I have started more detailed posts about how the kids are doing but I don't seem to be getting that done in a timely manner, and some things have been extra stressful so...this is what I can do! Things have been tough and I find that I don't make facebook posts or blog post when things are extra stressful. I can't seem to find perspective or flip the "glass is half empty" to the "glass is half full." In fact I see the glass as pretty much empty. Rather than complain too much when I have absolutely no business complaining I choose to just keep my mouth shut (or in this case, my fingers still;) Now that I am back to gaining a bit of perspective again I will write this update!
Beautiful: I cannot believe she will be 17 next month! We are moving forward with college planning and options. A fun stage of life and she is our guinea pig lol! We are also trying to figure out a car for her. Finally, she broke her finger in a basketball game last Saturday. She played 2 games with the broken finger. It is now in a splint and we will see when she can return to play.
Buddy: He prefers video games to most other activities:) Most of his time is spent sleeping, eating, doing school, and playing xbox. That pretty much sums up his life lol! He will probably be 6 foot by the time he turns 14. He is growing fast. When I look at video of him from just 18 months ago I can't believe how different his voice sounded and how short he used to be:)
Superman: He continues to be such a friendly young man who love to encourage people. He is so tender with his younger brother and prays fervently for those he cares about. He does an amazing job of memorizing scripture and understands spiritual things unusually well for an 8 year old. He really struggles with auditory information and math. That makes things tough but we keep trying to keep perspective with what really matters. We are very happy to be homeschooling and are solidly committed to continuing. However, we are also very pleased with our local school district and how they help as he spends time there every week. He has a best buddy and they hang out a lot at his house. It allows Superman to have time away from his siblings and his friend and that family are great for him.
Grace: I do not mean to sound like I am complaining so I hope that I don't come across that way. I want to communicate the realities of life, and I very much realize that it could be so incredibly much more difficult. The amount of time we spend constantly "on" dealing with "stuff" is exhausting. I think what is so wearying is that there is no ability to trust her. We must double check everything and watch constantly. She has to have a room by herself. Her room has had most things removed due to her ruining them or she can't keep them off of the floor. The things we find in there that should not be there is incredible to me. She can't even have a bed frame as she keeps hurting herself on it. She has mattresses on a trundle bed so we can wheel it away from the wall once a week and clean behind/under it. When we took the bed frame out I took a picture of what we found behind her bed as I was so shocked and wanted to remember it and tell her kids about it one day lol! The constant tattling, chattering, and verbal noise is so typical of ADHD due to the inability to filter/subvocalize but it is exhausting! Her back talk and arguing and hyperactive energy is constant. We try to stay on top of it but...it is, again, exhausting! She hurts herself (and others) almost every day with her inability to pay attention to her surroundings. Her behavior has been getting worse lately with only about 1 day a week that has been bearable without some big upheaval. In desperation we tried a new testing for neurotransmitters. I learned about the testing and the biochemistry a couple of years ago. I didn't know how to go about getting the testing done or if it would work if we did go through the process so did not move forward with it at that time. We tested her last week and when I got the results I was shocked. I cried. I was speechless. Every single area that we tested her in was significantly outside of normal levels. We started a change in meds and we hope that it makes a difference. She, too, receives great help from the local school and we are very happy that she is making steady progress.
Faith: Our princess continues to grow up. She continues to deserve the name Princess too! We have had our share of struggles with her lately as well. She is pretty good about flying under the radar while we are distracted with Grace. It seems that she is entering that "tween" stage. Grace has not emotionally/socially kept up with Faith so I think Faith flounders a bit without having a "friend."
JJ: He is eating better. He is learning to count and his colors. He is growing up! He is sleeping better. Most nights I can have him rocked to sleep by 10ish and he will sleep until between 3 and 5 before he crawls into bed with us to snuggle. We are doing a lot of work on his attitude (as with all of the kids) and he seems to be getting it. He must be getting in some molars lately as he has been a bit more grumpy and chewing a lot more. He has done so well with only getting the pacifier at bedtime (he doesn't take naps) but in the last couple of days has wanted to rock and chew on it a lot more. It is actually kind of nice to have a kid that I can "fix" their problem with just some snuggling, rocking, and a pacifier. It is simple compared to the issues of the other 5...
And finally...we check Superman and Faith's biological mother's facebook periodically (not too often as it makes me nauseated to read it). It appears that she has had another child...sigh... That is 6 kids in 8 years. Rose is only 13 months old! It has made me consider the cycle of all of this. I am tempted to fall into despair and disgust. I am terrified for the child's safety. So many emotions that I won't go into here as I haven't processed them enough yet. However, I keep hearing God asking me if I DO trust Him. I just got through all of the emotional process of trusting God with Rose, and now there is another one. How many more siblings are there from the dads much less how many more kids their mother will have? It is too overwhelming for me to think about too much. I need to focus on what I have control over (yet, as you can see from what I typed above I feel that I have no control over the kids in my own house either - and really I have no control lol!) and need to just keep pressing on with what God has given me and trust Him with the outcomes of all of it. I grieve over the depth of depravity in this world. I am so sad for the future of this child...and how every many more she has. I will continue to try to keep my focus vertical, as when we keep our focus on the cross the horizontal is easier to bear:)
As a family we are attempting to have everyone read through the Bible in one year. I help Grace but otherwise we are expecting that the kids will do the reading themselves and get in the habit of them reading it rather than us reading it to them. We are hoping they will take more ownership that way. It is a good way for my husband and I to stay accountable to our reading as well!
If you have been to Branson, MO I am sure you have heard about or taken in the Sight and Sound Theatre. We saw Joseph there last year. We bought all of the productions and have been enjoying watching them. They have been good platforms for discussions with the kids and it really has helped bring the stories more alive for the kids and has given me much to consider as well as they "flesh out" the story line adding content that is not in scripture but is interesting to ponder.
So many things to juggle on top of working full time hours. Trying to keep my eyes on Him and His priorities:)
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
A Weekend of Basketball - 2 days in our life:)
Friday we drove 1 1/2 hours to watch Beautiful play basketball. They won their game! It was a game that last year we had taken Rose to, so it brought up some memories for me but thankfully they were "factual" and not too emotional :) After that we headed another 1 1/2 hours to the next city where she would be playing basketball.
Potty training JJ as been more fruitful. He stayed dry the ENTIRE weekend! However, during our drive from location 1 to location 2 he decided that he needed to go potty. I told him that we did not have any options and he would have to go in his pull up. That led the big kids to tell me what a terrible parent that I was for sending him mixed signals... So, I told him that he would have to "hold it." He said, "OK Mama," handed me his ipad, and immediately grabbed his crotch to..."hold it!!" It was hilarious and I was at a loss as to how to fix the problem. We all laughed a long time before I found an ice cream bucket for him to relieve himself (we keep buckets in the van as garbage cans). Of course JJ thought it was novel and wonderful to use the bucket so for the remaining 20 minutes to the hotel he tried to convince me that he had to use it again ;)
We checked into a hotel at almost 11 p.m. We got 2 rooms and let Beautiful, Buddy, and Superman be in a room by themselves. We wanted Beautiful to be able to get enough sleep before her day of basketball on Saturday and I am glad we made that choice. My husband and I had the 3 youngest and after an hour finally physically separated the girls as far as we could and they fell asleep after midnight. We got adequate sleep. I am used to 6 hours of broken sleep by now so I guess it was pretty typical. Buddy, who by far is our latest sleeper, knocked on our door at 7:30 saying he was heading down to breakfast. We are trying to figure out how to replicate that at home lol!
The Holiday Inn Express we stayed at had very comfortable beds, was quiet, and the breakfast was great. It is always nice to be pleasantly surprised when paying a lot of money to stay somewhere! Swimming was less successful...although we were very thankful that Superman lived up to his name and saved his sister when she got too far over her head and panicked. JJ was terrified of the pool. As soon as we walked into the pool room he stopped in fear and demanded that I carry him. He clung to my husband or I the entire time. He is so fearful of all novel experiences.
We did a "quick" trip to Sam's Club to get butter...and ended up filling the cart. We try to do our big shopping trips every 8 weeks or so, so I guess we are done for awhile! We got to the location where Beautiful was playing basketball and set up in a relatively uncrowded area. We need a space of about 10 feet long by 4 bleachers deep to manage all of our family and stuff. I had made Fri and Sat bags of snacks for each of the kids with their names on it so they couldn't eat anyone else's food and they could not complain "but he got a ____ and I didn't!!" They hardly ate any Fri night (and refused to finished the concession food I finally bought them when they insisted they were starving!) Saturday was another story. I had brought homemade "lunchables." They were quite incredulous that I thought that crackers, cheese, and meat was supposed to be lunch. I had to smile that they didn't know what a Lunchable was;) They ate the rest of their snack bags within an hour and pretty much the remaining 4 hours was a broken record of "I'm tired, I'm bored, I want to go play, I'm hungry, I don't want to just sit here, etc." If we could find a place for Miss Grace to go during every basketball game (or even some of them) we would take the opportunity...
Buddy was thrilled that we happened to sit right next to a wifi hotspot so he could check nfl scores and there was a power strip so he could keep his ipad plugged in lol! He was thankful for those small things as much as he wished that he could have been left home:)
The basketball games were quite competitive. Friday night the referees hardly called any fouls, etc. The referees on Saturday called fouls when a player was thinking of causing a foul. Beautiful was laid out on the floor a lot and is full of bruises and scratches from both of her games. She has never been that banged up before after a game. We need to remember antibiotic ointment and band aids for future games... A girl also got in her face and called her names that I cannot type here. Beautiful tends to be quite competitive on the court anyway...so that really got her riled up...
We ended our evening at Chic-fil-A which was quite the treat for our family (first time!) I saw another family with an adopted toddler so introduced myself and we swapped adoption stories. Love doing that:) JJ had fallen asleep within the first mile of leaving the gym and slept in my arms all through supper and almost 2 hours into the drive home. Thankfully he fell asleep again within an hour of us getting home so I got to sleep about the same time as normal:)
The 3 hour drive home went OK as long as the kids had movies playing on the ipads...not so much afterwards. Two days being out of schedule for Miss Grace was not a good experience. We have just completed some new testing on her this week and are anxious to get the results and see if some other things may help her. I am very hopeful about this testing. I learned about it at the Trust Based Relational Intervention training I attended at TCU 2 years ago. I will post about it when we get some results both from the testing and its recommendations effectiveness.
Today...recovery and play off NFL games:) While we have basketball games almost every Friday and Saturday until the middle of March we are thankful that no more will involve hotels until March. There is no place like home!
