Adoption is a funny thing. You spend months doing paperwork, getting fingerprinted about one thousand times, more paperwork, taking classes, and then doing even more paperwork. Then one day out of the blue you get a call, and suddenly you're a parent. It doesn't matter whether you were at the hospital or if you only have a single picture of a child halfway across the world. From that moment you are a parent.
Then your child arrives home, and things aren't always easy. Of course things aren't always easy when you give birth to a child either. I think adoptive parents tend to fall into a trap because we worked SO hard to prove we could be good parents that we feel like if we aren't perfect we are failing. Perfect is impossible, but there are many days that you forget that.
This is one of my failings-it's easy to feel like you're best isn't good enough or that some days you aren't capable of giving what you think should be your best. We've had one of those weeks. Not enough sleep, crazy schedules, no one is feeling 100%-one of those. Then last night my eldest had a nightmare and as I was soothing him back to sleep he grabbed my hand in his and just held on for dear life. And it was one of those moments where you physically feel how much you love someone. I looked at my two brave, beautiful boys who have faced so much in their little lives so far and it felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest.
So today I rounded up some of my favorite adoption items on Etsy. A few are related to Korean adoption (both my children were born in South Korea), others are more general. Many are created by adoptive parents to honor their experience or to fundraise for an ongoing adoption journey.
And seriously, how sweet are the globe adoption announcements? They crack open to reveal your announcement, and a gold heart is painted over the country you are adopting from. What a perfect way to share your joy.
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