Friend, let us introduce you to someone. She loves to read, eat ice cream, explore the great outdoors, watch movies with buttered popcorn, ride her bike, read, and read some more. She’s full of energy and is loving every bit of summertime.
Her name is Caitlyn, and she’s really cute…especially with some missing teeth, right?
She turns 8 in 10 days on July 23rd. While most girls 8 minus 10 days old are all about icing designs, balloons, and all that comes with that, Caitlyn’s not really there.
4 months ago, Jesus called Caitlyn’s little sister Avery into His forever arms. Everyday since that day has been hard as she experiences all the firsts she must experience without the baby sister she thought she’d grow up with. Her next birthday in 10 days is one of those firsts.
Her mama, who is grieving as she faces all her own firsts, has put out a special request. With her permission, we are sharing it here with all of you.
Wanna help bring some happy to Caitlyn’s birthday? Send TSF an email by clicking on these words. We’ll make sure you get their mailing address. Let’s show this mama and this big sister and her daddy too that they are so very loved.
When I asked you how things were going, you started to cry. Through your tears, you told me how great your new son’s eye contact is, how he likes to be held, how he lets you know what he wants. You told me how everything is really so good, so much better than you were prepared for. But, you were still crying when you said that.
I imagine you were your social worker’s dream family. You dotted all your Is and crossed all your Ts. Not only was every form filled out completely and perfectly, but you didn’t fuss about any of the training required. You were your agency’s star student, soaking up every minute of every training with paper and pen in hand, taking notes lest you forget something. Every recommended book is now part of your library with broken bindings and yellow highlights throughout. You can channel your inner Dan Siegel and Karyn Purvis and explain the attachment cycle and define time-ins to any captive audience. You’re it—the well-prepared, ready-to-go adoptive mom equipped with a full holster of every attachment-building tool there is.
And, then you adopted your son.
You remind me a little of that friend we all have, the one who went to Lamaze classes or the like and somehow heard the message—or simply chose to hear it—that if you learn all the breathing tricks and positions that labor and delivery would be relatively painless, that somehow her own learned skills and oxygen-inhaling prowess would trump the reality of biology.
Yeah…it doesn’t that work that way.
Here’s what just happened. You and your husband, quite comfortable and relatively confident in your parenthood experience to the one biological child you already had, grew your family again. That’s always hard. And, since you did that through this incredible adventure of adoption, you multiplied that hard exponentially. While it’s normal for a mom to feel overwhelmed and tired and totally consumed by her new child who needs her all the time, you feel all that and your new child is not a sleepy infant and your child doesn’t understand English and you are scared to death that all the anxiety and growing sense of oxygen-inhaling failure on your part is going to break down whatever foundations of attachment have been built and that your adoption fund is going to be replaced by a therapy fund to pay for all the additional trauma you are going to bring into your child’s life.
{take a deep breath right about….now}
All those rules and tools you’ve studied and prepped for—the babywearing, the cosleeping, the skin-to-skin contact, the commitment to be the only one to meet his every need, the keeping him within several feet at all times, the cocooning, the intentional regression—they are not the end all; rather, they are the means to an end with that end being relationship. That’s the most important thing. If those good rules and tools are so binding to you right now that they are actually hindering relationship, you have the permission to step away from the books and the blogs and the webinars and experience freedom as the mother God’s called you to be to your son. It’s not forever, but for now, find what it is that you need whether that is grocery store runs sans anyone under 3 feet tall, a break to go have coffee with a friend one afternoon, going back to your weekly women’s group with a sitter in your friend’s basement, or something else entirely different. Find what it is that you need so that you can get on track with building a relationship with your son rather than falling into a pattern of going through the motions that you think you need to do but growing seeds in you of fear, questions, and resentment—all of which are enemies to relationship.
Friend, this is hard, yes. But, you can do hard; you were made for hard. You are exactly what your son and your daughter need right now—in your frailty, in your weakness, in your tears.
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Kelly has a passion for supporting adoptive families, specifically to encourage parents to be intentional and understand their own hearts more clearly as they seek to care for their hearts of their children. Kelly cofounded The Sparrow Fund with her husband Mark in 2011 to serve adoptive families. After a long time using her Master’s degree in counseling informally, Kelly recently joined the team at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA. Married to Mark since 1998, they have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed by the experience of adoption, and what life for them looks like on Kelly’s personal blog, My Overthinking.
As I sat in church this morning listening to a lesson on Joshua chapters 5 and 6, God grabbed my heart.
