region of Russia in September 2009.  All adoptions from Russia require parents to meet the child on one trip. They are given the medical and social history of this child to take home and consider before deciding to adopt.  If they decide to adopt that child they go back to Russia to finalize the adoption.  Presumably this process was followed in Artyom’s adoption. Prior to the adoption Artyom had been removed from his alcoholic mother and placed in an orphanage.  His age at removal and how long he lived at the orphanage have not been reported.

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I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I opened the newly released National Survey of Adoptive Parents.  I felt my geeky heart begin to flutter in ways usually reserved for Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey when I saw the words “first-ever survey “ combined in the same sentence with “representative information about the characteristics, adoption experiences, and well-being of adopted children and their families in the United States”.  Oh yes, when we get the power and force of the US government and their money behind a survey like this, we are definitely in shock and awe territory.  So my friends, pull up a chair and enjoy the feast.

The survey was part of the National Survey of Children’s Health and was based on information obtained with a sample of adoptive parents in a 30-minute telephone survey.  In 2007, about 2 percent of all U.S. children in the US were adopted. Although the percentage is small, their actual numbers are sizable– nearly 1.8 million children under the age of 18.   Children adopted by step parents were excluded from this number.  The survey was more extensive than I could should cover in this blog, so I’ve cherry picked the information that was the most interesting to me.  You can thank me for my brevity later; or better yet, just send money.

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I receive lots of questions weekly, but this one really stuck with me.  I thought of her question as I typed emails during work and washed dishes after dinner.  I felt such a need to reach out to her to coach, teach, comfort, or in some way help.  I think the underlying concerns she expresses are the “elephant in the living room” for many newly adoptive parents.  With her permission I am answering in a blog post because I would love to get your input.  Creating a Family and this blog have become a community of folks who have had to work extra hard to create their families.  So, please share your insight and wisdom in the comments section.

“We’ve been home 6 months with our adopted son from S. Korea and feel completely blessed to have him as part of our family. We traveled to Korea to bring him home and therefore met his foster family. We were contacted by our agency after being home 4 months that the foster family was in the USA visiting and wanted for us to call them collect so that the foster family could hear our son’s voice. Our son was 14 months at the time.

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I was talking with a woman last month who was in the midst of trying to decide about the next step on her infertility treatment journey. They have been trying to conceive for three years.  She told me that what kept her going was knowing that they had so much love to give to a child. “One thing I know for sure is that when we finally have kids, they are going to be the most loved children in the world.”

There is some evidence that she’s right.  Parents who have struggled to conceive make very good parents.   Research shows that families created with the help of fertility treatment compare favorably with families that conceived without treatment, especially after the first 12 months.  There is some research that infertility patients are more anxious during pregnancy and their child’s first year of life, but the anxiety usually passes after that.  Parents that conceive through IVF tend to be more protective of their children; more child focused; and show greater warmth towards their children.  These studies have been small, but this supports what I see in real life.

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We have been inundated with calls and emails by folks wanting to help Haitian children in some way-any way- and preferably in some concrete way.  Rumors are rampant about children orphaned by the earthquake being airlifted from Haiti to the US and about the possible need for foster families for these children.  I’ve seen reports in the last two days from Indiana, Florida and Pennsylvania about the possibility of mass airlifts of Haitian children.  For better or worse, these airlifts and the possibility of fostering are just rumors.  But this overwhelming desire to help is both touching and deeply beautiful.  It’s hard to maintain cynicism in the face of such kindness.

There is both so much happening and so little happening, that the confusion is understandable.  First, let’s talk about what is happening.  The US State Department and Citizenship and Immigration Services issued an unprecedented policy on Jan. 18, 2010 allowing children from Haiti that were already in the adoption process to come to the US before their adoptions are finalized.  They walked a fine line, and in my opinion walked it well, when crafting this policy.  They wanted to expedite bringing children that were legitimately “orphaned” over to the US, while at the same time, not opening the floodgate to children who could and should be cared for in Haiti.

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