Stephen and I were not as prepared as we thought we were for parenting our new children. Truthfully, we thought we had this parenting gig down. We didn’t know that our adopted treasures would need something different from us. But, as with many of us who adopted before all the trauma and adoption education was so wide-spread, we figured it out pretty quickly! Yikes!
Our first clue came in those early days after coming home from Russia with our new son and daughter. Huge HUGE transitions for us all! We were constantly asking the question, “Is this behavior adoption related? (We didn’t even know to ask if was trauma related!) Or is this normal for this child? Or maybe it’s just the stress of travel and jet lag, or frustration at not being understood, or…..?”
It reminded me of caring for our three newborns, actually. “Is she crying because she’s hungry? Tired? Needs a diaper change? Sick?…..” But, our children who came home to us through adoption were older, years beyond diapers and midnight bottle feedings.
Once the honeymoon stage was over, the rages began. It became clear that our son’s fits were actually not fits at all. There was an intensity, a deep place of anger and fear, that I soon realized was more like rage than any childhood fit I had ever seen.
I remember times when I would literally lay the weight of my body over my son’s raging little form– praying that he would know that he was safe, desiring that my embrace would keep him from hurting me or himself, hoping that maybe the strong physical presence of his loving mother would somehow communicate to him that no anger need ever overcome him, that peace would replace fear. The weight of my love was the beginning of the miraculous process of displacement that is adoption.
Whirling fear is displaced with love
Raging anger with an anchored peace
Dark hopelessness with a bright future
Over the years I have found that the trauma my son experienced before he came home requires this action of displacement quite often. Like a weighted blanket, I still cover him. Of course, I don’t cover him with my body any more for he has grown into a strong young man, but with my love, through prayer and words of hope.
It is so clear to me that as surely as my husband and I are creating a legacy of love and security and hope for our children, that there exists also an orphan legacy–things handed down to a child from a past marred by relinquishment, fear and lack. But in those long moments of struggle with my son, and all through the years when the legacy of fear would burst to the surface despite the weight of our love, I have known that when God’s peace rules, the orphan legacy is nullified. It must make way for life-giving peace.For though the mountains should depart and the hills be shaken or removed, yet My love and kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace and completeness be removed, says the Lord, Who has compassion on you. (Isaiah 54:10)And it has not stayed hidden from me for long that I am not so unlike my son. His trauma has traumatized me. His pain has become my pain.
And I am desperately in need of the weighted blanket of my Father’s love.
And I must choose, once again, to allow His legacy of love, peace and hope, displace my fears and heal my wounds.
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Beth Templeton
Beth has been married to her husband Stephen for 27 years. They have seven children, ages 18-24. Several years after giving birth to three girls God called their family to the adventure and blessing of adoption. In 2000, they brought home a brother and sister, ages 5 and 10, from Russia. Then they returned to the same orphanage 18 months later and brought home two more brothers, ages 7 and 10. Beth’s heart has been deeply and forever changed as she has watched the love of Father God poured out on her whole family through adoption. She leads Hope at Home, a ministry dedicated to help adoptive and foster parents encounter the Father’s heart for their families, partnering with God to transform orphans into sons and daughters. For more parenting insight and encouragement in the Lord, go to Hope at Home.
There’s something pretty cool about us. You and I look pretty different. You’ve got dimples; I’ve only got wrinkles. You have a freckle on your tummy; the only fun thing I have on my tummy is a turtle tattoo. You’ve got long dark hair; I’ve got short brown hair with highlights of gray. You’ve got Chinese eyes that look like crescent moons; I’ve got big eyes that scrunch up when I look at you because you always make me smile. I like that we’re different. We go perfectly together, and our differences make us a really colorful and fun pair.
Some people assume that pairs are the same. They think pairs should match on the outside as well as on the inside. So, the fact that we’re different on the outside may make some people not know right away that we go together. They might do things like that man did last week and ask you where your mommy is when I’m standing right next to you. We might laugh when that happens, but sometimes, we won’t. And, that’s okay.
People may ask you other questions too. I expect they will because I’ve been asked lots and lots of questions since you became my daughter. Sometimes the questions are easy ones, and I can answer them right away without even thinking really. Other questions make me feel a little funny inside, and I have to think before I answer. And, sometimes, there are questions that make me feel a little sad or mad, and I just don’t want to answer at all. I imagine you might feel like that too. We may be different, but I bet we might feel a lot the same.
When people ask you questions or say things to you about us being different, it may be because they’re being mean. It’s true. Sometimes people are just mean for reasons I really don’t understand. But, you know what? I bet that most of the time, people will ask you questions not because they are trying to be mean at all. Maybe they are interested in the fact that we’re different because they want to have a family that looks different too. I like when that happens. Maybe they ask a question because their family already looks different, and they want to know if we’re like them. Those can be fun conversations too. Some may ask simply because they are curious, and that’s okay. We ask people questions when we’re curious too.
