The Adoption Blogger Interview Project ~ Let me introduce Mindy of Art From The Lost Planet

The Adoption Interview Project, an initiative created by Heather Schade, who is a mom through open domestic adoption and is the caretaker of the Open Adoption Bloggers, a network of writers from all sides of adoption.

The purpose of The Adoption Interview Project is to shed some insight, differing views and perspectives about the complexities of adoption. I am thrilled to participate for the first time and have been randomly paired with Mindy who is also an adoptive mom whose daughter was born in Ethiopia and shares her stories through her blog http://artfromthelostplanet.blogspot.com.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mindy and to meet her family through reading her blog and learning about their journey to parenthood and their little Dew Drop who is quite a beauty! I want to share how much that I love her artwork and how as a family they are living/homesteading! I am "the city girl" and am in awe of the quiet and the country area you live in ... I love how we each took a journey to parenthood through adoption and although our paths were different we each have family now to call our own .

I love to talk about my family, I love to learn how others in adoption formed their families and what their lives are like, My husband and I feel the more community we have to share with our girls and ourselves the better! Not all our families will have the same experiences but we feel it is for us the way to share how all is the same and different with our girls!

It is my honor to share the questions and answers from Mindy.

1. I was wondering what brought you to adoption? and with that in mind, I wondered what drew you to Ethiopia to create your family? We always said that if we started a family we would do it through adoption. I remember being a little girl and knowing that adoption was probably in my future. We are very concerned about overpopulation and didn't feel the need to create any more humans. Neither of us wanted to see our physical or mental traits duplicated in a child either- it just didn't interest us at all.

Were you ever concerned while pursuing an adoption internationally that you might not have any family history for medical decisions or information to share with your child when they asked? Oh yeah. Of course. That was a big concern and something we tried to become educated about before being matched. On the flip side: with Ethiopian adoptions you must also consider how it will be to have a semi-open adoption. How will you negotiate the cultural, economic, and language barriers that divide your family from your child's first family are worth some serious thought. Along those same lines, many families start out with a semi-open adoption and it slowly transforms into being a completely open adoption.

2. Now that your daughter is older, how do you respond to strangers that may ask out of place questions, i.e. where did you get her? It's pretty rare that people ask us rude questions lately. When she was a baby we had more of that, but now that she's older I guess people realize that she's listening and participating in conversations so they hold themselves back.

how much did she cost? That's the worst question. We had a lot of that early on. It's just a gross question, and I can't believe how many people asked it. Even people who you would think should know better. Ugh.

I realize there are many strangers in the world who do not seem to have filters and always seem to ask questions in the most inappropriate places ... have you run into this as a family? Honestly, we were prepared for much worse. We'd heard stories about people having the rudest things said to them and really thought it would be commonplace, but am happy to report that it's not.

How do you handle this? When it does happen, you always have a better response for the situation after the fact- usually in the middle of the night! There's no way to walk around imagining the perfect response to every rude thing people say. I've learned from other adoptive families that one of the best responses to a really uncomfortable or rude question is just to respond with a question. If someone asks something inappropriate, respond by saying "why do you ask?" It's sort of the perfect response and can hopefully give the person who asked a little reflection on how it feels to have it turned back on them. I think it's also really important to sort out people who are honestly asking a question but don't have the social skills to phrase it in a nice way. Within the adoption community we're all schooled in what's rude and what's not (because we live it) but the other people haven't done the learning we've done. I try to answer legitimate questions patiently and without snark when possible.

3. I noticed that the start of your blog is in the middle or the waiting period of your adoption Why did you originally start your blog? Like so many waiting families I was reading adoption blogs and learning more through them than I'd learned anywhere else. Reading people's direct experiences helped me to prepare and to wrap my mind around what we were getting ready to do. I started the blog because I felt indebted to those bloggers who'd shared themselves so openly- and I wanted to give back to the community by sharing my experience. That was the initial motivation. I also thought it would be cool to blog about our art. The whole thing ended up being a big mash up of everything we have that's going on. Now I see it as also a family journal- something to look back on to remember the days.

4. I have learned from others that some countries like Ethiopa cherish their children. Did you ever at any time worry that your child would or could
have attachment challenges? Yeah. Attachment challenges were always something we worried about. Our daughter was 6 months old when she came home so she was relatively young. I think attachment is one of the most critical parts about adoption parenting.