Potty training JJ as been more fruitful. He stayed dry the ENTIRE weekend! However, during our drive from location 1 to location 2 he decided that he needed to go potty. I told him that we did not have any options and he would have to go in his pull up. That led the big kids to tell me what a terrible parent that I was for sending him mixed signals... So, I told him that he would have to "hold it." He said, "OK Mama," handed me his ipad, and immediately grabbed his crotch to..."hold it!!" It was hilarious and I was at a loss as to how to fix the problem. We all laughed a long time before I found an ice cream bucket for him to relieve himself (we keep buckets in the van as garbage cans). Of course JJ thought it was novel and wonderful to use the bucket so for the remaining 20 minutes to the hotel he tried to convince me that he had to use it again ;)
We checked into a hotel at almost 11 p.m. We got 2 rooms and let Beautiful, Buddy, and Superman be in a room by themselves. We wanted Beautiful to be able to get enough sleep before her day of basketball on Saturday and I am glad we made that choice. My husband and I had the 3 youngest and after an hour finally physically separated the girls as far as we could and they fell asleep after midnight. We got adequate sleep. I am used to 6 hours of broken sleep by now so I guess it was pretty typical. Buddy, who by far is our latest sleeper, knocked on our door at 7:30 saying he was heading down to breakfast. We are trying to figure out how to replicate that at home lol!
The Holiday Inn Express we stayed at had very comfortable beds, was quiet, and the breakfast was great. It is always nice to be pleasantly surprised when paying a lot of money to stay somewhere! Swimming was less successful...although we were very thankful that Superman lived up to his name and saved his sister when she got too far over her head and panicked. JJ was terrified of the pool. As soon as we walked into the pool room he stopped in fear and demanded that I carry him. He clung to my husband or I the entire time. He is so fearful of all novel experiences.
We did a "quick" trip to Sam's Club to get butter...and ended up filling the cart. We try to do our big shopping trips every 8 weeks or so, so I guess we are done for awhile! We got to the location where Beautiful was playing basketball and set up in a relatively uncrowded area. We need a space of about 10 feet long by 4 bleachers deep to manage all of our family and stuff. I had made Fri and Sat bags of snacks for each of the kids with their names on it so they couldn't eat anyone else's food and they could not complain "but he got a ____ and I didn't!!" They hardly ate any Fri night (and refused to finished the concession food I finally bought them when they insisted they were starving!) Saturday was another story. I had brought homemade "lunchables." They were quite incredulous that I thought that crackers, cheese, and meat was supposed to be lunch. I had to smile that they didn't know what a Lunchable was;) They ate the rest of their snack bags within an hour and pretty much the remaining 4 hours was a broken record of "I'm tired, I'm bored, I want to go play, I'm hungry, I don't want to just sit here, etc." If we could find a place for Miss Grace to go during every basketball game (or even some of them) we would take the opportunity...
Buddy was thrilled that we happened to sit right next to a wifi hotspot so he could check nfl scores and there was a power strip so he could keep his ipad plugged in lol! He was thankful for those small things as much as he wished that he could have been left home:)
The basketball games were quite competitive. Friday night the referees hardly called any fouls, etc. The referees on Saturday called fouls when a player was thinking of causing a foul. Beautiful was laid out on the floor a lot and is full of bruises and scratches from both of her games. She has never been that banged up before after a game. We need to remember antibiotic ointment and band aids for future games... A girl also got in her face and called her names that I cannot type here. Beautiful tends to be quite competitive on the court anyway...so that really got her riled up...
We ended our evening at Chic-fil-A which was quite the treat for our family (first time!) I saw another family with an adopted toddler so introduced myself and we swapped adoption stories. Love doing that:) JJ had fallen asleep within the first mile of leaving the gym and slept in my arms all through supper and almost 2 hours into the drive home. Thankfully he fell asleep again within an hour of us getting home so I got to sleep about the same time as normal:)
The 3 hour drive home went OK as long as the kids had movies playing on the ipads...not so much afterwards. Two days being out of schedule for Miss Grace was not a good experience. We have just completed some new testing on her this week and are anxious to get the results and see if some other things may help her. I am very hopeful about this testing. I learned about it at the Trust Based Relational Intervention training I attended at TCU 2 years ago. I will post about it when we get some results both from the testing and its recommendations effectiveness.
Today...recovery and play off NFL games:) While we have basketball games almost every Friday and Saturday until the middle of March we are thankful that no more will involve hotels until March. There is no place like home!
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Non-traditional Christmas Discussions in our Home...
I thought I would share some random Christmas traditions in our home that makes our family unique...yes...and probably a little crazy!
This week we were reading from Luke and as the kids were asking questions about different things I realized just how non-traditional some of these questions are...yet they are typical in our home. When I was reading about the parable of the Lost Son the kids wanted to understand the significance of the Jews not eating pork. That sidetracked into a discussion of the meat that we eat and seeing if the kids knew what animal it came from. Then I realized that just because the "typical" answer for "what animal does hamburger come from" is "a cow," in our family the right answer is "a deer." When I asked where bacon comes from and Grace responded, "a turkey!" I had to laugh aloud at the silliness of it all.
When reading the story of Jesus' conception and the idea of a virgin I had to, as many parents of young children do, tread lightly on the definition of a virgin. However, in our home where each of kids who were reading the Bible with me at the moment at been born out of wedlock I couldn't give the traditional answers of husbands and wives. That had the kids bunny trail into a discussion of how many biological siblings that the kids have that are not living with their mother's after being born out of wedlock and the number of states in which they have siblings living (that are known) as I desperately tried to figure out a way to get back on track while answering their questions. I am frequently reminded of the very non-traditional answers that is our family's reality...and more and more the reality of the world. I know that we are not alone in this culture to need to do that, but it sure does make for some interesting questions from the kids!
I decided to end our Bible time that day with some Christmas Carols to help transition us out of some sad emotions (Superman and Faith are really missing Rose and are very sad she will not be with them for Christmas), so I played the piano while they stood around and sang. My practical side was glad for the indirect lesson in learning how to read music, waiting on timing, etc. My mom's side was thrilled for this fun experience of my family gathered around the piano singing together:)
We have a tradition of reading devotions in December books by Arnold Ytreeide called Bartholomew's Passage, Tabitha's Travels, and Jotham's Journey. We read one a year. He also has one for Easter. The books are historical fiction and a bit violent but are from a youth's point of view of what the realities of life was probably like at the time of Jesus' birth under the rule of the Romans. They are well written and each of the characters are mentioned in the other books as their lives converge. We really like them.
Putting up the tree is a big deal to the kids. Buddy insists (INSISTS) that it be done the day after Thanksgiving. He even refused to go Black Friday shopping this year for fear that I would put up the tree without his input despite my assurances that I would not. He puts up the tree, lights, tinsel, and directs the rest. If you know Buddy's personality you will see the oddity of this with his typical recluse behavior. My mother's heart loves it though and I will miss him putting up the tree after he is gone.
Our church has 7 a.m. church service on Christmas Day, another tradition that we enjoy. This morning was unique in that JJ was asleep when we left, slept on me through the entire service and coming back home, and slept another 2 hours after we got home! I sure wish he would sleep that hard at night as he usually wakes and crawls in bed with us by 2 a.m. and if I try to put him back to bed after he falls sleep he is back within 30 minutes lol!
We usually open gifts on Christmas Day, but this year broke tradition and opened them all last night (gasp!) Beautiful recited Luke 2 for us (I will be sad if she isn't ever around for Christmas. We will have to have another child memorize Luke 2 as a backup for her!) Then we opened gifts and chaos ensued. I have very fond memories of Christmas at my grandparents home and you couldn't walk across the floor due to the amount of wrapping paper. I still love that silly part of Christmas reminding me of the family being together but it drives my husband crazy to not pick up all of the paper after each present and throw it away lol!
One tradition that we do not observe is Santa Claus and we do this for a variety of reasons (side note: we actually got kicked out of a car pool once when Beautiful was in preschool and said to another girl in the van the truth about Santa. The girl's mom was LIVID and informed us that we RUINED their Christmas). Grace was so incredibly excited to talk to her family on the phone today. I usually stay close but try not to hover when they talk. She was talking a mile a minute and planning for an upcoming sleepover with them. At one point someone must have asked her if Santa brought her any presents. All I heard was her response of, "we don't do Santa. We just buy our own presents. We put something on the roof so that he can't get in." She absolutely cracks me up!
We may not be the most traditional, but we do enjoy our traditions and the craziness that we call our family!
This week we were reading from Luke and as the kids were asking questions about different things I realized just how non-traditional some of these questions are...yet they are typical in our home. When I was reading about the parable of the Lost Son the kids wanted to understand the significance of the Jews not eating pork. That sidetracked into a discussion of the meat that we eat and seeing if the kids knew what animal it came from. Then I realized that just because the "typical" answer for "what animal does hamburger come from" is "a cow," in our family the right answer is "a deer." When I asked where bacon comes from and Grace responded, "a turkey!" I had to laugh aloud at the silliness of it all.
When reading the story of Jesus' conception and the idea of a virgin I had to, as many parents of young children do, tread lightly on the definition of a virgin. However, in our home where each of kids who were reading the Bible with me at the moment at been born out of wedlock I couldn't give the traditional answers of husbands and wives. That had the kids bunny trail into a discussion of how many biological siblings that the kids have that are not living with their mother's after being born out of wedlock and the number of states in which they have siblings living (that are known) as I desperately tried to figure out a way to get back on track while answering their questions. I am frequently reminded of the very non-traditional answers that is our family's reality...and more and more the reality of the world. I know that we are not alone in this culture to need to do that, but it sure does make for some interesting questions from the kids!
I decided to end our Bible time that day with some Christmas Carols to help transition us out of some sad emotions (Superman and Faith are really missing Rose and are very sad she will not be with them for Christmas), so I played the piano while they stood around and sang. My practical side was glad for the indirect lesson in learning how to read music, waiting on timing, etc. My mom's side was thrilled for this fun experience of my family gathered around the piano singing together:)
We have a tradition of reading devotions in December books by Arnold Ytreeide called Bartholomew's Passage, Tabitha's Travels, and Jotham's Journey. We read one a year. He also has one for Easter. The books are historical fiction and a bit violent but are from a youth's point of view of what the realities of life was probably like at the time of Jesus' birth under the rule of the Romans. They are well written and each of the characters are mentioned in the other books as their lives converge. We really like them.
Putting up the tree is a big deal to the kids. Buddy insists (INSISTS) that it be done the day after Thanksgiving. He even refused to go Black Friday shopping this year for fear that I would put up the tree without his input despite my assurances that I would not. He puts up the tree, lights, tinsel, and directs the rest. If you know Buddy's personality you will see the oddity of this with his typical recluse behavior. My mother's heart loves it though and I will miss him putting up the tree after he is gone.
Our church has 7 a.m. church service on Christmas Day, another tradition that we enjoy. This morning was unique in that JJ was asleep when we left, slept on me through the entire service and coming back home, and slept another 2 hours after we got home! I sure wish he would sleep that hard at night as he usually wakes and crawls in bed with us by 2 a.m. and if I try to put him back to bed after he falls sleep he is back within 30 minutes lol!