We are in the middle of our third adoption. A calling from God, yes. A child chosen for us by Him, absolutely! But even in the midst of this clearly directed path by God, I needed a heart check. Sometimes He needs to step in and remind us that it is ALL about Him. Even when we are doing something He has asked us to do, our flesh can step in and take our focus off of Him.
Travel with me back to Canaan. After 40 years of wandering in the desert God’s people are ready to enter their promised land, but there were obstacles in the way…… big obstacles, physical as well as spiritual. Big walls and armies as well as seeds of doubt and fear.
Joshua was a man of God. He was appointed by God to be the leader of His people. Yet, even as he stepped out in faith to lead his people into battle, God stepped in to check Joshua’s faith and trust in Him and His plan over their plan. Are Joshua and the Israelites truly ready to step out in complete faith, no matter what, even if it seemed a little crazy?
“Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” The captain of the Lord’s host said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:13-15, NASB)
When God calls us to step out in faith, it is not always easy and sometimes it doesn’t even make sense, but that is what makes God God and us not! Let’s consider God’s plan for the Israelites to defeat Jericho.
“Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.’’ (Joshua 6:2-5, NIV)
How CRAZY AMAZING was God’s victory plan over Jericho! He asked them to do something from a human military perspective that made absolutely no sense, so that there would be absolutely no question that victory was the Lord’s!
Adoption is my promised land, but initially, there were obstacles in the way. Big obstacles embedded deep in my heart.
I had plans……normal earthly plans. Plans for red headed, freckled children, but God had other plans.
CRAZY AMAZING PLANS! Once I accepted God’s plan I went full steam ahead doing all I could to make it happen, and sometimes getting frustrated when things didn’t happen according to my schedule. How easy it is to forget that this isn’t my plan. It’s God’s PLAN! A plan to bring glory to His name, not mine.
Adoption is also my Jericho. His timing is perfect, and many times throughout our adoption journey, He has done CRAZY AMAZING things that could only be attributed to Him. Sometimes He whispers and sometimes He shouts, “Remember, I am the Lord, Suzanne. You are standing on holy ground.”
So let us shout at the top of our lungs like the Israelites at the Battle of Jericho as we move forward with our adoptions, knowing that our Creator and Savior is leading the charge for us and our children who are more precious to Him than we could ever fathom.
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Suzanne Meledeo
After struggling with infertility for 5 years, God led Suzanne and her husband Adam to His Plan A for their lives—adoption! Their daughter, Grace Lihua, came into their lives in 2011 from the Fujian Province, China. Their son, Anthony Jianyou, joined their family in January of 2013 from Shanghai, and Eva Hanting just joined their family in May from the Hunan Province. After a career in politics, Suzanne is thankful for God’s provision in their lives that now allows her to work part time as a Pilates instructor while home schooling their children and working as a part of the WAGI leadership team. You can follow their adoption journey and life on their blog, Surpassing Greatness.
I’ve experienced a lot of difficult things over the last several months. The most difficult of my life. My Daddy’s passing weighs heavy on me every day still, 5 months later. So much pain and loss. So much heartbreak.
But this boy. This precious boy who we said yes to and who is our son. He has redeemed a lot of the hardships. I will admit that the days aren’t always easy. We aren’t living a fairytale. But my goodness, he is special. My heart bursts with love for him. He is lovely and joyful and funny and goofy and stubborn and even a little bossy sometimes. He absolutely loves life and delights in everything. He gives me hugs and kisses all day long. He says “I yaaaa yew” more times than I can count in a day. He smiles. He laughs. He plays. He is learning to communicate his needs. He is learning that we will always come for him. He is learning his place in our family. He is learning how to love and how to be loved. He has grown in unbelievable ways.
As I rocked him to sleep tonight, I just stared at him. I ran my fingers over his forehead, through his hair, and over the outside of his ear as he drifted off to sleep. I watched his sweet little eyelashes bat up and down until they eventually stopped moving. He laid asleep in my lap as I reflected on the little person he is becoming, simply in awe of all that the Father has done in this boy’s life.
He’s been in our arms for 6 months.
Six months. It hardly seems real.
In that Guangzhou Civil Affairs office, our lives changed forever six months ago. I fell in love the minute I laid eyes on him. He instantly became a son and brother; an orphan no longer. I became a mama for the fourth time. My husband became a new daddy all over again. And our older three children gained a new brother.
