(anticipation at the airport)
We have had a countdown going for a few weeks now. And then this past week Zoe asked us every day if it was Friday yet. And today was the today: her birth mom came here for a visit. We’re so happy to see her and spend some time with her.
I’ll write more about it later…looking forward to the rest of the weekend!
In the comments section of my last post, A to Z asked me if we are planning to adopt again. Well, we’re not sure yet. We are in the talking about it stage, I guess. We would like to learn more about adopting from foster care, but we haven’t ruled out domestic adoption, either. So we’ll see! We have a lot of research to do.
Laura wrote that she gets worried as she reads about the adoption process and that they are hoping to adopt three children. She asked, “Are we crazy?” for wanting to adopt three. I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you just have to go into it with as much information as possible and with the willingness to be flexible when needed. I wish you all the best as you figure it all out!
Birthmothertalks mentioned she is doing the Color Run soon…yay! I think you’ll really like it.
Last Saturday I ran in the Color Me Rad 5K (similar to the Color Run) with my cousin and her friends. I have never run a race before. I’ve been running for about 6 months or so. I have run the equivalent of a 5K at the gym and at the park, but I have to say that this was much harder! I can proudly say that I ran the entire race, even when I had to run up a hill near the end of it!! (Seriously, who puts a hill at the end of a race?!?!) If you haven’t seen it before, as you run volunteers throw rainbow-colored cornstarch at you. They also spray you with liquid color. All while you (or at least me!) are huffing and puffing along the race path.
My cousin stayed with me as we ran, and she really encouraged me to keep going. That meant a lot to me. What an exciting – set a goal and reached it – day!
Before the race we took some pictures…(I’m on the far left in this photo, my cousin is 3rd from the left and the other two women are friends.)
Our clean shoes before the race!
They will take pictures of you beforehand – you can compare the befores and afters!
Our extra color packets are ready! You can buy extra packets for fun plus they give you one (or three!) to throw at the end.
Steve, Zoe, my parents, and my sister, Janice, came to cheer us on. They were standing on the side of the hill that I would soon be running up when this picture was taken.
Just a tiny bit of color!
Did I mention it was HARD? It really was – my legs were begging me to slow down to a walk, but I didn’t give in. It was so cool to be doing something I had been thinking about doing for a long time.
Crossing the finish line (thanks for the picture, Janice) – it’s not a timed race, but we did it in 38 minutes. That’s over 5 minutes better than my best time. I love the striped socks on the girls behind me…if I run this again I’ll have to come up with something creative! Lots of people had crazy tutus, fun hats, and bright socks.
I know I look totally crazy in this picture, but it’s still pretty funny!
If you ever thought about doing this race (or any race), I really recommend it. It was so much fun, especially because of my cousin and her friends – they made me feel like part of the team. Steve really encouraged me to go for it and do it – he gave me so much encouragement along the way while I was preparing. I’m really glad that Zoe got to see me run – even if she was a bit taken aback by all of the color! She got to see me do something that I had been working towards, and she got to see me having fun doing it, too!
Getting ready for something new this weekend…I’m running my first 5K! Steve and I have been going to the gym a couple times a week for the past year and a half (since his surgery.) About 6 months or so ago I decided to try running on the treadmill instead of just walking. It was really hard in the beginning. I slowly built up from just a minute or two to 10 minutes or so and now I can run the mile. I have actually run the full 5K (3.1 miles) before, too. It’s not pretty, but I can do it! This weekend I’m running in a non-timed race – it’s the Color Me Rad run where as you run, they throw packets of colored corn starch at you. I expect to be looking like a rainbow by the time I’m done! I guess it’s something I had wanted to do (at least in the back of my mind) and when I saw that my cousin signed up, I asked her if I could join her team. I’ll post some pictures soon!
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Do you have any questions you would like to ask me about adoption – it can be about the process, about openness, about what it’s like now that Zoe is a preschooler?
I would be more than happy to answer them in the next few posts!
I had planned to start this post in a slightly different way, but I just saw a trailer for a documentary about adoption called Closure and want to share it with you. It’s a film by Bryan Tucker, and it’s about his wife, Angela, and her journey to find her birth family.
You can read more about it and watch the trailer here: Portrait of an Adoption. It’s just a couple minutes long but just those few minutes brought tears to my eyes. A woman (possibly Angela’s birth mother) says ‘and for the rest of my life, I’ll be connected.’ She’s describing how she feels since Angela found her. It kind of took my breath away. I can’t imagine the not knowing…whether you’re an adoptee or a birth parent (or a sibling or other family member.) I can’t imagine that. And what a sense of closure it truly must be to finally meet those people that have been missing from your life. It makes me even more grateful that openness in adoption is more frequent now.
You can also help Bryan get his project funded…there is a link on the Portrait of Adoption site (at the link above) for his Kickstarter campaign.
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Being connected is what I was originally going to write about. Thursday night we attended a fundraiser gala for our adoption agency. We were asked by our caseworker if we would host a table at the event. We said yes and asked some family members and friends to attend.
As the fundraiser got started, they showed us a short video that included some of the people who work for our agency and how they are personally connected to adoption. A youth choir performed. We heard speeches from some of the people who run the agency as well as a family and their two children.
We listened to a radio personality speak about her personal connection to adoption. The keynote speaker was a man who adopted two of his children and encouraged everyone to not be ‘practical’ because being practical doesn’t create change. (The title of the even was Change a Life; Change the World.)
It was amazing to be in a room surrounded by people who have been touched by adoption. We got to see our caseworker as well as Zoe’s birth mom’s caseworker. We saw other people that we recognized from the agency as well. We saw adoptees and adoptive families come together for the evening’s event.
We are so happy that we could attend and be a part of such a special evening. It was great to be in a room where you could really feel how much everyone had been touched by adoption. We’ve already been asked by other family members and a friend if we can invite them to next year’s Gala, too. Looking forward to it!
