Committee Meeting Date

I have just had an email from the social worker at our adoption agency. The agency will be making its decision regarding the placement of Dung on Thursday, February 23. She will be calling me Thursday evening to let me know the results.

Let’s just say I am on pins and needles.

I contemplated building a strange shrine involving Dung’s picture, a picture of my husband, Gabe and myself taken on Christmas Eve, a miniature book of the seven lucky gods of Japan, a “go-yen” Buddhist good luck piece, and my recently departed grandmother’s crucifix, but, I decided that was, um, WAY WEIRD, and probably sacrilegious on more than one front. Also, I decided that that would be asking God for something for MYSELF, rather than asking God for the right thing for that little boy. And that would be wrong.

So, I put the Christmas picture of my family into Dung’s file, and put the file back under the stack of Gabe’s board games, where it has been hiding since last Tuesday when I couldn’t look at it for fear of it setting off a crying jag.

It is HOPE that made me put the picture of my family into Dung’s file. HOPE that my family IS the best choice for Dung.

The mentor family that our agency matched me up with had this to say about allowing myself to get attached to a child who hasn’t been given to me: “Go ahead and become attached. If this child doesn’t go to you, he will go to another loving family and you can rejoice for him. And soon, if he is not yours, you will have another child to get excited about and attached to.”

Since there is nothing to do about the fact that I got attached, I will take her advice and just go with it.

My Girlfriend D. had something very good to say about this, too. She said that the 23rd of February is a good day, a day that brought V. (D’s daughter) into our lives. So, it is a lucky day – it will certainly be a lucky day for Dung – who is going to be matched to a family who will love and cherish him.

In other adoption news, I had the opportunity to meet with other adoptive families on Saturday morning at the Science Center. I met two moms of children adopted from China, who kindly shared their stories with me, and explained to me some of the red tape and headaches that I have in front of me, and have some beautiful children as proof that the red tape and headache are worth it. It was good for me to see some success stories - one of the moms had adopted a child with cleft lip and palate. He is three years old and just had his last surgery and is doing great. It was wonderful to see how attached he is to the mother who has only had him for six short months.

More soon,
Law Mommy