We are forever bonded together as a family. And with that bond, my prayer is that his many losses will be redeemed. Not forgotten. But redeemed. He experienced so much heartache in his three years. But in the short 6 months he’s been our son, he has already given us so much. I hope that we can give the same to him. Life is a little more complicated, but oh so much sweeter. The days feel a little longer, but they are God-given. I’m a little more exhausted each day, but they are beautiful. And we are in this thing called life together. No matter what.
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Nicole is a daughter to the King and a wife to an amazing man. She is a classical homeschooling mama to four, by birth and adoption. She is a part-time newborn photographer, a founder and adoption photographer at Red Thread Sessions, a board member of The Sparrow Fund and an advocate of orphan care and adoption. When she’s not with her family or behind her camera, she loves to blog, create, give life to old furniture, spend time at the beach and read. She strives to live her life to glorify our Heavenly Father. With His love, all things are possible.
As the birthday of our nation approaches, join us in celebrating the joy our precious children bring us each day, the freedoms we enjoy and our freedom in Christ.
Have a wonderful fourth of July!
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Corinthian 3:17, NIV)
I crave predictability. I always have. There is comfort for me in knowing what to expect. I don’t particularly like surprises.
I also hate this about myself.
I hate that others can say “You’re so predictable” about my preferences or about how I’ll respond to a certain situation. I hate that what feels most comfortable to me (knowing what to expect) is often perceived as my need to be in control or micromanage.
I’ve also wrestled many years with trying to “let go,” “loosen up,” “learn not to care.” That hasn’t worked out so well for me. In fact, I think that the stern inner voice I often use to push myself to be better in good ways has found the perfect niche for turning abusive. I can berate myself for not being flexible, for not being spontaneous or fun, for running “too tight a ship” or having hard and fast “rules” for how I want to structure my days, have relationships, or organize my kitchen cabinets. Notice all the ways I tell myself that I am “not” – with no mention of what I am. After a while, hearing the constant “I’m not [fill in the blank]” self-talk makes me feel as though I’m constantly failing.
I have always been failing at trying to be unpredictable.
Which is funny. Because of the son I now have in my life.
I am Mami to a little boy who desperately needs predictability. Not only because of all the upheaval he’s been through in this past year, but because of the way his nervous system processes sensory information (feelings, sounds, sights). And because all that he knew before joining our family was the very predictable life of an institution. A predictable rhythm to our days is essential for him. Who comes and goes, when we eat, how (and where) we get dressed every day, where his toys live. Predictability is a healing rhythm for him. When something upsets that rhythm, it can sometimes feel catastrophic to his body, to his mind, to his emotions.
To the families who love us so much and want to see us more: it is very hard to upset the predictability of JM’s world. It is even more difficult to describe what happens when the predictability is upset. Tantrums, irrational fears, defiant behaviors, disruption in eating habits. Whether or not these sound like “typical four year old” behaviors is beside the point. Our child hasn’t (and won’t) live a typical life. He isn’t even cognitively four years old in some developmental areas. Sure, other families see what we see with their children too. But likely the behaviors another family sees in their normal four year are not connected to fear issues stemming from the loss of a birth family or a brain injury that dominates how we do even the basics of life: like zippering a jacket or taking a sip of water. So, while the external behavior may look the same in many ways, they are often coming from very different internal causes.
Children who test boundaries within the confines of a safe and trusting environment are normal. Children who test boundaries because they are used to being self-sufficient and don’t understand how to trust the authority of the grown-ups who love them are dealing with issues of a different kind. Not worse or more important. Just different.
Within the past few months I’ve come to understand something foundational about myself: I try to disappear as much as possible. I want to quietly go about my business, avoid intruding on others, and be self-sufficient so as not to inconvenient those around me. My counselor calls it “taking up as little space as possible in my world.” Over the years as this desire grew in me, it sounded lovely, and humble, and appealing to stay out of the way. But it isn’t healthy.
Actually, this is isn’t just unhealthy, it is really destructive. Because it means I grow silent when I need to speak. It means I hide when I need to wave an SOS flag. It means that what I need or want consistently takes a backseat to the people around me. And inside I die just a little bit more each time I shrink away from taking up the space that was granted to me simply because I live.
And then my son enters my world. And he takes up a lot of space.
We make plans only to break them a few hours later when he encounters something unpredictable and disrupting. We try new things only to have them backfire and we rush home to huddle in predictability and routine, letting its healing rhythm sweep back over us while we ask God to help us learn how to do it better next time.
