Mayhem and Magic

Naming in Adoption (Sparkle's Story)

Adoptive parents, adoptees, and first parents disagree about naming adoptive children.  There are some strong arguments for keeping a child's first name no matter what, for changing it completely, or for keeping part of it. 

Some say a child should keep his/her original name as a connection to his/her past, first family, and first culture.  Some adoptive parents feel that they want or need to give their child a name as a way of claiming him and including him in their new family.

(Dawn has an article in Adoptive Families on the topic of naming her daughter.  Go read it!)

I think I understand the arguments, and I believe all of these points are valid. 

That said, here's what we decided to do:

We gave Sparkle his first name, which is Beloved's middle name.  It's a Biblical name, and not unusual in either South Africa or the U.S.

Sparkle also has two middle names.  One is my father's name, David.  The other is Kgothatso, the name is first mother gave him.

We know that the name his first mom gave him is significant.  The spelling of his name is only one letter off from the spelling of her own Tswana name.   Obviously, we would not have known this if we had not known L. 

After we came home from South Africa and got to read through some additional medical records, we discovered that L. had originally given him a different first name, but later changed it to Kgothatso. 

Kgothatso means "comfort" or "peace."  One translation we received said the name is from a phrase that a mother would say to her crying child, and means, "I sympathize with you."  L. herself never told us this, either when we spoke with her or in her letter to Sparkle.  (However, we never asked her about it.  I wish we had, but it never occured to us until after we were already home.)   

To me, the story of Sparkle's Tswana name illustrates a strong reason to keep a child's original name.  You never know what significance it may have, even if the significance is not obvious to the adoptive parents.

When we met him, Sparkle's foster family had been calling him by a completely different name since he came to their home when he was six weeks old.  Our referral had not mentioned that his foster family called him anything other than Kgothatso.  We struggled briefly with whether or not we should keep his "foster name" as his first name.  When we asked his foster mother about his name, however, she just shrugged and said, "Well, he just looked like a John to me."  So we didn't keep it.

Most of the time we call Sparkle by the name we gave him.  But we have also been very deliberate about using his Tswana name as well.  At first it seemed a bit awkward to call him Kgothatso, but hey, we practiced!  He hears himself called Kgothatso every day, and answers to it easily.  I try to use it especially during times when we are snuggling, or during family time (but we use it publicly, too).  I want it to seem ordinary to be called Kgothatso, but I also want him to think of it as a special name.

So far, we are happy with the naming decisions we made for Sparkle.

(More to come on naming Pumpkin...)

South Africa Photos, 6

The changing and bathing area at the baby house; our family with the staff at the babyhouse--you can see Sparkle's crib in the corner behind us; Sparkle's crib, now occupied another sweet baby

(Edited: one photo has been removed)

South Africa Travel Story, 6

(Almost the end of the travel story...  Beloved wrote most of this in emails we sent to our families.  The paragraphs are spaced funny or indented funny in places.  Tried to fix it, couldn't get it fixed, but wanted to get this posted before I leave.)

Tuesday October 7, 2003: We visit a doctor, Sparkle's birth mom, and Sparkle's nursery.

We had two big events today.

The second (working backwards, here) was Sparkle's medical exam.  He had to be declared free of communicable disease before the US will grant him a visa.  The doctor Sparkle saw was very quiet, but very kind.  We first went into what was like a small office.  The physician sits behind a big desk, and the patient sits in front of him in a chair for the history.  Then there is an attached small room with an exam table, scale, etc. 

We knew Sparkle has had quite a few blood tests and immunizations, but we have never seen the actual reports of these.  We didn't really get to go over them today, but we did see that there are, in fact, printed lab reports.  He had all the typical infant immunizations given in the US, and I do not think we will have to repeat them at all.  He has also had BCG, which I think must be the cause of the scar on his left arm. 

Our other big event of the day was meeting Sparkle’s birthmother.  We were a little anxious about the meeting.  His adoption is complete, so there was absolutely no risk to the adoption even if she had seen him and changed her mind.  We were actually more anxious that she just might not like us that much after all! 

We are so honored that she has entrusted us with her son!  She is a lovely, strong, mature, articulate young woman.

We took some pictures.  We gave her the gifts we had brought.  She liked the mother and child pendant (she was a little teary).  She also really liked the photo album we made for her of about 20 pictures of Sparkle.  She spoke to him in Tswana, and told him what her dreams are for his future.  She also told him what kind of man she wants him to be when he grows up.

Much of what she shared with us we will keep private for Sparkle.  It really is his story, and his special moment.  We want him to know more about his birthmother and his South African family than anyone else, and to understand her messages to him in his own time as he gets older.