We usually open gifts on Christmas Day, but this year broke tradition and opened them all last night (gasp!) Beautiful recited Luke 2 for us (I will be sad if she isn't ever around for Christmas. We will have to have another child memorize Luke 2 as a backup for her!) Then we opened gifts and chaos ensued. I have very fond memories of Christmas at my grandparents home and you couldn't walk across the floor due to the amount of wrapping paper. I still love that silly part of Christmas reminding me of the family being together but it drives my husband crazy to not pick up all of the paper after each present and throw it away lol!
One tradition that we do not observe is Santa Claus and we do this for a variety of reasons (side note: we actually got kicked out of a car pool once when Beautiful was in preschool and said to another girl in the van the truth about Santa. The girl's mom was LIVID and informed us that we RUINED their Christmas). Grace was so incredibly excited to talk to her family on the phone today. I usually stay close but try not to hover when they talk. She was talking a mile a minute and planning for an upcoming sleepover with them. At one point someone must have asked her if Santa brought her any presents. All I heard was her response of, "we don't do Santa. We just buy our own presents. We put something on the roof so that he can't get in." She absolutely cracks me up!
We may not be the most traditional, but we do enjoy our traditions and the craziness that we call our family!
Saturday, December 7, 2013
The Long Reaching Tendrils of Death in our Family 50 + years later...
Last week Beautiful and I attended the funeral of a very sweet and much loved 2 year old girl who passed away in her sleep. There are so many people grieving for her loss, and for what the family is going through. We are friends with several members of the mother's side of the family and my heart absolutely breaks for them. But this tragedy has also brought to the forefront of my mind a lot of other memories and emotions that I have been trying to process through. Memories that are not my own but that have deeply affected me, my life, and our family.
FYI-My husband knows what I have written below and has approved it:)
My husband is the youngest of 5 sons. Twenty-nine years ago today, in a single vehicle accident, the 3rd of those sons (18) was killed in a drinking and driving car accident, the 4th son (16) was critically injured and told he would never walk again (he can), and a 3rd person broke his neck but fully recovered. My husband was 12 years old when this happened. However, that was not the beginning of the loss for my husband's family. That was 22 or so years before when his father woke up one morning and put his hand out to touch his 1 month old firstborn son who was to be baptized that day and discovered he had died in his sleep. Because of my husband's family of origin's belief that baptism is necessary for salvation, the effects were long lasting and severe. There are not words to describe the grief of the loss of a child. But to believe that your child is in hell is worse.
My husband's family did not grieve the loss of their 1st son well (given how poorly I grieved losing Rose I cannot imagine what they went through). What was not healthy in the first place deteriorated even more as 4 additional sons were born. I don't want to embarrass my husband by talking about specifics but suffice it to say that it was not pleasant; it was extremely unhealthy. The habits and patterns that his father set in place as the head of the family were adopted by the sons and utter dysfunction reigned. Then came that day in 1984 when my husband, at age 12, was informed by his father "your brother is no longer with us" before his father walked out the door to deal with the critical medical condition of the other son (who had been helicoptered 3 hours away) and left my husband alone in the house. His father never said another word about it. Ever. My husband had people come around him making comments that were not helpful. In fact, they created deeper wounds and the dysfunction of the family perpetuated.
Eight years later I met my husband. I was very touched by the things that he had lived through and was surprised at how much of a survivor he was despite growing up in less than pleasant (if we are to be really honest, downright hostile) conditions. I was also thankful to have a person who understood the grief of losing someone to a drunk driver, as I had lost a close friend when I was 16 also in a single car drunk driving accident.
While the sting of deaths had wreaked havoc on us, the grief that both of us have been through and by experiencing the impact of the fallout was something God used to knit our hearts together. While I won't go into the details of the circumstances, the death of my husband's brother 29 years ago was really a culmination of all of the dysfunction that ensued from the death of his first brother some 22 years before that. It was a chaotic cycle of extreme proportions that God in His sovereignty has stopped in our family. While both of us had been raised attending church and learning "religion," God used our questioning and grief from our losses to (eventually) take us to a place where we learned about having a "relationship" with Christ and we were saved. He drew us to Him and set us on a totally different trajectory. That is not to say that both of us don't have "baggage" from our losses that shows up every day. For example, we don't drive after dark on weekends or holidays where people are likely to be drinking, we stay in very close contact with each other and Beautiful when one of us are out driving. When someone doesn't answer the phone we never wonder about indiscretions, it is always a worry that the person has been in an accident. Having Beautiful driving now has been very, very hard on us (I am tearing up just writing that. We are working on trusting Him who has every one of her days numbered...). That is probably why we have not been too quick to get her her own car;) We are also both very sensitive to loss of babies (I dare say we were (and are) much more vigilant about checking to see if the kids are still breathing at night than we probably need to be). Having JJ in our room for 3 years really was calming to us in some ways since his breathing was always such a problem and we wanted to be sure he was still breathing. The other kids were always checked several times a night as well for the first couple of years. Just thinking about that, I wonder if I have slept well at all in the past 16 years lol! There are many other ways we are affected fundamentally as well but that is not the purpose of this post.
This date is one of reflection for us every year (actually, the "official" date is tomorrow but that was when they were found and his brother pronounced dead. My husband believes the accident was actually before midnight so observes today as the day his brother died). Mostly we reflect on how much in awe of Him we are for his sovereignty, power, mercy, and grace to have plucked my husband out of that cycle. How he wove the two of us together initially, despite us being about as different as a couple can be, due to our experiences with death. We marvel that we are one more living example of what Satan intended to be long reaching tendrils of destruction, despair, and dysfunction yet God used it to cement the hearts of two people that few thought would make it two years much less 2 decades and counting.
So, the funeral of the 2 year old we attended last week was hard in many ways. We, of course, grieve for her family's loss. However, it is also reminding us in a very emotional way at how the tendrils of death have affected my husband's family, him, and now our family 5 decades after the event. We grieve for the realities of sin and death along with all of the chaos it brings while we rejoice in the hope of Jesus Christ and all that He promises.
FYI-My husband knows what I have written below and has approved it:)
My husband is the youngest of 5 sons. Twenty-nine years ago today, in a single vehicle accident, the 3rd of those sons (18) was killed in a drinking and driving car accident, the 4th son (16) was critically injured and told he would never walk again (he can), and a 3rd person broke his neck but fully recovered. My husband was 12 years old when this happened. However, that was not the beginning of the loss for my husband's family. That was 22 or so years before when his father woke up one morning and put his hand out to touch his 1 month old firstborn son who was to be baptized that day and discovered he had died in his sleep. Because of my husband's family of origin's belief that baptism is necessary for salvation, the effects were long lasting and severe. There are not words to describe the grief of the loss of a child. But to believe that your child is in hell is worse.
My husband's family did not grieve the loss of their 1st son well (given how poorly I grieved losing Rose I cannot imagine what they went through). What was not healthy in the first place deteriorated even more as 4 additional sons were born. I don't want to embarrass my husband by talking about specifics but suffice it to say that it was not pleasant; it was extremely unhealthy. The habits and patterns that his father set in place as the head of the family were adopted by the sons and utter dysfunction reigned. Then came that day in 1984 when my husband, at age 12, was informed by his father "your brother is no longer with us" before his father walked out the door to deal with the critical medical condition of the other son (who had been helicoptered 3 hours away) and left my husband alone in the house. His father never said another word about it. Ever. My husband had people come around him making comments that were not helpful. In fact, they created deeper wounds and the dysfunction of the family perpetuated.
Eight years later I met my husband. I was very touched by the things that he had lived through and was surprised at how much of a survivor he was despite growing up in less than pleasant (if we are to be really honest, downright hostile) conditions. I was also thankful to have a person who understood the grief of losing someone to a drunk driver, as I had lost a close friend when I was 16 also in a single car drunk driving accident.
While the sting of deaths had wreaked havoc on us, the grief that both of us have been through and by experiencing the impact of the fallout was something God used to knit our hearts together. While I won't go into the details of the circumstances, the death of my husband's brother 29 years ago was really a culmination of all of the dysfunction that ensued from the death of his first brother some 22 years before that. It was a chaotic cycle of extreme proportions that God in His sovereignty has stopped in our family. While both of us had been raised attending church and learning "religion," God used our questioning and grief from our losses to (eventually) take us to a place where we learned about having a "relationship" with Christ and we were saved. He drew us to Him and set us on a totally different trajectory. That is not to say that both of us don't have "baggage" from our losses that shows up every day. For example, we don't drive after dark on weekends or holidays where people are likely to be drinking, we stay in very close contact with each other and Beautiful when one of us are out driving. When someone doesn't answer the phone we never wonder about indiscretions, it is always a worry that the person has been in an accident. Having Beautiful driving now has been very, very hard on us (I am tearing up just writing that. We are working on trusting Him who has every one of her days numbered...). That is probably why we have not been too quick to get her her own car;) We are also both very sensitive to loss of babies (I dare say we were (and are) much more vigilant about checking to see if the kids are still breathing at night than we probably need to be). Having JJ in our room for 3 years really was calming to us in some ways since his breathing was always such a problem and we wanted to be sure he was still breathing. The other kids were always checked several times a night as well for the first couple of years. Just thinking about that, I wonder if I have slept well at all in the past 16 years lol! There are many other ways we are affected fundamentally as well but that is not the purpose of this post.
This date is one of reflection for us every year (actually, the "official" date is tomorrow but that was when they were found and his brother pronounced dead. My husband believes the accident was actually before midnight so observes today as the day his brother died). Mostly we reflect on how much in awe of Him we are for his sovereignty, power, mercy, and grace to have plucked my husband out of that cycle. How he wove the two of us together initially, despite us being about as different as a couple can be, due to our experiences with death. We marvel that we are one more living example of what Satan intended to be long reaching tendrils of destruction, despair, and dysfunction yet God used it to cement the hearts of two people that few thought would make it two years much less 2 decades and counting.
So, the funeral of the 2 year old we attended last week was hard in many ways. We, of course, grieve for her family's loss. However, it is also reminding us in a very emotional way at how the tendrils of death have affected my husband's family, him, and now our family 5 decades after the event. We grieve for the realities of sin and death along with all of the chaos it brings while we rejoice in the hope of Jesus Christ and all that He promises.
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
1 Corinthians 15: 54-58
Friday, November 22, 2013
Saying Goodbye to Rose
This weekend Rose will be moving to Ohio to live with her Great Aunt. We have been told that the Aunt is interested in maintaining contact with us. We shall see what the future brings.
