I wrote over a month ago about what needed to happen, and some of you are probably wondering how many of those steps have been completed.
We have tickets. I have purchased almost everything that I think we'll need for the trip, which was a lot of errands. In the last few days, we've gotten a lot of cleaning and organizing done around the house, which makes me feel a lot better. I've started collecting donations to bring with me, both buying a bunch of books and toys and letting people on the internet know about it. All three of us have been reading everything we can about adoption and Uganda and sisters.
(Here is Emerson's narrative of the situation, developed almost entirely on his own over the last couple of weeks: Emerson says that we are a family of ducks. I am the Mama Duck, and I take care of all the little ducks. He is my little duck, and we have four more little ducks, two guard ducks (the ones that look kind of like Shelties) and two, um, cat ducks. But we are missing a little duckling! Where could she be? She is so far away that we cannot fly to her with our wings, we will have to get on an airplane. The poor little duckling flew to the top of a big tree. It is an evergreen tree, and the branches are poking her and she cannot get down. The nurses can visit her, but they cannot help her down. We will have to go all the way to Uganda, and then the strong Mama Duck and Daddy Duck and Big Brother Duck can all help the lost little duckling. We will bring her down to our nest, safe on the ground. Mama Duck will cuddle with all the little ducklings in the bed, and everyone will be safe and happy.)
Meanwhile, what part of the legal process has been completed while we've been working on this? As far as we can tell, nothing. Hopefully some of the "invisible" background work has been going on, but it's also possible that the orphanage workers have been working on other cases. As long as work is getting done and the process is operating smoothly, at least for someone, I'm fairly satisfied; it was much more nerve-wracking when none of the children had come home yet. And that would mean that once we arrive, our case will get strong consideration. However, that does mean that at this point, Mark will almost certainly need to make two separate trips, and I am suspecting that Emerson's and my stay will be closer to four months than two.
So speaking of which, I need to go off and buy a lot of sunscreen!
Monday, January 28, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
A view from her eyes...
What will it be like to our new daughter when we come to get her? What will she think of us? I won't be able to tell how she reacts for a few weeks yet, and I may never know what she was thinking (since she might not have language to tell me), but I can try and imagine from her point of view.....
Rehema has just turned two years old. She has enough to eat, a routine around her every day, adults who take care of her, older children to play with and younger children whom she feels good helping out with. Young children love the familiar and love what they know (for instance, young children would generally prefer to stay even in depraved or abusive situations rather than risk losing the familiar), and there is no particular reason to dislike the current world around her. She might have some dim and distant memory that once there was something different in her life, perhaps some vague association with something about a family situation, perhaps with happiness and peace in those memories, or perhaps fearfulness and being constantly on guard. But a long time ago (10 months) that home suddenly disappeared, and while Rehema was in a fog of hunger and a terrible sickness, everything around her changed. She never saw those people again or heard the sounds of her village. What might have been a calm and green country village changed for a walled compound in the middle of a city, and this is her new normal. Eventually, she started feeling much better and stronger. She started walking and climbing, and learned a few words. There is always something to watch, and she is not hurting any more.
And then, who are these new people coming here? She has seen white people before, when other adoptive parents visit their children. But we must still sound very strange, and look strange, and smell strange, and dress strange. She would prefer to disappear and hide so she can just watch and figure out what is going on, but these new people look straight at her, and her caregiver calls out to her -- her disappearance is not working quite right!
A baby might not have figured out the details of her own world and routine, and an older child might be able to understand a discussion about what is happening to her. But a two-year-old, even one brought up in a calm and loving family environment, does not have much (if any) abstract reasoning ability in any language. Does a two-year-old understand what "mother" or "family" means? Of course, a child with a typical background understands who her mother is, and probably even someone else's mother, but "mother" as an abstract, interchangeable, concept? I doubt it. For a child who has never lived in a nuclear family, and who probably has no specific memories of her mother or family, and whose language development is delayed by her necessary focus on survival, these concepts are going to be meaningless. Surely, her caregivers will try and explain something to her: "your new family is coming today. Soon you will go home with them. You will live with them forever and ever. You will go to America and be their daughter. Remember how Jane had a new mother who visited her and then she went home with her? What a lucky girl you will be! You will have so many presents and pretty clothes." If we put this speech through the filter of two-year-old concrete understanding, added to no family experience, what do we have left? Probably a reminder about a friend who inexplicably disappeared, followed by a nonsensical comment about clothes. Rehema might later decide to go look in the dresser drawers for Jane!
