I wanted to share about one thing I learned in helping our kids transition into our care… and how fear plays a part in those transitions. And as part of my theme for this blog is “perspective” I want to share how I experienced a huge perspective change in the reality and nature of fear.

I wrote about all the ways I tried to help our big boy transition into our care… and really I think we did a knock out job of helping him feel safe, secure and that we love him and he could trust us. In some ways, his transition was far more easy for me to understand and feel compassion for than it was for me to understand with Thea. I think I saw the physical fear in his face and eyes when I met him. He really did wonderful and had very little problems adjusting to us and our new role in his life.

That brings me to where fear took hold of me. We were always really uncertain if adding 2 new kids was a “good idea”… it was a subject of months of weighing and wrestling with… there were so many up sides for our kids (the new ones), a few downsides, and we knew a bigger and heavier commitment and responsibility on our shoulders and parents. Then there was always the thought, “What if we get a child that needs more than we are able (or feel capable) of giving them?” It was not an easy choice. But at some point early last summer we realized that there was a series of events that had lead us to both of our kids, and we had tried to find other alternatives (particularly for our daughter) but all fell through nearly immediately. We were certain she was meant to be our daughter.

But, then again, after meeting our sweet girl in September I had a bunch of doubts all over again if we could be the kind of parents and family that *she* needed. It was as if all those fears and uncertainty returned to me with a vengeance. It was almost like drowning in fear! For one, I had gone home with a sweet little boy who really made our life easy… we enjoyed, for those 3+ weeks, a family-life that was almost simple. And I liked it. We knew that we’d most likely return for Thea in January… when we were ready and able to give her the time and attention we thought she would need… but then almost immediately we had another court date for her! I was immobilized in this fear that “I didn’t have what it took” to be a mom of 5 or to be her mom!

I was also worried about getting on the plane to go back because I thought that we’d lose our court date again, for legitimate reasons due to circumstances that were taking place in country at that time. I was so worried and not wanting to go back that Tim had to make a deal with me like you would an 8 year old going to camp, his “deal” was if after one week things had not worked out I could come home, and he had already booked that ticket so I knew he was telling the truth. I feared the unknown, all the hard things I had to do on my own and I felt completely unable to skillfully take care of the possible problems that I could potentially come up while I was there! Then there was Thea and all of the hard things we had dealt with when I had cared for her the first time.

Now I feel really silly about it all… silly, that I should have known God would work it all out and that this was never up to us, but on His timing and in His will!… but all I could feel was that overwhelming dread and fear!

But… the fear was real, even if the circumstances were just possibilities.

Walking through that fog of fear I some how found my way back to her and “just did the next thing” for about 5 days. After those days I realized that instead of a screaming terrified baby, I had a really sweet, and happy baby that wanted me… as her mom. All of the logistics and issues in court worked themselves out… perfectly. Amazingly. I was humbled.

For three days after that I felt like I had been hit by a truck… it might have been jet lag, a baby that was up a few times at night or something else, but I really just had to lay around and rest because I felt so depleted! I even worried that maybe I had gotten a “bug” or was beginning to get malaria… but I didn’t. I was just wiped out… I now think it was from all the stress and fear that I had surrounding me that week or two prior.

Fear is such a weird thing.

It is an emotion, but it has physical, mental and even the ability to change how you view people and circumstances. I physically felt different during that week, my stomach in constant knots, feeling hyper, unable to sleep and unable to relax and even slightly suspicious and paranoid.

I have never ever felt those things before in my life… or at least to that degree and in that overwhelming of a way! There were times I had to say, “Marci, this just doesn’t make sense what you are feeling! You need to think other thoughts…” and I would pray.

And you know, eventually, I realized that must be exactly how sweet Thea felt for sometime (if not much longer). When I realized that that is what she was going through I immediately felt so so broken at my inability to have understanding for her! I feel so glad I had that horrible week of fear just to understand how she must have felt too!

I understood her restlessness at night, her fits of screaming, her drowsiness all day long and her desire just to “shut off” and zone out. She was afraid! She was dreading the unknown, she felt suspicious and untrusting of me and others, she felt wiped out and even potentially sick feeling. And when we moved rooms it was highly scary and alarming to her because she didn’t know what that would mean for her!

Again, I am so so thankful that I went through that horrible week… it wasn’t the week that was really horrible, but my fear in the unknown of what that week might hold.

In one of the books that we read on adoption that seemed to have the most “sense” and logic to it, the author talks about how it is one of the most important tasks for parents of adopted kids to help them have “felt safety”, it isn’t that it is truly unsafe around them, but that they perceive more fear in situations, more insecurity and that our job is to help them understand and feel safe in our care!