When I thought about what to write about saying goodbye, I thought about the realities of that day last month. We drove to her foster home and got to spend a bit less than an hour playing with her, taking a ton of pictures in group and individual settings with each child. We prayed over her. We avoided talking about the reality that we may never see her again. We purposely packed the day with activities such as walking through a race car museum, buying shoes for every child (uff da!), doing our monthly shopping at Wal Mart and Sam's Club (it ended up being 2 months of shopping and, again, UFF DA!). We also splurged and took the kids to a sit down restaurant for the first time. Faith was quite curious about the difference between a "fast food" restaurant and that this was a "slow food" restaurant;) She also was excited that we had glass glasses to drink from lol! Thankfully there were tv's with football games playing to keep the kids occupied while we waited. We also laughed about how the waiter looked like Anikin Skywalker.
But sharing about the day we said goodbye does not really encompass the truth of what it has been like to say goodbye to Rose. It has, by far, been the most painful experience of my adult life. My parent's divorce when I was 4 and losing my close friend to a drunk driver when I was 16 happened before I knew how to really grieve and think through situations and thus were devastating, but were different. I was not a Christian then nor was I mature enough to really consider implications of anything more than the grief I felt at the time. I thought I would do better this time, but I grieved just as poorly as I did then.
In two weeks Rose turns 1. We received the phone call telling us she was 1 day old and asking if we would like the placement and likely adoption. This journey has been almost a year in the making. I thought I would share about the heart realities of saying goodbye to Rose: biological sibling to our Superman and Faith and 5th in the sibling strip born to the mother. Talking about this places me in a very vulnerable position, and I really, really dislike doing that. But I am hopeful that it may help someone else who is grieving as so many other people have posted vulnerably about themselves and it has helped my healing process.
The time we had Rose in a nutshell: she was born 12/4/2012. We got the call from HHS the next day. She had to remain in the NICU for 10 days due to choices her birth mom made that affected Rose negatively. We had given up our foster care license 7 months before and got moving on the process immediately to reinstate it. We contacted a friend who had a friend who agreed to be Rose's placement until we could get licensed. Our finger prints were sent off to the FBI but no one had news on them for months. I finally called them and discovered that they had been sitting on someone's desk with HHS for 7 weeks and no one had moved them on. Because we were not licensed when Rose went to court, her placement went elsewhere despite the fact that it was HHS's fault that we were not licensed.
During that time frame of mid-Dec to mid- Feb we were able to do respite with Rose and had her for a total of 7 weeks. It was an emotional time where we wanted to believe she was staying, but the license was not approved. Then a father was named and the HHS worker decided that she did not agree with something I said during a visit and caused a variety of hoops to be created for us to prove that we were capable being a good family for our children's biological sibling.
In mid-February we were told she needed to be moved to another foster home and await the DNA testing with the alleged dad. This took a couple of months. Then he began visitation and the process began for his mother to obtain custody. That did not move forward so the great aunt was identified, and a month ago she was approved. We did monthly visitation during that time and advocated strongly with HHS and her Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) for us to be the placement. The foster home she was in was excellent and they (and many, many others) have been praying fervently for God's Best for Rose. They, too, are grieving deeply during this time.
When I look back on the past 10 months it was, essentially, a very dark time. After losing her in February I really lost myself. I had many nightmares about what could happen to her and therefore could not sleep. Having worked in prisons for 9 years my mind is a fertile ground for imagining the worse in less than optimal homes. However, knowing the reality of what has happened to our children, Rose's siblings, made it all the more real and graphic in my mind. I cried a lot initially. I considered all of the injustices of this world due to sin and utter depravity. I thought about the endless tortures that can happen to a defenseless child physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I thought a lot about the realities of adoption - people want to believe it is such a beautiful experience but it is usually one interspersed with loss, grief, trauma, and pain. I grieved for Superman and Faith who were daily praying fervently that we would get to adopt her. She is their only biological family that they know other than the two siblings who were adopted to another family also during this past year who have moved to a far away state. Superman remembers what his life was like before he came to our home. He remembers and has deep fear for his sister experiencing the same. I discovered their mother's facebook page. Her posts make me shudder and nauseated. She is 25 I believe. How many more children will she do this to? I pondered all of my children's biological siblings that I know about and don't know about and wondered about their lives.
I tried to keep my thoughts positive. I tried to tell myself all of the truths of God's character. I repeated to myself over and over that He is sovereign, He is powerful, He loves her more than we do, He created her, He knows every day of her life and we cannot do anything to change that, His ways are better than our ways, another home may be better than our home for her to grow up in, if she is to be saved it is up to God and not to us, etc. But my thoughts also were increasingly dark. I know that God is all of these things, but I also know that every single one of us deserve Hell. We are all sinners and do not deserve to be safe from harm, it is only by His mercy that anyone is. I considered the millions of children across the world who grow up in deplorable conditions ranging from orphaned to starving to neglected to the may ways they are abused and killed. God loves every one of of those children too, what makes Rose different? I reminded myself that the HHS system is very broken and what is best for the child may look one way on paper, but it may not be best in reality, the workers are over worked and jaded, and laws as well as human error result in a lot of less than optimum outcomes...yet God is sovereign over those entities and we must submit to His choices. It was a horrible, horrible time in my mind. I knew that I must, I MUST, bow the knee and submit to His will and His plan. I could not let myself fall into bitterness and resentment. Yet, I always skirted that line. I told myself that I had to have faith. I had to persevere. I had to endure. I had to accept God's will even though it could be horrible for Rose. There were many other thoughts on both sides but you get the idea. I would chastise myself for being in that dark place when I "should" know better. With what I do for a living and being a Christian, I "should not" be...whatever I was struggling with at the time. Probably the worse was the apathy. I existed for a long time in a place of "what is the point?" Why clean when it will just get dirty? Why bother? I kept life up as it "needed" to be, but did not go further than that.
I found that I could only cope via escape. I could not win the battle in my mind so I sought to not be in my mind. I could not bear to sleep and have nightmares and thus went to bed very late (not too hard with a toddler who would not go to bed until 12 or 1 a.m., but I was often up much later than that) and got out of bed early. Once I woke up I could not fall back to sleep. In the past my escape has always been in doing. I would clean primarily. I would have projects and activity. The problem with doing those things is that they took energy (that I did not have) and they still allowed for me to be trapped in my brain with my thoughts. So, I reverted to my old standby. You know that question "if you were on a deserted island and could only have one thing what would it be?" Well, my answer would be...a book. Even as a kid I read all of the time as escape and people around me did not appreciate it. I have loved home schooling our children as it gives me the excuse to read aloud to them lots and lots. I had not let myself read fiction in over 10 years because I knew that with my addictive personality (I do the same with computer games, so I can't holler too loudly at Buddy and his xbox since he is just like me in this regard) I would not stop. Anyone else out there play Spider Solitaire and tell themselves, "just one more, I'll quit after this one!" ? Well, I started reading. I venture to guess that I have probably read over 200 mindless and purposeless fiction books since this began. I am embarrassed about it. But there it is. I am a "readaholic" :) . I am not sure that anyone outside of the family realized how far into the black hole that I fell. I did what I needed to do. But pretty much what I remember for the past 10 months is darkness.
God had revealed to me around August I think that Rose would not be returning to us and had released me from some of the emotional attachment that was so hard. I felt in my heart that she was my child even though on no paperwork was that ever stated - not even officially as a foster mother. I was 100% attached to her despite only having her for 7 short weeks. I felt that I had lost my child through all of this ordeal. Then I would feel guilty about that since she was never my child. God helped me to process some of that. Then, during a lunch with dear friends of ours who say it like it is, there was, for the first time, confession and processing. I marvel at God's timing of it since the next day we got the news that Rose for sure would be going to her Great Aunt. That day I refused to allow myself to read. I hated the dark nebulous place in which I had existed and fought kicking and clawing to not fall back in there. So I did the next best thing...I cleaned:) I put on worship music and cleaned. God brought me to another place that day. A place of realizing that up until then I had been kneeling as a servant before the throne but by the grit of my teeth forcing myself to "do" the right thing. But instead I was moved to a place of sitting on His lap and simply...being with Him...trusting Him. I know that those words seem incredibly simple and perhaps even trite. But the shift in my heart was the difference between bondage and freedom, pitch black darkness and living light. Between me forcing myself to do what I was supposed to do...and just...letting go and trusting Him. This is not the first time I have struggled between "doing" and "being," between living "for" Him and living "with" Him. It is an ever present struggle and I seem to have a hard time remembering the lesson.
That was the day I got better. The day before our friends had used the word "trust" in their conversation with me. It had stuck in my mind and I could not let it go. The day after this in church every song that was sung had the word "trust" in it over and over. I was pretty emotional about it to my further embarrassment. By the way, I have carefully watched every single song in church since that day and have not once seen the word "trust" come up again yet. The next Friday was when we went to say our final goodbye to Rose. And it was...well:)
During the past month I have felt that I am in the light again. I feel creative to do things, and want to create not just exist. I feel energy to do things. I feel peace. I feel joy again. I am even crying again (which I normally avoid at all costs). That was a weird one for me. Initially it was quite annoying but then I realized that I was actually feeling again so have chosen to rejoice in it but, seriously, how many times is it appropriate to cry during the Lord of the Rings lol! There was a period of 2 weeks where I felt incredible guilt for what I have lost out on with my family and friends for the past 10 months while I have been "absent." But, He has taken that too. It is what it is. Like every trial in my life, looking back on it I am seeking to find the silver lining. This trial has helped me understand the hearts of our birthparents/grandparents better, it has helped me to understand functional depression better, it has helped me to understand the power of escaping to cope and hard it is to get out of it, it has helped me understand that the "right words" mean nothing until the Holy Spirit sows it into one's heart, it has helped me see so very many of my shortcomings and given me direction on how to proceed, it has helped me to relax a bit and not take things so serious (after all the house still stands after my lack of intentional living for the past months), it precipitated the pen pal friendship with a favorite author I discovered, it has allowed us to get to know Superman and Faith's other two biological sibings and their adopted family. Mostly...I have moved to a new level of...trusting Him:)
When I thought about what to write about saying goodbye, I thought about the realities of that day last month. We drove to her foster home and got to spend a bit less than an hour playing with her, taking a ton of pictures in group and individual settings with each child. We prayed over her. We avoided talking about the reality that we may never see her again. We purposely packed the day with activities such as walking through a race car museum, buying shoes for every child (uff da!), doing our monthly shopping at Wal Mart and Sam's Club (it ended up being 2 months of shopping and, again, UFF DA!). We also splurged and took the kids to a sit down restaurant for the first time. Faith was quite curious about the difference between a "fast food" restaurant and that this was a "slow food" restaurant;) She also was excited that we had glass glasses to drink from lol! Thankfully there were tv's with football games playing to keep the kids occupied while we waited. We also laughed about how the waiter looked like Anikin Skywalker.