So, although I will never be able to really know what Rehema is and will be thinking, I am already thinking about how I can make this time easier for her. First of all, one of the reasons I chose this program is so that we can have a slow and gentle transition; we might have a full month of visiting before she leaves her home with us. As soon as we were matched, we sent her pictures of ourselves, and I made a collage with all the family members in it. This month, I prepared a little book for her, describing our family and our routines in pictures, interspersed with as many pictures as I could of her doing the same things. ("We like to walk outside. Rehema walks outside too!") I doubt she will really understand much of it, but it is pleasant to feel like you recognize something, even vaguely. We might not seem so utterly foreign to her, and when she arrives here, some simple scenes might seem remembered.
When we arrive, I would imagine that she will begin to feel comfortable with Emerson first, since children are more familiar and less threatening. He will probably be playing with the bolder children at the orphanage within minutes, so that will make him seem normal, as well! Hopefully, when she sees Emerson responding to and trusting his daddy and I, she will begin to think that we are not too dangerous. I have been preparing simple games and toys and songs that we can use to practice interacting, such as passing or rolling a ball back and forth. Hopefully, as time passes, I will be able to take over some of her care routines, such as giving her food or helping to bathe her, so she learns that I can take care of her needs. We will use books and toys to talk about words, objects, and feelings, to gain some vocabulary. Over time, she might be willing to sit on my lap as I point to the funny colors and sounds on the page in front of us. Then she might let me carry/wear her around the orphanage, and decide that being physically close to someone can be a safe and pleasant place to hang out. Meanwhile, she will get used to our smells and sounds. I will build in special routines to the bits of our day together, especially times when we first see each other, and the scary time when we have to go away (because "going away" is always scary to children whose lives have already "gone away" too much). Emerson and I have been picking out a goodbye song, and decided that we'll make "I love you" hands to say goodbye. I think I will make up a "hello" song that is based on her own name, although first we have to decide what her whole name will be!
So hopefully, by the time she leaves the orphanage and comes to stay with us, she feels comfortable and even somewhat safe with us. That safety and the tiny bit of routine that we have established between us will be a fragile bridge to carry her through the next upheaval of her life. She has probably hardly left the orphanage compound for the last year; everything will seem so busy and overwhelming! Things to see, hear, and smell in all directions, and how does she know what is dangerous? (Her natural assumption will probably be "almost everything"!) We will be able to visit the orphanage, check in, and say goodbye (many times!), but that is again a bunch of abstract ideas for a very little girl. Fortunately, we will have another two or three weeks in her country, where at least the sounds and smells and food will remain familiar, before we get on a very strange plane and go for a very long time in a very strange way until we end up in the strangest place yet, surrounded by the strangest people making a strange clatter with their language, and even air that feels strange in the lungs!
Sometimes it seems like so much to subject such a little girl to; I wish I could protect her and shelter her. Every step of adoption involves so much tragedy for the little children! But we will all have to have faith that things will get better eventually, and that we will be able to help her come out of her shell of fear and self-protection in which life has so far encrusted her. We will face each day as it comes, and one day........ I will come back in January 2014 and tell you how our lives have all changed!
Rehema has just turned two years old. She has enough to eat, a routine around her every day, adults who take care of her, older children to play with and younger children whom she feels good helping out with. Young children love the familiar and love what they know (for instance, young children would generally prefer to stay even in depraved or abusive situations rather than risk losing the familiar), and there is no particular reason to dislike the current world around her. She might have some dim and distant memory that once there was something different in her life, perhaps some vague association with something about a family situation, perhaps with happiness and peace in those memories, or perhaps fearfulness and being constantly on guard. But a long time ago (10 months) that home suddenly disappeared, and while Rehema was in a fog of hunger and a terrible sickness, everything around her changed. She never saw those people again or heard the sounds of her village. What might have been a calm and green country village changed for a walled compound in the middle of a city, and this is her new normal. Eventually, she started feeling much better and stronger. She started walking and climbing, and learned a few words. There is always something to watch, and she is not hurting any more.