I’m the Mami, so it is my job to carve out and maintain the safe space my child needs in this season and for however long the need for predictability will last. But this is incredibly stretching for a person who wants to take up a very small amount of space in her world. To answer “This isn’t a good time for a visit” when you ask is very hard for me because it means disappointing you; even if it is what we need to maintain balance. Telling you what is best for us at risk of hurting your feelings is a terribly painful experience for me, even when you have grace for it. I am working to undo years of believing that in order to be loving, gracious, and servant-like to you means that what I need (or what my son needs) is ignored.
But it’s a lot harder to ignore the needs of my son.
Suddenly I realize that in all of the ways that we thank God for doing his redemption work for JM, I am also seeing the way God is doing redemption workin me because of my son’s incredible story. Redemption work He hasn’t yet attempted because I would ignore myself for others. Now I have an “other” who needs me to pay attention to him – and thus to myself too. Redemption work God probably couldn’t start or finish is actually becoming a reality in my heart. All because my son is in my world.
One day I will take my son out to coffee and, through happy tears, I will thank him for allowing me to be his Mami. He could’ve said no, you know. He could’ve rejected us. He could’ve refused to partner with us in all of the attachment work we’ve been doing. But he didn’t. He embraces us. He signs “I love you” to us. He’s choosing to be part of our family in his own four-year-old way. And because he does, his healing story heals mine too. Thank you, son, for being mine. Not only did our really Big God heal your brain then, he’s doing it now – and as he does, He gets to heal Mami too. Thank you.
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KE Smeiles is wife, mother, and birth doula. She finds her inspiration in the faces of her “boys” (her sons and husband) and in the abundant love of a redemptive God who wastes nothing.
KE and her husband adopted their first son in February 2014, discovering in greater abundance then they could’ve imagined just how beautiful and painful adoptive can be.
The Smeiles family grew by one more in May 2015 as they welcomed a biological son to their family.
Since day one, many have asked about The New Chick’s biological mom. And for all seven of the months he’s lived in my house, I’ve put off writing about her. But, there is a season for everything, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
The first time I saw her it was in the Chambers County Courthouse. I looked up from admiring the five day old baby who was snug against my chest, and saw her walking toward us. I knew her by the tears pouring unchecked down her face. She humbly asked me if she could hold him, and I began to wonder at the world I had just entered.
As I unswaddled all five precious pounds and placed him in his mothers arms, I realized this entire endeavor was going to require more of my heart than I had expected. I felt all at once tremendous pain for her, and ferocious protection over him.
Those two emotions would only swell with the passing weeks. At times they were at war within my soul.
Someone commented on her right after he came to us. They posed a question, that was really more of a statement, along the lines of how could anyone do what she has done. The person went on to make her out as a total sinner, and me a total saint.
I just blinked and ashamedly said nothing. But inside was a raging inferno.
There is nothing fundamentally different about she and me. The only thing that polarizes her life from mine is that I was given a gift when I was 6.
The gift of the Holy Spirit when I got adopted by The King.
Without that gift I would have been her. I would have chased this world and let it have it’s way with me. I would have made costly decisions; looking to all the wrong things to make me feel happy and all the wrong people to make me feel loved. I would have given myself to a man way too early and gotten pregnant and had a baby.
It would have been me watching the social workers walk out of the hospital with my first born son, still sore from giving birth to him.
It would have been me wondering where they took him.
And who was holding him. And what was going to happen to him.
It would have been me facing every parent’s worst nightmare.
It would have been me.
But Jesus.
I won’t lie. There’s another side to my feelings about her. It’s not jealousy. Or competition. It’s more like looking at her and wondering if I will be her in a few months.
I fear the pain she’s already lived through.
Handing my baby over to the social workers to be cared for by strangers. Wondering where he is and if he needs me. Missing his firsts and wanting him so desperately it hurts. Fearing that he’s wants Mama, but can’t have her.
I hate the notion that her success will mean my greatest loss. And just as much I loathe the idea that if she fails, I somehow win.
Because if he goes back, I’ll curl up and die for a while. But if he stays, I’ll grieve with the knowledge that she’ll do the same. Either way, pain will be thick.
It’s true that she and I are very different. I was adopted and she wasn’t. She brought him into the world and I didn’t. I know him in ways she doesn’t.
And every time I say “Come to Mama” I am reminded that there is another.
But in this we are the same.
She and I are both the other mother.
