Please don't take this post as me getting on my high horse...I really don't feel that way. I just had an enlightening experience related to our adoption and thought I would share it.
I had my teeth cleaned today - something I do every 6 months. Some times I have the same hygienist and some times they switch things up and I get someone different. Today I was in an especially sharing mood and we got to talking about the hygienist's 6 year old daughter and her t-ball games, dancing classes, etc. and she asked me when I was going to have kids. I told her about the adoption and that we had been waiting a while for China to match us with a child and we would most likely be waiting for a good bit longer. She scraped away at my teeth and seemed like she was thinking really hard for a good minute. She then looked at me and asked "So do you BUY the baby?"...of course she said this while she had that big metal scrapey thingy so I couldn't exact let out a great big heaping laugh.
While I was a little disturbed that she asked me this, I was more disturbed when she followed it up by explaining that she pictured us meeting the birth parents of our baby and giving them money and then having them hand over their baby for us to take home with us. I explained that it definitely doesn't happen that way. I'm not sure if she understood what I was saying when I went on for the next 5 minutes about how it does happen but I guess in the big picture it doesn't really matter if she got it or not. What matters is that I know and that I can explain to our daughter some day what it took to make us a family.
The moral of this story is that I had a nice little reminder with my experience today that not everyone knows about how adoption works, international or otherwise...it is a not a part of everyone's life and they have no need to know unless and until it affects them. It's not my duty or privilege in life to educate them and make them accepting of it. I did have the opportunity today to share my story with someone new and that was great. At the end of my teeth torture she said to me that it's not about the birth experience, it's about the love that you give your child...I'm not sure if she really believes that or if she just said it for my benefit but either way I appreciate it. I believe it and I plan to prove it with all the love I already feel for my daughter who may not even be conceived, let alone born yet. How many parents can say that they loved their child deeply before they were even two little cells getting ready to grow into a person? I am lucky enough to be one of the few.
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