Friday, January 21, 2011

When one door closes...

…the other one is super-glued shut?

Tuesday morning I got up to see my phone blinking, telling me I had new emails.  Now this isn’t unusual, I get 15 or so emails a day on my Crackberry.  I have two inboxes set up, one for my everyday email account and one for our adoption email account.  So when I picked up my blinking Crackberry to see what deals Groupon had emailed and what words of wisdom Spark People had passed along I was a little shocked to see the little red asterisk next to the inbox for our adoption account.  I quickly sat up (yes, I keep my phone by the side of the bed…um, hello…CRACKberry??!?), rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and clicked on the inbox.  There it was.  And email with a simple subject line: “Hi”.   My fingers couldn’t move fast enough to click on the message.   The message writer’s native tongue was obviously not English, but surprisingly this didn’t prickle my neck hairs (we’ve gotten a few foreign scam emails…similar to the “send us your bank account number and we’ll send you 200 million dollars” bit…uh huh).  It was from a man.  He and his wife saw our blog, and thought we looked like a nice family.  They wanted to talk a little more, said they hoped to hear back from us.  I read the message to Nathan and we decided on a response.  Then I hustled downstairs to my laptop to check out the SiteMeter for our blog.  Sure enough, late the night before someone had gone to our blog and translated the entire thing into another language and had spent a good chunk of time reading it.  I did some research and discovered that the language was Vietnamese.  I knew that adoptions from Vietnam had been shut down in 2008…I hoped that is not where they lived.  People speak Vietnamese all over, right?  I mean, they could be from California or New York…right?

We anxiously awaited Wednesday morning, and we were not disappointed.  We got another message, this one expressing concern that we would not be willing to adopt a child internationally.  We responded that we were 100% open to an international adoption.  We asked if the child was born yet, how old they were and in what country they lived.  All I could think about Wednesday was our possible impending international travel.  We don’t have passports!  We don’t have an international homestudy!  Who would watch Winston?!?

This morning I got up and checked my phone first thing.  There it was, that tiny red asterisk.  I jumped up, quickly read the email.  And my hopes fellAgain.  They lived in Vietnam.  As I read further, it turned out ok and I didn’t feel as bad.  They had a baby and a fifteen year old.  They wanted us to take both of them.  BOTH.  A baby, ok…but a fifteen year old?  As much as I want to be a parent (and boy do I), we are NOT ready to be sprung into parenthood with a fifteen year old.   So I carefully crafted a response, telling this sweet couple half way around the world who wanted us to be the parents to their children, that we couldn’t adopt them.  Even if we had been ready to be the parents of a teenager, the government wouldn’t allow it. 

So the door that was presented to us was super-glued shut (by the government).  But when I peeked through the peep hole it turned out to be something we weren't ready for anyway.  So I’ll just keep looking for another door…or a window.  I like windows, you can see what’s on the other side before you wear yourself out trying to open it.

4 comments:

Ryann said...

I'm sorry that didn't work out. But at least you know that your blog is getting around! The word is being spread and that IS a good thing. Hugs!

Me, Myself and I said...

Wow. I wonder what their situation must be to want to give up both of their children. Sorry it didn't work out this time.

Happy Herrons said...

Yah -= you are internationally FAMOUS!!

Bree said...

What an amazing story to read! I'm so glad that your blog is traveling the world, but I'm sad that the parents were in such a spot as to need both of their children to be adopted out.

I keep praying for you sweetie!