We're still waiting on the official Polish paperwork, although being a holiday week, I have a feeling we would be waiting on Poland or the US. Hopefully we will get the paperwork within a week. And we're still hoping to fly over there in the month that starts with "F"...for family.
I know you, my friends and family, are probably wondering what your role will be (or wondering if there are things you should and shouldn't say?). Since we don't really know how this is all going to go, I don't know what to say exactly. But I've been reading a lot and asking other people and so I have a few things. (Most of this is directed to me more than anyone else.)
1. Lower my expectations. I want my children to be kind, compassionate, to love and honor God, and to be humble. But when I was talking to another adoptive mother, she said, "If I could change one thing, I would not expect so much from them. I mean, I just thought that my children would go to college and it doesn't look like one of my sons will go. I need to let go of my expectations." And a book I read described a study of internationally adopted children. They found the children who did the best (emotionally, etc.) were the ones who were born to average families, ones who didn't require them to have high profile jobs or career; they could be themselves and were given time to bloom.
I want to love my children for who they are, without expecting them to be something else. That whatever they become, it's okay. I will love them no matter what. Of course, I want them to be good people, just not high achievers if they aren't.
Anyway, just expect them to make social faux pas (wait, are they my biological children after all?) and take some time, years even, to catch up.
2. Be humble. Along with having low expectations, I need to be prepared to feel like an inadequate parent. In many ways, my children will be older than their years; in others, they will be behind socially and academically. They won't "get" some things. And I need to be prepared that I may be judged based on that.
The statistic is that for every one month the child spends in an institution, they lose three months of development. Obviously, that means a child may go backward. We don't know much about where our children have spent their time, but I think it's better than some places.
3. I don't know what to call this. My children aren't really "lucky" to have us (I mean, have you seen or talked to us?) but I suppose we're better than aging out of a system and having nobody. But in order to get us, they had to have experienced loss already. A child who has lost his or her first set of parents isn't really lucky, right?
And I don't want them to feel like a charity case. I don't want them to think we're just doing this to look good, or that we're only doing it for God, or that we felt so bad about all the orphans that we had to make a difference. We want to love them, plain and simple.
Frankly, I am a little nervous about this. Well-meaning people telling them that they're so lucky to have parents. You know, there are so many other kids who never get adopted. But what if they just want their biological parents and think we're weird? Because, ahem, I may have thought my own fabulous parents were weird, once upon a time. And I didn't realize how amazing they were until a few years after the eye rolls, hair flips, and groundings. Uh, not that we're amazing or anything. You know what I mean.
4. How much did they cost? Actually, the children didn't cost a dime. And they should have because they're priceless. Anyway, I probably won't get upset about this one, but again, I don't want the kids to feel expensive or that they caused us hardship or something.
By the way, if you want to know how much the fees were, you can find out easily by doing a Google search. And if you want to know so you can adopt also, well, I will gladly help you out. Just ask me privately.
5. Cocooning. When we get home, we'll probably stay close to home for awhile. We need to get to know each other as a family, plus our kids need to understand that we're the ones to depend on for their needs. As odd as it may seem, attaching to us may be really challenging and they shouldn't have other caregivers until they begin to trust us.
6. We need a break! Cocooning or not, this is going to be really challenging for us, so we may need some sanity time. We'll ask our friends and family for an hour here and there to babysit, if needed. Have no fear, we'll do as much as we can by ourselves, but we know healthy, destressed parents will do a better job.
Wow, I intended to just update everyone on our wait, but I went a little overboard. I trust I am not alone when I look forward to leaving behind the heavy stuff and be able to write posts that say, "We arrived in Poland!," "we met the munchkins," "Pierogies are delicicious,"and "Warsaw in March is...um...really cold!"
"Like" :-)
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