As our travel to China approached, I was a bit obsessed with reading books about adoption. Adoption and attachment, sleep, and eating.
Obsessed.
Then, we met Grace.
I’ve read them all. I have. But, when she was finally with us. It was time to throw the books out the window and go with the heart.
That first week in China. She slept. It was GREAT. Other families in our travel group were fighting with the kids to get them to go to sleep, to get them to stay asleep, to have them sleep soundly (mind you…they were all older than Grace). I was feeling blessed. We were sleeping.
What if by some cruel twist of fate I woke up one morning to find that the tables were turned, and my beautiful and perfect Lily were lying in an orphanage, somewhere in Eastern Europe?
What if she had lived out the past 16 months of her life with no mommy and daddy to love her, no brothers and sisters to dote on her every day?
What if instead, she spent most of her waking hours in a crib, staring at the slats of the bars and playing with only her fingers or feet for comfort? What if she cried herself to sleep at night, because there was nobody who cared or had the time to attend to her when she woke up scared or lonely or sad?
What if she didn’t eat when she was hungry, go to sleep with a full belly, or have her basic needs met with loving care?
What if my Lily stayed in that orphanage for many years, never leaving it to see the world around her? What if the only connection she had to the outside world was an occasional trip to the playground on the orphanage grounds…but for the most part she was locked away, an outcast of society?
What if she never received the help she needed through therapy, never had the opportunity to develop skills, to grow, to learn.
What if she never got the medical attention she needed when she was first born, had attention given to that tiny hole in her heart that doctors watched so carefully. What if she survived simply because she existed, devoid of any quality of life?
What if she were never celebrated for the treasure that she is, never nurtured or praised or adored? What if there were no parties or gifts or songs to commemorate that beautiful day she made her entrance into the world, nothing that distinguished that day from any other day of her secluded and monotonous life?
What if, after being shut away in that orphanage for five years, she woke one morning to find herself being whisked away from the only home she’d ever known- however stark or isolated- to the horror that is the Institution? What if, because of the inability of any 5 year old, let alone one with cognitive delays, she could not comprehend what had happened to her? What if there were no one to explain to her why her head was being shaved, her tiny arms tied to a crib, or where her friends had gone, and why no one was coming back for her to save her from the nightmare that was now her life?
I would beg, borrow, and obsess myself to make sure she knew love and felt valued and wanted. If Lily were alone on the other side of the ocean, I would find her and rescue her no matter what the cost or how much dignity needed to be compromised.
She’s no more deserving of the fate that awaits her than my child.
Or yours.
She is a beautiful and precious treasure, waiting for someone to recognize her value.
Albina is an orphan in Eastern Europe. Because she was born with Down syndrome, she is considered a burden to her society, an outcast to be hidden away.
An anonymous family has committed to matching dollar-for-dollar donations for her up to $5,000. So far, through the generosity of so many like-minded people, she now has $5,332.50 in her grant fund on Reece’s Rainbow; with the matching funds, her grant fund for her adoption is over $10,000.
I have a feeling her sweet little face is enough. But, due to the nature of international adoptions, it’s going to take a pile of money for someone to rescue her. And,
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)
It was Easter, but I didn’t want to celebrate. My head knew the truth of new life, but my heart felt like I was living in a valley of death.
Every Easter we had sung songs about Jesus conquering death and rejoiced at His resurrection. Normally it was a glorious celebration, but not that year.
An outsider might have scoffed. I wasn’t dealing with real death, thankfully. Instead, an avalanche of daily deaths was burying me. My heart was breaking over the end of a ministry at church I loved.
We thanked God for our adopted daughters, but their severe needs forever ended my family the way it was. And because of those needs, I was having to close doors of opportunity that brought me great joy. One “death” after another faced me.
As I stood that Easter Sunday, arms raised in pleading more than praise, with tears streaming down my face, I begged God, “I know You raised Jesus from the dead. But will You conquer my death? Will You redeem what feels like death here and now?”
The power of my emotions poured out in waves of grief.
Before then, I had not admitted to myself that what I faced felt like death. But there it was. Putting a name to it helped. The song ended, I dried my tears, and the service continued. No lightning bolt flashed, but my heart felt a little lighter.
In the coming weeks I allowed myself to feel the grief of loss. When sadness swept over my heart, I returned to my same questions: God, I know You can, but will You conquer my death?
I prayed for new life to come into my areas of “death.”