That is what God did for me. While I was in the airport, half way there, I sort of had a breakdown… I just didn’t want to get on that last plane to UG… I wanted to run home! I was internally wrestling with God saying, “God, I want to go home! I know (because that was what fear was telling me) I will get to UG and be told the judge will not show up, I’ll wait for weeks all alone and I am not even sure we should be bringing Thea home… I am so afraid… I can’t do this on my own! Why does your Word not tell me what I should do?” I felt this voice say, “David… David was afraid… look to his words.”

I opened Psalm 1

“1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers. judgment,
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.”
Every word was like cool water to me, it calmed me, gave me perspective and peace. Every day of my 26 day trip I read the next Psalm in order… every day it addressed the need or fear I had for that day! It was “felt safety” for me. It reminded me I have a Father who cares, provides, is trust-worthy and in control… and I need not fear.

The last verse I read on concluding my 26 day second trip was Psalm 26:12,
“My feet stand on level ground; in the great congregation I will praise the LORD.”

That is what our God does for us. He helps us overcome fears and to stand on the level ground of Him… so that we can give Him glory! That is also what we are to do for our kids.

How can we be that kind of parent for our kids?
Do we brush off their fears as silly or do we help address their fears as something real, but help them see the situation through that new perspective?

______________________________

Marci Miller and her husband Tim live and work at a camp for socially and economically disadvantaged youth, many of whom are foster or former foster children. This is their 8th summer at CBX and their 11th summer in camp ministry.They currently have 5 children, ages 7, 6, 5, 4 and 2 years old. The 6 and 2 year olds came home through the miracle of adoption late in 2011. Marci blogs about their adventures in parenting, ministry, homeschooling and adoption at She Can Laugh…

This special season of adjustment for our family, a birthday was kind of a big deal to get through.  For Keturah, it probably held some special challenges, but nothing that she didn’t make it through with grace.  She’s adjusted to the big sister role beautifully.

It’s the mama in this equation that’s struggling. 

Patrick’s presence at Urbana undoubtedly added to how difficult the day was for me in degree, but I somehow think that what I found hard would have been hard had he been here too.

“Hard?” you ask, “how was celebrating Keturah’s birthday hard, exactly?”

Now before I go on to tell you exactly what I mean by hard, let me first state that I share this side of my story not only to acknowledge the less-than-picture-perfect moments of our lives, but more specifically to share some of those moments of our lives post-adoption.  I’ve been honest about adoption issues here before.  It’s not easy.  

I also desire to make perfectly clear that most of the ‘issues’ I speak of lie with me and not Marilla.  She’s got her own issues, to be sure, but what I’m writing about today concerns my personal response to the reality of parenting an adopted toddler at this stage in the game.

Please do not mistake my self-disclosure as anti-adoption sentiment.  It’s not.  I’m being honest too, when I say that I love Marilla, and would absolutely adopt her all over again. 

Okay, now to spell it out.  Celebrating Keturah’s birthday was:

H.  AR.  D.

H — Harried, but Holding it together.

I started off the day just feeling pulled in too many directions.

My desire was to celebrate Keturah’s birthday by making her the center of attention.  To date in our family life, it has proven to be a reasonable expectation that the birthday girl or boy gets mom and dad’s attention, and is generally given preferential treatment.  Because that is our custom, the non-birthday child has enjoyed taking part in this celebration, knowing that his or her day is coming.

Marilla, being new to our family, and over the last four months being the primary recipient of most preferential treatment, has no concept of what it means to celebrate a sibling.  Why didn’t she get to blow out the candles?  She doesn’t know that she’s got a day of her own marked on a different month of the calendar, and doesn’t realize that there is no injustice, and no threat to her position in preferring jiejie for a day.

Marilla needed explanation and guidance through every element of Keturah’s party.  This kind of teaching opportunity I would have been glad to seize during another friend’s birthday celebration—staying close by, whispering instructions and affirmations into her ear as we navigated new territory together—but on Keturah’s birthday, Marilla’s needs just served to make me feel pulled in the wrong direction . . . away from my birthday girl.

I ended up with Marilla on my hip or at my side for the majority of the morning (while administrating party games, and barking all kinds of orders at my poor sister), when I would have preferred to draw Keturah in under my arm.  The presence of other moms and my sister’s help (she cleaned up at least one accident while I got a wet little girl to the potty), allowed things to go as smoothly as they could given my own internal tug-of-war, and I managed to keep these growing emotions under control for the morning.

By Marilla’s naptime, though, as my sister manned the older two over lunch, I continued to struggle.

AR — Angry & Resentful.

With the party behind us, I thought that I’d be able to have some quiet moments with Keturah—maybe talking about her party, maybe playing with a few of her presents.  An over-tired Marilla required a nap time bottle from me, while my sister manned lunch and party-clean-up for the older two.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I did not do well with Marilla’s nap time needs.  I felt she’d robbed me of special time with Keturah, and I took it out on her.  I was impatient as she took her bottle.  When she had trouble settling (and remember, she’d spent the morning being overstimulated) I just felt angry.  I demanded that she “relax” and “stop moving around,” and “go to sleep”.  I resented her presence and her needs because they seemed maliciously in direct opposition to my own desires.