The thing is, we may think we can tell why people do the things we do, but a lot of times we really can’t. People’s hearts are pretty mysterious things, you know? But, regardless of what’s in their hearts and if they are curious, interested, or just plain mean, we need to respond with respect. Let me explain to you what I mean. When someone asks you a question, you have a choice to make. You can share something about your story—after all, you’re an amazing girl with an amazing story. You can respectfully answer their question and tell them something about yourself. Or, you can share something that’s not about you specifically but is about families like ours that look different from each other. That’s another good option that may be a little easier because it’s not as personal as sharing about yourself. Or, you can respond in another way entirely and not respond at all. That’s a perfectly fine option, and you don’t need my permission in advance to choose that one. I’m telling you right now that it’s fine with me. But, if you choose that option, know that you need to do it always with respect. You can tell them you don’t really like the question or ask if you can talk about something else. You can tell them they’re your friend but you’d rather not answer that question. You can even blame me if you want and tell them your mom told you not to talk about that. Don’t worry; I can take it. I’m your mom, and moms are cool like that.
I’m not expecting you to have some sort of issue tomorrow or even next week; so, you don’t need to worry. But, if you do—whenever you do—know you aren’t stuck; you have a choice to make. You’re the one in charge of how things go. And, know that even if I’m not there to help you, I’m cheering you on just like how you cheer me on when I wrestle with the kids in the living room and you yell, “Go Mommy! Go Mommy!” And, I wanna hear all about it afterwards so I can scrunch up my eyes again and smile real big at you because no matter what choice you make and how things go, I’m going to tell you I’m proud of you and that I love that we’re different and that I really, really love that you’re mine and I’m yours. I hope on those days that I need it, you can do the same thing for me because you’re my daughter; and daughters are cool like that.
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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 has a Master’s degree in counseling and has been working with adoptive families since she and her husband Mark founded the The Sparrow Fund. 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.
There were lots of things, about China in general, that I wanted to post. And maybe I will sometime. I was going to now. But something happened. Lucy happened. She is everything now. Lucy is the world.
The days, and mostly the last few hours before we met her for the first time, I always felt like I should be preparing somehow. But there was not much I could do.
And nothing could have prepared me for that moment. I thought I had cleared it in my head that she was real. That she was a person, not a picture; something I could touch, and love on and hug. But I guess I hadn’t.
I was expecting to have more time to get ready (like time would help!) but we just walked into the room and there she was. It was shocking; life-changing.
I expected Lucy to be wonderful. I expected her to be beyond my imagination—but I didn’t expect her to shatter my world like this. I didn’t expect to come to pieces over her.
It’s been three years so I don’t remember everything, and I wonder if Michael shattered me like this. And I wonder how many times I can shatter before I just break. I hope it’s a lot. Or maybe I hope it’s not very many. Because maybe we’re supposed to break. Because there’s pain in this world, and brokenness. And I think it shatters God’s heart too. I’ve been praying lately that HE would give me his heart. Well, maybe he has.
We’ve had reality-checks, sure; but I’m in love. And that’s a dangerous thing. Because when you really love someone you are willing to sacrifice everything for them. I’ve worried before that after Lucy comes home I won’t be able to play by myself—swing by myself—what about reading? And writing? And in the car on the back from the Civil Affairs building, I realized: it didn’t matter. If I could be with Lucy, I would give up anything.
I’m in love. And it’s dangerous. But I don’t even care. I thought I knew what it meant to love her. I was wrong. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to be her sister. It’s not what I expected. But very few things are! And I like her the way she is. I’m glad I was wrong.
I was kind-of caught up in the fact that I WAS GOING TO CHINA at first, and I’m still excited about that, but Lucy is what’s most important.
I remember when I was on the plane, shortly after I’d spent hours trying to sleep next to my comfortably snoring parents, as I was sitting there in a total haze, only sort-of coherent; I thought, “what if this whole trip just goes over my head in a wave of jet-lag and I can’t even enjoy or really remember it?”
And then I realized: it did not matter. The trip isn’t important—it’s what we’re bringing home. ‘Cause Lucy is forever. Forever and ever and ever. That’s what family is all about: foreverness. Always being there for each other.
Lucy is a sister. She belongs; as much as I do. And someday I’ll probably forget sometimes that we had to do without her for eight years. Someday she’ll just there. The seven of us. And it will be the most natural thing in the world.
