Choosing Holland…

A lot of you have read (or heard) the lovely poem “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley.  She wrote it as a description of what it is like to raise a child with a disability.  The gist is that it’s like planning a trip to Italy, and ending up unexpectedly  in Holland instead.  And that though Italy is great, Holland is lovely, too.  (You can read the poem here.)

I know that sometimes people don’t understand why we “chose” Holland.  And it is a difficult thing to explain, but I am going to try.

Here’s the thing:  when you decide to add to your family through adoption, you have to choose.  It’s an inherent part of the process.  International, or domestic?  Number of children desired?  Age?  Race?  Gender?  Some of these decisions will be easier than others.  Some will be made for  you, because of the various requirements of placing agencies or countries.  Some might be crystal clear (we *knew* we wanted a daughter the first time we adopted~ thank goodness we made that choice, as the balance has tipped so far towards testosterone since!) others may be murkier (the second go-round we specified “young-ish”, open to newborn up to three years old.)

But for me the hardest part of the entire process, hands-down, was the single page listing full of possible “special needs” that we might consider.  Everything from congenital issues (Down syndrome, albinism, club foot, cleft palate, microcephaly, etc.) to infectious diseases (Hepatitis, HIV) to heritable issues present in birthparents (bi-polar disorder, diabetes, schizophrenia)  to less-than-ideal womb environment (smoking, alcohol use~ mild, moderate, severe, drug use~ mild, moderate, severe) was on the list.

And so the agonizing bit begins.  Agonizing because, with every box you do not tick with a “Yes” (As in, “Prepared to accept a child with this issue”), you are essentially saying “Sorry, kiddo, but your particular problem is too big to become my problem.”

And we all know, when you are adding to your family in the more traditional way, you don’t get to tick boxes.  You get what you get, no decision required.  (Actually now, with the fabulous advances in pre-natal testing, you do  indeed get to choose!  But that is a whole ‘nother topic.)

Though I am able to rationalize to some degree (”Children who have very intense medical needs will be better off in a smaller family…  And we can’t possibly move from our two-story home in this economy, so a child with limited mobility wouldn’t be the right fit…” etc.) in the end it is still agonizing.  And I am still a bit sad and ashamed that I didn’t just go down the list ticking every box with wild abandon and complete faith.

But we did tick quite a few.  The “healthy white newborn” wasn’t really on our radar.  We were open to Holland, or Morocco… or Spain or Russia or China or Haiti… and we trusted that the right child, the right journey, would come our way.  And it did… and we are so very glad that we said “yes” to Holland.