The Lost Years- Secondary Trauma

Mike and I are sitting here watching TV tonight and 20/20 comes on.  They're talking about a case from 2011, the case of missing college student Lauren Spierer.  They stated it was one of the most well known missing person cases of all time.  I consider myself someone who keeps up with current events, sometimes I even get pulled into stories and (admittedly) obsess over them.  But this one, it didn't ring a bell...at all.  I asked Mike, "Do you remember this?". He didn't either.  Then we realized the year...2011.

Mike lovingly refers to the years of 2010 and 2011 as our own personal 'Nam, because there are long periods of time, many significant events, that neither one of us remember.  We have blocked them out I suppose, similar (although obviously incomparable) to what a soldier, post war, may experience.  They were indeed the most trying years of our lives so far. 

These were the first years we had the twins home.

Here's a perfect example of our lapse in memory.  In 2012 I said I wanted to go to Columbus for my birthday to go to the science museum and the famous Columbus Zoo.  About halfway through our day at the zoo we came upon the polar bear exhibit.  Something seemed familiar, there was a playground at the entrance of the exhibit that I could have sworn I had pictures of the girls playing on before.  I asked the zoo employee if the Cleveland Zoo had a similar exhibit and he told me no, that the Columbus Zoo was the only one in the state that had polar bears, let alone that very same playground.  I'm sure he thought I had forgotten to take my meds that morning or something!

Here we are in 2012:

 
We finished our day at the zoo, both of us trying to remember when we would have brought them to Columbus before then.  We were able to rule out that we had taken them the previous summer so that only left the summer of 2010...right after we brought them home.  We wouldn't have been that crazy!!  There's no way!!  We were so broke!!  How would we have even afforded it?  Where would we have stayed??  To this day we can't answer those questions folks, but I do have photo evidence that we were at the Columbus Zoo the summer of 2010.

Here is the infamous polar bear playground photo (apparently my sole memory from this visit)...

Parents of kids from trauma will attest to this, but there is such a thing as secondary trauma, and most of us who are parenting trauma kiddos would fit the bill for this diagnosis.  We get PTSD from our kids' PTSD.  It's a vicious cycle.  You can read more about this here. This article states it best:

 "Because these behaviors serve as a way for their child to communicate and express how their trauma has affected them, parents are, thus, being exposed, on a regular basis, to their child’s trauma.  Parents who are experiencing secondary trauma may: feel anxious, tense, easily overwhelmed, and have sleep difficulties; re-experience their child’s aggressive, suicidal, or self-harming behaviors or details of their child’s trauma; feel as if they have changed and are not themselves anymore; or wish to escape or avoid their child or their child’s behaviors."

Those first two years with the twins were so wrought with trauma that our brains had blocked so much of it out completely!

We spent most of our days doing behavior modification.  Our girls were so filled with rage, coupled with the fact that they didn't speak English so they couldn't communicate their feelings, even if they were capable at 4 years old of putting it into words.  They would scream, kick, hit, spit and bite.  We spent a good amount of their waking hours teaching them the basics of how to behave, using holds that would assist them in calming themselves and their bodies.  We would find out later that they both have what's called Sensory Processing Disorder (very common in children from trauma) so the pressure of the holds would physically help them calm down.  (Now we have weighted blankets).

I am so thankful that I took so many pictures those first two years so that they can fill in the major gaps in my memory and so that the girls have a beautiful pictorial representation of all of the fun we did have those first two years.  They made SO MUCH PROGRESS in those years that it was unbelievable.  I do remember those hopeless days when we thought we'd never get to the point that they could function in a school environment, never go to a friend's house to play and never be calm enough that our cats would come out of hiding around them!  If you are in that place, the abyss of the unknowns about your child, please know there is always hope!  They will improve and so will you.  You will learn to be their best advocate and you will learn how to parent them, even if it was different than you thought you'd parent.  God will give you the strength if you ask for it.  I still have to ask Him for help, strength, patience, grace and love for my kids on a daily basis.  Most importantly YOU ARE NOT ALONE and YOU ARE NOT CRAZY!!