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Hanna Rothfuss
My name is Hanna Rothfuss. I am 14 and in eighth grade. I have lived in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska for my whole life. My interests are reading and writing, mainly about fantasy and orphan care–often adoption. I have four siblings, two of which are adopted. I’m a homeschooler and a child of God. I pray that all my writing is encouraging, empowering, and brings glory to Him.
You can read more of Hanna’s writing on her blog: Taking My Time.
“When did we start believing that God wants to send us to safe places to do easy things? That faithfulness is holding the fort? That playing it safe is safe? That there is any greater privilege than sacrifice? That radical is anything but normal? Jesus didn’t die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous. Faithfulness is not holding the fort, it’s storming the gates of hell.”
–Mark Batterson
We have been home almost exactly two months. It’s kind of funny how I let myself think that since some issues haven’t surfaced yet—they are not going to. Not! I have seen grief this week, like never before. I was not expecting it, yet somehow I felt prepared for this moment and did not react negatively when the grief was displayed in a manner directed towards me. Emotions erupted over small issues that could have easily been mistaken for something other than grief. Thankfully the Lord has given me the discernment to see beneath the surface of these outbursts.
My response? I did not take an ounce of this personally. I let the emotions purge from a broken heart and sat, just sat (almost silent). I was determined that I would not shrink back in fear of what I was seeing. I sat for hours, watching as ugly outbursts erupted like a volcano. Words and feelings were often directed towards me, as if somehow I was responsible for the pain, yet I could see that I was just a safe place to let it all out.
This is one of those posts that well, might seem like too much information. Still, I share it because for those praying us through you can know exactly what we need and for those who are in the same place or who will be soon, it’s good to be prepared for the grief.
You see as beautiful as adoption is—it is also very ugly.
In order for us to have the privilege of adoption there had to be great loss for our children. This is the part of adoption that tends to be glossed over when we talk about going across the world to become a father (and mother) to the fatherless. It all seems so wonderful and good that surely it should be easy right? They will see just how much we have done for them and wake up every day and thank us from the bottom of their hearts. Only they cannot. They cannot thank us for security when they cannot begin to understand what security is. They cannot begin to trust when their trust has been repeatedly broken.
This is the part of the journey that I had prepared for and understood fully that I would never really be able to prepare for it. I recognize that this is just the beginning. There is more to come, I am certain of it. So, what then? I can fear this grief or trust that the tears, the anger, and the hurt are the path to healing.
Pain precedes comfort. It’s part of the process. It’s the step where the hurt is purged making way for the comfort.
So often when hurts come we don’t want comfort—what we really want is to be comfortable. There is a difference. Comfortable is the state of ease, but God does not promise us that. In fact, he offers us the opposite, “in this world you will have trouble.” When we are grieving, the process of healing comes through feeling the pain. It literally hurts. Comfort comes as we are strengthened through our pain, not necessarily out of it.
So, as I sat yesterday, waiting and watching the torment of emotions purging from my child, I was helpless to remove the pain, but I could be present hoping that in some way it would offer some small comfort in that not-so-comfortable place.
Though I cannot change the circumstances, remove the hurt or even begin to fully understand the pain—at least I can be present. Having a mom to be present in the midst of hurt is something new for these little ones. It is what I have to offer. So I bring it, praying my actions will point towards my comforter—Jesus.
Grief hurts. It hurts to watch and it definitely hurts to experience.
Though I cannot fix it, I am reminded that in the moment when I love my children despite their unlovable behavior, I am the tangible evidence of God’s unconditional love. What better way to teach them about the gospel? After all, unless I live out the gospel message in the day-to-day moments, it remains just a story in a book; but faith lived changes hearts.
I pray that God would strengthen me to be faithful in this journey.
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Tiffany Barber
Tiffany is a wife to Kirk and mother of eight including six biological and two newly adopted from China. With a looming financial crisis at the outset of their recent adoption, God took their family on a journey of faith. Having been home just over ten weeks, they are currently working through the transition phase of their new adoption. Tiffany writes an honest account of challenges of adoption and the redemptive work of her savior Jesus Christ at Extravagant Love. Though her faith and limits have been tested, she points that adoption is paving the way for her to grow and experience God’s presence as never before.
I remember the yellow hue of the hospital lights in Moscow. Not the warm, buttery kind of yellow that warms you up inside, but the dingy kind. The kind too dark to usher the relief that light usually brings into the dark.
I was there with my husband John, a translator, and our newly adopted son Arie. He wasn’t sick. We were there for his visa exam: the one that would grant us permission to go home.
For me and for John this was a momentous step forward: one of the last details to check off our long but dwindling list that would make our adoption complete.