_______________________________
Beth is Wife Supreme to one good looking pastor, and Queen Mother to two awesome bio children and two darling fosters. She writes about foster care along with this, that and the other atJust Beth. Beth is slightly addicted to her morning coffee, loves talking about Alex’s House Orphanage in Haiti, and gets the biggest kick out of pulling off her hair-brain ideas. (Her husband’s words, not her own.) She’s been featured on ForEveryMom, FaithIt, and some other cool blogs that were desperate for material.
“And I want Mommy to have a baby in her belly,” I overheard her say as I was walking up the stairs this morning. I stopped in the hallway outside her room just long enough to hear “but sometimes it takes a long long time for babies to come. You have to pray and pray and pray. And wait.”
My daughter delivered a five year-old summary of her mommy’s life.
Nate had been talking with them about Zechariah and Elizabeth. And, to Eden, Elizabeth was another one of those women – like Sarah and Mary … or her mommy – whose story reminded her that pregnancy must come at the hands of a miraculous God.
I’d never told her I want to be pregnant.
She wasn’t my “second choice”, and I didn’t trust her young mind to later process my desire alongside of her own story with a healthy perspective. She was too young to catch wind of her Mommy’s pain.
The first time I remember her mentioning it was after a playgroup where all the women, but two of us, were pregnant. Children built towers, played instruments and read books around their mothers who shared life-stories. Naturally the topic of pregnancy came up. And my little one, who has not yet lost the hyper-vigilance that is a survival mechanism for many orphans, absorbed every word.
Later, in her prayers, she asked God to “send a baby to her mommy’s belly.”
It initially hurt my heart.
I’ve been preparing to field questions and observations about how our family is different for years. I just didn’t expect the first of them to be about my personal scarlet letter. I anticipated that she’d one day feel the pang of our skins’ different colors and her unique entrance into our family, but I didn’t suspect she’d have this other difference on her radar.
While the things that make our family different don’t seem to be a struggle for her now, they may one day become more than observations. I could call it maternal instinct that makes me want to protect her from every potential hurt, every pain. But my heavenly Father’s instincts were different.
His protection came not from avoiding that which would cause pain, but for offering His companionship as I walked through it. The valley of the shadow of death is land claimed by the Father. It is a holy place.
For me. And for my daughter.
At five, she has lived years I want to erase, but that God will redeem. And then, as one grafted in to this family, she has inherited new opportunities for pain.
But the ground I’ve taken in my life and heart, as it relates to processing my lack, doesn’t need to be won over, again, by her.
Her inheritance comes (from God) through me. She is my legacy. What I win in my lifetime — in terms of a hopeful perspective on all He has allowed and joy in the midst of “setback” — she gets to live out.
Her words to Nate this morning were not pain-filled. Sure, something in her – I’m not quite sure even why – wants her mommy to be like the other mommy’s with babies in their bellies. She longs, in the way a five year-old has capacity to. But what she has come to know as commonplace Christianity has taken me years to receive:
You don’t always get what you want, but in the face of delay, you pray and pray and pray. And wait. Sometimes for a long, long time.
And in the meantime you worship the One who holds beauty.
My highest aim as a parent is not to try and protect my children from all that might befall them, but to, instead, seek the healing touch of Jesus in every area of my own life, knowing that they will inherit what I leave behind. The “unfinished” will be theirs to finish or to pass along. And those ashes subjected to beauty, will remain their crown.
At five, Eden doesn’t wonder if God will still be who she believes Him to be if, next month, Mommy isn’t pregnant. “God is good, He is so so good to me,” she sings as her bare feet dangle from the potty.
Bracing myself against the hits I fear might come from the Father is a distant memory. After many years of having my soil tilled and turned, the ground is supple to receive the God of Hope.
And because of His great mercy in my life, to save me from my fearfully expectant heart, my daughter receives new land on which to plant.
My freedom won is her inheritance to build upon.
The fullness of God I pray almost daily for in my own life, isn’t just my platform for the next age. It’s hers too.
And her daughter’s.
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Sara is a wife to Nate and a mother of five whose arms stretched wide across the ocean to Africa. After almost a decade of Christian life she was introduced to pain and perplexity and, ultimately, intimacy with Jesus. Her book, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet released October 7, 2014 via Zondervan, is an invitation — back to hope, back to healing, back to a place that God is holding for you—a place where the unseen is more real than what the eye can perceive. A place where even the most bitter things become sweet. She writes regularly at EveryBitterThingIsSweet.com.
Within the past few years it seems there has been a big emphasis placed on examining the terminology we use in talking about adoption.