And then, who are these new people coming here? She has seen white people before, when other adoptive parents visit their children. But we must still sound very strange, and look strange, and smell strange, and dress strange. She would prefer to disappear and hide so she can just watch and figure out what is going on, but these new people look straight at her, and her caregiver calls out to her -- her disappearance is not working quite right!
A baby might not have figured out the details of her own world and routine, and an older child might be able to understand a discussion about what is happening to her. But a two-year-old, even one brought up in a calm and loving family environment, does not have much (if any) abstract reasoning ability in any language. Does a two-year-old understand what "mother" or "family" means? Of course, a child with a typical background understands who her mother is, and probably even someone else's mother, but "mother" as an abstract, interchangeable, concept? I doubt it. For a child who has never lived in a nuclear family, and who probably has no specific memories of her mother or family, and whose language development is delayed by her necessary focus on survival, these concepts are going to be meaningless. Surely, her caregivers will try and explain something to her: "your new family is coming today. Soon you will go home with them. You will live with them forever and ever. You will go to America and be their daughter. Remember how Jane had a new mother who visited her and then she went home with her? What a lucky girl you will be! You will have so many presents and pretty clothes." If we put this speech through the filter of two-year-old concrete understanding, added to no family experience, what do we have left? Probably a reminder about a friend who inexplicably disappeared, followed by a nonsensical comment about clothes. Rehema might later decide to go look in the dresser drawers for Jane!
So, although I will never be able to really know what Rehema is and will be thinking, I am already thinking about how I can make this time easier for her. First of all, one of the reasons I chose this program is so that we can have a slow and gentle transition; we might have a full month of visiting before she leaves her home with us. As soon as we were matched, we sent her pictures of ourselves, and I made a collage with all the family members in it. This month, I prepared a little book for her, describing our family and our routines in pictures, interspersed with as many pictures as I could of her doing the same things. ("We like to walk outside. Rehema walks outside too!") I doubt she will really understand much of it, but it is pleasant to feel like you recognize something, even vaguely. We might not seem so utterly foreign to her, and when she arrives here, some simple scenes might seem remembered.
When we arrive, I would imagine that she will begin to feel comfortable with Emerson first, since children are more familiar and less threatening. He will probably be playing with the bolder children at the orphanage within minutes, so that will make him seem normal, as well! Hopefully, when she sees Emerson responding to and trusting his daddy and I, she will begin to think that we are not too dangerous. I have been preparing simple games and toys and songs that we can use to practice interacting, such as passing or rolling a ball back and forth. Hopefully, as time passes, I will be able to take over some of her care routines, such as giving her food or helping to bathe her, so she learns that I can take care of her needs. We will use books and toys to talk about words, objects, and feelings, to gain some vocabulary. Over time, she might be willing to sit on my lap as I point to the funny colors and sounds on the page in front of us. Then she might let me carry/wear her around the orphanage, and decide that being physically close to someone can be a safe and pleasant place to hang out. Meanwhile, she will get used to our smells and sounds. I will build in special routines to the bits of our day together, especially times when we first see each other, and the scary time when we have to go away (because "going away" is always scary to children whose lives have already "gone away" too much). Emerson and I have been picking out a goodbye song, and decided that we'll make "I love you" hands to say goodbye. I think I will make up a "hello" song that is based on her own name, although first we have to decide what her whole name will be!
So hopefully, by the time she leaves the orphanage and comes to stay with us, she feels comfortable and even somewhat safe with us. That safety and the tiny bit of routine that we have established between us will be a fragile bridge to carry her through the next upheaval of her life. She has probably hardly left the orphanage compound for the last year; everything will seem so busy and overwhelming! Things to see, hear, and smell in all directions, and how does she know what is dangerous? (Her natural assumption will probably be "almost everything"!) We will be able to visit the orphanage, check in, and say goodbye (many times!), but that is again a bunch of abstract ideas for a very little girl. Fortunately, we will have another two or three weeks in her country, where at least the sounds and smells and food will remain familiar, before we get on a very strange plane and go for a very long time in a very strange way until we end up in the strangest place yet, surrounded by the strangest people making a strange clatter with their language, and even air that feels strange in the lungs!
