Today Was a Good Day

It's been a long time since I have written on this blog.  This is because life has been overwhelmingly hard for the past 6 months or so.  Mike accepted a different position which required us to relocate once again to another state.  We have all been adjusting and getting settled into our new normal.  One of the girls has not fared well throughout these many transitions and changes.  Only a select few of you know what's been going on these past few months.  It's been incredibly hard for our entire family, but today was a good day.

As soon as we moved here C started spiraling out of control and it just kept getting worse.  We got her in with a therapist that was covered under our insurance, but she had the foresight from day one that she was not quite qualified to assist C with the issues she was experiencing and she suggested we get her into intensive in home therapy.  This made a lot of sense to us since 100% of her issues were occurring in the home.  Our stumbling block was that this therapy was not covered by our insurance.  In the meantime we were able to secure a diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder (I will write more about this in a later post).

Today Mike and I appeared before a board of people who are the ones who decide if we would get the funding we applied for or not.  C's school social worker has been a God send and has helped me through this application process.  VA has funds set aside for interventions that would prevent a child from going into the foster care system.  Obviously for us disrupting her adoption is not an option, but nevertheless this is where the funding we applied for comes from.  We applied for funding to cover 8 hours a week of intensive in home therapy for the next 12 weeks and we were APPROVED!

You may be thinking "I wouldn't want a stranger in my home for that much of my time every week!".  I agree and feel the same way, however, this is how we are going to help our girl.  We have to make sacrifices.  All of us need help in how to cope with her behaviors and manipulation.  It won't be forever, it's just a season.

I then had a meeting with the professionals at the school about any possible accommodations we felt she may need at school.   Let me point out that they came to ME asking for this meeting.  This is amazing to be because in Ohio I had to fight and get an advocate just to get a meeting about accommodations for one of the girls.  C isn't having any issues at school, in fact she presents as a very sweet, helpful and well adjusted kiddo.  While this is a good thing, it makes me feel like a nut job whenever I am telling teachers what is going on at home.  Today the vice principal looked me in the eye and made sure I knew that they 100% believe me and do not want me to feel like they think I'm crazy.  I melted into a puddle of tears.  We are so blessed to be at this school with these professionals that GET IT!  That's so rare!  Also, a bonus, was there were donuts at this meeting.  Some people drink when they're stressed, I eat carbs and sugar!

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.  My full time job, since we moved here, has been managing her appointments, finding professionals, calling insurance companies and trying to access resources.  I can finally exhale.  I ask that you pray for our girl. Pray for healing for her heart and mind.  Pray that she can learn to allow herself to be loved. Pray that I can take some time to do some self care as I am so weary.  Thank you all for your love and support.

The Twins' Adoption Story (part two)

The original family was not the right placement for the girls and they knew it.  Many mistakes were made by our adoption agency.  Their first family made the difficult choice to disrupt the adoption knowing it was in the best interest of the girls in the long term.  They needed to be the only children in the family, they had a lot of special needs that needed to be addressed.  It just so happened that the girls fit the description of what we were looking for. Oh, and you know those insurmountable obstacles that popped up during our homestudy?  Yeah, those weren't even an issue now because, since the twins were already in the US, this would be considered a domestic adoption and none of those things were even an issue.  (Props, God!)  So over the next 2 weeks we got to meet them and visit with them everyday and by the end of those 2 weeks they were living with us full time. BAM, instant family!

At this point I felt a wave of calm come over me as I realized that I no longer could give God the silent treatment. I needed him. This was not going to be easy. These 4 year olds spoke no English, they were in diapers, and they had severe behavior problems. It was like jumping into the deep end of the pool without any swimming experience, no life jackets and no life guards. We just had to figure it out.

We spent the next few months in a bubble. We couldn’t leave the house. The girls had to be completely socialized. They knew nothing of being in a family, had no idea of social norms or socially acceptable behavior. The amazing part of it all was that even though they had been through so much in such a short amount of time, they were so open and loving to us. They began bonding with us so willingly. Those months were filled with a mixture of tantrums, dance parties, physical restraints, and hair salon parties, but all of it brought us closer.