For Arie this trip to the hospital was terrifying. He whimpered in my lap, fighting back the urge to cry with as much courage as his two-year-old body could muster. I held him tight, reassuring him as best I could as a relative stranger with a foreign tongue.
“It’s the smell,” said our translator, trying to explain the fear on our usually happy boy’s face. “It reminds him of getting his shots.”
Indeed, it did smell like alcohol swaps in that waiting area. Our translator whispered some encouraging words to Arie in Russian. He started sucking his thumb feverishly.
When at last it was our turn to see the doctor our boy’s demeanor turned around. The crinkle of the paper on the exam table and the happy tickles from the jolly Russian doctor distracted him from his fear. He laughed! Soon the exam was over and we were on our way back to our temporary apartment. Ever closer to home.
Two years have passed since that day, but I remain forever changed. Forever changed for having witnessed the inner turmoil of a child scared and alone. My husband and I were there with him of course, but oh how little Arie knew of us. He called us Mama and Papa, yet had no way to know what those names truly meant. He didn’t know we were going to be with him forever; to him we might have been two more faces in his ever changing sea of caregivers.
Today Arie knows exactly what Mama and Papa mean. He knows we are forever. He knows he is safe and secure. Just this morning I took him to the dentist and rather than wail in terror as he did at first, he climbed into the dental chair and laid back without hesitation. He giggled as the hygienist “tickled” his teeth with raspberry flavored toothpaste, glancing occasionally in my direction with a goofy grin.
These days when he is scared, Arie searches out my comfort. A normal action for most kids; a milestone for those who have had a lonely start like his. In the night, if he wakes up in the dark he cries out for me and my husband. Those suppressed whimpers we heard at the Moscow hospital have been replaced with loud cries for help. Where my foreign words formerly provided him with little relief, my simple presence is now his favorite comfort. He falls against my chest; the sound of my heart and the whisper of my voice quiet his wailing. He sighs deeply and snuggles in.
This is adoption. This is a picture of redemption. This is something that was lost, found. Broken, put back together. Injured, healed.
Adoption is not easy. Not for the child, not for the parents. When I say that I have been forever changed, I mean it. My eyes have been opened to a world I would rather have not seen. I know that today there are thousands of children just like my son who wait. Hundreds, at least, who have been brought to hospitals not by new parents and not for a simple visa exam, but by a nanny or caregiver- maybe known, maybe not- sick or for surgery or an extended stay.
The caregiver will leave when her shift is over and a new one take her place. Or maybe not. Maybe the child will be left alone, under the care of nurses and doctors who have to check his chart to remember his name. They do their best, I know it- those caregivers and medical staff- but they are not Mom. They are not the one he really needs to walk him through his fear. Not the ones to hold him in his time of need.
We do not adopt out of obligation or sympathy. We adopt because we long to hold the hand of the one who needs us. Because every child deserves to know the love of a family. We adopt because we were made to live for more than ourselves. Because we know what it means to be redeemed. We adopt because in Christ we know what it is to have been chosen.
We love because he first loved us.
Do you have more love to give?
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Jillian Burden is still adjusting to this beautiful thing called motherhood; she and her husband are parents to a son by way of a Russian adoption. While her belly might not have expanded, her heart and her faith sure grew as her family did! You can read about this soul stretching journey to parenthood on her blog.
Some time last week, we celebrated Silas’s “Gotcha Day”. It’s the twenty-something of March and that’s all I can tell you for sure. Oh, and we didn’t really celebrate it at all, only due in part to the fact that I was lying limp and ragged near death’s door.
Gotcha Days are a bit elusive around here. For one thing, Ruby’s Gotcha Day is also her birth day, and it seems unfair for the boys to get two days to her one. For another thing, we were in the hospital ushering Ruby into the world during Calvin’s first Gotcha Day and then Silas’s Gotcha Day falls right around Calvin’s birthday. Mostly, we’re just too busy celebrating regular life with our regular family to specifically honor that one day that they came.
I can hear all of the adoptive Mamas of the world sucking in a collective gasp of air and indignation over my confessed sacrilege of one of Adoption’s holiest days. While they’re already fainting in the aisles, I’ll go ahead and admit that I do not know Ruby’s precise birth weight (even though I was there) and we do not regularly celebrate the Korean New Year. Or Kwanza.
I have struggled, over the years, to cut my groove in this adoption thing and the reason is really simple: I don’t see myself as an “adoptive mom”. I’m just a mom. I’m a big, bad, don’t-dare-mess-with-them-or-you’ll-answer-to-me Mom. They are all I’ve known.They made me a mommy. I’m theirs and they’re mine. I tell them eight thousand times a week how much I love being their Mommy and how thankful I am that we are a family. But that might be over-simplifying a few things.
