We are not out of the "Woods"

There are so many titles that I could use for this post, She Knows, The Day that Royally Stunk, The Day her Mama and Girl Cried, or the best, We Will Never Be Out of the Woods. 

I knew something was up on Wednesday. My normally sweet girl was abnormally, not herself. She was sassy as can be, didn’t want to spend time with her mama. Thursday we continued much of the same behavior. Now, I know that we all have our bad days, but this was not normal for our girl. Friday morning, We went to go get her out of her bed and it was rough. She had an accident (again not normal). But it was not just an accident, but a soak through. And, what broke this mama is that she laid in it all night afraid to get us up. 

Of course, we got her cleaned up, reassured her talked with her, but were also in a rush to get to school. On the way out the door, she started talking about China, and where she came from. As we were headed to school, a pivotal question was asked, why didn’t I come from your body. 

As I pulled into school, my thought was, this was it. A moment that I dreaded as a mom, the moment where I would make or break her story. Oh goodness, did I pray. Because I knew, the words that I needed were not coming from me. And, so in car line, I pulled over and we talked. I answered her questions. I talked through the fact that she has a birth mom and for whatever reason she was allowing me to be her mom. We processed for a few minutes, and she said I was ready to go in, so I dropped her off. 

I prayed all day long. Shed tears, thought of my girl. Then I picked my girl up. She got into the car, we begin our normal conversation. And a little bit in the ride, I heard “ Mom, I have a broken heart about this morning.” And then the tears came, and came and came. I pulled over into a parking lot, near a closed down restaurant. I held my girl. I answered her questions. We cried together. Her sweet brain began to comprehend what she started processing the night before, she has a birth mom, she left her. We don’t know who she is and we don’t know who or why. Heavy stuff for a small heart. 

I, of course can’t begin to understand how she feels. Yeah sure, I have experienced abandonment in ways, but nothing like my girl. The trauma is real and no joke. But my mama’s heart was broken beyond measure. 

I couldn’t take the pain for my baby, I couldn’t heal her heart, I couldn’t give her the answers, all I could do was love her where she was at. All the while I was screaming inside, “this is not what parenting was supposed to be.”

I don’t really know how long we were there, it seemed like eternity and yet I know it wasn’t. But in that short time, my girl grew far beyond the years a 7-year-old should. As a mom, I felt as though a piece of her innocence was gone, robbed from her to quickly. 

We will be home 5 years in March. It has flown, in respect from my baby becoming a young lady. I will never take for granted again, that we could possibly be out of the woods. That is the thing with Trauma, you are never out of the woods. It is like an ugly weed, that keeps creeping and creeping along. You can treat it, you can work through it, but it will come back. It is lifelong baggage that you carry around. 

One of the things I have found is to face it head on. Whatever the ugly beast decides to deal, you process through it, get help for it, cry through it, whatever it might take. 

As I told my girl, I don’t know why God wrote her story this way. I don’t know why HE included these pieces. But, I have no doubt that I am supposed to be her mother. Her birth mom is someone to be honored. She could have decided very differently, and my girl would not be here. But she didn’t, and that is not lost on me.  As her mom, my job is not only to raise her, but to be there through all the tears, accidents, rages, and whatever is to comes as work through things. 

I don’t write this for sympathy. I write this as an update, more so a reminder. If you know a family who has adopted, is adopting, fostering, or have kids who come from hard places, don’t forget to pray for them. Don’t forget to love on them, check in on them, not to dismiss when they say times are tough, and never forget, they are never out of the woods. 

Jennifer

 A friend sent this blog to me this morning, and I pulled this excerpt from it:

by Charonne on February 5, 2019 in Family, Honest Talk, Life, Mental Health, MKE Moms Blog, Mom, Parenting, Perspectives in Parenting

I hate you Trauma – you will not win. I don’t want to see your grasp fight for the present and the future of my children because of what they have experienced in the past.  I wish you didn’t exist and I wish that I had never needed to learn so much about you. I wish you would leave me and my children alone! But I will not let you win. You may be a part of my children’s lives, but you will not have their lives. We will fight you today and tomorrow and forever if that’s what it takes.

I am in this forever. This motherhood I dreamed of may be more difficult than I expected, but it is also more beautiful in ways that I never knew to dream for. So bring it on trauma – I’m living my dream and you won’t change that.