But sharing about the day we said goodbye does not really encompass the truth of what it has been like to say goodbye to Rose. It has, by far, been the most painful experience of my adult life. My parent's divorce when I was 4 and losing my close friend to a drunk driver when I was 16 happened before I knew how to really grieve and think through situations and thus were devastating, but were different. I was not a Christian then nor was I mature enough to really consider implications of anything more than the grief I felt at the time. I thought I would do better this time, but I grieved just as poorly as I did then.
In two weeks Rose turns 1. We received the phone call telling us she was 1 day old and asking if we would like the placement and likely adoption. This journey has been almost a year in the making. I thought I would share about the heart realities of saying goodbye to Rose: biological sibling to our Superman and Faith and 5th in the sibling strip born to the mother. Talking about this places me in a very vulnerable position, and I really, really dislike doing that. But I am hopeful that it may help someone else who is grieving as so many other people have posted vulnerably about themselves and it has helped my healing process.
The time we had Rose in a nutshell: she was born 12/4/2012. We got the call from HHS the next day. She had to remain in the NICU for 10 days due to choices her birth mom made that affected Rose negatively. We had given up our foster care license 7 months before and got moving on the process immediately to reinstate it. We contacted a friend who had a friend who agreed to be Rose's placement until we could get licensed. Our finger prints were sent off to the FBI but no one had news on them for months. I finally called them and discovered that they had been sitting on someone's desk with HHS for 7 weeks and no one had moved them on. Because we were not licensed when Rose went to court, her placement went elsewhere despite the fact that it was HHS's fault that we were not licensed.
During that time frame of mid-Dec to mid- Feb we were able to do respite with Rose and had her for a total of 7 weeks. It was an emotional time where we wanted to believe she was staying, but the license was not approved. Then a father was named and the HHS worker decided that she did not agree with something I said during a visit and caused a variety of hoops to be created for us to prove that we were capable being a good family for our children's biological sibling.
In mid-February we were told she needed to be moved to another foster home and await the DNA testing with the alleged dad. This took a couple of months. Then he began visitation and the process began for his mother to obtain custody. That did not move forward so the great aunt was identified, and a month ago she was approved. We did monthly visitation during that time and advocated strongly with HHS and her Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) for us to be the placement. The foster home she was in was excellent and they (and many, many others) have been praying fervently for God's Best for Rose. They, too, are grieving deeply during this time.
When I look back on the past 10 months it was, essentially, a very dark time. After losing her in February I really lost myself. I had many nightmares about what could happen to her and therefore could not sleep. Having worked in prisons for 9 years my mind is a fertile ground for imagining the worse in less than optimal homes. However, knowing the reality of what has happened to our children, Rose's siblings, made it all the more real and graphic in my mind. I cried a lot initially. I considered all of the injustices of this world due to sin and utter depravity. I thought about the endless tortures that can happen to a defenseless child physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I thought a lot about the realities of adoption - people want to believe it is such a beautiful experience but it is usually one interspersed with loss, grief, trauma, and pain. I grieved for Superman and Faith who were daily praying fervently that we would get to adopt her. She is their only biological family that they know other than the two siblings who were adopted to another family also during this past year who have moved to a far away state. Superman remembers what his life was like before he came to our home. He remembers and has deep fear for his sister experiencing the same. I discovered their mother's facebook page. Her posts make me shudder and nauseated. She is 25 I believe. How many more children will she do this to? I pondered all of my children's biological siblings that I know about and don't know about and wondered about their lives.
I tried to keep my thoughts positive. I tried to tell myself all of the truths of God's character. I repeated to myself over and over that He is sovereign, He is powerful, He loves her more than we do, He created her, He knows every day of her life and we cannot do anything to change that, His ways are better than our ways, another home may be better than our home for her to grow up in, if she is to be saved it is up to God and not to us, etc. But my thoughts also were increasingly dark. I know that God is all of these things, but I also know that every single one of us deserve Hell. We are all sinners and do not deserve to be safe from harm, it is only by His mercy that anyone is. I considered the millions of children across the world who grow up in deplorable conditions ranging from orphaned to starving to neglected to the may ways they are abused and killed. God loves every one of of those children too, what makes Rose different? I reminded myself that the HHS system is very broken and what is best for the child may look one way on paper, but it may not be best in reality, the workers are over worked and jaded, and laws as well as human error result in a lot of less than optimum outcomes...yet God is sovereign over those entities and we must submit to His choices. It was a horrible, horrible time in my mind. I knew that I must, I MUST, bow the knee and submit to His will and His plan. I could not let myself fall into bitterness and resentment. Yet, I always skirted that line. I told myself that I had to have faith. I had to persevere. I had to endure. I had to accept God's will even though it could be horrible for Rose. There were many other thoughts on both sides but you get the idea. I would chastise myself for being in that dark place when I "should" know better. With what I do for a living and being a Christian, I "should not" be...whatever I was struggling with at the time. Probably the worse was the apathy. I existed for a long time in a place of "what is the point?" Why clean when it will just get dirty? Why bother? I kept life up as it "needed" to be, but did not go further than that.
I found that I could only cope via escape. I could not win the battle in my mind so I sought to not be in my mind. I could not bear to sleep and have nightmares and thus went to bed very late (not too hard with a toddler who would not go to bed until 12 or 1 a.m., but I was often up much later than that) and got out of bed early. Once I woke up I could not fall back to sleep. In the past my escape has always been in doing. I would clean primarily. I would have projects and activity. The problem with doing those things is that they took energy (that I did not have) and they still allowed for me to be trapped in my brain with my thoughts. So, I reverted to my old standby. You know that question "if you were on a deserted island and could only have one thing what would it be?" Well, my answer would be...a book. Even as a kid I read all of the time as escape and people around me did not appreciate it. I have loved home schooling our children as it gives me the excuse to read aloud to them lots and lots. I had not let myself read fiction in over 10 years because I knew that with my addictive personality (I do the same with computer games, so I can't holler too loudly at Buddy and his xbox since he is just like me in this regard) I would not stop. Anyone else out there play Spider Solitaire and tell themselves, "just one more, I'll quit after this one!" ? Well, I started reading. I venture to guess that I have probably read over 200 mindless and purposeless fiction books since this began. I am embarrassed about it. But there it is. I am a "readaholic" :) . I am not sure that anyone outside of the family realized how far into the black hole that I fell. I did what I needed to do. But pretty much what I remember for the past 10 months is darkness.
God had revealed to me around August I think that Rose would not be returning to us and had released me from some of the emotional attachment that was so hard. I felt in my heart that she was my child even though on no paperwork was that ever stated - not even officially as a foster mother. I was 100% attached to her despite only having her for 7 short weeks. I felt that I had lost my child through all of this ordeal. Then I would feel guilty about that since she was never my child. God helped me to process some of that. Then, during a lunch with dear friends of ours who say it like it is, there was, for the first time, confession and processing. I marvel at God's timing of it since the next day we got the news that Rose for sure would be going to her Great Aunt. That day I refused to allow myself to read. I hated the dark nebulous place in which I had existed and fought kicking and clawing to not fall back in there. So I did the next best thing...I cleaned:) I put on worship music and cleaned. God brought me to another place that day. A place of realizing that up until then I had been kneeling as a servant before the throne but by the grit of my teeth forcing myself to "do" the right thing. But instead I was moved to a place of sitting on His lap and simply...being with Him...trusting Him. I know that those words seem incredibly simple and perhaps even trite. But the shift in my heart was the difference between bondage and freedom, pitch black darkness and living light. Between me forcing myself to do what I was supposed to do...and just...letting go and trusting Him. This is not the first time I have struggled between "doing" and "being," between living "for" Him and living "with" Him. It is an ever present struggle and I seem to have a hard time remembering the lesson.
That was the day I got better. The day before our friends had used the word "trust" in their conversation with me. It had stuck in my mind and I could not let it go. The day after this in church every song that was sung had the word "trust" in it over and over. I was pretty emotional about it to my further embarrassment. By the way, I have carefully watched every single song in church since that day and have not once seen the word "trust" come up again yet. The next Friday was when we went to say our final goodbye to Rose. And it was...well:)
During the past month I have felt that I am in the light again. I feel creative to do things, and want to create not just exist. I feel energy to do things. I feel peace. I feel joy again. I am even crying again (which I normally avoid at all costs). That was a weird one for me. Initially it was quite annoying but then I realized that I was actually feeling again so have chosen to rejoice in it but, seriously, how many times is it appropriate to cry during the Lord of the Rings lol! There was a period of 2 weeks where I felt incredible guilt for what I have lost out on with my family and friends for the past 10 months while I have been "absent." But, He has taken that too. It is what it is. Like every trial in my life, looking back on it I am seeking to find the silver lining. This trial has helped me understand the hearts of our birthparents/grandparents better, it has helped me to understand functional depression better, it has helped me to understand the power of escaping to cope and hard it is to get out of it, it has helped me understand that the "right words" mean nothing until the Holy Spirit sows it into one's heart, it has helped me see so very many of my shortcomings and given me direction on how to proceed, it has helped me to relax a bit and not take things so serious (after all the house still stands after my lack of intentional living for the past months), it precipitated the pen pal friendship with a favorite author I discovered, it has allowed us to get to know Superman and Faith's other two biological sibings and their adopted family. Mostly...I have moved to a new level of...trusting Him:)
Monday, November 4, 2013
JJ Update
I have done a very poor job of updating. I have lots of things that I think about, but emotions have run high with all of the unknowns of the Rose situation so posting has not been high on my list of priorities. Now that we know that she is not going to return to us, it seems like moving forward with life has been on my mind more and updating my blog seems more fun:)
So...
JJ has been doing well. I think I will update by category to make it easier.
SLEEP:
One of the two biggest issues with JJ has been sleep. We are very happy that he has been sleeping most hours of the night for awhile. He used to go to sleep around midnight (give or take an hour) for many months. About a month ago he abruptly started to go to sleep earlier (between 7 and 9) more nights of the week than not. That has been a huge blessing. However, it also means that we wakes between 4 and 6...not so much fun. He does sleep in his own bed though (until he wakes in the morning). He is even learning a little about how to identify when he is tired and asking to sleep, sometimes:)
EATING:
I took JJ in to be weighed recently and he had gained 3 lbs in 3 months! His weight gain has been such a frustration for over 3 years that it has been great to see him actually eating and gaining weight. He prefers milk over juice or water - essentially refusing to drink either. He can finally drink from a regular cup without spilling. Getting him to drink at all was a struggle for years, and it worsened after we weaned from the bottle. I am glad that he finally will drink an entire glass of milk in one sitting again, like he used to do with a bottle. He does not like to eat breads or many sweets. He prefers things like chips and nacho cheese, sliced turkey, grape nuts (he will wake up at 4 a.m. and INSIST on eating a bowl of grape nuts), spaghetti, pizza, shrimp, fruit snacks, and those kinds of foods. It has been such a blessing to me that in the past few weeks he is finally asking for food. Before it was always us trying to get him to eat, or if we were eating he may try a few bites. He (unless it is 4 a.m.) does not like to eat when he first wakes up. In fact, if we travel in the mornings he will often become car sick if he has consumed anything at all. I suspect that he has some sensory/tummy ache issues that are chronic. Another goofy thing about his eating is that he hates his hands to get dirty. About 75% of the time he will say "you feed me??" Just today I was almost in tears when he said, "I hu gee. I wa a nack!" (I'm hungry, I want a snack). For him to initiate eating is incredible. He ended up eating almost 2 full bowls of grapes. I was delighted:)
SPEAKING:
JJ has quite a difficult time communicating. He jabbers on like crazy but most of the time we do not understand him. When Sport came at 36 months he had a huge vocabulary and excellent articulation. JJ is 39 months and struggles quite a lot. We pick up his meaning from context and his animation or pointing. Buddy did not speak until he was 3 either and does well now. I heard from JJ's birth mom yesterday who shared that JJ's full bio sister who is 11 months older than him has delays in speech as well, so probably we will need to get him evaluated and services.