Silas’s Gotcha Day was hands-down the most traumatic day of my entire life. If I were a method actress and I had to shoot a scene where something terribly emotional was happening, I would conjure up that day in March and shut the set down. I would find myself in a tiny room full of plastic toys that sang songs I couldn’t place. I go there, and it’s hard for me to recover. I see it all again. I can’t forget a thing. I hear it all. I feel once more the fingernail drag of bone-deep pain down the front of my soul. So much happened in that little room. So much that I was not prepared for.
With each adoption, I clung to differing shreds of willful ignorance.
With Calvin, the possibility for trauma and attachment issues hung loose and ghost-like on the horizon. When I got to “those” sections of the book, I closed the cover and went to sleep. I did not want anyone muddying up my rosy future before I’d even seen his face. It seemed too hard and mostly, it seemed like a big waste of time, because he was just a tiny baby.
With Ruby, I read some of the sections, but only because I knew I wouldn’t need them, her being our precious, well-adjusted daughter, born of the most beautiful open adoption.
With Silas, I highlighted a few paragraphs here and there, but we’d be fine because he was in a foster home. He was not institutionalized. He had not experienced trauma. He was strongly attached to his caregiver. Plus, in the grand scheme of life, he was still really quite young.
Of course, half of me knew there was always the chance. I knew that Silas’s age would make it trickier. I knew it would be a different kind of ball game.
But I did not know that our precious son would spend two entire years (and counting) running toward us and away from us at the exact same time.
I did not know that the moment we took him in our arms and ran, the trauma would be inflicted.
I did not know that we would seek help from three different specialists in the span of a single year.
I did not know that a child, so wiry and beautiful, would so fully deplete my every emotional and physical resource on a daily basis.
There are other things I didn’t know.
I didn’t know that my 7 year old son would cry because he misses his birth mom.
I didn’t know that my daughter would be on the receiving end of racism that is clothed in “they mean no harm”.
I see a world opening its heart to the millions of orphans who desperately need a family and I feel immense hope. These kids, no matter where they’re from or what their background is, they need a new last name, a forever one. They need family traditions and trips to Dairy Queen. They need warriors to fight for them and mommies and daddies to kiss and tickle them.
They also need the freedom to feel the hurts that no one else can understand. They need the space to never have to choose between the life that they didn’t get to live and this one right here. They need a free pass from computing that the two could never be mutually exclusive.
With Silas we have had a front-row seat to the heart-busting-up trauma of being taken from all that you know. These are children, and children are smart and intuitive. They understand more than they can verbalize, and what’s left unsaid leaks out in tears, rage, and banged-up self-worth. I’m thankful to have seen it with my own eyes two years ago, because I might never have believed it otherwise. I might have looked past the fight to hold on to a history. I might have remained naive enough to hope that the two older kids did not suffer the exact same losses.
So we hold their fragile hearts with the tenderest hands. We try to anticipate the emotions that shift the weight from one side to another without warning, but we often get it wrong. We feel the slip of trust through the cracks so we reach out and grab it by the ankles. It’s not always practiced or ideal, but we promise to never let them hit the floor.
And maybe that’s what adoptive parenting is like. Maybe it’s a bit like a field day water balloon toss.
Maybe it’s less about memorizing the right answers and more about looking them square in the face during every question, every doubt, every sadness. Maybe it’s leaning in to a kind of pain that we do not know and will never understand just so that they aren’t there leaning alone.
Maybe it’s less about finding the exact right therapist to tell us what to do to fix the problem and more about promising to never tuck the child with the broken heart in at night without a kiss and a hearty sniff to the head.
The books are valuable. They are there to help, and I don’t suggest my path of willful ignorance. But at the end of the day, the bright-spot surprise days and the grim ones where it seems like it will never get better, they are ours and we are theirs.
Maybe our days never will get better. Maybe two years really can turn into forever. But that child knows he is fully loved, all the way to the top, in times of sunshine and weeks of drear, and that is the point of adoption.
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Shannan Martin believes the turns in life that look like failure are often holy gifts, a lesson she chooses to embrace after the bones of her comfy farmgirl life were shattered and rebuilt from the toes up. Together, Shannan and her family sold their dream farmhouse, moved to a disadvantaged area in the city, and adopted a 19-year old felon. Nothing could have prepared her for the joy she would discover as her family began to live the simple, messy, complicated life they were created to live. In walking beside the forgotten and broken and seeing first-hand the ways she so cleanly identified with both, Shannan’s faith was plucked from the mud. She and her jail-chaplain husband now live on the wrong side of the tracks with their four children. She blogs often at Flower Patch Farmgirl.
Doubts and concerns flood his young heart and mind.
Two years come and gone and yet.
