why we’re letting the HIV cat out of the bag

One of the hardest questions in HIV+ adoption is “who will we tell?”

Legally, we only have to tell medical professionals. As our child with HIV grows up, that child will have to tell sexual partners too. (How I pray that each of our children will only have one, knowing the guidance laid out in the Bible and understanding first-hand how sweet it has been for Lee and me to not know those experiences outside of our marriage!)

If you’ve read this blog long, though, you know that we live our lives out loud. We share about cerebral palsy and epilepsy and autoimmune disorders and depression and more. We might even overshare from time to time.

That doesn’t mean we have to share about HIV, though.

We’re choosing to.

Why? Well, for starters, we don’t think it’s shameful. We don’t want any of our children to grow up thinking that it is.

We know our children will face the ugliness of this world. Jocelyn might get teased for being too tall or too loud. Robbie might get mocked about epilepsy. Zoe could be ridiculed for her body moving differently because of CP. And one of our children might face stigma due to HIV.

Who am I kidding?  All those “might”s are probably more like “will”s.

Instead of hiding from the ugliness, we will face it head on. It will hurt at times. Our hearts will break.

We’ve prayed for over a year about whether or not disclosure is the right decision. It is for us, but we understand why other families make a different decision. You can’t go back. Our advice if a family is on the fence about disclosure: don’t do it. You can always tell later, but you can’t untell news like this.

We’ve done research – talking to doctors and our elementary school’s principal and other adoptive parents and friends with HIV. We’re not naïve. We know we’re choosing a rough road. (For several reasons, though, we’re not sharing which one of our three is HIV-positive, so admittedly we’re not fully disclosing.)

We might lose friends. We might get uninvited to birthday parties, like this family did. We might have to stand firm in the face of the world’s ugliness.

One reason we’re doing this? We’ve seen the whole “it takes a village” thing play out in our family, as so many of you have helped us raise our children by serving in children’s ministry and coming alongside us in other ways. We don’t buy the idea that secrets stay secrets; especially with five other young children, details get shared, whether or not we want them to. In other words, we fully expect that our HIV+ child’s status will get shared, whether intentionally or not. By disclosing now, we can face the realities of disclosure proactively. We can allow people to quietly excuse themselves from our lives – from our village – if they are uncomfortable with our child’s HIV status. Our hope is that we can absorb the blows for our child, facing both gentle questions and harsh comments as they come. If ugly reactions or party un-invitations come too, Lee and I want to be on the receiving end, sheltering our darling one from that pain as long as we can.

We are thankful for friends – like you, hopefully – who will stand with us, and we’re willing to answer any questions you might have.

(In fact, I allow anonymous comments on this blog, so feel free to leave a question without giving away your identity, if you'd like.)

Think HIV+ adoption is crazy and scary? Don’t feel bad; I used to too.

{I’ve written about this topic once before: see this post. Since then, we've announced the adoption of our three precious ones in Uganda and disclosed that one of them is infected with HIV, so I wanted to revisit the subject.}

I know waiting child listings well. After all, I’ve been perusing them for more than a decade, looking forward to the day we’d finally adopt.

(Some little girls plan their weddings or daydream about biological babies. Me? I’ve been an adoption junkie since I was a kid.)

As I looked through listings, I’d pray for these children and their families: both their family of origin, which obviously had broken in some way for them to be available for adoption, and the family I hoped they’d have someday. Sometimes I’d fantasize about having them as my sisters and brothers or, once I was older, as children of mine.

But the ones with those three letters next to their names? HIV? I’d just pray for them… but never, ever, ever consider them as my own.

Because wouldn’t it be dangerous for me and the rest of our family? Wouldn’t our hearts break when they died of AIDS? Wouldn’t we go broke with medical bills? Wouldn’t playing football or any other sport with a risk of bloodshed be out of the question? Could they even have a girlfriend or boyfriend? What about marriage? Grandbabies?

I’d move on.

Someone else could consider those kids.

Not me.

Next.

Now, we’re the “someone else” in that story.

We have three children in our home right now. We have three other children in Uganda, including one with HIV. (We can't show you their faces yet, but see their hands to the right.) We’re learning about ARVs, the meds that can keep viral counts of HIV low, even undetectable, and keep it from ever progressing to AIDS.

We know now, after Zoe’s arrival, that adoption is treated like birth by insurance companies. In other words, no pre-existing conditions are on the table; your new arrival is treated like a brand new baby.

We’ve discovered that we won’t need to worry about shortened lifespans for our kiddo with HIV, because of those fancy schmancy ARVs.

We’ve started peeling back the layers of what dating and marriage and pregnancy and sex looks like for people with HIV, which are all totally feasible and normal, just with an extra layer of knowledge necessary.

