Is it the Loneliest Number since the number one?

Many transracial adoptees have said that one thing their parents could have done for them was to adopt again, a person of the same race, able to share the experiences of being adopted and being a person of color in an otherwise white family.

Many thoughtful adoptive parents have said that if they knew what they know now when they adopted, they would have been far more ambivalent about adoption (whether domestic or international, newborn or older child).

Many people have told me that one is fun, two is ten, now that I have two (but as I've said before, they didn't tell me BEFORE). They say (these parents of more than two) that we would be crazy to have three. And that they love their third child madly.

One of my best friends, a black woman raised by her white mother, felt strongly that Miss I should not be the only black person in her household. The same friend now says that Miss I might just be better off the baby, even if that means she'd be the only black person in the fam. She wonders if the Divine Miss I, a diva, would ever thank us for bringing a competitor home.

Adoption raises so many tough questions from the ethical to the practical, and the ones that are weighing on us heavily right now involve the imaginary A. What's more important -- Sharing the experience of being a transracial adoptee or avoiding dethronement? Is it personality dependent? Would a third sibling kill her or mellow her out just a little bit? Would she put a third sibling down the laundry chute? Should a kid really dictate her family's construction? We did consider ds's personality and needs very seriously when we chose to adopt and to adopt a toddler, but this is different: You, Miss I, are the reason we didn't have any more children. What does that say? But every family eventually has a baby, a child who made them sure they couldn't do it again.

And of course there is always the issue of generating demand, but a young baby? We don't feel Miss I could handle similar attachment difficulties to the ones we faced with her. If another child were to be glued to my hip, to be screaming for fifty minutes, she'd regress, whether this happened next year or the year after or . . . It'd be very destabilizing for her to experience someone else's grief in that way. But we also know we don't want to participate in increasing the demand (Ethiopia's wait times are stretching out even as the government approves more and more agencies for work there).

Little Bun's solution: A four year old boy from Vietnam -- fun for him, no competition for Miss I. Even he is aware of her divine-ness and he'd never have to "go through the terrible twos" again. He's so wise (though we didn't tell him that a four year old boy would also have extraordinary grief and there's no way of predicting what that would look like).

Our plan for the moment: Keep watching waiting child lists, think about finishing a homestudy update just incase, be prepared to remain a family of four or bring home a waiting child, and realize that whatever we do our children will tell us when they are grown that we've kind of screwed them up.

Our plan for the future: Realize that our plans always change.

New regulations may mean it's time to Ca-ca or keum the po-po.
I'm not normally one for rumors, but if anyone knows whether the four year gap between ET adoptions beginning later this year is for real or not, lemme know.

The Bloom Estate

When we unrolled the new rug -- purchased at 40% off on black Friday, sure to be stained by the next Friday -- ds asked if he could have it someday, "when [I'm] old." He thinks he and his wife would like to have it in their house. I told him that many of the things we have would be his someday.

Tonight as we decorated the Christmas tree (pictures coming) he unwrapped my Old World Christmas fruit ornaments with special care, knowing they're my favorites and remembering that I'd broken one two years ago. "Can these be mine someday? They're my favorites too." "Yes," I said, "Some of these will be yours, and some Miss I's," and after a pause I added "and some A's" (A being the imaginary name for an imaginary child, an idea being explored here at Chez Bloom). He turned from the tree, arms still in the air, sugar plum dangling from its hook. "I know I said I might want another baby, but I'm happy with things just the way they are."

Calculating little man. He said it wasn't about the ornaments, just about "our happiness," but it wasn't just the tree lights twinkling in his eyes.

I told him we wouldn't have to divide anything for a long time. First I'd keep everything at my house even after he'd moved to his own house, then I'd bring much of it with me when I moved in with his family. "Oh," he said seriously, almost flatly. "I didn't realize mothers would live with their grown children."

I said: "Of course, you'll have to ask your wife." I thought: I come with the rug.

The More the Merrier? (or Scarier?)

Owlhaven asks this:

"When you think about enlarging your family, what are some of the questions and concerns that come to your mind? Was it or is it a difficult or an easy decision to declare yourself ‘done’ with having children? If your family is already complete, feel free to share the questions you had as you faced the issue in the past. When you decided, did you decide once and for all, or did you find yourself revisiting the question over and over? I was chatting with my sisters about this over Thanksgiving, found it a fascinating topic, and thought it might be interesting to discuss here as well."

We've been thinking alot about this lately. Ds has been thinking about it even longer.

When we decided to begin the adoption process for Miss I, we just knew someone was missing, felt like we needed this other person in our lives. This time it feels more like it's about needs than wants.

When we decided to adopt transracially and internationally, we felt it was important that our child not be the only child of color in our then-very white family. Then she came home, and she wasn't sleeping and neither were we, and I thought maybe we were done afterall. Then there were many days when we went back and forth -- one day we would name him or her, the next we would declare ourselves complete.

Give it six months, wise women said. Six months for our new family to feel normal, six months before making major life decisions.

Third mom's question and the subsequent answers remind me of the reasons we felt that commiting to Miss I meant commiting to a second Ethiopia adoption.* My husband reminds me that I am practically a crazy woman practically all the time and was through the entire adoption process. (He rejects this characterization of the conversation).

And then he reminds himself of all that he saw in Ethiopia, all the children he could so easily love
, and he seems to think maybe we are just crazy enough . . .

#3?

I was responding to Erin O's comment on a post below (and Erin, you didn't pressure me at all. Just made me think!), and I realized something. I'd implied we were on the way to number three, but we aren't, yet, I didn't think, though we struggle almost daily with whether or not we should be (many from our travel group already are!).

Sometimes I think I'm crazy for thinking about #3. (See the 90 minute tantrum, below, or the help I receive from a dear friend each week just to keep my house organized and my sanity semi-intact as dh works extra hours). But sometimes I think kind of like this
at largerfamily, written by Owlhaven in October:

"You see, I’ve been to Ethiopia. I have memories of walking through orphanages with child after child plucked at my clothes looking pleadingly upward, and raising their arms begging to be picked up.

I know deep in my soul that at this very minute there are thousands of children dying a little inside every day because they have no one to call their own. No one.

I also know how little time it takes for a former orphan to become a sassy, self-assured, much-loved member of a family. It is a miraculous and delightful metamorphasis to behold.

And here we sit, blessed beyond measure. How can I blithely say I’m done, knowing that in saying so I am shutting the door in the faces of real living children?"

She goes on to say to say that this feeling isn't about a savior complex, but the real sense that someone is missing.

Is someone missing here at Chez Bloom? Sometimes I think, given that it'll take us a good long time to process the paper and to wait, that January, at the latest June, will be the time to ca-ca or keum the po-po.

We'll never be a larger family. I don't have the temperament for it (I think I'm much too impatient, maybe a little too fragile), though God bless those who do --

but are we really done?
I don't think so.

Three's Company

Ds announced yesterday that he's still lonely, but that he likes his sister so much we should "do it again." He wants another little sister, only this time he wants her to be "zero" so he can "raise her the whole way." He promises to take care of her if I take care of Miss I. What ever happened to "Please Momma can I have a puppy?!"