Interestingly, a month later I went to a conference where God opened floodgates of inspiration and ideas. I left more excited about the future than I’d been in years. One day that summer, I realized God had eased my heart over the loss of the ministry I had loved.
In late summer, God handed me an incredible gift of another ministry job that I could manage in my crazy schedule. In early fall we found a therapist who could help our family with one of our daughters. Within months of my pleading prayer, it became obvious God was resurrecting what seemed dead.
While my circumstances weren’t changed in every situation, my heart was comforted. My hope was resurrected.
Jesus showed me He is the Conqueror of all death: here in this world and forever. God answered my question and prayer with a resounding “Yes!” Yes, He can and will conquer my death. I don’t have to wait for eternal life to experience my own resurrection of the heart. And neither do you.
Dear Lord, I praise You today for Your power over all death
Being a parent to a child with special needs is hard. No getting around it. No parent would tell you otherwise. As I sit and reflect this morning after a heart wrenching physical therapy session with our daughter Macy, I am at a loss. I feel such an imbalance and unrest. On one side Macy hates therapy. She is delayed in her physical growth and in her gross motor skills. She is 14 months old (11 months on the charts because of being a preemie). She sits up, army crawls, babbles, smiles, communicates exactly what she wants and is sad when she hears the word no. Last week she began standing, holding onto furniture. This was the first time EVER that she would bear weight on her feet. Even standing on our laps or at other times over the past year, she has never put her feet down and jumped or bounced. She just pulls them up and wants to sit. Always has. So, when she started to stand, I became very hopeful. She can do it. We are seeing something that she can do. It put an end to the questioning of her physical ability to stand and walk eventually. But after a week of working on standing and loving it, Macy is going backwards. Mommy doesn
Originally posted on their blog on February 2, 2o11…
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5 1/2 years ago, Jon and I made the decision to adopt a little girl from China. We requested a healthy infant thinking we would see her sweet face in about 1 year. If you have been following our story you would know that that one year stretched into 5 long years.
Several years ago, Jon and I started talking about switching to special needs. It never seemed right at the time. Our motive seemed to be to just speed along the process. Special needs seemed like such a scary thing to bring into our home. Each time we looked into it we stepped back and decided to wait it out.
Then, in October of 2009, I saw a picture of a little girl who shared my birthday. God broke my heart over this girl. I knew our family was not capable of taking care of this little one, but God showed me that we could venture out into special needs. I remember sitting on the counter in the kitchen crying over this little one and trying to explain to Jon the depth of my feelings. It was time to make the change. God had worked in our hearts.
We sent in our medical checklist and prepared our hearts. To be honest, I was terrified. Were we doing the right thing? Would I regret switching to special needs when the time came when we would have gotten a referral for a healthy child? These fears would creep up over the next few months.
Then, we got an email. The day that our lives changed. The day we saw our daughter for the first time. We claimed her immediately and prepared to bring her into our lives.
Do I have regrets?
Today would have been the day I would have seen the face of that healthy infant. As I sit and contemplate that fact I know in the depths of my being that I have NO regrets. Lily is a blessing from God that I could have never imagined. She is joy, love, happiness, and the one who holds me and says, “my mama.”
I am her mama.
There are no regrets.
Praise God!
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Liz Grabowski
Liz has been married for 15 years to her best friend. She has two bio sons, one adopted daughter, and a son and daughter waiting in China. Her days are filled by home schooling and loving on her kids. God has been so faithful during their adoptions. They are continually blessed. You can follow their current adoptions on her blog.
I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised! We have actually received no negative comments to our announcement that we are adopting again.
That includes negative comments from family as well!
Well, at least none that were made directly to US.
:inhale:exhale:smile:
But, we have had lots of questions. Mostly the regular ones:
How expensive is it?
What made you decide to do this again? (asked with true sentiment)
How many kids do you have now? Do they all get along?
How do you find the time and energy?
Here is my favorite funny one: I guess China expects you to come back every year now?
And then I received the most profound comment the other day.
Ellie's card for her classmates for Valentine's Day
Naturally, given the holiday we just celebrated, my thoughts have gravitated to the subject of love. It’s such a basic human need, but one I took for granted in many ways until Ellie became our daughter. Most of you who visit our blog are aware of the state of social deprivation in which we found her. I cannot let my thoughts drift to what her life was like in the 18 months before we met her — it’s too painful. This weekend, my parents were at a retreat in Durres (Albania) and met an individual who tried to volunteer at Ellie’s orphanage about a decade before Ellie came to reside there. This individual reported that the caregivers strongly discouraged her efforts to come and hold babies because “it made their job too much work” — the babies would come to expect to be held. Our visit this past summer reminded me what a bleak place it really was. So quiet. Too quiet.
