Life's Little Triumphs

Sometimes, when we are in the trenches with Big Adoption and those that benefit, we can get to the point where we feel like we are Tokyo and the Industry is Godzilla. We get annoyed, then pissed, then we can act and speak without thinking. When I do that I am just another monster fighting the original one. Of course, it is hard to get a rational response to work with those whose career it is to promote and accomplish an irrational scenario.

I could be very jealous of the strides being made in Australia with an actual inquiry and the steps being taken in Canada...well, I AM jealous, but I am also happy for them and hopeful that the people here in the US who are affected by adoption will take a little courage from our friends in Oz and the Great North and join in the fight. In the US, we are definitely swimming against the current.

I want to celebrate those big victories because just getting started against the Adoption Machine is something to note. It is good that these things are happening in November along with Grayson and Ben reuniting and preparing to spend their lives as father and son. The court decision in MO to return her little boy to an undocumented alien is also one of the biggies. But I also want to celebrate little, everyday, life victories. These are the little, loose things on the periphery of the adoption zone. Some things don't make the evening news or the NY Times.

A friend of a friend, after trying for eight years, finally became pregnant. She was on bed rest from the 5th month on and delivered 5 weeks shy of her due date. Her little girl is doing well in the NICU down at Arnold Palmer hospital, gaining weight and breathing on her own. My friend went with the new mom to visit the little one and she had to pass on what this anxious but proud mother had to say.

She said, "Valarie, I cannot believe we were thinking about adopting. All I can think of is what your friend said about having people tell her she wasn't good enough to be a mother to her own child. I would die if someone were to take Lacey from me." Great thought, Leah. Pass it on. I think she identified because she had no idea if her daughter would be with her in the end or pass away from complications of prematurity. That is one more "civilian" who gets it.

My reunited daughter is sick. She has Lupus and when she gets an infection, it's usually a doozie. This time it's strep and more and she sounds terrible. Yet, as sick as she is, there was a member of her adoptive family who needed some tough love and a person to do that duty. She got out of bed, put on her big girl panties and did it! It was hard, it was painful, it was unselfish and it took a whole lot of courage. (Oh, and "it" is private.) I am so proud of her. She did what was right rather than what would make her "popular" with her family member. The victory over the adoptee people-pleaser in her is small by some standards,I guess, but huge with me. More than that, she showed the kind of person she is....a loving one.

I realized that, as I share my morning Facebook "I love yous," I can include my granddaughter. If my daughter had not been diligent in finding me, I couldn't have done that. I had a ball picking out Christmas presents for my great-grands..again, something I might have missed. For over 30 years, I would have given my eye teeth just to be able to say "Merry Christmas" to my surrendered children. I can do that, thanks to her and to a lot of good people who helped us both search.

Things aren't perfect for either of my surrendered children and me. But we know where the other one is and we can pick up the phone or send a card. The Industry was unable to prevent that and I call that a victory. Each time we have a problem with each other or a confrontation, and each time we talk and work it out, that is another victory. The Industry was unable to take our love away from  us.

Maybe these little things can, over time, whittle Godzilla down to what it really is...a man in a rubber suit, trampling a toy town. If I rightly recall my B-movie facts, monsters always get destroyed in the end. It's just a matter of finding the beast's weakness and using it against the Industry.

We may not have injured the Monster deeply, yet, but we have left a few scabs and minor wounds. Now, where's my salt? I keep it on hand for rubbing into open sores on the Monster's hide.