Sometimes as the parent of an adopted child you get a lot of comments that are spoken innocently but come from a place of ignorance. Education is part of our job, but sometimes it gets a little frustrating.

This mother reached that point of frustration over people expressing how lucky her son must be.

“What a lucky little boy.”…

Lucky? Lucky. Lucky to have been born on a continent terrorized by war, corruption and greed? Lucky to have been born in a country where 25,000 women and girls die each year due to pregnancy-related complications? Lucky to have been born in a country where more than half the population has ZERO access to basic medical care? Lucky to have been born in a region reliant upon rainfall and devastated by drought?

I came across this exchange between a mother and her son on another blog from an Ethiopian adoptive parent:

“Mama, what time of day was Philip born?”

I answered, “I don’t know honey.”

He replied, “You don’t know?” He looked slightly befuddled as he said, “How can you not remember?”

I am sure I looked slightly befuddled as I said, “I wasn’t there…”

A light dawned in his eyes and he said, “Ohhh… yeah. He was born in Ethiopia.”

A gentle reminder that the how of a family isn’t always so important.

Reading adoption blogs is always interesting because you usually have piece together the story. The format of a blog doesn’t give you someone’s life story right away and unless they have a handy about page that lays it out for you, you generally have to read a ton of blog posts to piece their life together. Even then it can still be difficult. It’s kind of a challenge. A creepy, stalker-like challenge.

Anyway, I’ve been reading some blogs from fellow Ethiopian adoptive parents and it’s been interesting trying to piece the stories together. One especially interesting story comes from the Knutzen family in Washington. They have five children, two older children who have graduated high school and three children adopted from Ethiopia who seem to be around 14 years old.

Earlier this year half of the family traveled back to Ethiopia to be in a wedding and connect with birth family. The father, oldest daughter and two of the adopted children went on the trip.

The girl, Meron, was a junior bridesmaid in the wedding of a family who had cared for her for the first five years of her life (like I said, sometimes the story is hard to figure out). From the pictures it looks like an incredible moment to be a part of.

The boy, Joseph Abel, was able to meet his birth family and hear about his birth parents (“Joseph also was impressed to learn his birth father was a professional soccer and volleyball player!”). His grandmother thanked God for Joseph’s visit because she doesn’t think she’ll live much longer. Joseph was also able to get a photo album of some of his baby pictures and was able to determine his actual birthday from a banner in one of the photos. I can’t imagine what a treasure that would be.

They also visited the care center where they had lived and heard local history about donkeys.

I don’t know this family at all, but it’s cool to read about their story and the opportunity for these kids to travel back to their homeland. These children were adopted when they were older and have a greater connection to Ethiopia with families, memories and even language, but traveling back to Ethiopia is something we’ve always wanted to do with Milo. I hope someday when he’s old enough and prepared for it we can do that. Maybe even more than once.

This is another cool Ethiopian adoption story.

Matthew and Amanda Johnson from Minnesota have two children, both adopted from Ethiopia: Samrawit, 7, and Teshome, 5. Amanda traveled to Ethiopia with her parents last year to bring Samrawit home. Amanda’s parents have talked about “finishing well” for a few years now, and had been dreaming about what that could be. They had been empty-nesters for a few years and loved it.

But that all changed.

While in Ethiopia they met two brothers: Berhane, 13, and Tsegaye, 11. And they decided to adopt them. As Amanda writes:

“And so the last few days of the trip involved a lot of soul-searching on the part of my parents.  They knew they couldn’t go into this for the wrong reasons.  “Saving a child” was simply not good enough.  They knew it meant a total life style change, almost starting over.  They knew it would be hard.  These kids have a lot of grief and trauma.  The kind of stuff you cannot just love away.  …  Then, as it goes, they started to get excited, thinking about all the new things they would get to experience with the boys.  They started to see the boys in a different way, looking at each of them for their strengths, their potential.

“They started the paperwork on the plane home.  Last week they finished their home study.  This week they start their dossier.  With any luck the boys should be home before summer.”

Amanda’s dad is in Ethiopia right now to bring these boys home. Amanda’s parents actually had a chance to meet with the boys last year and ask them if they wanted to be adopted. I can’t imagine making a decision that quickly or being able to jump through the appropriate hoops while in the country. That’s some impressive commitment on the part of these parents, the social workers and agency.

I also can’t help but think how incredible this is for the family. Samrawit and Teshone will have two Ethiopian uncles. Berhane and Tsegaye will have a niece and nephew from their country—and Samrawit was at the same care center. Amazing.

It’s definitely not the kind of thing every grandparent could do.

But as Amanda wrote, “I cannot think of a better way to finish.”