Their English became so good so fast, no one could believe it. And, with the help of many professionals, their behavior was improving as well. They began preschool and did wonderfully! We still had many struggles behaviorally and I’m sure the library considered calling Children Protective Services based on what I was checking out at the library! I read everything from “The Rage Free Child” to “The Out of Sync Child” along with any other creative consequences books. According to the books we were doing everything right, but our kids just didn’t fit the molds of these books so we just prayed and did the best we knew how.

Along the way they’ve been diagnosed with a whole myriad of disorders, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Reactive Attachment Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the medications have been an amazing tool for helping them cope with all of the change and trauma. It wasn’t until the summer of 2011 when we were sitting at the table that we really understood the scope of what their little brains were dealing with. At the dinner table we start talking about their life in Ethiopia. They weren’t often open about talking about it, but this night they were. They told us in their broken English, that they lived in a mud hut, with a dirt floor with their mother and older sister. They bathed, drank and relieved themselves in the same river. Once their mother had another baby is when she relinquished them to the orphanage. We later found out in 2015 when we hired an investigator what the whole story was.

As I think back about everything I am amazed at how God works. I know now that losing my job was such a blessing because I got to spend those last precious weeks with my dear Geeta.  I believe God used Geeta to tell me what His plan was since I sure wasn’t listening to Him! The black mold we discovered during our homestudy forced us to move into a beautiful large home with 4 bedrooms, and 2 twin beds that were already there from my childhood. That’s what the girls sleep in every night. The disrupted adoption meant that I did not have to travel to Ethiopia, which was going to be difficult because of my health. It also saved our family a lot of money not having to travel.  God's timing is always PERFECT.  If we had not started the process when we did (when it made no sense for us to do so) we wouldn't have been ready for our daughters.  Listen to God people!

Through this amazing experience I went from being a control freak, to working hard to be an open book for God. I try everyday to soak in everything he is trying to convey to me. I know now that God has wonderful things in store for our family and I don’t want to miss any cues from him!

The Twins' Adoption Story (part one)

In the fall of 2009 I felt very angry with God, in fact I was giving him the  silent treatment. After abruptly losing my job, we had a sudden death in the family and then my dear friend Geeta lost her battle with breast cancer.

I proceeded to spend the next few months wallowing in self pity.  Finally one day I felt my friend Geeta with me. I felt her saying to me “Get off of your butt and stop being sad. It’s time to make your own happiness!” Before she passed away we had had many conversations about international adoption since she and her husband had adopted from Guatemala. So I just keep feeling her nagging me to start looking into it. I had the time, so I researched different agencies and countries and made a nice organized spreadsheet.

I presented all of this to Mike who was definitely on board, but concerned. You see, it definitely did NOT make any sense for us to do this now. I had lost my job (still on unemployment) and he was serving tables at the Olive Garden trying to finish up his PhD. We lived in a small 2 bedroom apartment with not a whole lot of extra income at the end of the month, let alone extra thousands of dollars lying around to be able to afford this! We knew we wanted to adopt eventually because we both have some serious genetic health issues on both sides of our families that we didn’t want to risk passing onto our children. But now? My brain knew it didn’t make sense but my heart wasn’t listening!

Not long after I began my research I got a call from my cousin Kimberly.  We had become closer since the sudden passing of her mother.  She offered me a full time job working for her!  Looking back I see that as soon as I was blindly following God's call for my life, he was providing for our needs.

After Christmas we really began finalizing our choices as far as agency and country. We chose our agency because it was the same one that Geeta had gone through and we chose Ethiopia because the kids were healthy, they were being hyped as not having attachment issues (HA!), and they were beautiful! It was a new program so there was less red tape and less of a wait time.

Now came the issue of financing this. We starting some fundraisers that yielded small profits but realized we were going to have to come up with a better plan. I am blessed enough to have very generous and well off grandparents, so we wrote up a business plan of how we would pay them back and presented it to them. This was a very big chunk of change we were asking to borrow but luckily for us they said yes and we were on our way!

