Updates come instantly, from text-based updates sent out and passed along on Twitter or Facebook to video and pictures that are captured and immediately broadcast. We no longer have to wait for the six o’clock news—or even flip to cable news, like my generation—to see what tragedy has occurred today.

This is an example of technology making tragedy more palpable, more personal, more painful. You can see it in the way we open our pocketbooks and lift up our prayers. With that endless stream of tragedy there’s also an understandable temptation to turn away. It can all be too much.

With that in mind, I wanted to point to one small story I heard about. It was a quick prayer update passed along Twitter by a friend of a friend of a friend:

PRAYER: RT @eloranicole @tiffsoutherland: friend who was adopting from Haiti-met child-going this week 2 get her-found out child was killed

-@jdblundell, January 13, 2009

This person, I don’t even know their name, had met the child they were going to adopt from Haiti and they were traveling this very week to go bring that baby home. And that child died in this earthquake. [Hold on. I broke down crying while typing that sentence.]

There are so many tiny things in a tragedy like this that can break you, and this was the one that did it for me. Children need parents. The only saving grace in that 140-character update is that the child had a chance to meet their parents. At the very, very least this child died with love and hope. [Fight it. Fight back the tears, damn it!] So many more children in Haiti died without that. And that will happen again in Haiti and around the world. Please consider adoption.

I’ll leave you with one other thought, because as important as I think adoption is, this is about more than adoption. Bob Collins, a Minnesota Public Radio news guru and blogger  made this comment on Twitter (rather, his son made the comment, Bob posted it):

Haiti is poorest nation in W. hemisphere. Why does it take earthquake to make us send money?

That is a good question. The answer is pretty obvious. But for me personally (and many I know), the answer is it didn’t take an earthquake. My church has a sister parish in Haiti that we’ve partnered with for nearly two decades. My grandparents support a ministry in Haiti. I have friends who have traveled there and been touched and changed by the Haitian people. Compassion International and charity: water do incredible work there. Many people (and me, in a very small way) have been loving, supporting and partnering with the poorest of the poor in Haiti for years. Why? People shouldn’t have to go hungry or sick or die for want of clean water.

As important as I think adoption is, making adoption unnecessary by overcoming the poverty and other stigmas that lead to dead parents or abandoned children is even more important. Thousands dying in an earthquake is a tragedy. Millions dying from poverty is something more.

If you’d like to donate to the relief efforts in Haiti, pick one (let’s not forget a certain gadfly’s call to support our prayers with real, tangible action):

• Red Cross
• UNICEF
• charity: water
• World Vision
• Compassion International
• Samaritan’s Purse
• One Day’s Wages

(I hate that it always comes down to donating money. But in an emergency, I’m not sure what more we can do. But it seems inhuman to sit by and do nothing.)

Here’s what 10-year-old “Sam” said when she asked him what he thought it meant to be adopted:

“Well, being adopted is when the kids that nobody wants are put into an orphanage and then if the kid is really good, someone rich will pick them and buy them to have in their family.”

Ouch.

She writes about five themes that continually come up about adopted children:

1. Adopted children are unwanted.
2. Adopted children can become more desirable when they exhibit good behavior, i.e. being the perfect child.
3. Adopted children are thought of as a commodity; they are a good that is exchanged in a transaction typically received by someone considered rich or well-to-do.
4. Adopted children are disposable; their permanence in their adoptive family is always conditional.
5. Adopted children deserve pity, because they are the kids who no one wants.

That’s even more heart-breaking. Help me in overcoming, shattering and in any way possible breaking these myths about adopted children. Kids (and all of us) need to hear the truth.

1. Adopted children are wanted, loved and needed. There’s a myth that birth mothers place their children for adoption because they don’t want the child. That’s just not true. In many cases they want to keep the child more than anything, but circumstances have conspired against them and made it difficult or impossible to make that choice. In many cases it is for the deep love of their child that they place them for adoption, knowing that an adoptive family can care for them better. That’s a horrible position for birth parents to be in.

But kids placed for adoption are not unwanted. Their families are unable to care for them. It has nothing to do with the value of the child. It has everything to do with the circumstances.

