some stuff

OK, first of all, if you have not read Cheri's blog, please just take a few moments and go send her some encouragement. She is in Guatemala, under a lock down situation (for lack of a better word), she is sick, her baby is teething and she continues to see no movement on her case and is getting no support from her agency in resolving the issue.

Now on to me: my post from yesterday was 2 things:
1. a way for me to put all the pieces on the table and see them in the totality, not just piece meal- basically a way to organize the last 2 years so that I could begin to process it.
2. A note to myself that I could not continue to be all "joy-joy, happy, happy" about the process when I had serious doubts about things.

That said, I forgot something that I have learned over the years: There are 2 ways to react to a bad situation, you can say "something bad happened to me, what can I learn from it", or you can play the victim for the rest of your life.

I hate being the victim- it is such a powerless place- you get in this mindset that since you are the victim, everything in life should either pay you back for being the victim or is always pounding you back down because you are a victim.

A bad thing happened to me in my adoption- partly through my trust of people, and my willingness to not push for responses and answers. But, what have I learned?
1. I will never know Little Bug's full story- but that is not going to stop me from trying to learn as much as possible.
2. My lawyer sucks- it might be that he did not provide full disclosure for cultural reasons, it might be because of other reasons. but I will not deal with him again.
3. My agency has some blame- continuing to not address my concerns, continuing with business as usual with the lawyer. But, it could have been so much worse and hopefully, they are learning something from this too.
4. While I hate to say it, I probably trust people far too much, but I don't want to change that about me. I don't want to be a person who can't or doesn't trust people in every situation.
5. I need to speak up- as much as it not in my personality to say negative things, sometimes they need to be said- preferably earlier rather than later and hopefully in a positive way.
6. I need to support others who are dealing with the same issues.
7. I will not allow this experience to prevent me from adopting again.

What I will not say is " my son is home and nothing else matters". His story is at stake, his understanding of who is comes from who he was. The discrepancies in the story show that someone does not value the life he had before he came to me- THAT is a wrong assumption on their part. His entire life has value, his first family has value, his birth mother has value.

So, right now, at least for tonight, the past is past and tomorrow is a new day. I will not retract what I said yesterday, I am still looking for answers, but a bad thing happened to me in this process and I have learned something from it and I will continue to reflect on it and learn more lessons.


Pictures tomorrow for Little Bug's first family and a discussion of the term "pick-up trip".

Love to you,
Momma Bug