The Strange Philanthropist

One of the most frequently asked questions we get about our adoption is “how much is this going to cost?”  Most people ask out of curiosity, with obviously no harm meant.  Val and I have however been cautioned by other adoptive parents to not tell people the cost, just to avoid gossip about “how much they bought their baby for.”  I will tell you though, international adoptions are quite costly.  Parents are responsible to pay for the Pride course and home study (social workers can charge fifty dollars per hour for driving to your house!) legal retainer fees, immigration fees and all travel costs.  No money is ever given to the birthparents.  Val has worked hard to find savings at home and I have tried to work as much part time work as possible to prevent us from having to borrow to much.  It has been a financial burden but one well worth bearing.
Today a very generous friend has helped lighten our load though.  It all came about in a strange way.  We were in Myrtle beach, South Carolina with a huge group of family and friends.  A close friend of my parents approached us and told us he would like to donate some money towards our adoption costs, but he had some conditions.  He wanted to see my dad, who is a real man’s man, sit down and get a pedicure, for a full twenty minutes, nails coloured and all, with out knowing the conditions attached to it.  We racked our brains, trying to think of who would do it and how to get him to agree to it without telling him why.  Then it came to us, our sister in law Becky has never shied away from doing anything and Dad would probably just go along with it, just because it is just “Becky being Becky”.  She agreed and did a wonderful job.  She just went to work, without asking him.  Dad squirmed a little and looked very sheepish as a crowd started to gather around him, pointing and clicking pictures.  Our friend sat in the chair next to him, with a look of pure bliss on his face.  When Dad’s nails got painted purple and pink our friend snapped some more pictures, promising to throw them all on Facebook!  We are very grateful for our strange philanthropist friend and all our friends and family who are supporting our adoption.

Posted by Derek

Sweet moment :)

I haven't really had much to say lately.....things are at a stand still I guess. Just lots of waiting.

A really sweet thing happened to me the other day though. I had the kids with me at the grocery store and while I was grabbing my items the cashier was entertaining them.

(As an aside note, we really haven't sat down with our kids and said 'for sure, we are adopting, and this is how and when....', so we really have no idea how they feel about the situation. We have been slowly introducing the idea of adoption to them though, so that it is a normal idea.)

So, to get back to my story the kids were in the cart at the store, and they were talking to the cashier who was a nice middle aged woman. The woman said to them,

"My, your mom has her hands full with you guys doesn't she?!"

and Ryan said to her

"YEAH. But not full enough because we are getting another one! But not through the tummy, through adoption."

then Jack chimes in:

"Yeah and she's not gonna be white, she's gonna be BLACK, but that's okay"

!

Ha! I guess my kids have a general idea of what is going on after all!!

What is sweet about it all is how proud they were. They were talking about it as if it was the best thing that was ever going to happen to them. They were proud to say they were going to be big brothers again! I almost got a little teary eyed listening to the conversation. The poor cashier didn't know what to say. She just giggled nervously as I paid. Funny!

Telling our other children

When we first came to the realization that adoption was the way we would be going, we didn't really tell our children. Our oldest is 6 and our youngest is 2, we thought a wait of 2 or more years would be a long time for little munchkins to understand. But we did slowly start to introduce the idea to them. At supper we always have devotions and prayer with our kids and so one day we suggested that we pray for the orphans in the world. Kaylie, who is 4 said "what's an orphan?". So we explained how there are many children in the world who have no mom's and dad's and that they are called orphans. "That's horrible!" she cried. "They should come and live here, we have lots of room for orphans"

Well, that was easy :)

Everyday we talk a bit more about that idea. One day Derek said to them "What if we did take one of those orphans to live here with us?" Ryan said, " That would be great!" Derek said "Well, what if the one we took home had different color skin then you....maybe a bit darker? Maybe even black?"

(Awkward Silence)

Ryan : "Well that is no big deal, when they move here they won't be in the sun as much, so their tan will go away and they will be more pink"

(oh boy....)

Jack: "Ummmmm. That wouldn't be good. It would be really wierd."

Yikes. I guess we have a bit of work to do. Actually, since then Jack has gotten used to that idea.

They have no time frame in their minds except for "one day, when our baby comes home...." and for now, that is good enough.