2 months before she was referred to us
Before I knew Ellie, I didn’t think about the fact that giving and receiving love is a skill that must be learned and practiced. Much like one masters skills best when training starts early in life (I think of skills like learning languages, playing instruments, training for figure skating, etc.), learning about love begins at day one! To start learning about love later is so much harder when one is bruised, scarred, weakened, and handicapped from a starvation of love and affection.
While Ellie has made great gains in learning how to appropriately give and receive love (for instance, we’ve moved past last year’s struggle to restrain her indiscriminate and inappropriate affection towards strangers), she still carries deep-seated needs that are not immediately obvious to those who don’t spend time with her on a daily basis. It can be exhausting to us when at age 5 and a half she still relies on us to do many things for her that her peers can do for themselves. Things like going to sleep on her own, sleeping through the night in her own bed, dressing and undressing herself, brushing her teeth, combing her hair, using the bathroom independently (though she has begun to make strides here since Christmas, thank you Lord!), and even feeding herself sometimes. While this is tiring, I remind myself that for her, a deep need is being met when we care for her in these most basic ways.
When I think about how she came into our lives, I’m left with no doubt of God’s intricate work to weave our family together in His way and in His timing. He knew she needed to be raised in a family with two work-from-home parents where she could find the stability and security she desperately needed! (As her communication has developed, we have learned how great is her fear of abandonment still, which breaks our hearts). Then, in His perfect timing, he brought Reni into our home. Sweet Reni who came to us in a more emotionally healthy, secure state, so his needs and hers didn’t conflict (yet in spite of his wonderful care at the orphanage — you can still see the difference a family makes, even in him). Ellie is learning how to love her brother — and while that is mostly being expressed in a smothering, hovering kind of way, we can honestly tell people that she does not express any feelings of jealousy towards Reni (she has acted out a few times when meeting new people and he gets a lot more attention just for being the cute baby he is, but her behavior doesn’t seem abnormal). We are really proud of her and thoroughly enjoy witnessing their interactions (most of the time 🙂 ).
Ellie’s needs are not as obvious as Reni’s and it is sometimes easy to forget. Of course there are certain things we would never expect of Reni because he lacks legs, yet because Ellie’s needs are not obvious, it is a battle not to place unrealistic expectations on her but to remember special ways to nurture and accommodate her while training her to one day lead an independent life. We got a powerful reminder this weekend when she received a special gift from Nonna and PaPa for Valentine’s day.
Both children received special books that have the text read to them when each page is turned, but in the prerecorded voices of Nonna and PaPa. On the very last page, Mom Waggoner concludes Ellie’s book with, “Nonna loves you, Ellie!” Over the last couple of days, we have frequently found Ellie holding the book and opening and closing it to that last page just so she can hear, “Nonna loves you, Ellie!” At which point, her face breaks into a smile. Words of affirmation are her love language! It has served as a reminder that she doesn’t get tired of being hugged and kissed and reminded that she is cherished.
Likewise after waiting 28 months for Ellie to call me “Mommy,” I still don’t tire of hearing her calls or receiving her hugs and kisses. When we’re alone together, she will often tell me, “I love you, Mommy. I don’t love Daddy, I love you.” I know she adores her daddy, but I think she’s just trying to tell me that I mean a lot to her in a special way.
So when Ellie comes to our room at 3AM to crawl in bed, we don’t turn her away (though it often means that Daddy walks down the hall to sleep in her room). And when she makes progress in becoming more independent (like putting on her jeans this Sunday all by herself, minus snapping the snap), we heap praise on her and tell her how proud of her we are.
Loving Ellie has been easy and loving Ellie has been hard. Through it we have learned (and continue to learn) about a love from our heavenly Father who patiently nurtures us, waits for us to receive His love, and longs to hear us express our love to Him. Parenting Ellie has reminded us that loving and trusting God has to be learned too. We bring our own wounds and hurts to the relationship, but if we listen carefully to the Book He has given us, we can hear God say on every page “I love you child!”
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Cydil Waggoner
Cydil has been married to her husband and teammate, Nathan, for 11 years. They have two adopted children, Elisona (5) and Reni (18 months), both adopted from Albania. Their family lives at and runs a missions student center on a Christian college campus in the Bluegrass of Kentucky. They love their work, sharing their passion for missions and adoption with university students. In her