It's pretty amazing what our brains do in order to cope with things.  It makes me wonder if other parents have these experiences.  One of my best friends had a baby that had a very rough first year of life.  He struggled with acid reflux so badly that this child cried CONSTANTLY.  Perhaps she experiences some lapses in time due to that traumatic year.  If you have a story about a period of your life that your brain blocked out, leave it in the comments!  It will help me not feel so crazy!!  Ha!

A Very Different Kind of "Back to School" Post

My heart is overflowing with joy.  As I sit here the past two days on Facebook reading everyone's complaints and woes, I am struck at our country's lack of perspective and gratitude.  How spoiled and self-righteous are we as a nation when we complain about our "first world problems" whilst people around the world fight for their right to simply live.

On Wednesday we, as a family, watched a documentary on Netflix called "On the Way to School".  It follows the lives of four different children in four different countries and documents their journey to school every day.  None of the kids in the film walked less than an hour each way to school daily.  One child had to watch out for elephant stampedes, while another pushed their brother, who was in a wheelchair, through very rugged terrain for over an hour.  Yet we complain.  After the film I was struck when the first words out of Charlotte's mouth was "When are we sending the money to send my sisters to school?".  Little did she know that I had been working on this very task over the past few days with our friend Workineh in Ethiopia.

I want to preface this post with the fact that Mike and I are no saints.  This story is of God and only possible through God.  We are simply following God's call on our lives.  He is the one making all of this possible, so please join us in praising Him and not us.

As many of you already know we hired an investigator back in May and were able to locate both birth mothers of our girls.  You can read ore about that story here.  We knew the twins had two sisters, one is now 7 and the other is 12.  In the interest of their privacy I will refer to them as K and N.  Once we found them I had a strong desire to make sure these girls were in a good school.  Since May I have been working with Workineh (our investigator turned friend) as well as our Ethiopian friend here in the states to determine what the best way to go about this would be.  Mike and I wanted to make sure we weren't trying to swoop in and be all "white savior" about the way we wanted to help.

This summer, while visiting family in Ohio, we were able to call the twins' birthmother, Abinet, ON THE PHONE!!!!  Our friend, and Godsend, Amsale in Ohio had her phone number from when the investigator told us that Abinet did have a phone.  Amsale happened to be in Ethiopia visiting her family in May when Workineh found Abinet, so she was able to talk with her on the phone 2 times while she was there.  We were sitting up in a bedroom in Amsale's house.  Our main goal of the phone call was to let Abinet know how we would like to help and find out what kind of school she would like the girls to go to. 

An interesting side note is the twins' response to our phone call to Abinet.  One girl wanted to stand in the room to just listen, but did not want to say anything.  The other wanted nothing to do with the call.  I mention this to emphasize that these are BIG and COMPLICATED feelings that they are sorting through.  They each sleep with a scarf tied around their waist that Amsale brought back for them from Ethiopia that she told them was from Abinet.  They love their first mother, but yet, there's so many feelings!  Mike and I are very intentional about letting them lead as far as how much, and what, involvement they want in this whole process. 

In Ethiopia a boarding school is the most prestigious school.  In my gut, I didn't think she would want to send them to a boarding school.  She already had to part with two of her kids due to terrible circumstances and I felt that she wouldn't want the other two out of her house.  I was correct.  She was so moved by our offer and asked why we wanted to help her.  All of us were crying.  We told her, through Amsale's translation, that she is now a part of our family and we help our family.  We conveyed to her how much we loved her and her other daughters and how we wish to come to visit her in three years.  At one point in the phone call she said "God made these girls (the twins) for you."  My response was "No, he made them for you, but we are so blessed to help."

She chose the school she wanted and let Workineh know how much tuition, the entrance fee, uniforms and school supplies would be.  The total for BOTH girls was...$310 for the entire year.  We are blessed with an incredible group of friends and family who all waned to participate in helping our new family members, which allowed us to send some extra money for school clothes, shoes, etc.