Birth mother, first mother, expectant mom.
Kids of our own, biological kids.
Given up for adoption, placed for adoption.
But, does terminology matter? I believe it does. It’s also apparent that the adoptive community believes it does. Many adult adoptees will tell you that terminology matters to them as well. Thinking about, understanding and using various adoption terms in thoughtful and sensitive ways is greatly valued in the world of adoption. So, it only seems to follow that terms used in talking about adoptions that aren’t completed, fail, or are ended are understood and used in a thoughtful and sensitive way as well.
What is it called when a family does not complete an adoption they had begun?
What is it called when a family welcomes a child into their home intending on adopting him or her but end up not completing the adoption?
What is it called when an adoption is ended after the child has been placed in a home and the adoption process has been legalized?
As special needs adoptions have increased, the instances of failed or unsuccessful adoptions have also increased. Adoption is beautiful, but it is also complicated. Families, social workers, agencies, and governments all work to give children homes. But, medical files aren’t always accurate, governments aren’t always honest, special needs aren’t always clear, and the process is far from perfect.
Enter the home study. Hours of interviews and stacks of documents converge to outline what parameters a referred child must fall within. Agencies are not quick to allow families to diverge from what they are approved for in their home study. After all, many factors were taken into consideration to determine those parameters: income, family make up, ages of children already in the home, health insurance, proximity to health care professionals and specialists, etc.
As an adoptive community, we need to continue to encourage education and preparation for all potential adoptive parents. But, we would also do well to understand that even with all the education and preparation possible, adoptions may still end before placement, after placement but before finalization, or after finalization. How are we as an adoptive community going to respond? It goes without saying that our hearts are and will be broken for those children. Absolutely. But does that sympathy and empathy have to come at the expense of the adoptive parents?
I don’t understand how a family could end an adoption.
I don’t understand how a family could not bring home a child they intended on adopting.
You are right. You won’t be able to understand because you aren’t intimately involved in that situation. But, we don’t need to understand in order to minister to each other. We don’t have to agree in order to offer support and encouragement. We don’t have to like it in order to continue to enfold those parents within the adoption community.
If you’ll allow the analogy of preparing for marriage, an engaged couple is wise to do all they can to fully understand the commitment that marital vows require. However, even in Christian circles, we have all witnessed marriages that have fallen apart. Education and preparation aren’t always enough. But, when engagements or marriages fail, do we take to social media to dissect a situation we know very little about? Do we callously say, “How could they…?” “I can’t believe they…” “I would never…” On the contrary. We have come to realize that our world is broken. Our standard and our desire continues to be for every married couple to be beautifully united and eternally committed. But, we realize that when that doesn’t happen, the reasons are complex and complicated; the people involved are still God’s children and are hurting and in need of support. We realize that God’s love and work of redemption is not hindered by broken people or broken situations or broken promises. He is not a God who gets stopped at dead ends or unmet standards. His redemption story continues to unfold even in the midst of brokenness.
Years ago, we did not complete the international adoption of a child we intended to bring home. I felt like we carried the label of “the family who disrupted” as a scarlet letter. However, our experience of not completing an adoption of a child before the child was in our home is very different than a family who has enveloped a child into the fabric of their family only to have them taken out of their home or deciding that adoption is not the best choice for all involved. We can’t pretend the experiences and situations and resulting hurt are the same. And yet, so many do. We refer to every situation of an adoption stopping or ending as a “disruption.” Simply lumping all situations under the umbrella term of “disruption” is not helpful to the parents in that situation, the community called on to support, or the potential adoptive parents who are trying to learn all they can about what sometimes goes wrong. We need to consider more accurate terms.
Here’s a list to help: (Source: https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/s_disrup.pdf)
An uncompleted adoption – An uncompleted adoption is an adoption in which the family decides not to adopt a child before the child is in their home and before the adoption is finalized.
A disrupted adoption – A disrupted adoption is an adoption that ends after the child is placed in the home but before the adoption is finalized.
A dissolved adoption – A dissolved adoption is an adoption that ends after the child is placed in the home and after the adoption is finalized.
Being sensitive to using correct terminology can go a long way in discerning what type of support those families may need. Offering caring support to these hurting families will go a long way in ending the shame and isolation they often feel.
So, does terminology matter in talking about adoptions that either don’t happen or don’t work out for the long term? Absolutely. Understanding and using the correct terms for each situation shows a general understanding of what the family went through which will directly impact the kind of pain they may be feeling and support they may be needing.