JJ's speaking has been a source of much comedy in our home. Lately his favorite word is "why." It is amazing how many times the word "why" can be used in a day. I do not recall the other kids saying it this much. Perhaps because they had better vocabularies and could ask more detailed questions. Sometimes he will shake things up a bit and ask "where?"
Biological Mom:
Right before JJ turned 3 his Tummy Mommy asked that we not send pictures or updates anymore as it was too hard on her. We of course respected that. She then posted on JJ's fb page a picture of her and JJ's sister on her sister's birthday with a message to JJ. So...I decided to just put a picture up on JJ's fb page to see how the mom responded. She thankfully did send us a message and we were able to communicate a bit. It is so hard on her, yet she assures us that she knows she made the right decision. I will admit though that when she asked me to send her a picture of JJ in his Halloween costume I immediately panicked and tried to think of how to find a costume to get a picture for her (we do not observe Halloween). My husband then gently reminded me that I could just gently tell her that we do not observe Halloween and therefore there was not a picture, but to send another cute picture instead. I was surprised at my initial response and realized that I so want to have her approval as the continued "right choice" of being the mother to her child. Anyway, the responsibility of raising "another person's child" is always weighing heavily on my shoulders. The thought "what would their mom/dad/grandparent/etc think of xyz??" is usually lurking there somewhere, especially with JJ's mom as she chose us as opposed to "The State" choosing us with the other 3 adoptions (although in Grace's case her parents and grandparents did want us to adopt her after the initial placement was done by the state).
Biological Dad:
Bio mom has bio dad as a "friend" on fb. It is weird to see pictures of him and to hear his Bio mom and her friends post on pics of JJ that "he looks JUST like his dad!!!" At times I have such a need to try to contact him and make a connection for JJ's sake. I have asked his bio mom if that was OK and she never responds to that question. I also have so many fears of contacting him. What if he ends up not wanting to know JJ or wants to know him? There are so many implications on both sides that would be hard for JJ (of course there are good sides, but I seem to always default to the downside). I figure that the dad knows how to contact me and chooses not to (but maybe feels like he can't) and the bio mom won't say anything about it so I will just leave it alone for now. The dad is a chef though...so maybe that accounts for JJ's sensitive palate;)
POTTY TRAINING:
Unfortunately...still in training phase. This month marks 1 year since we started the process. Just like everything else with him it takes a long time. He has always known what to do in the bathroom, but never initiated it (kind of like eating). If we have had days with him in a pull up due to being gone he regresses (of course) so we will just continue to plod along. On good days he has no accidents (and most days only a few) so I know that it won't be too long.
THE NUK:
Sigh...He really wants that nuk. We take it away from him during the day and he chews on EVERYTHING else he can find. Today his shirt is drenched all the way to his waist due to him chewing on it. He was even chewing on MY shirt today. He has such a need to chew and chew. I have noticed that he is speaking a bit clearer and eating a bit more since we have taken the nuk during the day...possibly a coincidence...possibly not. He will find where he hide the nuk and either climb up on things to reach it, or use a long item (like a light saber) to knock it down and get it. Gotta give him points for creativity! He has become a bit more frustrated with us taking his nuk and he insists on having 2 of them when he goes to bed. Maybe he thinks he can stash one away and we won't notice;) He is such a card!
SHYNESS:
JJ continues to be very shy. He will cling to us in public (although as long as it is not nursery or Sunday School at church he feels comfortable enough to run crazy!) and always wants us to carry him. However, he has made some very good friends and it is fun to see his response to them. One of them is a teenage boy who frequents our home. JJ seems to think that he is there for JJ's express pleasure and asks about him almost every day. He will yell "my Edin!" when he sees him or talks about him and last weekend stood at the window watching the road for a long time waiting for him to come. He adores his friend:) We also had another couple stop by a bit from another country and JJ was very comfortable with him as well. I think that the frequency of us talking about them in our home perhaps has helped him feel safer. We do pray for them at every meal so he hears their names a lot lol! We have some other friends that watch him on occasion. He fights staying there but calms down soon after we leave so I think that is success:) Next goal...getting him to stay in Sunday School!
ALL BOY!
JJ is loud, boisterous, demanding, insistent, energetic, and fearless in settings where he feels safe. He will stand up on top of furniture and think nothing of jumping down into a pile of hard objects. He climbs up shelves and other places where he should not be. He creatively uses light sabers and other long objects to knock down high up objects that he wants. He LOVES to be outside and is very upset that it is curtailed with the cold weather. He wrestles aggressively and without a vocabulary to use to ask for what he wants/needs he tends to aggressively pursue it. That is the area we work with him the most about. He has older siblings who are "demanding" of his space and things. He has learned to not bow down to impulsive whims of others. That has been a good trait given some of our family dynamics. With that said, he also needs to constantly be taught that he cannot insist on satisfying his impulsive whims to the exclusion of others' needs/wants. Something that all of us can probably work on:)
COMIC RELIEF:
Probably the most defining part of JJ is his comic relief. All of the rest of us comment on how JJ makes us laugh, diverts difficult situations, and helps us to relax and see the joy in daily life again. So many dynamics exist in our home that include tension and stress. It is nice to have this child with a sense of humor and charming smile who eases the rough spots and helps bring us back to laughter:) He is a gift.
So...
JJ has been doing well. I think I will update by category to make it easier.
SLEEP:
One of the two biggest issues with JJ has been sleep. We are very happy that he has been sleeping most hours of the night for awhile. He used to go to sleep around midnight (give or take an hour) for many months. About a month ago he abruptly started to go to sleep earlier (between 7 and 9) more nights of the week than not. That has been a huge blessing. However, it also means that we wakes between 4 and 6...not so much fun. He does sleep in his own bed though (until he wakes in the morning). He is even learning a little about how to identify when he is tired and asking to sleep, sometimes:)
EATING:
I took JJ in to be weighed recently and he had gained 3 lbs in 3 months! His weight gain has been such a frustration for over 3 years that it has been great to see him actually eating and gaining weight. He prefers milk over juice or water - essentially refusing to drink either. He can finally drink from a regular cup without spilling. Getting him to drink at all was a struggle for years, and it worsened after we weaned from the bottle. I am glad that he finally will drink an entire glass of milk in one sitting again, like he used to do with a bottle. He does not like to eat breads or many sweets. He prefers things like chips and nacho cheese, sliced turkey, grape nuts (he will wake up at 4 a.m. and INSIST on eating a bowl of grape nuts), spaghetti, pizza, shrimp, fruit snacks, and those kinds of foods. It has been such a blessing to me that in the past few weeks he is finally asking for food. Before it was always us trying to get him to eat, or if we were eating he may try a few bites. He (unless it is 4 a.m.) does not like to eat when he first wakes up. In fact, if we travel in the mornings he will often become car sick if he has consumed anything at all. I suspect that he has some sensory/tummy ache issues that are chronic. Another goofy thing about his eating is that he hates his hands to get dirty. About 75% of the time he will say "you feed me??" Just today I was almost in tears when he said, "I hu gee. I wa a nack!" (I'm hungry, I want a snack). For him to initiate eating is incredible. He ended up eating almost 2 full bowls of grapes. I was delighted:)
SPEAKING:
JJ has quite a difficult time communicating. He jabbers on like crazy but most of the time we do not understand him. When Sport came at 36 months he had a huge vocabulary and excellent articulation. JJ is 39 months and struggles quite a lot. We pick up his meaning from context and his animation or pointing. Buddy did not speak until he was 3 either and does well now. I heard from JJ's birth mom yesterday who shared that JJ's full bio sister who is 11 months older than him has delays in speech as well, so probably we will need to get him evaluated and services.
JJ's speaking has been a source of much comedy in our home. Lately his favorite word is "why." It is amazing how many times the word "why" can be used in a day. I do not recall the other kids saying it this much. Perhaps because they had better vocabularies and could ask more detailed questions. Sometimes he will shake things up a bit and ask "where?"
Biological Mom:
Right before JJ turned 3 his Tummy Mommy asked that we not send pictures or updates anymore as it was too hard on her. We of course respected that. She then posted on JJ's fb page a picture of her and JJ's sister on her sister's birthday with a message to JJ. So...I decided to just put a picture up on JJ's fb page to see how the mom responded. She thankfully did send us a message and we were able to communicate a bit. It is so hard on her, yet she assures us that she knows she made the right decision. I will admit though that when she asked me to send her a picture of JJ in his Halloween costume I immediately panicked and tried to think of how to find a costume to get a picture for her (we do not observe Halloween). My husband then gently reminded me that I could just gently tell her that we do not observe Halloween and therefore there was not a picture, but to send another cute picture instead. I was surprised at my initial response and realized that I so want to have her approval as the continued "right choice" of being the mother to her child. Anyway, the responsibility of raising "another person's child" is always weighing heavily on my shoulders. The thought "what would their mom/dad/grandparent/etc think of xyz??" is usually lurking there somewhere, especially with JJ's mom as she chose us as opposed to "The State" choosing us with the other 3 adoptions (although in Grace's case her parents and grandparents did want us to adopt her after the initial placement was done by the state).
Biological Dad:
Bio mom has bio dad as a "friend" on fb. It is weird to see pictures of him and to hear his Bio mom and her friends post on pics of JJ that "he looks JUST like his dad!!!" At times I have such a need to try to contact him and make a connection for JJ's sake. I have asked his bio mom if that was OK and she never responds to that question. I also have so many fears of contacting him. What if he ends up not wanting to know JJ or wants to know him? There are so many implications on both sides that would be hard for JJ (of course there are good sides, but I seem to always default to the downside). I figure that the dad knows how to contact me and chooses not to (but maybe feels like he can't) and the bio mom won't say anything about it so I will just leave it alone for now. The dad is a chef though...so maybe that accounts for JJ's sensitive palate;)
POTTY TRAINING:
Unfortunately...still in training phase. This month marks 1 year since we started the process. Just like everything else with him it takes a long time. He has always known what to do in the bathroom, but never initiated it (kind of like eating). If we have had days with him in a pull up due to being gone he regresses (of course) so we will just continue to plod along. On good days he has no accidents (and most days only a few) so I know that it won't be too long.