Am I really yours forever he asks?
Will you always love me?
Always and forever, dear one.
But my last family didn’t keep me.
They were your foster family, watching over you until it was time.
Time for what?
God’s appointed time for you to join your forever family, us!
But could the government change their mind and take me away?
No, buddy, you are ours, always and forever;
Just as you belong to God, always and forever.
No one can snatch you out of the Father’s hand.
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This Christmas Anthony has really been processing and trying to wrap his brain around the fact that he is with us forever. He has had me hold him like a baby and rock him and reassure him numerous times that he is ours forever. As we come up on the two year anniversary of his joining our family, we see his understanding of forever love growing. As he understands that our love is like the love of our Heavenly Father, unconditional and unchanging, you can see the joy on his face. He still asks these questions because there are clearly still some doubts lodged in mind as he tries to comprehend the love of a family. He was with his foster family in China from about the age of 2 until we adopted him at age 8. I can only imagine how it must have felt to ripped from the only family you have ever known and how confusing that must be. Why did they let him go? Why didn’t they keep him? Is it normal to be passed from one family to another?
Pray for his sweet heart and for the heart of our new little one, Eva. She joins our family in 2015. She turned 4 on January 4, and it was hard passing through that day knowing she is on the other side of the world without us.
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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 another little girl will be joining their family in 2015 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.
This post is shared again as one of our most popular posts but also in honor of Dimples, beloved daughter of one of The Sparrow Fund’s favorite bloggers, who God took home to Himself this past week. Read her wise words and go over to her blog to read about the little girl who blessed their lives and now praises Him in Heaven.
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What would have helped you the most in the early weeks and months of adding a child to your family through adoption or foster care? If somebody had asked you, “What can I do to help?” and you were able to answer anything at all with no shame, guilt, or concern about whether they really would want to do it, what would it have been?
This is what you answered: Bring Food
Many of you stated that having meals delivered allowed more time to focus on all of your children, but also gave you some contact with “the outside world.” It does not have to be dinner, as somebody said, even bringing cut-up fruit would help. Someone else mentioned having dinner brought by friends who then shared the meal and spent the evening with them. One person wrote that when they adopted a baby, friends brought meals, but when they adopted an older child people assumed it wasn’t as demanding and didn’t bring meals. I think we can safely say that every adopting/foster family will be blessed by meals.
We don’t need to make this complicated – simple food is a blessing. I remember a friend bringing us “Breakfast in a Bag,” a gift bag filled with yogurts, juice boxes, muffins and other little treats. Gift cards for take-out were also mentioned – a great idea. After one of our babies was born, a friend brought us Kentucky Fried Chicken and another ordered pizza to be delivered – what a treat that was! Cookie dough ready to be baked, homemade soup or spaghetti sauce, a frozen lasagna, will all be welcomed.
Provide Household Help
Several of you wrote that you needed help with laundry and cleaning. I know we all have a hard time letting people see our mess, but I for one, find it very hard to relax if my house is too messy and chaotic. A friend grabbing the vacuum or folding laundry while we visited was a big help. I had a friend once pick up all of our kids’ dirty laundry, take it home, and return it clean, dry and folded. A group of friends might want to go together to hire regular cleaning help for the first few months after new children join a family, or create a cleaning team themselves.
Along those lines, a number of years ago I was very sick and needed treatments that were an all day event. One day a friend came to my house while I was at the clinic, put new, clean flannel sheets on my bed, washed my other set, and cleaned my house with my older children. I came home and crawled into a clean bed with new sheets and it was pretty much one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. That was nearly nine years ago and I’ve never forgotten it. Friend, if you read this, thank you once again.
Run Errands
Picking things up at the store, or driving children to sports practices and appointments was also mentioned as a great help. If you are already out and about, or if you can add a child or two to the crowd in your car, you will make a big difference for a family adjusting to life with new children. The first year my girls were in school, a friend drove them home every day which not only simplified my life, but relieved my mind. As our little ones grow older, we forget how difficult it is to buckle multiple kids into car seats in order to pick up one child from an event. Waking kids from naps to take an older child to a practice is even worse. This is a great kindness if you are somebody who is already in the car and happy to run a quick errand for a friend with a new child.
Provide Babysitting or Respite
Many of you said that babysitting would have helped, even if it was just somebody being with the kids while you took a nap. Some said they needed help with their other kids while they took new children to multiple appointments. Others said they needed care for their new children while they gave some attention to their original crew. Of course, it all depends upon the unique needs for the family, but this seems to be a need for most families. Weekends are particularly difficult for Dimples, the lack of structure that she enjoys at school just doesn’t transfer to a long Saturday stretching before her. We try to fill her days, but one of the greatest gifts we receive are friends who invite her over for a few hours, or even all day. This Saturday when I’m in Denver, she has big plans with our youth pastor and his wife and she is already looking forward to it.
