We are the truth

We Are The Truth – an adoption blogger day: To ensure the world knows about every successful adoption, on Thursday, April 15, 2010 blog about your adoption or the adoption of someone you know. It doesn’t matter if your adoption is with Russia, domestic or otherwise international. Let the world know your truth!

By now I am sure all of you have heard about the woman that sent her 7 year old son on a plane back to Russia alone. She had adopted this boy. He was legally her son. As a result of her actions, I read this article today. Bloggers are uniting to tell the truth. The happy truth about adoption.

So I am blogging today to join this call to action. To share the joy of adoption.

Our journey to parenthood was not easy but every bump in the road that we hit was worth it the second that phone rang on January 6 2009 at 12:53pm. This was it. This was our destiny. Our fate. Our daughter was born to us that day. She was 5 1/2 weeks old and 7 some thousand miles away in beautiful Ethiopia. We were presented with the greatest gift. We saw our sweet little girls face and our heart melted. Somewhere deep inside we just knew that this was it. We were supposed to be together. That these last 6 years were all leading us to her.

As we approach our 1 year of being a family, I am reminded of the beauty that is Ethiopia. I long to return to Ethiopia. To soak up as much as I can. Why? Not for me but for my sweet daughter. We owe it to her. We made a commitment to her and to her Ethiopian mother. I look forward to honoring those commitments.

We spent countless hours researching, educating ourselves and being investigated in order to be able to adopt. There were no secrets. There were background checks, fingerprints, more background checks, more fingerprints, home visits, fire safety plans, classes to attend, applications to fill out and more paperwork than it took to buy our house and car times 10.

We attended classes on transracial adoption, we read about Ethiopia, we reviewed medical information. We did our homework.

It was all so that we could realize our dreams of parenthood. There are many many more positive adoption stories than negative. But if you read the papers and worse if you do it online and read the comments you would think otherwise.

We are truly blessed. I was fortunate enough to read this article. I think the author sums it up really well. He says, "Love trumps genetics" That couldn't be more true. He also says " There's something mysterious and wonderful about the bond between an adoptive parent and child." Yup, true again.

If I could say anything to people who read these articles about adoption gone wrong. I would say don't judge all adoptive parents by the actions of a few. Many more of us are willing to put in the effort and do the work to see our dreams of parenthood come true. We don't go into adoption with rose colored glasses on. We know the realities and are willing to deal with them. Sadly, yes some people are unwilling to make this same commitment but please don't judge us all.

Adoption is how I started my family and it will be how I grow my family. I couldn't be any happier with this path we chose and I for sure couldn't imagine being anymore in love with my little girl.