Not so hush-hush

I have briefly mentioned that I am reviewing a book on Adoption. I am loving it! I have "rented" 2 books on adoption from the Lending Library and this one is by far the best I have ever read on the topic. I'll write more about it once I'm done and write up my review for it. But, in this book it mentions that adoption has become a more open topic recently until in the 40's up through the 70's or even later when it was all hush-hush. It's not because Adoption is booming, in fact the number of adoptions has gone down.

I talk openly about our adoption a lot at church. A sister in my ward is adopted, Another sister who has moved out of my ward has adopted 2 kids, Another sister has 3 cousins that are adopted (and these are just the people that have come up to me and talked to me about it).

I have been a substitute Relief Society teacher since the summer and I have taught every month since October. Last week I was asked to become a permanent teacher for the second Sunday of each month. I taught again on Sunday as a sub. From the time I started preparing it and the time I taught I switch a few things around.

Oh, another topic I wanna mention. You know those times when people say "If you live righteously enough you'll be blessed (with a baby)" or the comments on how you just pray for it and it happens. I cringe when I hear these things and usually it's during Sacrament meeting. I don't know about any of you, but aren't there times when you just want to correct them, No, you can be the most righteous person in the world, but sometimes you just aren't meant to give birth to a baby. Today I got my chance to say something during my lesson. It was on Fasting. I talked about what the manual said and shared a recent experience of fasting and having received the blessing our family was fasting for. A sister mentioned something along the lines of "You fast for it and it happens, you fast for something else and it happens, over and over again!" So at the very end of my lesson I added, You can fast all you want for certain things, but sometimes they do not happen. I shared the experience of when Brad and I had been trying for 10 or 11 months, we fasted, he gave me a blessing and.... I still have never gotten pregnant. Then we got Emma, 5 years after we fasted for a baby. A few days after we got her was fast Sunday. That Sunday I was very strongly prompted to bare my testimony and if I did so we would adopt her.

That Sunday I decided that I was going to follow the prompting through this process. When our caseworker called for Emma's first visit with Sam he didn't mention using the "back door", I thought about asking him, but I decided not to. Instead I walked right in the front door and met Sam that day. Sam has told me over and over again how me doing that, going right in and meeting her, was one of the reason she loved us and decided to place her daughter with us. Now we not only have Emma, but baby on the way as well. Sometimes things (blessing) don't always come when we want them to or expect them too. It was a LONG 6 years, but like all the other trials I have gone through, I wouldn't change it for the world. A week or 2 ago I asked Brad, "Could you love Emma any more then you do if we had actually given birth to her and she was biologically ours?" Both of our answers is, NO. I could not possibly love my little girl more then I do! The infertility is still hard at times, but it does not affect the way I feel for Emma.

Okay, back to my Relief Society lesson. I'm easily intimidated and often feel inadequate in teaching. Every single lesson I have taught our Bishop has been in there for it and it adds to me being nervous. But, Sunday he was not in there. No, I got asked to sub the week that our Stake RS President and her secretary were there! (Gulp) I was beyond intimidated and nervous. Not to mention that the sacrament talks were on the same topic as my lesson and they pretty much covered my whole lesson! But, I got through it.

After the lesson I was sitting talking to a sister and the stake Relief Society President came up to me. She said since I do foster care I probably know her daughter, AB. Yes, in fact I know AB! AB is our cluster group leader and the most well know foster mom in our area! We all left the room and out in the hall was Brad holding Emma, so the RS President and her secretary had to go see Emma. We continued to talk about her daughter and foster care. The secretary then tells me that her daughter or granddaughter has also adopted and some of the things that people have said to them about the adopted girl not knowing she is adopted. (Like, we can see the family resemblance!) I told her one thing we have gotten 3 times now is "Your husband has brown eyes and you have green, so how does she have blue?" She's adopted!

I love that we now live in an era where the topic of adoption can be so open. It's also interested that we just so happened to move right after we got Emma, so when we first went to church no one knew she wasn't ours. Some times I have to remind myself that I don't want Emma growing up with me always bring up the fact that she's adopted when talking to people who don't know. I HATED it when I was growing up and still today when my mom introduces herself to people as my "Mom and Grandma"! Okay, you like having both rolls, but must we always have to bring up the fact of my mom's very painful death?!? Because of my strong dis-like of my mom doing this, I don't want to do it to my kids. I'm never going to introduce myself as their "adoptive mom".

Sam never came over Sunday, but she did text me. We are now planning on Monday, ha ha, We'll see. I'm okay if she doesn't come over all the time and I keep telling her, visits are up to her! I'm not going to pressure her into coming over if seeing Emma is too hard for her all the time. She has told me that it has gotten easier, but back when we had them at DCFS they were too hard which is why she missed so many of them.