Respite is a great need for families whose new children have significant challenges. A family can quickly become exhausted when there is constant raging, arguing, and destructive behavior. A friend who understands children from “hard places” and is willing to give the family a 24 hour break, or even a four hour break, will have an impact far beyond what they may imagine.
Show Kindness to the Original Crew
I’m in the process of (slowly) writing an article for Empowered to Connect on “giving voice” to the siblings of children from “hard places.” Our original children struggled with our inability to give them attention and time when we added three new children to our family and one year later added another. They lost us for a number of months as we struggled to figure out how to live this new life.
My friend, Beth, welcomed Ladybug into her family and home, and nearly completely homeschooled her for a year after Dimples came home. Rusty and Ladybug joined the youth group of a local church and we were thankful for the encouragement and positive adult interaction they received. It was so meaningful, that we eventually made that our church our new church home.
Friends who will take the kids and do something fun is also a huge blessing when life at home seems to be a load of work or simply tumultuous. If a family has new children who are raging or crying for hours, the kids may need relief from the stress too. My friend, Sue, began taking Ladybug and Sunshine to the library once a week, which they still look forward to each Friday.
It is very easy to forget how hard this adjustment phase can be for the other children. Reaching out to them, or giving the parents a break from the new kids, so they can enjoy the other children, is a real blessing.
Be Present
I have to admit, I was struck by the prevailing theme of loneliness and isolation in the comments. I hope you will read them yourself, because I can’t express the thoughts as well as the original authors did. Over and over readers expressed that once the initial excitement died down, they felt lonely. The needs of their children may have prevented them from getting out and about; they were stuck at home, alone, living a new life with new children. It is hard to imagine how very isolating this can be.
Several people said they wished friends would just stop by for coffee, even if the house was messy. Others used the words grief and loss to describe how they felt. Some of you said you needed somebody to just listen and not judge or try to cheer you up as you coped with the changes in their lives. Encouragement is needed. If you live a distance away, a phone call, email, or encouraging text may be what a mom needs. Knowing you have not forgotten her, that you are praying may help her through the next hour.
It has been four and a half years since we brought our first adopted children home and for a long time our life needed to become very contained and small. We simply could not go out much; even going to my bookgroup once a month became impossible. I hope you’ll be encouraged to know that this month I am going to my bookgroup once again — and I even read the book.
If you missed this post, be sure to go back and read the great responses from everyone. Please take a moment to add your thoughts – it is not too late.
Thank you for being a great community and sharing my life.
Encourage one another.
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Lisa Qualls
Lisa Qualls, writer of One Thankful Mom, is the mother of 12 children who came to her by both birth and adoption. As she winds her way through the challenges of attachment, trauma, and life, she shares what she is learning in the hope of helping other families. She earnestly believes in the power of God to heal children’s broken hearts and wounded minds.
I’ve been putting off this post long enough. I will try to be authentic and clear, but I have a feeling that only those who have both bio and adopted children will truly be able to understand my sentiments. So, if you don’t fall into this category, please extend me some grace.
The honest first part of my answer is no. From the moment I saw Joni’s picture, I prayed that she would be the one for us. When they placed her in my arms, I thought she was the bravest, cutest, loveliest, most fascinating creature I had ever laid eyes on (sorry, Oakley and Colston, but it’s true). My heart swelled with compassion, curiosity, tenderness, and protectiveness. Those days spent in China were amazing as we watched a petrified, catatonic little baby slowly open up and begin to accept our love and care…then, we got home.
The truth was, she was a stranger to us, and we were strangers to her. She had strange orphanage behaviors and deep emotional needs. This was different from my biological babies who from the moment they came out felt familiar and seemed to automatically know who we were. We didn’t have to work on bonding; it came naturally and was already there to some degree. They were blank slates ready and willing to trust us to care for all their needs. There IS something to the biological connection. I believe it was created by God and meant to assist us through the sleepless nights and projectile vomiting. Even at my worst newborn-moments, my heart had an inexhaustible reservoir of love and compassion for my babies. I didn’t have this automatically with Joni; and so, the tough moments were difficult. The fun, happy times were incredible, beyond my dreams (I can’t get or give enough kisses from that child). But, if she was excessively fussy or clingly or mean to my other children, I really struggled in my feelings towards her. This deficit often made me feel guilty because even if I still acted appropriately loving toward her (and I have to confess that sometimes I didn’t; thankfully, most times I did), I knew my heart wasn’t matching that action. I mean, what kind of monster was I? I knew to expect these behaviors. And, actually, in my “professional” opinion, Joni was doing at least average in her transition period. But, this wasn’t something I could just grit my teeth and change or read books about and fix. So, I prayed that God would give me a true mother’s heart for Joni so that I could love her just as much as her biological mother would have if she had kept her…even more.