We just could not say enough how pleased we are to be able to tell Sparkle how much his birthmother loves him.  What a privilege to have spent time with her!

----------------------------------------------------

Wednesday October 8, 2003: Villa Lubet

Marti came to take us to Villa Lubet right after breakfast.  This is the children's home where Sparkle stayed before joining our family.  It is in the older part of Johannesburg.  We were greeted by Karin, the house mother.  She and her husband live in the house, but they have day and night staff to help care for the children.

We walked through her house to get to the area where the children sleep.  She showed us the kitchen/laundry room where they prepare the food and bottles for the children.  The house is licensed for eight children; however they have taken as many as ten in times of emergency.  The kitchen/laundry room is smaller than the footprint of a car.  It was very functional, but not large.

The adjacent room is where the children stay.  It is difficult to describe.  We were lucky to be emotionally prepared by several other families that have visited similar children homes.  The room is about the size of the footprint of a small school bus.  On one side of the room there were nine large cribs, all right next to each other.  On the other side was a swing, high chair, changing table, and children’s bath.  The room also had two chairs for adults.  There were currently eight children there. 

            Karin showed us Sparkle's crib.  He was in the corner crib because it limited his vision.  Karin said that if Sparkle saw anyone, he would scream to be picked up.  (As his parents, we had noticed this as well.)  The crib was at least safe, as opposed to our "crib of death" at the guesthouse.  (Edit: This still makes me sad if I let myself think about it.  I wish I had been there to hold him.)

            Amanda and Sparkle returned to the guesthouse, and I went with the S****s to Soweto.  Soweto is an urban area outside of Johannesburg where 4 million people live.  It is an important political site in South Africa, because the freedom movement started there.  The area is generally very poor, and unemployment is very high.  There is a rich, unique culture in Soweto, as many of the African tribes have been mixed together.  We had a good tour given by someone who has lived there since 1964.  There were many points of interest, from the Roman Catholic church that was attacked by government troops in 1976 to the house where Nelson Mandela lived for 27 years before being jailed.

           I returned to the guest house at about 4 PM.  Then came the job of getting the paperwork together for our consulate visit tomorrow.

         Government paperwork is the same everywhere.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense.  The S**** family should have been sent the same paperwork as we were.  We have the DS-230 part II form, but they don't.  They had the I-604 for but we don't.  We had the DS-5302 form, but they don't.  Keep in mind that we got all of our forms from teh exact same office in Johannesburg.  We tried to figure out what forms we needed to fill out ahead of time.  The instructions we got (but the S**** family didn't get the instructions) said that the consulate officer completes the I-604 form.  Does this mean that we fill it out and he just signs it, or does he fill out the entire thing?  Who knows?  We will find out tomorrow.  One instruction sheet says that because we completed the I-600A form, we just need the I-604 form, and not the I-600 form.  But another set of instructions indicate that we need the I-600 form.  We are doing the I-600 just in case.  Interestingly, the I-171H that we have looks nothing like the I-171H issued to the S**** family.

            If you are confused by the above paragraph, welcome to the world of adoption.

South Africa Travel Story, 7

(This is the last installment of the South Africa Travel Story, when we met Sparkle in 2003.  If you have actually read them all so far, I commend you.  This last section has suspense, drama, tearful moments, and extreme irritation with travel mates.  Read on!) 

We left early for the consulate appointment because traffic is always bad between Pretoria and Johannesburg.  heidi avoided two accidents, but still we arrived at about 8:40 for our 9:00 appointment.  There was a long line, but because we had an appointment we went in front of the line.

Technically Sparkle is a US immigrant, so we waited for a few minutes before being called up by Mr. Rawjee.  He asked for the documents that were required.  At this point, we had our folder with the INS forms plus two huge folders from Abba with documents for Sparkle.  I had to call Amanda up to the window because I couldn’t find the INS forms in our folder.  She quickly located them and passed them, the medical forms, the passport and a couple of other forms to Mr. Rawjee.  He started going over the documents when a very bad thing happened.

We were given all the paperwork form Abba right before we entered the consulate.  We had never seen his birth certificate or passport prior to handing them over to Mr. Rawjee.  My first response was anger.  How could Abba miss something as BIG as this!  However, after a brief deep breath, I kicked into “fixit” mode.  By this time the S*** family (the other American couple) had all of their paperwork done and just needed to get a picture taken of their son at the mall across the street.  They left and we asked them to inform Heidi of our problem so she could start making calls to fix it.  Mr. Rawjee went to get the consulate officer to look over our case. 

