referralversary #2!

a year ago today, we got the most amazing picture.






















it came after a week of praying that the last document for a three-year-old girl would come in quickly so that she could be referred to us. our agency had told us up front that there weren't many pictures of this little girl, and they understood if we decided not to accept her referral. maybe there really are people out there who say "no" to a child because there aren't enough pictures of them, but i can't really fathom that. when i saw that picture, i knew she was ours.

the day we got the call about kal's referral, jamie was out of town on business. it was a friday, and i was leaving work mid-morning to drive to ohio for our nephew's fifth birthday (jamie was flying directly there from his business trip). it was a bummer to be separated on such a momentous day, but i'm honestly grateful for the 6-hour drive i had that day alone. it gave me a lot of time to reflect on kal and her story, and there were many tears shed -- both happy and sad.

before we got kal's referral, we had almost given up hope that we'd be able to adopt two kids at the same time. things had been moving so slowly, and no toddlers had been referred in months. so it was not only a huge miracle to get this second referral, but it was such a surprise to be referred a girl. though we had prepared the entire adoption for two boys based on the wait times for girls being longer, i began longing for a girl.

kal is actually nothing like the first picture we got of her. she is loud and sassy and talkative and energetic. i remember studying that picture over and over again thinking this little girl was the most prim and proper, reserved, innocent girl in the entire world. time went on, however, and we started to realize as we got more pictures that this girl was quite spunky :)




















as much as i treasure that first picture of kal, i'm so glad healing has begun in her heart. we still see the scared little girl from the picture sometimes, but more often than not, we see our bubbly girl with a huge grin. and we're so glad she's ours.

referralversary #1!

today marks one year since we first saw our son's face.



we waited 28 months for that day to come -- 9 months raising money and doing paperwork, 19 months officially on a waitlist. i know it doesn't seem like a lot compared to today's wait times for ethiopia, but it felt like an eternity given the original wait times we had expected.

 

you can read about rebuma's referral day here. one of my favorite parts of that day was the meatloaf i was eating for lunch while casually talking to jamie on the phone about this child who would be our son. when we got rebuma's referral, he was 9.5 months old and had lived in an orphanage for almost all of his life.

 

rebuma has endured a lot in his little life -- he is such a miracle. the thing we heard over and over from the staff at our agency's transition home when we picked our kids up was how amazed they were at how rebuma progressed. when he arrived there in december (he'd been at another orphanage previously), he was sick and extremely malnourished. when we met him for the first time in january, he weighed just 11 pounds at 13 months old and literally didn't make noise (no crying, cooing, etc). in the months between our court date and embassy date, he almost doubled his body weight. now that he's been home for more than three months, he has grown even more, started walking, and is on the verge of a major word explosion (thanks to his big sister). he has the goofiest personality (think class clown type) and is, in general, just a really fun kid (with a name like rebuma, i'm pretty sure you're required to have a huge personality). we still have hard times with him, and it's not like the last three months have healed all his wounds. but he has come far, and for that, we are thankful.

 

he is undoubtedly living proof of God's power and grace. and we are blessed to be his parents.

 

 

 

 

three months later

perhaps the title of this post led you to believe this would be an attempt to summarize all that has taken place in our family three months post-adoption. but instead, what i'm really here to say that after three months, we finally broke down and bought...

a double stroller.

 

and let me tell you, after an inaugural stroll through best buy tonight, i knew my life would never be the same again.

 

kal has actually been extremely good about walking (and rarely whining) when we go places where she can't just ride in a cart. but even she has had her moments where exhaustion and overstimulation get the best of her. we've had a handful of miserable moments where kal has melted down or been on the verge of melting down because she wanted to be carried while we were out (and, for the record, i have had a few frazzled mom moments when i've obliged her request to be carried. mothers of more than two children, i salute you, because it takes a lot just to juggle a 4-year-old on your hip while steering a stroller carrying an almost-2-year-old with one hand). but now, thanks to the awesome sit and stand double stroller, kal can sit down when she feels tired/overwhelmed or stand up when she's looking for a little adventure (and she can still walk when she wants to, but i already told her that we didn't just buy a double stroller for her to decide that she never wants to ride in the stroller again).

 

the other thing i've noticed, though, is that strollers are a good way to protect your kids from all the crazies out there who have never heard of a good 'ole thing called personal space. i'm probably a little hypersensitive about personal space because i've read a lot about kids from multiple caregiver backgrounds who don't know how to discriminate between their permanent caregivers (read: mommy and daddy) and all the other potential caregivers in the world (read: complete strangers at the mall). we still don't let people we know and trust get too much in their space because, even with the positive steps toward healthy attachment we've taken in the last few months, there are still times when i watch them be totally confused about who mommy is or who they're going home with. the problem is, rebuma is now in a stage where he absolutely loves to wave at people, which means he is perpetually -- though, unintentionally -- inviting others into his personal space (sometimes, when he's feeling extra congenial, he reaches his hand out to grab people so he can wave at them, and that's when i literally have to restrain his hand with mine). and once rebuma gets someone waving back or talking to him, it draws kal in too, and she starts waving and smiling like she's known that person her whole life...and, well, i hope it makes sense why these interactions are problematic for kids from trauma/multiple caregiver backgrounds.