We’ve found out how fragile the virus is and how quickly it dies when exposed to air, which is why no HIV transmission has ever occurred from contact with spilled blood.

We’ve realized that HIV isn’t a danger in typical household interactions, because, you know, we’re not down with our kiddos sharing needles or breastfeeding each other or engaging in sexual activity with each other… and those are the primary ways that HIV is spread.

In other words, we’ve realized that the great danger in HIV+ adoption is that these orphans – including one of our children – might never have families. In fact, our group of siblings was going to be broken up because their caregivers in Uganda were certain that no one would adopt the other two because of the one with the virus. Two siblings would not only leave their country after the trauma of losing their family, but they would also have to leave behind one sibling who they love.

That’s scary.

HIV isn’t.

dingle, party of 8

Eight?

Yes, you read that right.

No, this isn’t a belated April Fool’s Day joke.

We started looking into adoption programs a couple months ago, expecting to pursue a country in which the process would be long and hard. We’re not gluttons for punishment, but we know a lot of people opt for the easier countries while orphans sit waiting in the harder ones. I can’t explain it, but we were drawn to the hard places. We figured, why not start now if it will take a while?

Then, we found out about a waiting sibling group through a friend on Facebook.

A group of three in Uganda, ages 2, 4, and 6.

After we talked with the agency and prayed and sought counsel from godly friends, we knew our answer was yes. We knew it was crazy, but we knew we were committed to these beautiful children.

Our beautiful children.

photo credit: rebecca keller photography {she's wonderful!}

See those three additional kiddos in Jocelyn's work of art?

They're our other three children, the ones waiting for us in Africa.

I feel like I should offer some logical or reasoned explanation for why we’re adopting again so soon. But I don’t have one. All I have is this:

Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. {James 1:27}

Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. {Isaiah 1:17}

I’ll be sharing more details in the coming weeks, like what our next steps are and how we’ll be rearranging bedrooms and when we think we might travel and if we'll be done after this.

For now, though, please pray for us. We aren’t naïve; we know this is huge.

Sweet ones, we love you. Mommy and Daddy are coming.

if you feel like you're on the sidelines

This morning was as rough as expected, being the first school day after spring break. First, we slept in. Then Jocelyn whined about wanting to stay home to do all the fun things we didn't do during spring break because of the great stomach bug of 2013.

I went through the motions, packing lunch and motivating Jocelyn to get dressed and making juice cups and heating a bottle of milk and changing a diaper. As I loaded the kiddos in the car, I glanced across the street.

The sweet older gentleman, who brought us flowers the day we moved in, lay crumbled and motionless in his driveway.

My heart stung, every muscle engaged to run across the road to help. But another neighbor was already at his side, and he assured me that he had alerted the in-home nurse. As I pulled out of the driveway, I saw the nurse dial 911 on a cordless phone. Lee returned from walking the dog moments later to offer assistance, but the ambulance arrived just after he did.

I knew my role. I needed to be with my kids.

Still, I felt sidelined from the action. 

I continued going through the motions, answering questions like "Is he dead, Mommy?" and "Why do some geckos have to lick their eyes instead of having eyelids?"

We practiced this month's Bible memory passage for the children's church program.

We made afterschool plans, including a promise that we'd go for a long walk in the beautiful spring weather.

The entire time my mind was on the help I wasn't able to provide to our dear neighbor.

As I dropped Jocelyn off and returned to our neighborhood, I glanced back at the neighbor's now-empty driveway. The water someone sprayed on it didn't wash away the bloodstain.

Instead of feeling remiss that I hadn't been there, though, I realized something:

there are no sidelines

I had been in the action the whole time. While another neighbor and a nurse and my husband and a few EMTs were meant to be caring for that man in his time of need, I was meant to be caring for three darling children in theirs. 

Moms, your action might look different from the action of those EMTs, but it matters. It matters so much.

{thanks to my beautiful friend Tish for letting me share this moment she captured with her son}

When you're going through the motions of caring for your family, what you're doing is valuable. Eternally valuable. 

Why? Because the ones you're teaching and feeding and carpooling and diapering and bandaging, they're valuable. Eternally valuable.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. {Galatians 6:9}

(In case you're wondering, our neighbor was talking, though disoriented, when he left in the ambulance, and the prognosis sounds good for a man his age. Thanks be to God!)

would you pray for us?

I can't offer details right now, but we're making some big decisions this week. Please join us in praying that God would provide clarity, wisdom, and direction and that we would be faithful to follow where He leads.

And, if you're so inclined, pray that I would manage my time wisely so I can get the Easter letters in the mail by tomorrow.

{Yep, the ones I had printed for Christmas. Maybe I should have asked for time management prayers a few months ago...}