This is where we need to be careful with the very language we used to talk about adoption. Standard and insensitive language would say that a birth mother ‘gives up’ her child for adoption. That implies a birth mother has given up on her child and they are indeed unwanted. Language is pretty powerful. That’s why the proper language is that a birth mother ‘chooses adoption’ or ‘makes an adoption plan’. A child ‘is adopted’. That’s also why we use terms like ‘birth parents’ instead of ‘natural parents’ or ‘real parents’. (Note: It’s hard to keep up with the language. I originally wrote that a child is ‘placed for adoption’ as the proper language, but my wife corrected me. Thankfully, grace and forgiveness is common.)

2. The worth and value of an adopted child (or any child) has nothing to do with behavior. Children are inherently valuable. People are inherently valuable. “Good” children are no more deserving of loving parents than “bad” children. The idea that a child is adopted through good behavior—and conversely not adopted because of bad behavior—is gut-wrenching. Kids are adopted because they need families, not because they somehow earned a spot through good behavior.

3. Adopted children are not bought, the process is not a transaction, and adoptive parents are not all rich. The tremendous cost of adoption fuels this perception and it’s just a difficult one to get away from. Adoption requires a lot of red tape (for good reason), and that makes it an expensive process. Most of the people I know who have adopted are far from rich. Yes, as Americans we are certainly wealthy in comparison to the rest of the world. But we’re not six-figure families with four-car garages living in gated communities. Almost everyone I know who has adopted has relied on friends, family and strangers to help them raise the needed money. I don’t know anyone who just wrote a check for their adoption and paid for it in full.

4. Adopted children are in their adoptive families forever. Let me be clear on this—there is nothing temporary or conditional about the place of an adopted child in a family. Lexi and Milo are different in many ways: Lexi is a girl, Milo is a boy. Lexi is white, Milo is black. Lexi never crawled, Milo crawls over things. Lexi is loud, Milo is—wait, they’re both loud. Lexi is biological, Milo is adopted. But for all their differences, they have many similarities. They are both loved deeply. They are both amazing kids. They are both going to be embarrassed of their geeky dad. Milo has the same chance of being removed from our family as Lexi does: None. Nothing Milo or Lexi can do will cause us to love them less or to lose their place in our family. They can do many things that will cause us to lose our sanity, our patience or what have you, but those behavior choices are day to day things that will change. Our love for our children does nothing but grow and stretch and deepen over time. That’s as true for adopted children as it is for biological children. Children are children.

5. Adopted children deserve no more pity than other children. Pity is a strange thing. At times it seems natural, but other times it seems condescending and patronizing. I can say with certainty that children don’t want to be patronized. Children in need should be helped because it’s the right thing to do, not because they’re cute or sad or pitiful. But for all the negative reactions to pity, I am reminded of Gandalf’s comment to Frodo in the Lord of the Rings that pity is what stayed Bilbo’s hand and kept him from killing Gollum. Gandalf rightly sensed that Gollum still had a part to play in the final outcome. In that sense pity has value. But that’s also a pretty clear example of the negative connotation of pity—adopted children should not be pitied like Gollum.

We’re All Adopted
Adoption is a beautiful and powerful thing. Let’s shatter these misconceptions that somehow adopted children are unwanted or they are loved conditionally.

It bothered me that some kids have these ideas about adoption, so I asked Lexi what she thought adoption meant. She didn’t know. We talked a little about adoption. We talked about Milo being in Ethiopia and the nannies who took care of him.

“What’s a nanny?” Lexi asked.

“You know that picture of the woman holding Milo as a baby?”

“Yeah?”

“She was Milo’s nanny. She took care of him until we came to Ethiopia to get him.”

Lexi nodded: “She’s my sister.”

I smiled. “She is?” Lexi nodded and I couldn’t disagree with her. In a way, she’s right.

Then she told me we’re all adopted: “Momma’s adopted. Daddy’s adopted. Milo’s adopted. Lexi’s adopted.”

“We are?”

“Yep.”

She’s right. We are all adopted.

We’ve heard that most judges love doing adoptions, and in our case it was no different. Judge Richard Spicer greeted us at the probate window and talked to Lexi while we were checking in. During the hearing he read over our home study and asked us a few basic questions, more or less getting to know us and making sure everything was in order.