Mr. Rawjee pointed out to us that Sparkle’s birth certificate and his passport had two different spellings of his last name.  At first we though that he was mistaken, but when we looked at it, his birth certificate ended in “-we” and his passport ended in “-ha”.  Both our hearts sank when Mr. Rawjee informed that obtaining a correct passport usually takes about six weeks.  Amanda quickly said, “Could you please do what you can for us?” and Mr. Rawjee continued with the rest of our paperwork.  He rudely asked for several other documents which we found in the folder that Abba supplied to us. 

We were given all the paperwork form Abba right before we entered the consulate.  We had never seen his birth certificate or passport prior to handing them over to Mr. Rawjee.  My first response was anger.  How could Abba miss something as BIG as this!  However, after a brief deep breath, I kicked into “fixit” mode.  By this time the S*** family (the other American couple) had all of their paperwork done and just needed to get a picture taken of their son at the mall across the street.  They left and we asked them to inform Heidi of our problem so she could start making calls to fix it.  Mr. Rawjee went to get the consulate officer to look over our case. 

After about fifteen minutes, Randall Meredith arrived at the window.  He asked for two more documents that we had in the Abba folder.  After he had looked at all of the files, he said that we had two options.  Option one was to change all of the documents to the “-ha” spelling, which would take about six months, or to change the passport to the “-we” spelling, which he estimated would take a couple of hours.  At this time Heidi arrived through security and Mr. Meredith scolded her a little bit for making this mistake.  Heidi felt really bad, because the passport was something that she was responsible for. 

However, Mr. Meredith said that if we were to show up with the correct pictures and the correct pictures and passport by 2:30 today, I could still get the visa because all the other documents were in order.  It was about 11 AM and the clock was ticking.

We went back to the car expecting the S***s to be there.  The car was parked in the mall parking lot across the street from the consulate.  When we got there, no one was there, so Heidi suggested that we go into the mall and get the correct pictures for his visa.  We went to the same place that the S***s were to have been, but we didn’t find them.  We got the correct pictures, paid for them, and returned to the car.  Still no S*****s.  We waited there for about ten minutes, thinking that we missed them in the mall and that they had returned to the consulate to turn in the photographs.  A little while later, we see them--NOT returning from the consulate, but from the mall.  THEY WENT SHOPPING!!!  After they returned to the car, K*** went to the consulate to turn in the photos, and about a half hour later he returned saying that it would take about another half hour to get the visa.  We (Amanda and I) were biting at the bit to leave for Pretoria.  If traffic is good, it takes about 45 minutes to get from Pretoria to Johannesburg.  We wanted to leave and return for them later, but they wanted us to wait for them.  Heidi was unsure what to do, so we waited another half hour.  Now, with two hours and fifteen minutes left, we had to 1) drive back to Pretoria 2) get a new passport, and 3) get back to the consulate in Johannesburg.

Fortunately, the new passport only required my return to the consulate, not all three of us.  I got back in the care with Heidi and we left for the office where the original passport was issued.  We arrived and Heidi went inside.  Her prior phone calls worked wonders.  I don't know what type of oil she put on the gears of that place, but we walked right into the office of the person who needed to sign off on the the new passport.  All the paperwork was on his desk, complete with a photo of Sparkle.  The entire transaction took place in Afrikaans, so I had no idea what anyone was saying.  The guy signed it and passed it off to another lady, who signed, and we were handed the new passport with the correct spelling.  The entire process took five minutes.  There were other people there giving us nasty looks because we totally bypassed all the lines.  We walked out of there at 1:35 PM.

The drive to Johannesburg was mostly clear of traffic.  We arrived at the mall parking lot at 2:20 PM.  I jumped out and briskly walked to the consulate.  I was warned not to run because that can make the guards nervous.  I waited about a minute to get in (again bypassing all lines).  I went through one security checkpoint, then the second.  As I was entering the room with the eight windows, Mr. Rawjee was just walking out.  He saw me and returned to the window to take a look at my papers.  He must NOT be a morning person, because he was cheerful and very helpful this time around.  He looked at the new passport, and liked the new pictures.  He said to take a seat and the visa should be there shortly.  We (Heidi had arrived at this point) waited for about ten minutes before Mr. Rawjee returned with the official visa for Sparkle.  We walked out of the consulate at 2:45 with the visa!

As you can imagine, it has been a very emotional day for Amanda and I, from the passport/visa issues to teh death of the Swedish woman.  (Edit: An adoptive parent died on her way to SA to pick up her daughter.  And on the same day, one of the babies with AIDS died.)  We are joyful because we now have everything we need to return home, but saddened at the loss of the woman and the baby.

We are ready to go home.