We started our homestudy in mid-February 2010. When our social worker came out to our home, one of the many times, she asked about the possibility of us adopting 2 children. After talking it over we decided that we never wanted only one child so why not go ahead and get 2 at the same time, preferably biological siblings! We figured at least if they are going to look nothing like us, they can at least look like each other! So we got approved for 2 children and when we said we didn’t want to request a gender, we were informed that we would probably get 2 boys then, because most people have been requesting girls. At this information my husband, who grew up with no sisters, says “Wouldn’t it be cool if we got twin girls!”. I said “No! You have no idea the kind of drama that would come along with that! Two prom dresses, two weddings, and let’s not forget the hormones!!”

There were a few road blocks that we ran into during our homestudy process.  For one, when we were married I chose to change my middle name to my maiden name.  I was told at the Social Security office that I could do that and was not informed that any other legal action needed to be taken.  Well, it turns out that I needed to go to probate court to officially change it legally.  Due to strange rules I was going to have to wait an entire year before I'd be allowed to go to probate court for this which was going to set us back an entire year!  My doctors were also NOT fond of me going to a third world country in Africa since I was on so many immune-suppressant medications.  There were some vaccines that were recommended that were live viruses, which I was told I was not allowed to have because of the meds I was taking.  Many tears were shed over these seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

During this process our agency connected us with another family who was local and also adopting from Ethiopia through the same agency. We became Facebook friends and had sent a couple of emails back and forth. When they made their trip in late March to pick up their children, I found myself glued to my computer! I just kept looking at their pictures. I was amazed with the scenery, and the culture and of course, the children. I showed her pictures to everyone I knew. When my
mom saw the pictures of the children this family was bringing home, she gasped and said “Oh Sarah, can’t you just have them? They’re beautiful!!”. My response, of course, was that I was pretty sure it didn’t work like that!

We were moving into my grandparents former house that spring.  On April 30th everything changed. All of our things were in boxes as we were moving the following day. Our phone rang at about 8pm. Our adoption agency was on the other end, asking us how we would feel about adopting twin 4 year old girls. We were in shock! Our homestudy wasn't even finished yet! When we ask when, her response is just “soon, very soon”!  We asked them to give us the night to pray about it.
From their description of the girls’ ages I knew it was the same 2 little girls I had been looking at pictures of over the last 2 weeks. So we logged onto our computer and looked at their pictures again…and wept. These were our daughters!!

Read part two for the rest of the story!

Celia... One Year Later

Today marks one full year since the day we first met Celia in a courthouse in Ohio.  She was so sweet and quiet, in fact she didn't speak at all for about 2 hours.  Part of this I'm sure was a combination of shock, and awe, nerves, confusion and wonderment, but we had also been told by her first family that she was a very quiet child.  We didn't hear a word out of her until after we left the parking lot of the courthouse and asked her if she wanted to go to McDonald's for lunch.

 What we found out later was that she had not been prepped AT ALL for what was about to happen to her.  I had sent pictures of our house, cats, the twins and us for her to see, none of which had been shown to her.  All she was told was that she was going to go live with another family.  That's it.  We also realized that in her first family the rules must have been pretty stringent (military family) because she associated being a "good girl" with being quiet.  All the time.

 Oh what a difference a year has made.  Quiet would be the last word in the galaxy one would use to describe this child.  She learned pretty quickly that in our family we do loud, we do mistakes, we do emotional, and all of it is ok.  Do I miss that sweet, quiet little lady at times...YOU BET...but I know now that she wasn't allowed to be her true self in her previous placement.  I feel good about the fact that she has bloomed with us.

In the beginning the twins adored their little sister and wanted to help her with everything.  They doted on her and were so sweet.  Yeah that's LONG gone!  As it should be I suppose.  They are real siblings now, they fight and argue over everything and the older two take any opportunity to boss little one around.  Although I have an older half-sister, we did not have the pleasure of growing up together, so the drama of sisterly interactions is all new to me.  With my little brother it was totally different, always physical, rough and tumble, no drama.  With sisters, from the intel I've gathered, it's all of the above PLUS a huge dose of manipulation and drama.  Deep breaths.

I can see both sides of their stories.  Little sisters are annoying.  In fact, I told Caroline she could keep a journal of times that she wants to punch Celia in the face (along with how many punches each infraction is worth of course) and once Celia turns 18 she can go for it.  I don't feel at all guilty about this seeing as Caroline can't keep track of anything for longer than 23 minutes so the odds that she's maintain and know the whereabouts of such a journal are astronomical.  Listen folks, don't judge, if we didn't laugh over here, we'd be crying...a lot.