How did you plan to care for a child that might have attachment problems? Our home study social workers are amazing educators. They gave us lots of ideas about ways to establish attachment and what to be aware of. At one point I felt strongly that Dew Drop and I had some attachment problems going on. Together Babba and I made a plan that involved me being the only care giver. I changed all the diapers. I fed Dew Drop. I did all of the bathing and putting to sleep. We did this for about a month. It was exhausting, but within a few days I began to see improvement. Now I feel like Dew Drop and I are on solid ground. One of the interesting things about attachment is how much adoptive parents focus on it- and rightly so- but I know so many people who were not adopted that have attachment problems with their parents, and it's never resolved. Attachment is an ongoing thing- trust can be broken at any time between parent and child. At least within adoptive families it's talked about. So much of our parenting is intentional p

5. Was your daughter cared for by a foster family or in an orphanage? She was in two different orphanages. When we met her she'd already been moved to the second orphanage which was really nice by orphanage standards. Her caregivers loved her- that was very apparent. And she loved them.

Did the fact that she may be cared for by a foster family influence your choice for the country you wanted to have your family? That wasn't an option in Ethiopia.

6. Do you have plans to make any return visits to Ethopia with your daughter when she gets older?Oh yeah, For sure. Hopefully sooner rather than later since we're very close to being matched with another child. We're bringing Dew Drop with us. I can't wait for her to go back. We talk to her all of the time about Ethiopia but she really just needs to see it for herself. We're a traveling family-we went to Thailand with her last winter and it's crazy how much that experience has shaped and influenced her growing imagination. Our plan is to bring her back to Ethiopia every few years, but to also travel widely throughout Africa. We have a daydream about traveling as a family stopping along the way showing old cartoons in small villages.

How will you prepare her and yourself for this journey? We're ready and already prepared! We'd check in with our doctor to find out about what medicines to bring in case we get sick, but other than that we're ready.

When do you think she may be old enough to make such a trips? She's old enough already. Dew Drop is already a little world traveler and global citizen. That's a big piece of how we want to raise her. Our normal life is in rural America and that's just not going to cut it. If I were to say what is the foundation of our family's belief system I would say it's traveling. We don't go to church, but we go to markets all over the world. We have a deep love for humanity because of it.

7. In your family life have you sought out other family like yours to allow your daughter the feeling of just like me?Yes! One of the biggest surprises and blessings about being an adoptive family is our adoption community. There really aren't words to describe it. We have other families who live close by, but also family friends who live far away. We've had big gatherings at our house in the summer that can only be described as love fests. Dew Drop is close friends with many of the kids who were with her in the orphanage in Ethiopia. It's very touching to see them now together- well aware of their shared experiences.

If you haven't yet found a community like your family will you be looking for one as she gets older? We've found a community but it keeps growing by leaps and bounds!

8. Will you continue to blog and share your family life when your daughter see and understands what you have been sharing and writing online? I think so, but if she objects for whatever reason then I'll take the blog down. Or the blog will morph into our art and my creative writing blatherings. In my best case scenario I think it would be awesome to have her blogging from her perspective on what our family life is like.

Will you allow her to speak in her own words about her life online? For sure. It's just part of this modern world. I'm a worry wart though, and I'll be right over her shoulder until she's old enough to make reliable decisions.

9. Was/is parenthood what you expected? I knew it would be hard, but I didn't know it would be this hard. It's completely exhausting- especially if you want to be a really devoted parent.

When did you feel like your daughter's mom at receiving her picture or when you met in person? Feeling like Dew Drop's mom came in stages. I fell instantly in love with her as soon as I saw her picture and met her in real life, but I can't say that the love was necessarily reciprocated. The adoptive moms I hang out vacillate between feeling authentic or not. But really, if I think about it, all the moms in traditional families feel like that if they're honest and introspective. It's really interesting to compare what we think mothering should look like or feel like when judging ourselves by a standard created by Hollywood and mass media. I know some fantastic mothers but none of them stack up to June Cleaver.

I am so glad we were matched as I love to read others' lives and stories! Wish we lived closer so our families could meet :)