Terminology matters. We’ve known for quite some time that it matters to adoptive families and adoptees. It’s time to understand that it matters in these situations as well.
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18 years in the classroom as a teacher was easy compared to parenting three little ones at home full-time. Through their three daughters, God has revealed Himself most clearly to Stephanie and her husband Matthew. He not only worked a miracle in giving them their biological daughter, He continued to show Himself in mighty ways throughout adoption journeys in China and Bhutan that were anything but normal. Nowadays she enjoys encouraging and connecting with other adoptive families through speaking and her work on the leadership team of “We Are Grafted In” and on the Board of The Sparrow Fund.
I have debated long and hard about whether to write about this or not, but I have decided to for three important reasons:
It’s the truth.
I felt like the worst person in the world when it happened to me, and I think part of that was that I had never heard of anyone else having these same feelings though many surely have (or maybe not in which case I may be sorry to be the first person to admit it). Feeling like you are having a reaction no one has ever had makes the feelings feel even worse. Maybe me admitting this will help someone else.
Most importantly of all, it contains the most significant moment in our referral story for me. The moment I’ll always come back to if I ever panic again.
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The joy of being matched lasted about 24 hours for me.
Wait.
I’m not sure I felt joy at all that day we called to tell our agency that we were sending in our LOI (Letter of Intent to Adopt).
In fact, my matter-of-factness, my taking-care-of-the-business of it, never actually yielded any emotions. However, after hanging up the phone, the fear began to build up, growing more and more as the hours ticked by. By Thursday night (the day after accepting our referral), once I had the kids in bed and the house was quiet (Scot was away the week we accepted our referral), I began to feel panic almost physically strangling me.
Scot called that evening to say good-night to the kids and to let me know that he really couldn’t talk to me that night because everyone was going out. I told him I needed to talk to him and that it really could not wait until morning. Who knows what else I said, but after the kids were in bed, Scot called back (having excused himself from the events of the evening), and I fell apart on the phone with him.
Fell. Apart.
Every fear, doubt, anxiety, worry, every bit of it came pouring out. And, that’s not like me. In this whole adoption process, if I’ve gotten really freaked out at any point, I tried to temper it with Scot fearing I’d freak him out too much. But, I figured it was now or never to let it all out. Not about adoption in general, but about the boy we just accepted in particular. I’m not sure how he even understood what I was saying over the phone because I was so emotional.
I covered it all. Every “what if.” And, that was no small task, because at that point, there were for me, still many, many unanswered questions.
I told Scot point blank that I thought we may have made a mistake, and that IF that’s what we ultimately decided, HE would need to call our agency, because I simply would not be able to. (Scot’s never called our agency. I handle all that.)
Scot patiently listened to it all, told me that if we felt like we needed to change our minds that he would “absolutely” call the agency for me but that he thought I should let him get home the next day before we made any decisions. We both knew that it was nearly Friday in China anyway, so we should take the weekend to talk and pray. He felt sure that once he was home we would figure it out.
After that conversation, I felt better. Mostly, because I got it all out. There was no question about where I was at. I was terrified.
Cooper pre-Hardy
During these couple days, I told no one about our referral (besides one dear friend who already knew about it and our pastor). I couldn’t look at the child’s picture. In fact, I had called my mother-in-law on Wednesday after accepting the referral and got her voice mail. When she called me back on Thursday, I pretended I had forgotten why I had called.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. THAT’s how bad it was.
(I remember it so well that I’m crying just typing this. It was awful to feel that way.)
After my conversation with Scot, I went to New Day Foster Home‘s website (where the child was being cared for) and looked at every. single. picture. they had of him. I looked hoping I would recognize him. Because looking back, I think that is what bothered me the most.
I didn’t recognize him.
I had thought when I saw the face of my child I would know him (or her). That there would be some magic or something. Or that it would be a very spiritual moment. Or, you know, anything but a series of very intentional decisions. Which is what it was.
I didn’t get a phone call out of the blue and click open the e-mail to see my child’s face for the first time. Because that’s how you think of it in all those years of waiting. And, just like when I struggled after having Sawyer via c-section (the LAST thing I expected and certainly was never part of my becoming-a-mom fantasies), I realize now that I was struggling again with reality verses how I imagined it would be.
Then there were the very REAL questions on top of that:
Does he have Hep B? And, if so, in combination with his heart issue would that be something life-threatening possibly?
What is the result of his oxygen deprivation in his first year?