So, yes, Celia has bloomed into what I can only surmise to be a more true version of herself.  That being said, it's NOT all butterflies and rainbows over here.  She is still hurting.  She is angry, and I can't blame her.  Although she just turned 5 years old, emotionally she is functioning more on the level of a 2 year old.  I think this is because she wasn't allowed or able to process the raw emotions that come with being adopted in the first place, as well as just being a pain the a$$ toddler in her previous family.  Now add onto all of that a tremendous, rational, fear of abandonment, and you've got a very emotional little girl.

Her attachment to me began immediately upon meeting her in the courthouse.  She came and sat in my lap right away when I motioned to her to see if she'd want to.  We sat for a while while I showed her all of the pictures I had hoped he had already seen of her new sisters, home and cats.  It seemed to me that she had been craving a motherly connection for years and since her first adoptive mom wasn't able to bond with her, she just had not had that in her life for the past 3 years.

Her attachment to Mike is still a work in progress.  You see, she adored her first adoptive father and he adored her.  He was devastated in the courtroom, while mom had no affect, zero, it was eerie.  I promise to write more about her disruption story soon which will give you a little better picture of the background here.  Because she felt so connected with this former father, you can tell she struggles with the question "if I let this new dad into my heart, am I betraying the old one?".  Of course most of her anger and feelings of betraying are directed at this old dad as well, who isn't around to take it, so Mike, the poor unfortunate soul, becomes the target of all of it.   She's come a long way in a year though and heart healing takes time.

I'm going to keep it very real here folks.  There have been many a day that the twins have finally started grasping the concept of sleeping in and Celia's up at the crack of dawn and I ask myself "Why did we do this?  Things with the twins were JUST started to get a bit easier!  Why'd we have to rock the boat?!"  Also, although I'm only 33 years old, my soul is much older.  I wasn't cut out to do this toddler thing.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  I prefer to be around those who are able to think rationally.

Of course I wouldn't change it for the world.  God has taken us on such a crazy roller coaster the past year.  It has taught us so much about listening to Him and His will and plans for our lives, even when it doesn't seem to make any sense to anyone else.  I can see this little girl's heart healing right before my eyes and it's all God's doing.  Beauty from ashes.

Eight--the Elusive Milestone Achieved!

We adopted our twins when they were 4 years old.  We were the fourth caregivers they had had in their short lives.  They had been through abuse, neglect, abandonment, hunger, violence and fear that I can't even imagine...I don't even want to.  They were, understandably, a mess.  A HOT MESS.  Those who knew us best back then know that we rarely left the house for that first year.  We were in full on crisis mode all the time.

Every book we read, and every professional we talked to, told us that it would take at least 4 years until we could expect them to have the same issues that their peers have, age appropriate issues.  It would take them as many years as they lived away from us to learn to trust us and to feel secure.  Back then this news left us feeling so overwhelmed.  Another 4 years of THIS.  How in the world would we survive?  How would they survive?  I had a lot of conversations with God about how I think he had made a mistake.  I couldn't DO this.  It was TOO HARD!  There wasn't really a light at the end of the tunnel.

If you have parented a typical four year old, you may be thinking "What are you complaining about?  You don't even have to deal with the terrible twos, or the toddler years!".  Well, guess what?  Our children didn't have the opportunity to be mischievous toddlers.  At that age they were in survival mode.  They didn't have toys, or people to throw tantrums to.  They had no one.  So that meant that, even though they were 4 chronologically, they very distinctively went through the terrible twos/threes during the first 6 months of being with us.  Imagine your toddler, throwing fits, trying to be independent, but having NO WAY to communicate with them.  Yeah, that's where we were!

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad.  Despite the language barrier, we had dance parties, we played with each others hair, even Mike's, and we blew bubbles.  These things need no language.  They also picked up English at a warp speed.

