So, Adoption Is Easy

Adoption is easy. Well, according to TV is it, and TV never distorts the truth.

The other night we were watching the season finale of Glee. One of the main characters on show (Rachel) is adopted, and meets her biological mother (Shelby) late in the season. Another of the main characters (Quinn) is pregnant, and decides to give the baby up for adoption. In the finale Quinn has the baby, Shelby decides to take a new direction in life and ends up adopting Quinn’s baby.

According to the show, all you need to do to adopt a newborn is go to a hospital, fill out a few forms, and you can walk out with one of the extra babies.

Wow, if we had known that, our seven year process to bring a baby into our lives would have been a lot shorter. We live in a major metropolitan area, and there are lots of hospitals around. Even if one of them was out of babies, we could have just gone to another one.

When I posted about this episode on Facebook, a friend mentioned something similar from King Of Queens. In short, the couple adopts a three month old baby from China, and the process only takes a few weeks.

Why did our Chinese adoption take about two and half years?

Now, if you haven’t figured out I am a pretty sarcastic person. I don’t expect TV to reflect reality. Labor in a TV hospital takes about five minutes, babies come out perfectly clean, and mothers are ready to head up the PTA continue their work as a superhero the next day.

The problem is that the general public knows that the TV depiction of childbirth is distorted. The vast majority don’t know anything about adoption. Many people actually do think the process is simple. They don’t know about home studies, paper chases, criminal background checks, having to be fingerprinted, and waiting.

While I don’t expect TV to be totally accurate, and I understand how stretching reality adds to the entertainment value, it would be nice if adoption wasn’t used as a novelty.

So, Does She Speak English?

For the record, yes, my daughter who has been living in the Unites States for the last 2 1/2 years does indeed speak and comprehend the English language. She may not be speaking to you because she is a toddler and shy around strangers, but like many other kids, she has very good verbal skills because we encourage (read: force) her to use proper sentences.

Seriously, what is with people?

We have been pretty fortunate with the inappropriate questions about Gracie, but we do get them. “Does she speak English?” is our favorite, but here are a few other good ones:

Does she know who you are?

Why didn’t you adopt a baby from the US?

Does she eat with chopsticks?

Do you have her real mom’s information?

Is she yours?

Why am I talking about this? Mainly, in many of these cases, the questions are coming from loved ones or from people who have a genuine interest. I think that most people don’t realize questions like this can be intrusive, or even offensive.

I will share that the “chopstick” question came from a family member when Gracie was 12mo. We took it in stride, and said she was still learning. When they came back for a visit a few weeks later, we decided to play a joke on them and made up a mini-set of training chopsticks and put them on the tray of the highchair.

Kidding aside, anyone waiting on an adoption needs to be prepared to field these, especially the “bad” ones. Prospective adoptive parents generally have a rehearsed set of answers for the common ones. Whenever we get asked where Gracie is from, we very nonchalantly answer with the town we currently live in. The more offensive questions get straight-up answer with the “death-stare.”

So, I Think We Are Going To Start Blogging Again

It has been over two years since our last post. Life has been busy (this is an understatement). One of our friends recently started blogging again, and this inspired us to start adding updates. Instead of insights into our life, most future blog posts will be about our experiences raising an adopted child and life in general as a multi-racial household in suburban America. We are also getting everything set up to allow commenting on posts, and to add a new features. Stay tuned,