Lexi talked pretty much the entire time, pausing only to spin her office chair. Judge Spicer thought it was hilarious and near the end when he was making the official decree he said, “based on the evidence I’ve heard today—or tried to hear—I officially pronounce…”

It was quick and easy and actually went by in a blur. I went with the ellipses above because I can’t even remember exactly how he said it. While we were taking the pictures—something Judge Spicer seemed very excited to do—Lexi apparently exclaimed, “We’re a family!” I must have been so wrapped up in the moment I didn’t even hear it. Abby told me about it while we were having our celebratory breakfast at Keys.

We still have some paperwork to file and pay for (you think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not—it truly never ends) that will get Milo proof of citizenship and a Social Security card, but we’re almost there. This process has taken over two years now (we started in August 2007) and it’s so good to be nearing the end. Thanks for everybody’s help and support!

Well, one church has answered. Pastor Vic Pentz of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta promised in a recent sermon that his church would “care for any newborn baby you bring to this church.” They’re partnering with the adoption agency Bethany Christian Services to make that acutally happen. It’s a bold statement and doesn’t get into any of the many complicated issues involved in adoption (it’s not exactly as simple as bring a baby to the church), but I love it. It’s a strong step forward for the church.

If the church is going to value life, I think they need to truly value life. And that means stepping forward to care for babies that would otherwise be unwanted. That means walking alongside moms and dads who would consider abortion because they don’t think they have the resources to care for a baby. That means doing whatever it takes for life, whether it’s keeping families together or creating new ones.

I’m not off the wall outraged at this. Just because Jason wears a hockey mask in Friday the 13th doesn’t mean hockey players should be up in arms. But still. When you take an innocent child, even worse an orphan, with no parents to love and protect them, and make that unprotected group the center of your evil plot line… well, that may not be evil itself, but it’s not doing orphans any good.

Tom Davis is encouraging people to respond to this film with their own stories of how orphans have changed their lives. Stories to counter the creepy trailer where parents adopt a child only to discover how scary that kid can be and how their family becomes threatened from an adopted child (the movie’s tagline: “There’s something wrong with Esther”). I’m trying not to take that personally and realize it’s just a movie, but yikes. Sheesh, let’s promote some misconcpetions about adoption, shall we?

Tom launched the Orphans Deserve Better campaign where you can share your stories of how orphans have changed your life (like  this one from a mother of three). They have a much better tagline: “There’s something wrong with millions of children having no family.” I love that this is all about a positive response. Let’s not rag on Warner Bros. (I’ve yet to see the word boycott thrown around), instead let’s focus on the positive.

I love it. You can’t read anything I do online without realizing how Milo has changed my life. My favorite story might be the way Milo and Lexi go to sleep. They share a room and at first we thought they’d wake each other up and it’d be a horrible mess. But Milo actually goes to sleep better when Lexi stands at his crib and talks to him, the two laughing and giggling, sometimes shrieking, long after bedtime. It lasts half an hour, sometimes 45 minutes, and then the two drift off to sleep. The strict parent in me wants to step in and yell and tell them to go to sleep, but they do eventually, so I let it go. Milo seems to sleep better this way. The same thing is starting to happen in the morning when they wake up. I haven’t heard Milo crying in the morning for a few days now. Instead it’s all giggles. That’s awesome. (Right now Lexi is repeating “Eth-io-pia!” and Milo is laughing.)

And if you want further proof of how a child can change your life, look no further than the Palmer family, who uprooted their four children to move from Oklahoma to Uganda to finalize the adoption of the newest member of their family. They have an incredible story. Just recently they shared the tragic story of a child recently adopted by a Uganda family who soon died in a terrible accident. It’s a heart-breaking story. But beneath the pain and horror (there’s a real horror story for you) there is a measure of hope. That child, Jonathan, was loved. Even though his life was cut horribly short, he died with a family.

I ask this question not to defend abortion. I don’t like abortion. The numbers are staggering—42 million abortions worldwide every year? That’s nearly as high as the annual worldwide death rate (approximately 56 million people die ever year).

I ask this question because I don’t think anti-abortion advocates focus enough on solutions. Adoption is one solution, and while churches and Christians are very supportive of adoption (I should know), they’re not supportive enough (to the tune of 148 million children without families).

For many Christians, adoption is a “good thing.” It’s a good deed you did and we’ll applaud you for it, but it’s not a normal practice. It’s what you do when you can’t have kids. It’s what you do when you’ve already had a few kids “of your own.” But it’s rarely a first choice. It’s rarely promoted as something all families should consider (I was ecstatic to see Rick Warren talking about promoting adoption in his church).

