Under Siege

Apparently downtown Toledo is under siege. I was just walking to the courthouse for a pre-trial status hearing and I encountered not less than 20 armed soldiers - I am talking armed with machine guns, dressed in camo - patrolling through the streets.

It pretty well freaked me out.

Evidently they are here for some kind of weekend urban warfare training.

I just do not expect men with machine guns to be prowling around my town. Call me crazy.

Is this where the revolution starts?

I've learned some interesting things from my adoption agency today.

There are ten 'homestudy ready' families in front of us on the Vietnam families list.

No new children have been released for adoption since January.

I just emailed to inquire whether or not Vietnam tends to release children for adoption one at a time or in batches of several children.

No answer on that as of yet.

My husband and I are going to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner this evening. I feel like we need to do something to make us feel like we are learning about the culture of our child-to-be. (I am following the advice of the books I am reading - apparently I am supposed to be familiarizing myself with my adoptive child's county and "seizing my rights" as an expectant parent. Actually, I am not entirely sure what "seizing my rights" as an expectant parent is supposed to mean. The book also talks about this in terms of "entitlement" - i.e. developing a sense that I am entitled to become a parent through adoption. Since I've never questioned whether or not I should be "entitled" to parenthood through adoption, I am not sure that I need to be developing this sense of "entitlement".)

I realize that the above is a rather lenghty paranthetical statement, so, I'm going to move this discussion out of the parantheses and down here.

I wonder if this book I am reading isn't spending too much time attempting to assuage my feelings of grief about infertility - which, I, obviously, don't have. At one point, the book stated something like, "preferential adopters" (people who are adopting instead of trying to have a biological child), "have different issues than those adopting after infertility."

I wonder if this is really true? I'm not in a position to know - I've had a biological child and therefore cannot say.

But aren't we all just trying to bring a little person into our home?

Obviously, I think that reading about the issues of the adoptive child is important - I'm trying to adopt a child who has already had a life in another country, that child is going to have needs specific to his or her experience.

I'm just not sure that my "needs" as a preferential adoptive parent are all that much different from the adoptive parent who comes to the decision to adopt after infertility.

Either way, I'm going to seize my sense of entitlement - and I'm taking it off to have some "pho" (evidently, Vietnamese noodle soup.)

Law Mommy