We are heading back to Taiwan in October and it’s been interesting hearing the questions and comments that people have about that. Many people have questions about what we are going to do. Some people think it’s awesome that we’re traveling trans-continentally with two 5 year olds. Some people want to know what our girls will think. Some people ask why we don’t wait until they are older. etc. etc. etc.
This decision was many years in the making. But ultimately it was easy. I have learned so much over the past 8 years since we entered the world of (international) adoption. I was SO naïve back then, and since I have a really optimistic personality, I didn’t understand or even wonder about many of the complexities of adoption. I have very intentionally immersed myself in adoption education, specifically what I feel is good, holistic, honest, true education. Now, I crave the voices of adult adoptees and birthmoms, and their opinions have helped us make so many choices for our girls. This is one of them.
Let’s back track a bit. We have been incredibly blessed in the last several years, through Shawn’s growing career and have been able to follow God into many things he’s asked us to do. Finally, when our oldest was four, we felt financially free to visit her birthplace for the first time since we returned home with her. It’s easy to visit her birthplace and we desperately wanted to connect in person with her birth family. After that trip, my husband and I immediately started planning to visit Taiwan. It was so obvious to us that we needed to maintain contact not only with both of our children’s first families, but also their first cultures and our trip to visit our firstborn’s birthplace only heightened that in our minds. Since Taiwan’s culture is so different from our own, we feel that need is that much greater!
If you know our family personally, you know that our children both have very different adoption stories, personalities, struggles and talents. Because of their differences, these trips will be very different. But they are no less valuable. This trip will be more challenging in many ways than the trip we made a few years ago. And that’s OK. There are things I am really scared for. But there are way more things I am so excited about. I am eager to taste, see, smell and know her birth culture more, and more. I am excited to see my daughter as one of the majority, and myself the minority. I want so much to maintain contact with people there who love her deeply- both those who share biology and those who don’t.
Through listening to adult international adoptees, I know I don’t want my daughters to have to make her first trip back to her homeland on her own when she’s an adult. I want it to be a normal thing that our family prioritizes. We spend time and money on so many things. We make a value choice every time we spend a dollar, whether we think we are or not. We demonstrate what’s important by what soaks up our time.
For us this is an easy choice, even if the trip isn’t easy. Just like the way we have chosen to build our beautiful family.
Lanaya