THE NUK:
Sigh...He really wants that nuk. We take it away from him during the day and he chews on EVERYTHING else he can find. Today his shirt is drenched all the way to his waist due to him chewing on it. He was even chewing on MY shirt today. He has such a need to chew and chew. I have noticed that he is speaking a bit clearer and eating a bit more since we have taken the nuk during the day...possibly a coincidence...possibly not. He will find where he hide the nuk and either climb up on things to reach it, or use a long item (like a light saber) to knock it down and get it. Gotta give him points for creativity! He has become a bit more frustrated with us taking his nuk and he insists on having 2 of them when he goes to bed. Maybe he thinks he can stash one away and we won't notice;) He is such a card!
SHYNESS:
JJ continues to be very shy. He will cling to us in public (although as long as it is not nursery or Sunday School at church he feels comfortable enough to run crazy!) and always wants us to carry him. However, he has made some very good friends and it is fun to see his response to them. One of them is a teenage boy who frequents our home. JJ seems to think that he is there for JJ's express pleasure and asks about him almost every day. He will yell "my Edin!" when he sees him or talks about him and last weekend stood at the window watching the road for a long time waiting for him to come. He adores his friend:) We also had another couple stop by a bit from another country and JJ was very comfortable with him as well. I think that the frequency of us talking about them in our home perhaps has helped him feel safer. We do pray for them at every meal so he hears their names a lot lol! We have some other friends that watch him on occasion. He fights staying there but calms down soon after we leave so I think that is success:) Next goal...getting him to stay in Sunday School!
ALL BOY!
JJ is loud, boisterous, demanding, insistent, energetic, and fearless in settings where he feels safe. He will stand up on top of furniture and think nothing of jumping down into a pile of hard objects. He climbs up shelves and other places where he should not be. He creatively uses light sabers and other long objects to knock down high up objects that he wants. He LOVES to be outside and is very upset that it is curtailed with the cold weather. He wrestles aggressively and without a vocabulary to use to ask for what he wants/needs he tends to aggressively pursue it. That is the area we work with him the most about. He has older siblings who are "demanding" of his space and things. He has learned to not bow down to impulsive whims of others. That has been a good trait given some of our family dynamics. With that said, he also needs to constantly be taught that he cannot insist on satisfying his impulsive whims to the exclusion of others' needs/wants. Something that all of us can probably work on:)
COMIC RELIEF:
Probably the most defining part of JJ is his comic relief. All of the rest of us comment on how JJ makes us laugh, diverts difficult situations, and helps us to relax and see the joy in daily life again. So many dynamics exist in our home that include tension and stress. It is nice to have this child with a sense of humor and charming smile who eases the rough spots and helps bring us back to laughter:) He is a gift.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Our 6th Child Turns 3!
JJ turned 3 today. I will give a recap of the circumstances of JJ's birth (hey, what else is a blogger to do on a kid's birthday? ;)
We felt God calling us to adopt again, but after 3 foster adoptions we could just not bear to "wonder" if an adoption was going to move forward or not and the 18+ month long rollercoaster rides of foster care "what if's." We decided to do an agency adoption. There was no money up front (aside from the home study process). We prayed that since the home study was good for one year, if He wanted us to adopt again, we were available. However, if it was just our flesh that wanted another child and it was not His will, we would understand that if the home study expired and we were not matched, then we would be content with our 5 kids. We started the paperwork in March, were approved by the agency in June. On Wednesday, August 11, we were called to be told that a potential birth mom wanted to look at our profile and would want to call the next day to talk to us. We did not get a call so thought we were not chosen. Around 11 on Friday, August 13, we got a call that we were chosen and she wanted to talk to us in the afternoon. That afternoon we got a text that the mom had chosen not to talk to us..because she decided we were "the family." I went into shock...we had a ton of things to get gone before we needed to be leaving for Utah on...Sunday, August 15. JJ was to be born on the 17th.
Obviously we made it to Utah on time! We met with JJ's birth mom on Monday night at The Cheesecake Factory. The agency had a social worker there for her and one for us to help support us through the conversation. We had a very nice conversation and she told us why she picked us (because she wanted JJ to learn values of being a Godly and loyal man, and she was the oldest of 11 children and wanted JJ to have a big family) and she was very happy with the name we suggested (wanting his middle name to be only 1 letter different from his 11 month old full bio sister) starting to cry when she realized that it was my husband who picked the name...she said that she was shocked that a father would care enough about his son to want to name him.
The next morning we got a call that the hospital had too many people delivering so we would have to wait for the induction (thankfully we did not get told that the hospital originally said Friday!!) We got called in later in the morning. The social worker for his birth mom stayed with us the entire time. I was so blessed that his birth mom asked me there for his delivery. She said it was so I would be able to tell JJ all about the day he was born. His birth mom is a courageous and precious woman, we are infinitely blessed by the gift of life she has given JJ and for the birth plan to involve our family. Well, the induction was underway, I kept notes of things that she wanted me to know for JJ in the future. You get to know a woman in a unique way when you are with her while laboring. I just kept trying to focus on loving her and not make her feel that we were there just for JJ.
It got a bit scary. JJ's heart rate dropped into the 50's. The physician was called in for an emergency c-section. I lost it for a brief time but rallied. When the physician arrived soon thereafter, JJ's birth mom had gone from a 5 to a 10 in 10 minutes (explaining the heart rate drop). Things happened really fast then. I was surprised when I was told to hold her leg (the social worker on the other side)...she pushed a few times...and there he was. Very small (at least to me at 5lbs 4 oz). Our only child that I got to watch be brought into the world. It was surreal on many levels and my thoughts and emotions were NOT what I would have expected them to be. We got to go back with him to watch him be washed up, etc. Unfortunately, JJ spit up most of his milk, they changed formula's several times, he was becoming jaundiced, I didn't get to stay with him in the hospital to help get food into him (having flashbacks to Beautiful also not eating well initially, thus increasing my anxiety), and his birth mom was more interested in grieving over his loss than getting food into him (COMPLETELY understandable, but anxiety provoking none-the-less).
In Utah the birth mom signs the relinquishment papers when the baby is 24 hours old and it is irrevocable. Also, the birth mother has a choice to not name the birth father and his rights can be terminated on (unlike our state where huge efforts have to be made to find the birth father - such as what caused the problem with Rose - but I digress). Some people are very upset about Utah's laws and how it is unfair to the birth father (the birth father has 3 weeks to petition to a judge that he emotionally and financially supported the birth mom during the pregnancy in order to retain his rights) but I think they are just in situations such as JJ's. If we were to adopt via an agency adoption again, we would definitely chose Utah, and chose Heart to Heart Adoptions in Sandy, UT. They were absolutely fabulous.
Wednesday she signed the paperwork.
Thursday we showed up to have JJ discharged to us and warned about all of the medical issues given him not eating well. We may have to stay in state longer, etc. We decided we just needed to get him home to our physician and our home. The paperwork went to a judge and we could not leave the state until he signed the papers. The government doesn't (didn't) work Fridays so it was that day or wait until Monday. We were told by our own state's contacts that when they got the Interstate Compact paperwork the next day after Utah signed it, they would sign it right away...if they were in the office. We legally could not leave Utah until Utah's judge signed the papers...we could then go to any state except ours until our state signed the paperwork (makes sense...right?). We sat on the Utah border until RIGHT at 5:00 on Thursday when we finally got the approval to leave Utah. The next day we got 1 hour from our state's border when we got the call that our state approved us. We were so happy (and EXHAUSTED) when we got home late Friday night.
We were chosen by his birth mom on Friday...and came home with JJ the following Friday. It was crazy. As many of you know, his eating issues continued, I ended up having to nurse him until 15 months to deal with the problems, and today he continues to be a very finicky eater (who insists that we feed him because he does not like dirty hands - very goofy kid! But that is for another blog post:) who is finally gaining weight.
Anyway...Today he is THREE!!!!
This 3rd birthday is special to our family because...it is the first birthday that we have had all of our children. Superman was the oldest child to come to us. He was here for just the weekend before he turned 3, left for a week while the judge signed paperwork, and came back 3 days after his birthday. He was 4 1/2 before the adoption was done, but we had him "technically" at age 3. These anniversary dates get me to remembering, most of the time making me rather sad and circumspect, such as the post a couple of months ago about JJ being the same age Superman was the last time he (and Faith) saw his birth mom and was finally permanently removed after being in the "system" for just shy of 2 years...
So, some reminiscing about our other kids...
When Beautiful turned 3 she was still an only child. Therefore, she was the one who we had high expectations of, pushed and prodded, and made a ton of mistakes with (not that we have quit making mistakes!) We were so naive and "green" about parenting. I can remember reading the checklists of "what to expect the first year" books and making sure every month that she could do what they said, or cajoling her to do them. By the time we got to kid 3 I didn't even own the books anymore lol! They will get it when they get it...or they won't. We thought she was perfect and our threesome was a cohesive unit.
When Buddy turned 3 he was such a card, he kept us laughing with his antics and joy about life. We had mellowed out a bit about parenting. He was also MUCH more laid back in personality than Beautiful. He was quiet (he still didn't speak at age 3) compared to Beautiful's desire to talk (which she did early and well), and enjoyed being alone compared to Beautiful's social butterfly personality. Not too much got him worked up at that age, whereas his sister was a bit more...ummm...sensitive. It was clear early on that he watched and thought through things whereas his sister preferred to jump into experiencing them. They were a good balance. It was pretty easy to have him join our family and make us a foursome. We were done having kids. A son and a daughter. Family of four. We got saved right before Buddy was born. God had other plans for our family... as usually happens when we finally submit to His better plan over our "logical" one;)
When Superman turned 3, Faith and Grace were still 2 (in fact, Faith was 3 weeks from turning 2). However, that entire time frame, for years, is a blur. 3 toddlers essentially the same age, one being already clearly very ADHD, 2 having been through "tough stuff" was mind numbing for us. I am glad that I took a lot of pictures because I sure don't remember many things with clarity except, quite honestly, the really hard and bad stuff. Superman was extremely articulate at age 3, Faith was too withdrawn to talk much at all, and Grace...well Grace never stops talking...ever. Superman and Faith were very withdrawn in their behaviors...Grace was never withdrawn (oddly enough, that has changed a bit with age). They were 4 and 5 when JJ came... JJ restored our faith in adoption. He has been such a balm for our hearts from the yuck of realities of kids coming from hard places and from the frustrations of HHS adoptions...even though he brings his own "stuff" to the family (like each of us do:)
At age 3 JJ is fun, attached (very), spirited, and opinionated. He is very unique in that he is very, very reserved and fearful around strangers/crowds yet engages with total abandon with those with whom he feels safe. He is capable of being more independent in many areas (and insists on it frequently!), while in others insists on dependency (e.g. I have to put him to sleep, he won't go to others so won't attend nursery/Sunday School/ etc, and he won't feed himself because he doesn't like sticky fingers!). He tries to talk but is rarely understood except by family and only in context of a situation. He is an interesting mixture of the personalities and behaviors of each of our other kids.