Sometimes it seems like so much to subject such a little girl to; I wish I could protect her and shelter her. Every step of adoption involves so much tragedy for the little children! But we will all have to have faith that things will get better eventually, and that we will be able to help her come out of her shell of fear and self-protection in which life has so far encrusted her. We will face each day as it comes, and one day........ I will come back in January 2014 and tell you how our lives have all changed!
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
"it's a girl!"
Probably a lot of people were not surprised when we announced that the child we are adopting is a girl, but it actually is quite a coincidence. Most of the children currently available for international are boys -- also, many are older than toddlers, and many have special needs.
The reasons that girls are placed for adoption, rather than boys, have been fading. Many of the mothers placing children are doing so for reasons that are irrespective of gender, and sometimes age: poverty; the child has a medical need which the parent cannot meet; the widowed mother has remarried and the new husband will not accept the child; single mothers are strongly ostrasized in their society (tragically, this can mean widows as much as unmarried girls); poverty; the parent needs to leave some of her children in order to find work to support other children; and even more poverty. Personally, in the last year I have read and heard many, many sad stories of families who felt they had no choice but to separate, and I have not seen any that had any reasons specific to the gender of the child. In the cases where the mother kept some of the children, she kept the older ones because they were more self-sufficient.
Many of our natural assumptions about internationally adopted children come from the Chinese system, since there are so many girls adopted from China in this country. However, the Chinese system has been dramatically changing, and those assumptions aren't even true any more for Chinese adoptions. There are actually twice as many boys as girls available for international adoption from China right now! This bias is true in many other countries, as well. In the country adoption guidelines, several programs state that you are not allowed to request a girl unless you already have a son and no daughters (or even only if you have two sons and no daughters); other programs do not allow requesting a girl; others note that the wait time will double for those requesting girls. I didn't see any limitations on parents who want boys!
Why is this change? One of the biggest differences is that Chinese people are adopting children in their own country, and they want girls. I don't have any other statistics, but I personally think it's because everyone wants girls. Why? Maybe because parents enter the process assuming they are going to get a girl. Maybe because mothers-to-be are often the ones driving the adoption process, and mothers tend to prefer girls. Maybe it is because some people feel more comfortable with raising a girl who is a minority race, but feel less comfortable about a boy -- many of our violent and negative stereotypes are about men of minority race. Maybe it's because when you walk into a store, there is twice as much "girl stuff" as "boy stuff" -- and nothing at all that is just "kid stuff!" I think girls are currently being idealized and glorified in our culture: they're the princesses, smart in school, better behaved, daddy's darling, fun to do hair together, tomboys and girly-girls, good at everything boys are good at, sporty and sweet.
When we entered this adoption process, I knew that there were more boys than girls looking for homes. Of course I would like a daughter, but I absolutely and deeply love my little boy, and I can't imagine over-looking that wonderful relationship because of his gender! I was completely prepared for raising a houseful of boys. After we chose our program, it was a surprise and a simple coincidence that when we were looking for a match all the children available were girls.
So I guess God chose us a daughter this time around!!
The reasons that girls are placed for adoption, rather than boys, have been fading. Many of the mothers placing children are doing so for reasons that are irrespective of gender, and sometimes age: poverty; the child has a medical need which the parent cannot meet; the widowed mother has remarried and the new husband will not accept the child; single mothers are strongly ostrasized in their society (tragically, this can mean widows as much as unmarried girls); poverty; the parent needs to leave some of her children in order to find work to support other children; and even more poverty. Personally, in the last year I have read and heard many, many sad stories of families who felt they had no choice but to separate, and I have not seen any that had any reasons specific to the gender of the child. In the cases where the mother kept some of the children, she kept the older ones because they were more self-sufficient.
Many of our natural assumptions about internationally adopted children come from the Chinese system, since there are so many girls adopted from China in this country. However, the Chinese system has been dramatically changing, and those assumptions aren't even true any more for Chinese adoptions. There are actually twice as many boys as girls available for international adoption from China right now! This bias is true in many other countries, as well. In the country adoption guidelines, several programs state that you are not allowed to request a girl unless you already have a son and no daughters (or even only if you have two sons and no daughters); other programs do not allow requesting a girl; others note that the wait time will double for those requesting girls. I didn't see any limitations on parents who want boys!