So before you call CPS, let me give you the second part of my answer: “No, not yet. But, each day, my mother’s love grows more and more.” God is in the process of answering my prayers, and this journey of bonding continues in a positive direction. It’s been under 3 months since we’ve had Joni, and I’m relieved and grateful that what didn’t come “naturally” is coming “supernaturally.” I can see that shortly, even when things are tough, Joni will stir up the same feelings and emotions that my other two children do. In fact, most days she does. The moments I find myself struggling, I now handle better with more hope and less judgment.
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Lynne Prinzing
Lynne has been working in the field of international adoption for 11 years but now enjoys her main role as “Manager of Domestic Affairs.” She lives on a camp property operated by the Christian outreach ministry Young Life where her husband works as the Guest Services Coordinator. Her three children (Oakley 6, Colston 2, and Joni 1) are a great source of joy and growth in her life. Joni joined their family through adoption from China this past February, and everyone is busy learning and stretching as they adjust to a family of five.
Lydia is 2 today. And, I didn’t expect to feel the way I do.
For a Raudenbush child, a birthday means a bedroom door decorated with streamers and balloons when he or she wakes up in the morning. It means a meal of their choice, some fun activities, some sort of party, gifts, a celebration of them all day long. In fact, they think about it pretty much year round, looking forward to their day, making lists of game ideas, themes, gift ideas.
And, for me, their birthdays mean remembering. I remember being pregnant with them and my labor and delivery. I remember those first moments holding them, studying their faces, memorizing their cry.
So, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I feel like I do today.
We are celebrating Lydia with the streamers, balloons, gifts, a special meal, and all that. But, I am also grieving that I cannot remember those first moments with my child. I didn’t know them.
A sweet friend gave birth to her second baby last week, a beautiful baby girl. Another friend and I went to the hospital the next day to see her and meet the baby. The mommy was glowing as she shared her birth story. We doted on that little girl, admiring every wrinkle of her brow and how sweetly folded up she still was. We looked at her expressions closely—“Oh, I think she just looked like her big brother,” “Did you see that? She really looked like her daddy when she made that face.”
I’m thinking of that visit today, wondering what it was like for my daughter’s birth mother today 2 years ago. I know I can’t romanticize the event. I do not know what her situation was; I just know that she and the birth father could not keep her. But, I do wonder. I wonder if they loved her the moment they first saw her. I wonder if she nursed her and cradled her close. I wonder if they saw themselves in her and laughed about her strength even as a newborn. I wonder what they named her.
I cannot tell Lydia today how long I was in labor with her, what the doctors said when she was born, how Daddy cried when she finally was born and she screamed for her first breath.
But, I can tell her what we were doing that day.
We joined the special needs program. On March 10, 2 years ago, after waiting nearly 2 years in the healthy child program, Mark and I sent an email to our agency with our application to join their program to adopt a special needs child—a step of faith we quietly took. We told them: “We feel like we need to open to the child God has for us. We do not know if she is in the sn program or not. But, we are opening ourselves to that possibility.” In another email I sent that day to an adoptive mom, I said, “We want to be open to what God may have for us, but this sure is scary.” And, it was.
I cannot tell Lydia about her first moments. I long to know what they were but have accepted that I most likely never will. But, I can share with her our story on her birthday and how God laid it on our hearts that very day to join the program that would lead us eventually to be a family.
We prayed this morning together as a family as we always do. We thanked God for Lydia, for her life, and for her birth family. We thanked Him that they protected her, that they cared for her as they did and made sure she’d be cared for 15 days later when they knew they could not do that any more. We prayed for them today that if they knew what day it was and if they are thinking about their little girl and missing her, that the Lord our God would comfort them and somehow allow them to know in their hearts that she is loved and secure.
Happy birthday, our sweet Lydia. Thank you, God, for this child.
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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 has a Master’s degree in counseling and has been working with adoptive families since she and her husband Mark founded the The Sparrow Fund. 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.
There’s something pretty cool about us. You and I look pretty different. You’ve got dimples; I’ve only got wrinkles. You have a freckle on your tummy; the only fun thing I have on my tummy is a turtle tattoo. You’ve got long dark hair; I’ve got short brown hair with highlights of gray. You’ve got Chinese eyes that look like crescent moons; I’ve got big eyes that scrunch up when I look at you because you always make me smile. I like that we’re different. We go perfectly together, and our differences make us a really colorful and fun pair.
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