Adoption and Faith Archives - Page 5 of 44

July 27, 2015July 18, 2015

One step forward, two steps back . . . the attachment roller coaster

I love my sweet girl.

I love the sound of her laughter.

I love it when her face breaks into a smile.

I love hearing her precious little voice sing and prattle endlessly.

I love lying beside her as she falls asleep, looking at me with droopy eyes, whispering, “wo ai ni”.

I love you too, dearest one.

I hate seeing fear in her eyes.

I hate that she can’t quite comprehend yet that we are her forever home. No one will ever take her away. But in time and by God’s grace she will understand.

Some days are good, some days are bad.

Some days are easy, some days are hard.

Right now, I am her safety blanket.

Am I tired most of the time?

Of course, but just to see her smile when I enter the room makes my heart melt and the weariness fall away.

Sometimes my wrist tendinitis flares up from holding her all the time, but I don’t care. I cherish every minute holding her. I missed out on so many.

She is a precious gift from God and we are so grateful that God choose to let us walk with her during this time.

She grows in leaps and bounds each day. She parrots our English phrases with astonishingly excellent diction and she learns the meaning of new English words daily, but without Anthony, we would be even more lost in the sea of miscommunication.

As her two month anniversary with us approaches, I am amazed at her progress. She is right where she should be. She is learning to trust, rest and relax in our love.

One day soon, I pray she will know and comprehend the love of Father in heaven. He has great plans for her. I can’t wait to see them unfold.

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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.

July 20, 2015July 20, 2015

Our Weighted Blanket {Summer Flashback}

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 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.

July 13, 2015July 13, 2015

Your permission slip

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.

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July 6, 2015July 6, 2015

6 Months

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.

June 26, 2015

The Healing Power of Predictability

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.

June 22, 2015June 5, 2015

The Other Mother

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.

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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.

June 18, 2015May 16, 2022

Her Inheritance {Summer Flashback}

“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.

June 16, 2015June 16, 2015

Terminology {Does It Matter?}

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.

June 5, 2015

Did They Ever Notice {Summer Flashback}

Miss A has been with us for about 4 months now. As time goes on, as I watch her playing and interacting, I find myself wondering, did they ever notice?

I mean, she spent 7.5 months in an orphanage being cared for by nannies. It was, as far as I can tell, a really good orphanage. We visited it and got a tour, and it was lovely–for an orphanage. It was clean and bright, and the directors and nannies were cheerful and welcoming and friendly. But, it was still an orphanage. She was still cared for by nannies. And that makes me wonder, did they ever notice?

Miss A likes to feel a blanket or burp cloth with her fingers as she drinks her bottle. Propped up in the crook of my leg so we can see each other face to face, her hands are in constant motion. Seeking out and then rubbing and feeling the piece of cloth. Did they ever notice this?

As her eyelids get droopier and droopier drinking her bottle, she will usually begin lifting the cloth to her face. Covering her eyes, then dropping it down, then bring it back up to her face. She will grab a corner and rub the side of her face as her eyelids close. Did they ever notice?

Should she finish the bottle before drifting off to sleep, she has been known to almost nibble on the fuzzy side of her blankie to fall asleep. Did they ever notice? And, if so, did they ever give her a soft cloth to feel as she drank her bottle?

We first noticed this in China. She would hold her shirt or my shirt as she drank her bottle. Then she would grab her bib or burpcloth. So, when we came home, I got out a blankie square with a silky side and a furry side. She loves it. Peeking in at her at night we will find her laying on it like a pillow. And, it sometimes makes me sad. Sad because I wonder what she did at night when she was (presumably) all alone in her bed with nothing to grasp or cuddle or snuggle.

In all likelihood, given what I know about orphanages, given that the nannies (caring though they be) are taking care of many children at a time, I know that they probably didn’t notice this quirk of Miss A. They didn’t have time to notice. They couldn’t notice.

Instead they had to focus on taking care of each child’s basic needs. Feeding, changing diapers, and sleeping. Straight forward caretaking. Judging from Miss A, they seem to have done a fantastic job of caring for her basic needs while in the orphanage. On Gotcha Day she was a well-fed, healthy, happy, clean, chubby cleft baby who had already been given her first surgery. Her basic needs were well met.