Why is this change? One of the biggest differences is that Chinese people are adopting children in their own country, and they want girls. I don't have any other statistics, but I personally think it's because everyone wants girls. Why? Maybe because parents enter the process assuming they are going to get a girl. Maybe because mothers-to-be are often the ones driving the adoption process, and mothers tend to prefer girls. Maybe it is because some people feel more comfortable with raising a girl who is a minority race, but feel less comfortable about a boy -- many of our violent and negative stereotypes are about men of minority race. Maybe it's because when you walk into a store, there is twice as much "girl stuff" as "boy stuff" -- and nothing at all that is just "kid stuff!" I think girls are currently being idealized and glorified in our culture: they're the princesses, smart in school, better behaved, daddy's darling, fun to do hair together, tomboys and girly-girls, good at everything boys are good at, sporty and sweet.
When we entered this adoption process, I knew that there were more boys than girls looking for homes. Of course I would like a daughter, but I absolutely and deeply love my little boy, and I can't imagine over-looking that wonderful relationship because of his gender! I was completely prepared for raising a houseful of boys. After we chose our program, it was a surprise and a simple coincidence that when we were looking for a match all the children available were girls.
So I guess God chose us a daughter this time around!!
Sunday, January 6, 2013
We're getting airplane tickets!!!
We are actually in the process of buying airplane tickets for Valentine's Day! I think that means .... we will actually go to Uganda, and that it is in the forseeable future, and that we will get there and meet our daughter!!! After so many "if's" and "when this happens" and "maybe" and most of all, wait wait wait!'s, of the last few months, I can't believe we are actually making concrete plans.
But first of all, I've got to say, that every time I tell someone about the good news of our progress, or am working on a packing list, or start imagining what it's going to be like when I meet my little girl.... it makes me a little scared and worried too. There is still plenty of room for something to go wrong and the adoption to fall though; in Uganda, unlike in Hague countries, nothing is certain until the judge makes the ruling. That we will adopt Rehema is not a promise, it's just a plan. BUT -- meanwhile, I have to take action to keep moving things forward so our plan can happen.
As far as Rehema's legal situation, nothing specific has changed. We have decided to go over without having a court date or having all the paperwork together. I talked with the director of the agency, and he is supportive of that idea, and he thinks mid-February is a reasonable time frame. So for the last week, we've been making concrete plans!
Mark, Emerson and I will all fly over together. The present flight involves 14 hours from Seattle to Dubai, an 11 hour layover (which includes a room at their in-airport hotel - I'm excited about that!), and then 6 more hours to Kampala. Wow, I am so blessed to be able to spend a 36-hour trip with my active and wiggly four-year-old! (I'm not even being facetious here; anything that gets me to my daughter is a blessing!) Mark will stay for two weeks. We will be able to visit Rehema every day in the orphanage for several hours, and probably do some looking around Kampala and the environs while we have two adults available. Because then, Mark is going home, and Emerson and I will stay until everything is taken care of. Hopefully, we will get our court date within a month of so of our arrival -- but nothing is ever guaranteed around here! Mark will have to be there for the court date, but then he will need to return to work. If all goes well, at that point Rehema will be able to stay with us, but it will take a few more weeks to get all her paperwork from the US Embassy. And then we get to make the trip in reverse, except this time there will be two small children and one adult! But I am really and truly looking forward to that flight, because after that.... we will all be home together!
So probably the whole trip will be about 2-3 months for Emerson and I, and two short trips for Mark. We will probably start out staying at a hotel which is only a few blocks from the orphanage, but then I hope to find a little apartment to rent.
There are several reasons that we decided to start planning to go to Kampala even though the paperwork is not complete and something could still go wrong.
1. First of all, it will give us a much better chance to bond with Rehema, and get to know each other in a space where she feels confident. Adoption psychologists recommend a month's time to transfer care (which most children do not get!!), so hopefully we will be able to gradually spend more and more time with her and take over more of her care at the orphanage. Hopefully this will reduce her trauma at suddenly leaving everything she knows (for the second time) and being left "alone" with strange people who do not look, talk, smell or act like anyone she has ever seen before.
2. Every time I kiss Emerson as he fell asleep, or comfort him when he gets a bang, it just breaks my heart that there is nothing I can do for my daughter. I sent her some colored barrettes, and it just hurt inside, what an insignificant gesture that is. Even if I can only be with her for a few hours a day, isn't a few hours of mothering better than nothing? How can I wait around here while there is so much that she needs, and she is there....
