How Pop Culture made us a family...

Odd, I used to listen to NPR a ton (please keep all liberal/hippy/tree hugging comments to yourself), but once I accepted the traveling job, I hardly had radio time. I had lots of airplane and hotel time, not much radio. Then once I accepted my current job, I had no commute, so again, NO RADIO time.

Somehow going somewhere (Kroger?), I caught an NPR interview. It was some chick with a weird name being interviewed about some movie she wrote. It sounded like an independent film, gritty, grainy - interesting enough that I was sucked in. The chick with the weird name was pretty intriguing, and the movie- not real sure what it was about. Pretty vague, huh? Oh, but she was a "former" stripper. Her name, sounded like a stripper name, Dakota, Devilbis, Diablo- yes- that was it. Huh, maybe if I remember I can catch this movie on DVD. I even told Jeff about this movie and how it sounded interesting.

That was my memory from November 2007. By December/January, most movie goers had heard of this movie. The movie was Juno. Little did I know, this unique movie, would change my life, my friends and families lives, and the life of a very confused 18 year old.

I am sitting here, listening to the soundtrack. It brings me back to a time which was full of so many emotions. Hope and frustration are the first two that come back to me. Frustration on, "Why does it have to be so hard for us to become a Mom and Dad?" or "Why can't we have kids? What is wrong with us?" "Why do we have to fill out all this d@mn paperwork? Why don't PG crack addicts need to have a background check before they become parents?" Hoop after hoop, created more and more frustration. But HOPE. Thank God for HOPE.

My prayer every night for months, "Dear God, Please guide D to the proper decision for her and the baby she is carrying."

I firmly believe, had the movie Juno not have been unique and popular, I doubt D would have seen it. Had Juno had kept her child, and not placed the child with it's ADOPTIVE family, I don't think I'd be a Mom. If the movie came out after D gave birth, I think she would have parented. Thank God that movie dealt with a topic that is still, so oddly, taboo. And Thank God my prayer was answered and that D did what SHE felt was the right thing for her birth child.

So, who knew pop culture can help you with family building. Huh....

SIDE NOTE: My thoughts on the media and this perception that adoption is taboo - I'll leave that for another topic. And GLEE- yes I love that show - how you handled adoption - WOW. Sooooooooooooo, not right. But at least you got that Madonna episode RIGHT ON.