Some random thoughts...

I'm sorry, this post is not going to be coherent. I have a lot on my mind.

(1) As many of you I'm sure know, a horrible story of a disrupted adoption surfaced this week. Here's a link. It is at once heartbreaking and eye opening for those of us in wait. If you're a worrier, you should probably not read this (Mom - this means you!), but if you are a waiting parent and are not already following Jen's blog, I would encourage you to catch up with the story. I'm sure this sort of thing does not happen often, but it does happen and we all need to educate ourselves and be as prepared as possible.

(2) AmFam wrote a hysterical post this week. First I laughed Diet Coke out my nose. Then I dwelled over our robbing Nora of her culture. I posted the following comment on AmFam's blog:

Comment from Jennifer Time: April 22, 2007, 11:14 pm
Great post - made me laugh Diet Coke out my nose!
I share many of your feelings about the FCC. It’s disturbing. Here’s my dilemma. DH and I neither are Chinese. We are concerned about robbing our daughter of her culture, but nothing we do is going to be really authentic. Thankfully we have a few friends who are Chinese (some live here, some in China). We will travel to China - I love it there. But… that’s an every couple of years kind of thing. In between, though, what can we do that’s not… well… creepy?

This is such a difficult position to be in. At once we are robbing our child of her culture and pretending to be Chinese. How on Earth do you ever do the right thing?? I want to be the best parent possible. I want Nora to be proud of who she is. I will not dress her up in silk brocade and I will also not wrap her in an American flag. If any of you ever see me do either, please give me a good whack, ok?? Wait -what about the red couch photo??* Should we ditch that? Please advise.

(3) I ordered that book, Learning the Dance of Attachment: An Adoptive Parent's Guide to Fostering Healthy Development, that I wrote about last week. It came yesterday and I started reading it this afternoon. I'm also reading Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew for the Adoption Network book club at work. I'm sure I will have thoughts to share about both.

(4) Holy Cow -- I almost forgot the best event of the week! We received our new I-171H on Wednesday. This one is good through 10/26/2008. I sure hope that we have Nora home by then and are on our way to Carys. Carys will be Nora's Mei Mei (little sister) ... I hope!

*The "red couch photo" is a Chinese adoption tradition. Every travel group has a photo taken of the babies dressed in Chinese clothing on a red couch in the White Swan Hotel.