I know adoption isn’t for everyone. There are inherent challenges and if you’re not prepared you have no business adopting. But it just seems inconsistent to me that Christians are so against abortion but don’t seem truly prepared to end abortion.

When a pregnant mother considers abortion, would you step forward to adopt her baby? And why would she believe that you’d adopt her baby when she sees the 148 million orphans we haven’t adopted?

Abortion is a difficult issue and I hate talking about it because it’s so divisive. But this question has been nagging at me for a while. Why isn’t adoption standard practice in the church? It’s definitely supported and encouraged when it happens, and I’d wager that it’s more widespread in the church, but it’s still far from the norm. If adoption were the norm it would change the abortion debate. For that matter if adoption were the norm it would change the world.

It’s this Saturday and Sunday, May 2-3, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Bachman’s. You can find more details at the CHSFS site.

We left the parking garage and walked through the long underground tunnel (which inexplicably comes out on the second floor), eventually arriving at the Pediatric Clinic. We avoided getting lost in the campus’ labyrinth, which reminded me why I went to a small school (though ironically, I don’t think I ever consciously decided I wanted to attend a small school).

The high point was perhaps handing over a yogurt container to the receptionist that contained a sample of Milo’s poop. I believe it was blueberry (the yogurt container, that is). We had to collect a stool sample at home and bring it in. It’s kind of like show and tell, but not really. It wasn’t just plopped into the old yogurt container either, it was inside a Ziplock bag. But let’s just say those things aren’t exactly as air-tight as advertised. That yogurt container gave off a distinct odor when I pulled it out of the bag and set it on the counter. And it wasn’t residual blueberry.

Anyway, we eventually had our appointment and several doctors and specialists told us how beautiful Milo is. Not just handsome—beautiful. Despite my lack of any sports-related skills, Milo will at least be raised confident enough in his manhood to be called beautiful.

One of the doctor’s orders is that we have to leave Milo on the floor. Yes, setting the child on the floor is not neglect, it’s therapy. Of course we should probably put a blanket down or set him on his play mat (which he often shares with Lexi) or something that seems more responsible than just putting him on the floor with the dog hair and Asian lady beetles. Though the kid grew up on bacteria-infested water that reduced his dad to bouts of nausea, so I’m thinking he’d laugh in the face of American germs. Maybe the plain old carpeted floor is just fine for Milo (Especially since we had the carpets cleaned of dog pee. Again.), but I’ll probably give in to American over-parenting and at least put a blanket on the floor. A cute one. With animals.

Sidebar: I went through our all-purpose kitchen drawer of rags, dish towels and pot holders and came away with 22 cloth bibs. Cute ones. With animals. Or goofy phrases like “Daddy’s Girl” or “Baby’s First Christmas”. Some of them were so small they wouldn’t even cover Milo’s chest, and he’s a tiny guy. I think every baby outfit comes with a free bib, some complimentary throwaway that nobody really uses. And we don’t. Cloth bibs get nasty after one meal, and you can’t just hose them off in the sink. We switched to plastic bibs long ago, which you can hose off in the sink and they’re ready to go again. Despite what you see in the magazines and stores, parenting should be about practicality, not looking cute.

Back to leaving our kid on the floor. So the occupational therapist (apparently that job isn’t restricted to occupations—unless being a baby is an occupation, in which case it has killer benefits) noted that Milo is behind developmentally, but it’s primarily because he’s small and he’ll quickly catch up. So we can help by tanking him up with food and giving him lots of time on the floor to move his body (cue Lexi’s new favorite song from her new favorite movie: “I like to move it, move it / I like to move it, move it!”) and bulk up.

The occupational therapist also noted that some of the greatest baby inventions ever, including the johnny-jump-up and the exersaucer (i.e., neglectomatics), aren’t any good for strengthening a baby’s legs. The way a child sits in them splays their legs out at a weird angle that isn’t the same as walking, which means any exercise is strengthening the wrong muscles and not teaching our kids how to walk. Yet again a beloved parenting practice turns out to be harmful. Well, maybe not harmful. She did say it’s OK to put your kid in them, but they should really be getting their exercise and practice walking from other sources.

When the doctor came we had a look at his growth charts and she told us that he’d be considered mildly malnourished. Knowing his history, it’s surprising how little it takes to be mildly malnourished. But the up side is that all those screaming fits that can only be assuaged with quick applications of formula mean he’s growing. A month ago he only weighed 8 lbs., and now he’s up to 10.5 lbs. In six months he should be riding the growth curve like a pro.