3. The Ugandan judges are wanting to see that the prospective adoptive parents have already established a relationship with the child. Even if we were able to establish a wonderful relationship afterwords, if the child is crying and scared of us in court, we might not ever get the chance.
4. Planning several weeks in advance gives us a lot more options in terms of traveling, airfare, housesitting, etc.
5. The agency director here says that unfortunately, the pattern seems to be that the orphanage directors work very hard on one or two cases at a time, and those cases are the ones with the parent over there in front of them. So if they don't have the paperwork done by mid-February, it might mean that they are not going to get around to it until we arrive anyways. However, there are only 5 children whose cases are currently open, so it seems reasonable that they will actually make some progress for Rehema.
So here we come!!!
But first of all, I've got to say, that every time I tell someone about the good news of our progress, or am working on a packing list, or start imagining what it's going to be like when I meet my little girl.... it makes me a little scared and worried too. There is still plenty of room for something to go wrong and the adoption to fall though; in Uganda, unlike in Hague countries, nothing is certain until the judge makes the ruling. That we will adopt Rehema is not a promise, it's just a plan. BUT -- meanwhile, I have to take action to keep moving things forward so our plan can happen.
As far as Rehema's legal situation, nothing specific has changed. We have decided to go over without having a court date or having all the paperwork together. I talked with the director of the agency, and he is supportive of that idea, and he thinks mid-February is a reasonable time frame. So for the last week, we've been making concrete plans!
Mark, Emerson and I will all fly over together. The present flight involves 14 hours from Seattle to Dubai, an 11 hour layover (which includes a room at their in-airport hotel - I'm excited about that!), and then 6 more hours to Kampala. Wow, I am so blessed to be able to spend a 36-hour trip with my active and wiggly four-year-old! (I'm not even being facetious here; anything that gets me to my daughter is a blessing!) Mark will stay for two weeks. We will be able to visit Rehema every day in the orphanage for several hours, and probably do some looking around Kampala and the environs while we have two adults available. Because then, Mark is going home, and Emerson and I will stay until everything is taken care of. Hopefully, we will get our court date within a month of so of our arrival -- but nothing is ever guaranteed around here! Mark will have to be there for the court date, but then he will need to return to work. If all goes well, at that point Rehema will be able to stay with us, but it will take a few more weeks to get all her paperwork from the US Embassy. And then we get to make the trip in reverse, except this time there will be two small children and one adult! But I am really and truly looking forward to that flight, because after that.... we will all be home together!
So probably the whole trip will be about 2-3 months for Emerson and I, and two short trips for Mark. We will probably start out staying at a hotel which is only a few blocks from the orphanage, but then I hope to find a little apartment to rent.
There are several reasons that we decided to start planning to go to Kampala even though the paperwork is not complete and something could still go wrong.
1. First of all, it will give us a much better chance to bond with Rehema, and get to know each other in a space where she feels confident. Adoption psychologists recommend a month's time to transfer care (which most children do not get!!), so hopefully we will be able to gradually spend more and more time with her and take over more of her care at the orphanage. Hopefully this will reduce her trauma at suddenly leaving everything she knows (for the second time) and being left "alone" with strange people who do not look, talk, smell or act like anyone she has ever seen before.
2. Every time I kiss Emerson as he fell asleep, or comfort him when he gets a bang, it just breaks my heart that there is nothing I can do for my daughter. I sent her some colored barrettes, and it just hurt inside, what an insignificant gesture that is. Even if I can only be with her for a few hours a day, isn't a few hours of mothering better than nothing? How can I wait around here while there is so much that she needs, and she is there....
3. The Ugandan judges are wanting to see that the prospective adoptive parents have already established a relationship with the child. Even if we were able to establish a wonderful relationship afterwords, if the child is crying and scared of us in court, we might not ever get the chance.
4. Planning several weeks in advance gives us a lot more options in terms of traveling, airfare, housesitting, etc.
5. The agency director here says that unfortunately, the pattern seems to be that the orphanage directors work very hard on one or two cases at a time, and those cases are the ones with the parent over there in front of them. So if they don't have the paperwork done by mid-February, it might mean that they are not going to get around to it until we arrive anyways. However, there are only 5 children whose cases are currently open, so it seems reasonable that they will actually make some progress for Rehema.
