Evil Mommy » Parenting

The healing power of prayerdoctors

spyderkl — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:01:24 +0000

I don’t write about religion much here. Or the lack of same. But this is a serious thing that affects more children than I want to think about. As a parent, I just can’t imagine not taking a child to the doctor. But there are plenty of people who don’t – not because they can’t afford to, not because they don’t have a doctor that they can easily access, but because their church tells them that healing can happen with prayer alone.

There are lots of examples of this, a disturbing number of which involve dead children. Here’s the latest example. The only difference is that, thanks to Oregon’s DHS and the court system, she’s not dead yet.

Take a look at the picture at the above link. She’s just a baby, not even a year old. Her condition could have been treated easily if it had been addressed sooner, but now she needs surgery. At the very least, she could lose her sight.

Bottom line, as the kids say: Prayer doesn’t work, but doctors almost always work. My faith’s with the doctors.

Choke

spyderkl — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:41:32 +0000

Our guest decided that she had second, third and fourth thoughts about meeting School Girl’s other family. She doesn’t feel comfortable. She doesn’t want to see the National Monument as much as she thought she did. Along with lots of other talk about “School Girl must feel confused (um, no; the relationships that she has with everyone are clear to her, although not complete exactly)”, “It must be so hard” (exactly how hard it all is and for whom is not your fscking business), and the like. The usual stuff from people who really don’t know anything about adoption at all. Except this is from someone who has been an ostensible part of School Girl’s life for the past 8 1/2 years.

I need to break the news to M and C. We’ll probably see them next weekend, so there’s that. I’m not surprised, just disappointed. I had hoped things had changed out East. Apparently not enough.

All the Parts

spyderkl — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:16:17 +0000

So. Sometime over the next 10 days or so (unless somebody blinks) at least 2 parts of School Girl’s extended family will meet for the first time.

Mr. Goth’s mother will be here at the end of the week. One of the places she’d like to visit is very close to C’s house. I talked to C, and she said she’d love to meet her. Apparently Mr. Goth talked to his mother, who was also okay with it. We’ll see what happens.

M and School Girl are on the phone right now. I have no idea if she wants to meet Mr. Goth’s mother or not. But we’ll see. If nothing else we can meet up the weekend before she goes back to school, at the end of this month.

Phone Calls

spyderkl — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:12:00 +0000

School Girl talked with C on the phone last night. Which is both a big deal and not – we talk on the phone an average of 2x a month, average for how often we stay in touch with other members of our families. School Girl decided to call her, which is a pretty big deal. She said she wanted to talk to some of her grandparents; so she called C and my parents. She talked to my parents first, and C called back later that evening.

C had sent her a box of “girly stuff”: nail polish, glitter Chapstick (I had no idea that even existed), and candy necklaces. No, not that sort of candy necklaces, the real kind. The ones meant for young kids.

Normal and not so normal, all at the same time.

Why?

spyderkl — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:39:11 +0000

Last night it finally happened. The day I’ve been dreading for a long time. I thought that I would be ready, but I wasn’t.

It started last night, when School Girl took one of her first photo albums to bed. She wanted to keep looking at the pictures. There are lots of pictures in there – extras that we already have in her lifebook, pictures from that first year, and a couple of pictures of M’s first official visit when School Girl was about 6 months old.

She asked a lot of questions last night, which is both normal and her favorite “not time for bed yet” stalling tactic. She asked which pictures were my favorite. I answered honestly – I really liked them all. I don’t remember how we got on the subject, but the next thing I remember was her asking…

“If M loved me, why did she have me and give me away?”

It was hard to remember that it wasn’t directed at me at all. Just M.

I answered in the only way I could.

“I don’t know, baby. The only person who can answer that is M herself. You two need to talk about that the next time you see her, if you can. I know that she and S both love you, just like Daddy and I do. Daddy and I will always be here for you, but I don’t have the answer to that one.”

And a whole lot of others too.