It turns out that both the doctor and the occupational therapist had been to Ethiopia in January and visited our agency’s facilities. They were both impressed with the level and quality of the care and were very familiar with Ethiopian adoption cases. We’ve known all along that Children’s Home Society & Family Services in Ethiopia does stellar work, but it’s great to have it confirmed again and again.

The appointment finished with Milo getting stabbed twice and Abby nearly passing out (when she says she doesn’t like the sight of blood, she means it). And we should probably get used to doctor’s visits. We have to go back in 48 hours to get his TB test read, we need to go see his primary physician in four weeks, we need to set up appointments with vision and hearing specialists (standard procedure for cases like his) and they’d like us to bring him in every month so they can closely monitor his height and weight. Let’s just hope his health care coverage comes through soon. I had to sign something before we were admitted that I’m pretty sure means they own us if Milo’s coverage doesn’t come through. The woman seemed very nice about it though. She didn’t make me sign with my own blood.

Milo conked out on the way home, as usual. When we picked up Lexi she erupted into her usual screaming fit when she’s told it’s time to go home. Apparently we were interrupting lunch when she tried and liked bratwurst. The child who rarely eats meat unless it’s in the form of fried chicken or hot dogs actually ate meat. I guess bratwurst and hot dogs are pretty similar, but hey, we’ll take it. The fit slowly faded as we hit up Burger King on the way home and she was assured of french fries (For some reason welcoming a child into our home, whether it’s a newborn or a husky lad of five months, renders us incapable of cooking anything fancier than bagel pizzas or mac and cheese. Thankfully a steady stream of friends and well wishers has been keeping us well fed, save for the occasional fast food indiscretion. If it makes you feel better, they forgot Lexi’s fries and we had to share our own, thus slightly minimizing our intake of fatty foods.)

Not long after getting home and putting the kids down for naps, releasing the dogs, and finishing my slightly fatty lunch, I crawled into bed for a little rest time of my own. Raising two kids is tiring.

I haven’t had much time to process all of this. Whether or not that’s surprising, I don’t know. But with my wife home from work for a few weeks and me doing minimal work, I should be busting with spare time. But, you know, that whole eat-poop-sleep thing.

I have a lot to process about both adoption and Ethiopia. I imagine I’ll be writing a lot of little posts as I try to process little moments here and there. Writing about the whole experience is just too overwhelming. I don’t know where to begin (nor do I have that much time to sit down and do it).

I will say this much for now: It’s amazing getting to know the little guy. Milo is suddenly and irreversibly a part of our family, and that is so cool. Sometimes the wonder of adoption just makes me want to cry, that an orphaned child could be picked up and held in the arms of another and welcomed home.

On the flight to Ethiopia one of the movies they showed was Madagascar 2. At one point the main character, a lion named Alex, meets his parents. Dumbfounded, he repeats these words, as if trying to convince himself: “I have a mom and dad? I have a mom and dad!” It struck me as a bit of foreshadowing for what we were about to do.

I’m also finding myself loving Ethiopia and her people. As bewildering as it was, I’d love to go back. Like most rich Americans who witness incredible poverty (and we really didn’t get too close of a look), I’m having a bit of culture shock adjusting to my abundant life here in the states (sometimes more than others: today I went out to pick up brownie mix to satisfy a craving). I know reconciling these two spheres is always difficult, but this experience has given me a new reality and urgency for doing so. It’s no longer just head knowledge, it’s something I’ve seen and experienced.

Many more thoughts to come, but that’s at least a little bit of what’s bouncing around in my head. And it can’t be said often enough, but thank you. We didn’t make this trip on our own.

A lot has happened and there’s a lot to say, but for now we’re doing OK. The plane ride home went surprisingly well (yay for the bulkhead!) and Lexi did great while we were gone. But by Saturday reality started to set in as Abby got sick while Milo spit up an entire bottle on me and Lexi threw a fit. The night and morning were a bit rough but by Sunday night I think we’re starting to get a handle on things. I hope.

We’ll have a lot more to say about everything, but that’s a basic update. It’s good to have the four of us in the same place.

Oh, and photos are starting to go up on Flickr (there’ll be many, many more).