{"id":171,"date":"2015-04-22T10:39:09","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T15:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/?p=171"},"modified":"2015-04-22T10:39:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-22T15:39:09","slug":"somethings-ive-learned-so-far-the-lets-talk-about-my-feeeeeeelings-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/2015\/04\/22\/somethings-ive-learned-so-far-the-lets-talk-about-my-feeeeeeelings-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Things I&#8217;ve Learned So Far:  The &#8220;Let&#8217;s Talk About My Feeeeeeelings&#8221; Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/china-map-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-173\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/china-map-2-300x225.jpg?resize=300%2C225\" alt=\"china map 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/china-map-2.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/china-map-2.jpg?w=736&amp;ssl=1 736w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapsbyannie.nl\/a-37880712\/countries\/china-map\/\">Image Source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Things that adoption has taught me (so far):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Waiting is not my favorite.<\/strong> I mean, duh, right? But this kind of waiting is unlike any other kind I\u2019ve ever experienced because at the end of this wait lies my child, my youngest, my baby. It is very different from a pregnancy wait, too,\u00a0because there are so many factors out of my control or ability to do anything about.\u00a0 We simply have to trust that the people who are doing all the things we&#8217;d rather be doing ourselves are doing them well, and we believe they are.\u00a0 We are so lucky to know that she is very well cared for and well loved and safe, but the process of entrusting someone else with the care of your child is rough.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Control IS my favorite, and I don\u2019t have any of it.<\/strong> We are currently at the mercy of the Chinese government, then we\u2019ll be at the mercy of the US government, and then it switches back and forth until the end. We\u2019re at the mercy of plane ticket prices, hotel bookings, and other people\u2019s plans. We are dependent on others for advice, direction and \u201chow to\u2019s\u201d on just about everything. I have been so grateful for the people who work at our agency and the people we\u2019ve dealt with in government and the people who have walked this road before me for their advice and patience and reassurances, but I am looking forward to having some sort of solid ground back. But I just realized as I\u2019m typing this that adoptive parenting is, in some ways, a whole new ball game, so I should just resign myself to not knowing anything for a while.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fundraising is hard.<\/strong> PLEASE don\u2019t misconstrue that to mean that I am not beside myself with gratitude for all of your contributions. I just mean that I hate asking. I don\u2019t like being the needy one. I am an extremely uncomfortable self promoter. I don\u2019t ask for help well. I am a hard core introvert. I worry that people will get sick of us. I worry that people will make unkind judgments. It\u2019s just a recipe for a lot of discomfort. But we truly could not do it without help, so we\u2019ve asked, which leads me to my next point\u2026.<\/li>\n<li><b><strong>We have the awesomest people on Earth, ever in the history of the world, period, full stop, do not even try to argue with me, I mean it. <\/strong><\/b>I will do a full post about this later on, but just know that we have been truly blown away by how you\u2019ve rallied for us, and how well you\u2019ve loved all of us through this process. People I knew would show up, and people I never expected have lavished us with love and support and good will in way we will never be able to repay. If you want to see me ugly cry (you don\u2019t though, ask Josh), ask me sometime about the things people have done for us this last 8 months. And know that it\u2019s is not only or even mostly, financial support that that we\u2019re talking about. It\u2019s the questions, and the interest and the kind and supportive texts and emails and calls. It\u2019s the people who say \u201cif you need anything, let me know\u201d and mean it. We have such an amazing community supporting us and Jia and we are so thankful.<\/li>\n<li>L<b><strong>ove crosses oceans and doesn\u2019t even need to meet in person to be real.<\/strong> <\/b>We love Jia. She\u2019s ours and we\u2019re hers and we\u2019re us all together and we haven\u2019t even met yet. That is the craziest, realest, most surprising thing about all of this. It will grow and change and go deeper once we meet, of course, but it\u2019s there and it\u2019s real and it\u2019s not going away. In much the same way that you love your biological children before you meet them in person, we love Jia, and that love gets deeper when you\u2019re in the thick of life together and it\u2019s built on shared experiences and memories and showing up when you\u2019re needed. I can\u2019t wait to get started on that next part.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, those are a few things I\u2019ve learned so far, and I can\u2019t wait to learn more.\u00a0 This process has been crazy and hard and magical and humbling and achingly beautiful and full of bone deep grief and mind boggling delight.\u00a0 This is adoption, and it\u2019s brutiful (brutal\/beautiful).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image Source Things that adoption has taught me (so far): Waiting is not my favorite. I mean, duh, right? But this kind of waiting is unlike any other kind I\u2019ve ever experienced because at the end of this wait lies my child, my youngest, my baby. It is very different from a pregnancy wait, too,\u00a0because <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/2015\/04\/22\/somethings-ive-learned-so-far-the-lets-talk-about-my-feeeeeeelings-edition\/\">Continue reading &#8594;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,4,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}