Grandparent Resources

[dad, mom, and me a few years back]

My parents are pretty freaking great for a thousand reasons. But I've come to love them more throughout our adoption process. They are SOOOOOOO excited to become grandparents to 2 little Ethiopian babies. They read every blog post without exception, and my mom cries at every blog post without exception! They have given beyond comprehension to our process. They bought Christmas gifts for our kids last Christmas. They pray for our little ones and us more than I'll ever know. And they believe these grandchildren will fully be their grandchildren.

Recently, my dad and I exchanged a handful of vibrant emails about how they can be part of our "village" and how they need to grandparent our kids. I didn't have many answers of what they need to do. I mainly just told him all the things he can't do and how adoptive parenting is "specialized parenting" - different from how he'll grandparent his first grandchild, Jack. He wasn't satisfied with my answers. Very my dad.

So, I pointed him to our case manager, who pointed us to a resource specialist. She gave the following list for grandparenting. I haven't looked at anything specifically [I've got my own stack of books to read!], but I trust this source. Hopefully they'll help you and your "village".

• Adoption is a Family Affair: What Relatives and Friends Must Know by Patricia Irwin Johnson is a good general book for all adopting families.
• www.perspectivespress.com :: has some good articles on adoption
• www.emkpress.com :: if you click on "Resources" on the top tab, you will find an article "Why Grandma Can't Pick up the Baby", and several other good articles related to adoption.

If you have any great grandparenting resources - articles, websites, cliff note versions to books - please let me know! I'd love to give them to my parents.

Active Waiting

"What have I been doing these last 9+ months on the wait list", you might be asking? Actively waiting! In preparation for becoming parents, I've done a lot of research, homework, and learning. Here's a sneak peak.

• Read Adoption Parenting: Creating a Toolbox, Building Connections. It's a 500+ page "textbook" on all things adoption. It was amazing. A great resource guide that I'm sure we'll come back to many times once the kids come home. Required reading by our agency.
• Completed watching a 5-hour DVD on Ethiopian adoptions. It was provide by our agency and required learning.
  
• I'm obsessed with Ethiopian adoption blogs. I follow over a dozen blogs of families from our agency and others. It's so comforting, encouraging, inspiring, and educational to journey with other adoptive families.
  
• I'm more obsessed with "Gotchya Day" videos. These are the videos when parents meet their children for the first time. They are guaranteed cry for me, but are so nourishing and healing. They paint a picture for me of our "one day".
• Read The Connected Child. Such a fantastic book on building trust, attachments, and bonding with your adopted child. I posted some learnings on my blog HERE.
• We've been preparing the kids' bathroom and bedroom for them to move in. We haven't decorated their room yet because we don't know if we'll get 2 girls or 1 of each gender. But the room previously known as Matt and SB's room turned guest room turned "catch all" room is currently being cleaned out to make way for the kids' to inhabit. The bathroom currently has paint samples on the wall. We're deliberating between spring green and orange slice.
• Currently, I'm about halfway through reading Toddler Adoption. It's the leading book on what to expect when adopting a toddler. I told Brian that I'm so grateful that we're adopting a toddler because of what I'm learning about their needs, but I literally want to SOB my way through this book as I consider the loss and grief that little ones experience before their even able to go to school. It's so sad how much they've lost in just a few years of life.
  

STILL TO DO...

• We also still need to complete our 10-hour online required Hague training. Not sure what to expect here, but I'm sure it's great.
• We also need to complete our "Support System Plan", another required resource from our agency. It's a 7-page document with dozens of questions about potential questions, issues, situations, and needs we will have once our kids come home. We haven't completed much of it yet, but we've had so many parenting conversations, that I'm sure we'll officially get through this document soon.
  
• We've also signed up for a webinar by Adoption Learning Partners called "Conspicuous Families". It's for families who are adopting children from other races or countries. It prepares us to handle the odd looks, questions, and insensitive comments about our kids not looking like our kids. It also will be a guide for encouraging diversity and cultural awareness. I'm really excited for this 90-minute course!
• I still want to read Attaching in Adoption. It was another recommended resource for building attachments with your kiddos.

As you can see, we haven't been sitting on our hands! We've been actively waiting: thinking, praying, planning, and learning so we can be as ready as possible to become their parents.

Beauty from Ashes

Just when I don't know how many more lessons I can learn from this infertility and adoption journey, God drops another one on me! Dave Gibbons [Newsong's lead pastor - my boss and friend] shared today that our response to pain typically goes through a few phases. First, there's some denial or ignoring that the pain isn't that real or that bad. Next, we realize that avoidance doesn't make it go away, so we acknowledge the pain. Then, we learn to accept the pain in our life for everything it is. But the final phase that many of us never get to is receiving that pain as a gift from God.

Pain is a gift, though it requires a change of perspective to see it as such. It points us back to a God who loves us and promises to heal us when we are willing and open. Pain can be best teacher because it's a God's megaphone to our deaf ears [C.S. Lewis]. And pain can become beautiful because is refining, sharpening, and intensifying God's beauty in us.

Paul, the biblical author who knew a life of pain, penned in 2 Corinthians 12:9 about who God is near to us in the midst of our pain: "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me." His grace is filling and fulfilling. His beauty is made perfect in our ugly, broken, "things-we-wish-we-could-change" pain and weakness.God is beauty. The psalmist poetically articulates, "For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever." [Psalm 100:5]

If you are in some pain today, I pray that because of God's beauty you will find strength for today and hope for tomorrow. I pray that beauty will rise from our ashes.

**Picture above is of Brian's tattoo of a phoenix rising from ashes.
The image for him produces the true freedom we all long for.
Romans 8:18-21 is the Scripture reference he later tattooed on his wrist
to further explain this beauty and freedom from ashes.