Posts from — July 2008

Today, Wednesday July 30th, about 10am, M and L’s adoption was finalized.

Don’t let the lack of exclamation points fool you – there’s a whole lot of happy dancing going on here.

Had a 45 minute conversation with N today.  Seems he’s really struggling with the whole concept of being a big brother to L and M, especially L.

For the past seven months, Jim and I have been focused on the gains L has been making.  And how now, he’s acting more like a little brother, and not some strange kid who is living in the same house with N.  And to us, that’s been great news.

To N, it means he’s now got this kid all up in his face, just like you’d expect a little brother to be.  But, and here’s the point of all this, N can’t respond like you’d expect a big brother to respond (smack L upside the head, tease him back, etc) – because that would trigger L’s issues all over again, and set L back.

That sucks.

So now Jim and I are working on ways that N can respond when his siblings are acting, well, like siblings!  We’ll see how this turns out.

So yesterday, L was just all kinds of crazy, from the moment he got up.  I mean, one non-stop trantrum/fit/whine/etc.

Now, those of you who haven’t been down the adoption road are probably thinking “so what?  my kids are like that all the time”.  And let me just respond, “no. no no no.  no”.  Its a totally different thing when you’ve got a kid who’s processing massive amounts of loss, rejection, pain, etc.  Its just a whole other level of insanity.

Anyway… I had planned on taking him to Cosmo’s first dog training session, but began to think better of it.  I just started having visions of him melting down in front of a room full of people, having to drag him and the dog out of there.

But at the last minute, I took him.  And he was perfection.  For an entire hour, he sat there quietly, listening to the instructor, watching Cosmo and the other dogs, perfectly.  It was unbelievable.  It was not even like anything he is on a good day, let alone a bad day, yet there he was, perfection.

There’s something about being asked to be responsible for something smaller than you that registers with people – especially kids who have been hurt.  That one hour alone made all the effort related to raising a puppy worth it.

On Wednesday, our adoption will be finalized.  And the excitement is palpable.  But…

With that, comes a whole mess of feelings that aren’t exactly what you’d call “celebratory”.  L is testing us, to see if we’ll really follow through.  And when we do, if we’ll really be good parents, or parents who hurt him again.  M is afraid she’ll never see her sister again.  N is wondering if he can really be a big brother to two kids who make him a little (or a lot) crazy.

Then there’s all the stress related to family coming for the court date, and the party we’re throwing on Saturday.

So while we’re very happy, and relieved, we’re also having to manage some less than happy emotions.

Just a few minutes ago, N said “who’s crying?”  I didn’t hear anything over the TV, but as soon as I walked down the hall, I heard M sobbing.

Let me say, before I had kids, I never knew such helplessness as when I now hear the sound of my daughter crying.

Anyway, as I went into her room, she said “I don’t get to see E!” (her sister, who was adopted by another family).

Now, its a whole ‘nother blog post – or two, or three – to explain why the kids were separated.  But they were, and that’s a part of the reality we have to contend with every day.

What was MORE notable was that M told me what was bothering her – she’s rarely done that.  Its been hard for her to trust her pain to yet another family.  But she did.  And we talked through it.  And I’m sure we’ll have many more conversations like it.

I can hardly imagine the pain my poor girl has had to deal with in her life – but to add to it, the separation from her sister?  Its insane!  It makes me so mad, and so frustrated.  Because just to turn things on their head again – it might actually be for the best that they’re not together.  Something about how kids who have been through trauma together actually tend to continue harming each other instead of supporting each other.  And yet, how do you explain that to a 6 year old?

So L: wanted to know why our new puppy didn’t have to go to the courthouse too!  I didn’t really have a good answer for him.  Especially since this is the kid who, 10 minutes after bringing Cosmo home, said, “HE gets to be adopted TOO!”.

L has totally lived up to my expectations with this puppy.  He’s always shown such gentleness to all animals.  In fact, when we’ve questioned whether or not L was going to be “okay”, we’ve always said “hey, hey doesn’t hurt animals, so there’s SOME hope!”.

I think its helpful to him to care for someone even more vulnerable than he is.  Cosmo is just another part of the healing process.

Today, our pastor interviewed us at church.  He was trying to get the perspective of adoptive parents, and how it models the biblical view of how God adopts us.

His first question was to Jim – “How do you feel about M and L?”.  Jim’s response was that he loves them as much as he loves his biological child, that they’ve added so much richness to our lives, and that he can’t imagine anyone else being their daddy.

His next question was to me – “What does ‘family’ mean to you”.  I talked about two things.  First, that in adoptive families, we need to intentionally “claim” each other as family.  And not just that I claim M, L and N, but that they needed to claim us to – and I talked about how I knew we had reached a milestone when Mary wrapped her arms around me and said “MY mommy!” – she was claiming me.

Then I said that because adoption starts with either a parent giving up their child, or with a child being taken from their parent, adoption always starts from a place of pain, isolation and grief.  And the adoptive family is God’s way of bringing healing, relationship and restoration to the children of that pain – our main job is to be that healing family.

Because adoption is an amazing thing.

Because its harder than you can ever imagine.

Because no amount of education can prepare you for it.

Because I love to write, and this gives me an outlet

Because I’ll do whatever I can to encourage families to adopt – so long as they have a realistic view of what they’re getting into.