And what about his age? What business do we, unexperienced adoptive parents, have adopting an almost 4 year old? He’s only a year younger than Chloe!!!
On Friday, Scot came home, and I’m not sure I had ever, EVER been so glad to have him back from a trip EVER. And honestly, we only casually talked about the boy we had accepted that night and even through Saturday. I actually don’t remember much about those two days.
I know we prayed about it, but I don’t remember much else.
On Sunday morning, I was on my way to church by myself. I have to be there early, so I always go by myself, and Scot comes during the second service with the kids. In the car, I prayed very specifically, and I remember exactly what I said: “God, I need to hear from you today, and I’m in a very emotional state. Anything less than complete clarity will only confuse me. Can you please be crystal clear with me this morning?”
Nothing fluffy or ornate. Just a simple honest prayer.
But, as soon as I uttered it, I wondered how it would ever be clear enough for me in the state I was in. I remember distinctly thinking, “Unless I hear ‘You should adopt him’ or ‘You shouldn’t adopt him’, will I really walk away feeling sure?” Any amount of faith I had seemed gone in those moments.
Usually, I go to church during first service, and Scot attends second service. Unfortunately, that’s just how it is because second service for us is very busy, and I have to be back in children’s ministry that hour. However, on this particular day, Scot showed up early and went to church with me.
Our pastor wasn’t teaching that morning, and one of the people Scot and I respect most in the world was speaking. This man has been a missionary around the world and is a walking example of what a life looks like when lived trusting God to the fullest!
This morning, he was speaking about Noah. He talked about a lot of things, but he specifically talked about how the call that God made on Noah’s life could not have made a whole lot of sense to Noah. Noah had never seen rain. And, the Bible doesn’t say that Noah had any skill at building. Noah, the speaker said, probably felt completely inadequate for the task. The task HAD to have seemed too big for him, too hard, too unknown, too scary. I mean, God told Noah he was going to destroy everything on the earth. That had to have been unsettling at the very least! Everything in Noah’s world must have felt turned up-side down, but because He walked with and trusted God, he did it.
Then, right there in the middle of the sermon, with his British accent in full tilt, the speaker says: “So…what is God asking you to do today? *there might as well have been a l-o-n-g pause here, because I remember it as if time stood still* Does it seem hard, scary, unknown? I don’t know what God has called you to today, but I am here to tell you JUST DO IT!” (That was all caps on purpose because he yelled it. The man is 80 years old, and he yelled it!)
Could God have been ANY clearer? At all? Really?
JUST DO IT!
And, the choice of words? Echoed the EXACT words my friend had said to me when I told her we accepted our referral. She said, while she talked to me on the phone that night, she just wanted to yell, “JUST DO IT!”
Tears immediately started rolling down my face, and I leaned over to Scot and said, “I think we have our answer.”
He just smiled, and was gracious enough NOT to say, “No, I had my answer all along. It seems that now you have YOUR answer!”
That’s in my mind when New Day’s Evan became Cooper. When all my doubts and fears took a distant back seat to the fact that this was oh-so-clearly the child GOD had chosen for our family.
I will always, always be so thankful that God cared enough about me to speak to me right where I was at that morning. To assure me when I was doubting. To answer my very specific prayer and to do it in such a resounding way.
That next week, after we got PA, we requested an update on Cooper. Specifically, we asked for updated lab results so that we could see what his Hep B status was. The woman at our agency said she would ask but that updated medical info is not generally given and so we shouldn’t expect it.
A few days later, we got a short update, and some pictures. The update did not contain any updated lab work. We were disappointed but okay with whatever. However, when we looked through the pictures, the last picture was a jpeg file of Cooper’s most updated lab results where we could see VERY clearly that the ambiguous test results were gone, and he was quite clearly NOT Hep B positive.
I thanked God that day for those lab results, because although I would have trusted Him either way, He knew how scared we were about that, and he took that fear completely away.
How great is our God indeed.
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Jenna Hardy and family (minus 1!)
Jenna is a teacher, turned stay-at-home mom, turned Children’s Ministry Director who is passionate about children. After hearing God’s call to care for orphans 8 years ago, she has become increasingly passionate about adoption and orphan care. She and her high school sweetheart, Scot, have been married for 17 years and adopted Cooper 4 years ago. They are excited to see what God will do in the next chapter of the story He is writing with their family. Jenna and Scot feel strongly about sharing their story so that they might be of encouragement to others in various stages of the adoption process. You can follow along with them at Our Many Colored Days.
