Continued...........

Continued…….

The past couple of days since I posted my blog, it has been incredible to see the response from the adoption community. I am on a Facebook group for families that have adopted children from China and I posted something on there as a reach out opportunity. The response was incredible. To know that I am not the only one who is struggling with this transition left me speechless and humbled. And, even just to hear “thank you for saying something” or “thank you for putting into words what I could not” allows me to know that God is going to do something through this.

I also reached out to our social worker and she provided some great resources for me. All of this combined has been incredibly helpful. But, it has also reminded me that this PAD as the adoption world calls it, is not just about me. There are so many parts to this thing called PAD. And I am really feeling like God is calling me to share this part of my journey. So read on, if you want to hear more, but if you have nothing nice to say, please stop.

One facet of this process that I have really been thinking about (Mainly sparked by our social worker) is our girl. It is hard to remember at times, that I am not the only one going through transition, but she is as well. Her entire life has been turned upside down. When you think about it….. At and estimated 8 days old, she was abandoned by her mom. She was thankfully found before anything happened and then for the next 30 months she spent her life in the orphanage. (And a fabulous orphanage at that) She had the same care taker the entire time, her life revolved around a set schedule, continuous interaction with kids. The only home that she ever knew. And then we showed up. We met in a hotel, spent a couple of days together, went back to this place and then left it forever. And then about 8 days later we boarded a plane. We landed in a foreign country where her citizenship changed in an instant, she had a new house (With no kids in it) a cat, all new people to meet, new food, a new room that was not filled with 20 other children, a car seat, a wide range of clothes. She had a new mom and dad that she knows nothing about. Frankly she did not know what mom and dad really meant. They speak a funny language that she does not know. (I will say that I am so thankful that I could speak a little Chinese to communicate) But she would need to learn how to trust them because that is all she knew at this point. She tends to spend her days with one more than the other just because the nature of the fact that I stay home. Every single thing was new to her. She had never seen food prepared, never heard I Love You, never been cuddled or knows how to snuggle.

Her ability to communicate was null and void because she could and does not know how to communicate. There is a lot of whining, crying, etc. Which is all her way of telling us what she needs to communicate.

Now, obviously, over time this is all changing. We now get I Love You, kisses and hugs, we read the Bible together and she is learning how to pray out loud. Her English is exploding like crazy. She is coming out with terms that I would have never imagined as of right now.

Any form of food preparation is still really difficult. Preparing dinner is like cooking in a jungle gym with snacks being present just in case the native gets restless. The whining is still present especially when there are no words that she has but we have been using sign language which is helping a ton. I am using less and less Chinese with her as time goes on.

We believe that she is bonding well, but we also see the times where trust can be violated and set backs happen.

One of the things that has kept me up at night has been the fact that someday we will have questions to answer, and we are the types of parents that want to provide answers for her. We do not want her to go through life wondering, we want her to come to us with questions and we want to have open hearts enough to answer them.

For weeks now, people have been very easy going with talking to us and saying that is all part of being two and frankly it is driving me nuts. When you read the above and you see how her first two and a half years of life have been spent, (the years that are the most formative) you can’t necessarily say that this or that is because she is two. There are added layers that come with having children that are adopted. As parents, it is our job to hope, pray and work towards those added layers not destroying her as she grows up but the fact of the matter is she comes with baggage at 2.5 and that is not baggage that many of us carry. So please be careful with that “that is normal comments”. We as her parents know that there are added layers, and we are still in the process of deciphering what is normal and what needs a little extra consideration because of her layers. And it is important that we take these layers into consideration. We are learning and will be for a long time, how to parent her while working around something’s. Not to mention, every single child is an individual.

There have been a few things that we have done in order to not only build security but also to give her a sense of a little control. In the morning when she gets up, we give her two choices of outfits to put on. It works well for her, because it keeps her going through the closetJ And it give her the ability to make a choice in her out of control life. We have also have gotten into mealtime routine with her. While the cooking piece is hard, getting food down and finishing food has comeJ Once our food is ready, and her plate is made on the counter, we have her sit in her chair with her bib. (And she knows the routine). We eat, Michael and I have had to learn to pace ourselves due to the fact that if we finish before her, she thinks she needs to be done and will stop eating. We have also seen that giving her control over her plate that drastically helped our meal time. So we put her plate down, and let her go for it. When she is finished, she will hand us her plate. We do not take it before that. In the times that we have, it has not gone well. We even practice this when we go out and eat. I can see that she has developed a security that her food will not disappear and our meals have become more enjoyable. Also, when we got her she had not started self feeding yet. We have given that to her and allowed her to control how the food gets into her mouth. She has been experimenting, and while it can be messy at times, it has given her a sense of control. Even her little self, needs to feel that some part of her life is not insane, and I think that some of these little things have helped developed some level of trust with her. We also have a 25lb bag of rice on hand and keep stock in noodles. On the days when it seems that she needs a little comfort we have some things that might give her some comfort.

Granted I am no expert, actually so incredibly far from expert. But there is a lot that I did to prepare to bring my girl home, I sought out others for wisdom and still am doing that, read countless books on adoption, bonding and such. I have also spent most of my “career” working with at risk youth and I spent five years working with youth that were grieving. I spent a year living in China, and have made 7 trips since then back. Absorbing the culture was something that I tried to do each time I went. There is a lot that I did not know I was being given to prepare tools that were necessary to prepare for her. But it was a little be hard to see that in the dust of the 30 month preparation. I am beginning to see that there was a lot that was very hard to see in the “paper pregnancy”.

To be continued……………..