So here we come!!!
Friday, January 4, 2013
What's in a name?
After people hear that we are adopting, they want to know our child's age, and then name... and then immediately ask "are you going to change it?"
Adoption -- joining a new family -- is a change. We wish we could protect her heart from all the losses that she has already faced, and will soon face when she leaves her homeland and everything she knows, but there is change implicit. And we will need to change her name in some ways.
But not take it away.
As far as we know, she has a given name, Rehema, and a family name (which I won't post on-line). Based on different names we've seen, we don't know if this is first and last in a parallel tradition to what we have here, or if there is any more to her name. We have seen her first name spelled different ways, and when we saw a video of her, the caregivers rolled the R, made the H gutteral, and put the accent on the second syllable: re-CHAY-mah.
We want to honor the name she has, for several reasons. First of all, she recognizes it as meaning herself (at least we hope she will be able to recognize our pronunciation!!). Enough is going to be confusing to her; we want to keep something that she recognizes! Secondly, it is a gift that her birthmother gave to her; probably the only thing that she can keep through her life from her birth mother. Thirdly, it is something representing her country and her heritage. For instance, we can make a guess that she is from the Muslim minority, and hopefully we will be able to learn more about the significance of her name when we are in Uganda.
But she will be a child with two countries, and so part of her name will also reflect her second country -- ours. Certainly, we will change her last name to ours, to signify that we are all part of the same family.
We also want to give her a middle name. Hopefully, this will give her options of who she wants to be, and when. (Our son is also called by his middle name, but sometimes identifies as his first name, so we already have a family tradition of using different names.) She could be called by her first name and her middle name flowing together; she could use either name on its own. She might decide that there are times she wants to blend in with other American kids (at least with her name) and there might be times when she wants to let everyone know she is African. She might be like Little Elizabeth in the Anne of Green Gables series, who calls herself different variations of her name depending on her mood! Her middle name should be able to add to her choices and her growing sense of herself, but not take away from it.
Hopefully, the name we use for her will sound familiar, seem beautiful to her, reflect the value of the life she has lead before coming to our family, and also her inclusion in our family.
Meanwhile, Mark and I have to find something we agree on!!
Adoption -- joining a new family -- is a change. We wish we could protect her heart from all the losses that she has already faced, and will soon face when she leaves her homeland and everything she knows, but there is change implicit. And we will need to change her name in some ways.
But not take it away.
As far as we know, she has a given name, Rehema, and a family name (which I won't post on-line). Based on different names we've seen, we don't know if this is first and last in a parallel tradition to what we have here, or if there is any more to her name. We have seen her first name spelled different ways, and when we saw a video of her, the caregivers rolled the R, made the H gutteral, and put the accent on the second syllable: re-CHAY-mah.
We want to honor the name she has, for several reasons. First of all, she recognizes it as meaning herself (at least we hope she will be able to recognize our pronunciation!!). Enough is going to be confusing to her; we want to keep something that she recognizes! Secondly, it is a gift that her birthmother gave to her; probably the only thing that she can keep through her life from her birth mother. Thirdly, it is something representing her country and her heritage. For instance, we can make a guess that she is from the Muslim minority, and hopefully we will be able to learn more about the significance of her name when we are in Uganda.
But she will be a child with two countries, and so part of her name will also reflect her second country -- ours. Certainly, we will change her last name to ours, to signify that we are all part of the same family.
We also want to give her a middle name. Hopefully, this will give her options of who she wants to be, and when. (Our son is also called by his middle name, but sometimes identifies as his first name, so we already have a family tradition of using different names.) She could be called by her first name and her middle name flowing together; she could use either name on its own. She might decide that there are times she wants to blend in with other American kids (at least with her name) and there might be times when she wants to let everyone know she is African. She might be like Little Elizabeth in the Anne of Green Gables series, who calls herself different variations of her name depending on her mood! Her middle name should be able to add to her choices and her growing sense of herself, but not take away from it.
Hopefully, the name we use for her will sound familiar, seem beautiful to her, reflect the value of the life she has lead before coming to our family, and also her inclusion in our family.
Meanwhile, Mark and I have to find something we agree on!!
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