I did eventually get to leave a sleeping Marilla’s side, but I must have carried that anger and resentment along with me.  It only escalated when a premature wake up dictated that I excuse myself from listening to Keturah’s pretend play with her stuffed animals in her kitty-cat box to tend to Marilla.

D — Desperate.

I don’t like to admit to anger or resentment.  Or desperation.  But I’m glad that the range of intense emotions that I felt on that afternoon lead me to that place of admitting that it was so hard that it hurt, and that I just couldn’t hold it together on my own.

As I rocked an unhappy and over-tired two-year-old in my arms and desperately prayed aloud over her, she finally settled again.  At the end of all of my own resources, I crawled to the opposite side of our bed, and just cried my heart out to heaven.  No words.  Just tears.

It’s uncomfortable to be desperate.  And I loathe the process of getting there.  I hate that I don’t learn enough from these cycles: holding-it-together –> anger & resentment.  I want to be living there in that final place of desperation that’s so inevitable at this particularly challenging stage of life.

It’s in the desperate moments that I realize how high and unreasonable my own expectations are, and how it’s not my job to meet every need of each my children all of the time—however much I’d like to.

So, yes, Keturah’s birthday was really, really hard.  That’s the rest of the story.  The honest truth.

Funny how that stuff doesn’t end up in the birthday pictures, somehow, but I would hate to forget it.

Kim met and married her husband Patrick while living and working in Asia in 2004.  Their first two children, a son and a daughter, both born in Beijing, came along shortly after.  Their adopted daughter, Marilla, was born in Henan province in 2010, then joined their family through the China adoption program as a two-year-old this past fall.  You can catch snippets of the Smiths’ day-to-day lives at home in China, on their family blog, Asiaramblin.

My post where I described the sometimes rocky journey of attaching to my new daughter evidently hit a nerve. I can now say without a doubt that I am not the only one to experience this. In fact, I’m pretty comfortable asserting that my experience is far closer to the norm than the love at first sight adoption fairy tale that everyone imagines to be the norm. And because I think it is so important, I will repeat it again, attaching to a new child, even a child who is thrilled to be in a new family, can be hard. (I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but the more I write about this, the more I hear from or hear about others who struggle with this. If I have to be a one-woman campaign to say they are not the only ones, then I will.)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a parent who struggles with the absence of happy, lovey-dovey feelings. There is nothing to feel ashamed about because this is a normal reaction which many adoptive parents have. Adding guilt to the whole cocktail of emotions that a new parent experiences is not helpful and probably is more than a little hurtful. Guilt and shame can cause even more avoidance toward building a relationship because every time a parent interacts with the child and those warm fuzzy feelings don’t appear, guilt and shame are ready to jump into the breach. Trying to avoid feeling these negative emotions often means avoiding the child who is seen as the cause of them.

But the child is not the cause. The child is merely trying to make sense of the sometimes terrifying situation he or she has been thrust into. None of us is at our best when confused and scared. None of us is at our best when thrown into a new situation where we are unsure of the rules. None of us is at our best when trying to communicate in another language, especially one we have no familiarity with at all. These are the things we have to remember every time an annoying behavior repeats itself. We are allowed to help ease the child out of that behavior, but we aren’t allowed to act as though the child is doing it on purpose, solely to annoy us.

And this is where the hard part comes in. We are the ones who invited this child into our home… annoying habits and all. We are the ones who have to be the grown-ups, whether we like it or not. This means embracing the idea that love is a lot bigger than how we feel. We need to take it upon ourselves to do the things which are going to help us to love our child. Even if we don’t feel like it. Even if the child doesn’t respond. Even if it takes more than a few months… or years. It’s not easy. It takes a good support system, lots of rest, and the grace of God, but it can be done.

But most importantly of all, there is hope. If you continue to act lovingly toward your child; be careful not to avoid him or her; work to have more positive interactions than negative ones; smile; and get professional help if it is called for, one day you will wake up and see that small person (or not so small as the case may be) come into your room and you will be surprised to find that your heart is flooded with love at their mere presence.

You will make mistakes. You will lose your patience, You will have set backs. But keep trying. Nothing is too hard for God. Ask Him to help you to not harden your heart towards your child, but for you to find how to love him instead.

__________

My relationship with H. continues to grow. I try to be careful to get enough sleep and rest which gives me the patience that I need. One thing I am making myself do is to only have positive thoughts about her… thoughts that dwell on any negatives I try to be quick to shut down and think about something else. Learning to love and attach is sometimes more a battle of the mind than anything else.