When Pagans Adopt: Open your soul, heart, and mind

I interviewed Tara “Masery” Miller in June about her experience initiating the adoption process. She writes the Staff of Asclepius blog here at Patheos and we previously published her beautiful essay about facing infertility. This week I checked in on her progress, and she generously answered five new questions:

1.      You’re further along in your adoption process now. Can you briefly describe what that means?

That means we are about half way done with our fostering and adoption classes. We also met our social worker and passed our first big inspection. When we found out that our worker was an outside contractor from the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home we were really concerned. The teachers in the class said she wouldn’t be able to ask us about our religion and it hasn’t been a problem before.

The day of the inspection I opened the door and was totally stunned. There stood a beaming young woman with a nose piercing. I instantly knew things would be okay because she would have more modern values. We were told that more than likely we will be able to have a child placed in our home for adoption. We are both very excited and can’t stop talking about it.

2.      What have you learned from attending the classes required of you?

There is so much information. How do I narrow down a several hundred page binder into just a paragraph or two! You have to bare open your soul, heart, and mind to complete strangers so I was forced to reevaluate myself and my values. Each week we have homework. Mike and I had talked a lot about our dysfunctional childhood homes and what we had learned from them. But we get a better understanding of that when we have to write it down. We feel that since we’ve lived through that, we’ll be more understanding of a child from similar homes.

3.      Has your spiritual or ritual approach changed at all?

I went from mainly focusing on praying for a child to be placed to continuing those prayers and asking for employment. Of course, I’m taking action as well and meeting with a Vocational Rehabilitation specialist and putting applications in on my own.

4.      Do you feel like you’re in the processing of becoming a parent? Or like that will begin when a child is placed with you?

As much as we are learning in class and preparing our home, we are definitely in the process of becoming parents.

5.      What do you want now from other Pagans either in your local community or reading this on-line?

Please offer up a prayer or energy for us. Michael is starting a new job, though it’s delayed, and I’m looking for work. We want to be able to pay for the lawyer and have extra money for children’s furniture, clothing, toys, etc.

Image:  Some rights reserved by Horia Varlan http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4273168957/