But even an English speaking four year old doesn't have the words to express the anger, rage, sadness, grief and fear that these girls were experiencing.  This led to meltdowns that would last an hour sometimes.  Many times they would need to be restrained in order to keep them, and the rest of us, safe.  I never knew a preschooler could be so strong or so angry.  It was scary.

We decided to use this restraint time as an opportunity for bonding.  We were so physically close to them while we were holding them that we used this time to sing to them, express to them that everything was going to be ok, and to reassure them that NO MATTER WHAT they did, we were not going to get rid of them.  It's not that they thought we might give them away, they were certain of it, and they were determined that they were going to be the ones in charge of that.  They were going to be bad enough that we would quit on them.  They picked the wrong family.  We don't quit, we're too stubborn for that.

Another misconception is that if you adopt a four year old, or any older child, you get out of all of those sleepless nights.  WRONG!  Children from hard places tend to have serious issues with sleeping/dark.  One of our girls was terrified of the dark, while the other would have scary night terrors that would wake me from a dead sleep.

We were exhausted and the thought of keeping this up for the next FOUR YEARS was inconceivable!  Luckily for us, God threw us a bone and we were at a point of near normalcy about two and a half years in!  Near normalcy is all we are going to achieve as there are so many lasting effects of the crap they've been through, and well, our family is nowhere near what anyone would consider normal anyhow :)

So we made it, they are eight!  They are alive and we are alive!  Not only that but we were crazy brave enough to try this again.  God has used the last 4 years to draw both Mike and me so much closer to Him.  We saw how much we needed Him.  He revealed His plans for us so clearly that they could not be denied, and we learned to trust and follow Him.  It has been an amazingly wild ride and I can't wait to see where we are in another four years!

Holland vs. Italy: the tale of parenting a special needs child

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley

"I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.
It's like this......When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
 After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland."

Mike and I went to the first night of a six week seminar for parents who have children with emotional, behavioral and/or mental illness issues.  It is put on by NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness).  This story was the first thing that was shared.  It struck me in a way I didn't expect.

While listening to this, I heard it from the perspective of the first adoptive parents of children who have gone through a disruption.  They had an idea of what international adoption would look like, feel like and be like.  As it turned out, the true story is that it isn't all a "dream come true".  It's hard.  Parenting a child from a hard place is very hard.  It's exhausting with little to no pay off on your end as the parent.  I'm lucky that my children all have very minor attachment issues and are able to form a loving relationship with me, but a lot of adoptive parents are not so lucky.

The two disruption situations we have been through were vastly different.  The one commonality is that both families also had biological children in the home.  This is not something that I can relate to, since we chose not to have any bio kids in our family, but I have often wondered if adoptive parents who already have bio kids when they adopt expect the feelings they have for their bio kids to be exactly the same for their adopted child.  Maybe that's their Italy.  I'm not saying that that scenario isn't possible, but it has to be different.

A bio kid comes out of the womb knowing no one but you.  They need you, they learn unconditional love from you.  They are protected by you.  When you adopt a child, especially when it's not a newborn, you receive that child along with all of their trauma.  You have to do the work to bond to that child.  It is not automatic.  It's not easy.  You have to learn to love one another.  Our children spend a lot of intentional time on our laps, we fed them at the dinner table when they were 4 & 5 years old.  We look for any kind of interaction we can in order to mimic the kind of bonding that a newborn and a mother would share.

It takes a very long time, it doesn't always work and it can be heartbreaking.  If you have bio kids as well I can understand how this would put so much stress on your relationships with each of them as well as stress on the family as a whole.  This is why I can empathize with families who choose to disrupt.  Even though I do not understand it in most instances, I always try not to judge them.  That has to be one of the hardest decisions of someone's life.  I have to assume that they would only go forward with the disruption if they believed in their heart that it was in the best interest of the child.  This is where my faith in God comes in.  God has plans for all of our lives, and sometimes those plans are messy, but if we trust Him and listen to Him the end result will be a blessing that we could have ever imagined.

Maybe most people like Italy.  It's pretty there, the food is decadent, it's gorgeous and the weather is great.  I happen to love Holland.  I have always lived a bit off of the beaten path and had to be the one swimming upstream, against the current.  Most people can have Italy.  I'll hang out in Holland, where it may be messy, but it's a beautiful mess.