I sent the money to Workineh through Western Union on Wednesday and he traveled to their town on Thursday.  He sent me some pictures.  God is so good guys!

 Here are K & N modeling their new school clothes, shoes and backpacks.

 These are some of their new school books.

 This is the fabric that has been taken to a tailor to be made into their school uniforms.  School starts on September 18th.

 N, Abninet and K showing the photo album I made back in May for them of pictures of the twins from the entire time they've been with us.  Workineh delivered it to them on this trip.  

Here are the girls standing outside the school compound.

I need to express to you that through this entire process we have been very transparent and open with the twins.  They know everything, every detail we discovered about their birthfamily.  Some of it wasn't ideal, obviously.  This has brought the twins so much healing and helped them bond with us on a whole other level.  Their trust in us has grown exponentially.  They see our love for them shown through our love for their first family.  It helps that they no longer need to worry about what ever happened to their first family, especially their sisters.  We will always keep in touch and make sure they're ok, as much as is possible.

In no way has this discovery made me feel any "less" their mother.  I have not felt threatened in any way.  I feel closer to them knowing their history.  It has made me love their first family like they're my own.  It has opened my eyes and broken my heart for what breaks God's.  It has brought me closer to God.  He has been in every small detail of this whole experience.  I pray for Abinet everyday.  I wear a bracelet that says "enat" {mother in Amharic} to remind me to pray for her.  

I sleep better at night knowing I am doing all I can to help them.  It has brought our whole family here, and friends, together for such an amazing reason.  Our family has made us feel so loved, and again it shows the twins that they can trust all of us.  I sleep better knowing that this woman halfway around the world knows she's not forgotten.  She knows her babies are loved and cherished.  She knows that God has heard her prayers and is using us to help answer some of them.  That is an incredible honor.

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.

Ignorance...At the Pediatrician's Office?!

Let me start by saying that moving across state lines with children who are on ADHD medication is a nightmare.  You have to have a paper script to take to the pharmacy because they are all controlled substances, so that also means you can't take a paper script from your Ohio doctor to a pharmacy in PA to get it filled.  UGH.  So, that being said, we had been anticipating this appointment today with our new pediatrician so we could finally establish a doctor who could give us the prescriptions my girls need.

I also want to point out that I have A LOT of experience with doctors and I know that a lot of the best doctors have a pretty crappy bed side manner.  I've come to accept that, however, I would think pediatricians would be the exception to the rule.  The doctor we saw today got an earful from Caroline so I don't think she'll ever make this same mistake again.  

She was entering in all of the information about Caroline and her health history.  She says "I know since she was adopted we will not have any family health history, but I want to get the names of all of the members of your family into the computer."  I gave her my name and Mike's name.  She then asked if Caroline had any siblings.  I responded, "She has a bio twin named Charlotte, and.." she interrupts me and says "Oh, ok so she counts as a real one."

OH. NO. SHE. DIDN'T.

To which Caroline responded, "What?  So what does that make my other sister?  Is she imaginary?  Is she fake?  No.  She's my REAL sister too!"

PROUD MAMA MOMENT.  It was the best response ever, because there's no way an adult could have gotten away with that sassy response, but oh from the mouths of babes!

"Of course she's real, you know what I mean, you just don't share genes." was her response.

I awaited Caroline's response, thinking for sure she'd argue that of course, none of them share "jeans" because they all wear different sizes, but, alas, she was able to contain herself for once.

I used this as an opportunity for grace, but I was pretty shocked that a pediatrician didn't know better and wasn't educated on the proper terminology.  I find it hard to believe that my family is the first adoptive family that has come through that office.  It's one thing to say that in front of the adult, but it was not ok to say that in front of my child.  Luckily we had JUST had a conversation about this because of an interaction Caroline had with a boy from our neighborhood last week (You can read that funny story here) so she had the perfect tools to respond appropriately.  I hope Caroline's candid response made this doctor realize that she needs to choose her words more carefully next time.

The Bratts are in town now, rural southeastern PA, and we're going to make a serious impression!

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!