So, now that JJ is 3, life is much more mellow...and enjoyable (yes, EVEN with 2 teenagers in the house lol!). The 3 can now do many things for themselves (this summer they are finally trusted enough to be able to shower themselves - it may sound silly but I cannot tell you how much of a stress/time reliever it is to not have to bathe 3 kids (well, 5 total I guess lol!). We have a routine that more or less keeps us sane. We have learned about "management" of many of the behaviors that we just need to accept instead of living in perpetual frustration that the behaviors don't just "go away." We finally feel the energy and motivation to move past "survival of" to "enjoying" life again.
So, JJ turning 3 means that we are finally moving "forward." We are getting out of "baby" stage. It is a sweet time that from here on out we have had each of our kids and have memories of each of them at "this stage." No regretting that we have no baby pictures of another child at "this age." No wondering what another child was experiencing while not with us at "this age." No sadness that "if only XX would have had a better home at "this age" then maybe we wouldn't have to deal with ZZ behavior." We are moving...forward:)
but...if we do get to adopt Rose...I'd be happy to go through it all again!!!
We felt God calling us to adopt again, but after 3 foster adoptions we could just not bear to "wonder" if an adoption was going to move forward or not and the 18+ month long rollercoaster rides of foster care "what if's." We decided to do an agency adoption. There was no money up front (aside from the home study process). We prayed that since the home study was good for one year, if He wanted us to adopt again, we were available. However, if it was just our flesh that wanted another child and it was not His will, we would understand that if the home study expired and we were not matched, then we would be content with our 5 kids. We started the paperwork in March, were approved by the agency in June. On Wednesday, August 11, we were called to be told that a potential birth mom wanted to look at our profile and would want to call the next day to talk to us. We did not get a call so thought we were not chosen. Around 11 on Friday, August 13, we got a call that we were chosen and she wanted to talk to us in the afternoon. That afternoon we got a text that the mom had chosen not to talk to us..because she decided we were "the family." I went into shock...we had a ton of things to get gone before we needed to be leaving for Utah on...Sunday, August 15. JJ was to be born on the 17th.
Obviously we made it to Utah on time! We met with JJ's birth mom on Monday night at The Cheesecake Factory. The agency had a social worker there for her and one for us to help support us through the conversation. We had a very nice conversation and she told us why she picked us (because she wanted JJ to learn values of being a Godly and loyal man, and she was the oldest of 11 children and wanted JJ to have a big family) and she was very happy with the name we suggested (wanting his middle name to be only 1 letter different from his 11 month old full bio sister) starting to cry when she realized that it was my husband who picked the name...she said that she was shocked that a father would care enough about his son to want to name him.
The next morning we got a call that the hospital had too many people delivering so we would have to wait for the induction (thankfully we did not get told that the hospital originally said Friday!!) We got called in later in the morning. The social worker for his birth mom stayed with us the entire time. I was so blessed that his birth mom asked me there for his delivery. She said it was so I would be able to tell JJ all about the day he was born. His birth mom is a courageous and precious woman, we are infinitely blessed by the gift of life she has given JJ and for the birth plan to involve our family. Well, the induction was underway, I kept notes of things that she wanted me to know for JJ in the future. You get to know a woman in a unique way when you are with her while laboring. I just kept trying to focus on loving her and not make her feel that we were there just for JJ.
It got a bit scary. JJ's heart rate dropped into the 50's. The physician was called in for an emergency c-section. I lost it for a brief time but rallied. When the physician arrived soon thereafter, JJ's birth mom had gone from a 5 to a 10 in 10 minutes (explaining the heart rate drop). Things happened really fast then. I was surprised when I was told to hold her leg (the social worker on the other side)...she pushed a few times...and there he was. Very small (at least to me at 5lbs 4 oz). Our only child that I got to watch be brought into the world. It was surreal on many levels and my thoughts and emotions were NOT what I would have expected them to be. We got to go back with him to watch him be washed up, etc. Unfortunately, JJ spit up most of his milk, they changed formula's several times, he was becoming jaundiced, I didn't get to stay with him in the hospital to help get food into him (having flashbacks to Beautiful also not eating well initially, thus increasing my anxiety), and his birth mom was more interested in grieving over his loss than getting food into him (COMPLETELY understandable, but anxiety provoking none-the-less).
In Utah the birth mom signs the relinquishment papers when the baby is 24 hours old and it is irrevocable. Also, the birth mother has a choice to not name the birth father and his rights can be terminated on (unlike our state where huge efforts have to be made to find the birth father - such as what caused the problem with Rose - but I digress). Some people are very upset about Utah's laws and how it is unfair to the birth father (the birth father has 3 weeks to petition to a judge that he emotionally and financially supported the birth mom during the pregnancy in order to retain his rights) but I think they are just in situations such as JJ's. If we were to adopt via an agency adoption again, we would definitely chose Utah, and chose Heart to Heart Adoptions in Sandy, UT. They were absolutely fabulous.
Wednesday she signed the paperwork.
Thursday we showed up to have JJ discharged to us and warned about all of the medical issues given him not eating well. We may have to stay in state longer, etc. We decided we just needed to get him home to our physician and our home. The paperwork went to a judge and we could not leave the state until he signed the papers. The government doesn't (didn't) work Fridays so it was that day or wait until Monday. We were told by our own state's contacts that when they got the Interstate Compact paperwork the next day after Utah signed it, they would sign it right away...if they were in the office. We legally could not leave Utah until Utah's judge signed the papers...we could then go to any state except ours until our state signed the paperwork (makes sense...right?). We sat on the Utah border until RIGHT at 5:00 on Thursday when we finally got the approval to leave Utah. The next day we got 1 hour from our state's border when we got the call that our state approved us. We were so happy (and EXHAUSTED) when we got home late Friday night.
We were chosen by his birth mom on Friday...and came home with JJ the following Friday. It was crazy. As many of you know, his eating issues continued, I ended up having to nurse him until 15 months to deal with the problems, and today he continues to be a very finicky eater (who insists that we feed him because he does not like dirty hands - very goofy kid! But that is for another blog post:) who is finally gaining weight.
Anyway...Today he is THREE!!!!
This 3rd birthday is special to our family because...it is the first birthday that we have had all of our children. Superman was the oldest child to come to us. He was here for just the weekend before he turned 3, left for a week while the judge signed paperwork, and came back 3 days after his birthday. He was 4 1/2 before the adoption was done, but we had him "technically" at age 3. These anniversary dates get me to remembering, most of the time making me rather sad and circumspect, such as the post a couple of months ago about JJ being the same age Superman was the last time he (and Faith) saw his birth mom and was finally permanently removed after being in the "system" for just shy of 2 years...
So, some reminiscing about our other kids...
When Beautiful turned 3 she was still an only child. Therefore, she was the one who we had high expectations of, pushed and prodded, and made a ton of mistakes with (not that we have quit making mistakes!) We were so naive and "green" about parenting. I can remember reading the checklists of "what to expect the first year" books and making sure every month that she could do what they said, or cajoling her to do them. By the time we got to kid 3 I didn't even own the books anymore lol! They will get it when they get it...or they won't. We thought she was perfect and our threesome was a cohesive unit.
When Buddy turned 3 he was such a card, he kept us laughing with his antics and joy about life. We had mellowed out a bit about parenting. He was also MUCH more laid back in personality than Beautiful. He was quiet (he still didn't speak at age 3) compared to Beautiful's desire to talk (which she did early and well), and enjoyed being alone compared to Beautiful's social butterfly personality. Not too much got him worked up at that age, whereas his sister was a bit more...ummm...sensitive. It was clear early on that he watched and thought through things whereas his sister preferred to jump into experiencing them. They were a good balance. It was pretty easy to have him join our family and make us a foursome. We were done having kids. A son and a daughter. Family of four. We got saved right before Buddy was born. God had other plans for our family... as usually happens when we finally submit to His better plan over our "logical" one;)
When Superman turned 3, Faith and Grace were still 2 (in fact, Faith was 3 weeks from turning 2). However, that entire time frame, for years, is a blur. 3 toddlers essentially the same age, one being already clearly very ADHD, 2 having been through "tough stuff" was mind numbing for us. I am glad that I took a lot of pictures because I sure don't remember many things with clarity except, quite honestly, the really hard and bad stuff. Superman was extremely articulate at age 3, Faith was too withdrawn to talk much at all, and Grace...well Grace never stops talking...ever. Superman and Faith were very withdrawn in their behaviors...Grace was never withdrawn (oddly enough, that has changed a bit with age). They were 4 and 5 when JJ came... JJ restored our faith in adoption. He has been such a balm for our hearts from the yuck of realities of kids coming from hard places and from the frustrations of HHS adoptions...even though he brings his own "stuff" to the family (like each of us do:)
At age 3 JJ is fun, attached (very), spirited, and opinionated. He is very unique in that he is very, very reserved and fearful around strangers/crowds yet engages with total abandon with those with whom he feels safe. He is capable of being more independent in many areas (and insists on it frequently!), while in others insists on dependency (e.g. I have to put him to sleep, he won't go to others so won't attend nursery/Sunday School/ etc, and he won't feed himself because he doesn't like sticky fingers!). He tries to talk but is rarely understood except by family and only in context of a situation. He is an interesting mixture of the personalities and behaviors of each of our other kids.
So, now that JJ is 3, life is much more mellow...and enjoyable (yes, EVEN with 2 teenagers in the house lol!). The 3 can now do many things for themselves (this summer they are finally trusted enough to be able to shower themselves - it may sound silly but I cannot tell you how much of a stress/time reliever it is to not have to bathe 3 kids (well, 5 total I guess lol!). We have a routine that more or less keeps us sane. We have learned about "management" of many of the behaviors that we just need to accept instead of living in perpetual frustration that the behaviors don't just "go away." We finally feel the energy and motivation to move past "survival of" to "enjoying" life again.
So, JJ turning 3 means that we are finally moving "forward." We are getting out of "baby" stage. It is a sweet time that from here on out we have had each of our kids and have memories of each of them at "this stage." No regretting that we have no baby pictures of another child at "this age." No wondering what another child was experiencing while not with us at "this age." No sadness that "if only XX would have had a better home at "this age" then maybe we wouldn't have to deal with ZZ behavior." We are moving...forward:)
but...if we do get to adopt Rose...I'd be happy to go through it all again!!!
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