But, just getting your basic needs met isn’t what we were designed for. God created us to know Him and to be intimately known. And He sets the example for us–He knows His children intimately. He knows how many hairs we have on our head. He knows our deepest fears and struggles. He knows our gifts and talents. He knows what makes us laugh. He knows how we laugh. He knows our heart and soul and mind and spirit, for He created us. He notices it all.

There is so much more to be had than to just have your basic needs met. So, God places children in families with parents who, if they are intent on doing it, will know those children intimately. Through relationships and time and noticing we get to know one another intimately. Think of your closest friends, your spouses, your family. What makes those relationships so valuable is that each of those people knows you intimately. They can “read you like a book.” They know your quirks and your looks and your fears and your joys. And, isn’t that a comfort–to be known intimately?

This is what has brought me so much joy from being a mother. To spend every day with my daughters has given me the opportunity to know my girls intimately. Knowing that Miss E will probably need extra reassurance when she hears a loud car go roaring down our street. Knowing that Miss A likes to crawl around with a block in each hand. Noticing and knowing the little things, the looks, the cries, the giggles, the quirks. I love knowing–really knowing–my girls.

So, as I watch Miss A, as I study her expressions and movements and quirks, it makes me sad to realize that they probably couldn’t notice them. She had great basic care for the first 7.5 months of her life. And, for that, I am forever grateful. But, she didn’t have the care of a Mommy and Daddy. She didn’t have someone who took notice of how much she liked soft blankies and, in turn, made them available to her. She didn’t have someone who knew her intimately.

Now, she does.

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June 1, 2015May 31, 2015

Why You Should Never Adopt An Older Child…And Why We Did Anyway

“Whatever you do, don’t adopt from foster care. That’s scary stuff.”

Ten years ago, when adoption became more than a hypothetical thought for us, a good friend tried to warn me. She’d been a social work major, and she’d come away scared. I believed her.

Two years later, we adopted a healthy, white newborn through an agency and brought him home from the hospital.

When I felt like we’d adopt again several years ago, and we were not ready to start over with an infant, I talked to another friend about the possibilities we’d considered. Foster care, special needs, HIV-positive. All words that concerned her.

“Why would you put yourself in that position? Why would you ask for that?”

Two years later, we adopted a four-and-a-half-year-old little girl with trauma history who had spent years in foster care.

Thinking back, her concerns were legitimate.

Why would we put ourselves in a position to care for a child with HIV or other special needs? Why would we volunteer to parent a child whose history could mean difficult behaviors and emotional baggage that might last for a lifetime? Why would we get on the adoption roller coaster again?

I have two answers that may seem simplistic at first glance.

First, because kids are worth it. All of them. They’re worth the fears and inconvenience and changes to their new families. They’re worth changing your parenting style to address their needs. They’re worth therapy appointments and grocery bills. They’re worth your tears on the bathroom floor as you question what in the world you’ve done and if it will ever get better. They are worth it.

Second, obedience is worth it. James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” I don’t take that verse to mean everyone is called to foster or adopt. But for us, that’s exactly what it meant. Through His Word, circumstances, prayer, and other people, God made it clear to us over the course of years that this was His plan for our family. To do anything differently would have been disobedience. I know this is different for non-believers, but for us, knowing that we were being obedient was what kept us going on the hardest days. And it was enough.

Why did we volunteer to love and pour our hearts into hurting children? (And yes, children from infant adoption can hurt just as much as older children). Why do our foster parent friends take in filthy, hungry children in the middle of the night? Why do they stay up with screaming babies who were born addicted to meth? Or love teenage foster kids whose behaviors are difficult to say the least, even knowing that love is not enough to heal their hurts?

Because they’re worth it.

And although obedience is costly, it’s worth it too.

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Matt and Becca write about marriage, parenting, and life through the lens of a married couple, parenting team, and pastor and professional counselor. They share hope and restoration by giving a glimpse into their lives- the failures, the successes, and the brokenness and beauty of everyday. You can read more of their writing at WhitsonLife.

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Category: Adoption and Faith