 

so, i figure that while a double stroller won't solve all my problems, i now at least have one more buffer between the outside world and both my children. because to get into my children's personal space means the crazies will also have to get all up in mine, and i'm neither as cute or as sweet as my kids.

the darndest things

i'm really kicking myself for not keeping a better record of all the english-as-a-third-language mix-ups kal has had. like tonight, she kept telling jamie she had a "girl cheese sandwich" for lunch instead of a grilled cheese sandwich.

thankfully, however, i can remember the best mix-up she's had to date. when we realized kal has a pretty sharp memory, we decided to harness it by starting bible verse memorization. for the past month, we've been working on learning a verse each week. a few weeks ago, she was memorizing micah 6:8:

and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

i've noticed that the way she seems to memorize is by taking little chunks of the verse and repeating them over and over until she pieces the whole thing together in her brain. that week, i remember she repeated "walk humbly" about a million times. several days after we'd completed that verse and moved on to the next one, kal was helping jamie bring in groceries and kept saying "walk humbly." thinking she was referring to the verse, jamie said, "yeah, walk humbly, bible verse." but then she pulled out the container of guacamole we'd bought and said, "no, walk humbly" and put it in his hand.

guacamole. walk humbly. they really do sound a little alike, right?

our girl is seriously a trip and a half.

getting home

confession: i chuckle just a little now when i hear people complaining about a short-haul domestic flight with their children.

i know very few people who aren't scared to death about the flight home from ethiopia with their newly adopted child(ren). it's a long flight no matter how you split it up (direct flight, layover, etc.), and you spend every minute trying your darndest to occupy a child who literally has no idea who you are.

when we got to the airport the night we left ethiopia, i suddenly remembered i hadn't put a change of clothes for myself in our carry-on luggage in the event of a disaster. this thought occurred to me as we were at the check-in desk, and the ethiopian air lady was waiting for us to weigh our luggage. i decided not to hold up the line by rummaging through my suitcase and continued on through immigration and security and to our gate, hoping the outfit i was wearing could withstand the next 16 hours.

we waited at our gate for about an hour and then were informed that our flight would be delayed another 45 minutes. it was hot, we were all tired (it was already close to 11pm), and all i could think about was how terrible it felt that our already-way-too-long flight was delayed. kal had been saying she needed to go to the bathroom, so i took her and decided to change rebuma's diaper while i was in there. i laid rebuma on the changing table and was in the middle of changing him when someone turned on one of those hand drying machines. it scared the ever-living crap out of him. he screamed and cried and thrashed on the table. another cwa mom, maureen, was thankfully in there with me, and she held him down while i got a new diaper on him. i didn't even bother putting his pajamas back on because i just wanted to get out of there.

the flight ended up boarding quicker than expected, so we were soon in line to board. i was holding rebuma, who had about every ethiopian eye on him because all he had on was a diaper (and ethiopians typically over-dress their children to keep them warm and modest). we got down to the door of the plane, and a couple of ethiopian men were checking out rebuma. "where are his clothes?" one of them asked. i explained what had happened in the bathroom. "well, everyone is staring at him because of his chest." translation: your kid has man boobs.

things went well for the first hour, and then rebuma had a dirty diaper. i got my diaper bag and took him into the teeny tiny airplaine bathroom, where i proceeded to remove the poopy diaper and throw it away. that's when i realized that my diaper bag had no diapers in it. so i wrapped his pajamas, which i had planned to put back on him, around him and trudged back to my seat. as i frantically demanded that jamie get me a diaper as quickly as possible, i felt the warm sensation of pee start to saturate the front of my shirt. and with 15 hours left on that airplane, i regretted not taking five minutes to move a change of clothing from our suitcase to our carry-on bags.

so i, covered in a full baby bladder's worth of pee, went back to bathroom because rebuma still needed a diaper. and as i laid him down on the changing table, i'm pretty sure his little mind went straight back to the hand drying machine trauma of 2 hours ago because he screamed and thrashed. and i'm also pretty sure the people sitting right outside the bathroom thought i was trying to stuff him down the toilet or something equally terrible.

fast forward another few hours, and rebuma needed another new diaper. this time, a flight attendant came in and held him down while i changed him because she heard him screaming as she walked by.

fast forward another few hours, and rebuma needed another new diaper. jamie and i both went in the bathroom this time. i held him up (so we didn't have to lay him down), and jamie removed the poopy diaper and put on the new diaper. it was a pretty good plan, but i think rebuma still cried and jamie managed to get poop on himself.

throughout all of this, rebuma clung to me...as in grasped my shirt in each of his little fists and would not let go. my shirt was one of those shirts made of really stretchy cotton, so you can imagine that a few hours of stretching thanks to rebuma holding on for dear life had me freaking out that i was flashing the entire airplane. at times, i was on the edge of insanity, shoving rebuma in jamie's arms, saying, "i just need you to take him! he won't let go of me!"

somewhere near the end of the flight, we told kal she had to put her seat belt on (we weren't descending yet, but we were trying to obey the rule about keeping it on when seated). she flat-out refused, so we decided to ask a flight attendant to explain it to her in amharic. the flight attendant came over and explained the seat belt to her, but then casually said, "but she doesn't need to wear that now," then she reached over and unbuckled the seat belt. "thanks for undermining our parenting to our child who doesn't know she's our child," we thought. when we did begin our descent, kal still refused to put on her seat belt, so we asked another flight attendant for help. she spoke the magic words in amharic, and kal was immediately compliant. seriously, an airplane is not the place to work through a language barrier.

the rest of the flight was a blur. maureen let me borrow a tank top, which i put over the pee shirt. kal braided my hair. i walked up and down the aisles several times so rebuma wouldn't cry. rebuma was sans clothes for at least half the flight. i drank a lot of coke (but not too much since i didn't want to sit on the potty a million times with rebuma strapped to me in the baby ergo). and some guy a few rows in front of us got up and flipped out on another guy for "making a gross noise."

and that is why, after a 16 hour flight from ethiopia to DC, a 5 hour layover, and another 1.5 hour flight to charlotte with an 18 month old and an almost 4 year old who we just started parenting 3 days previously, we looked like this when we finally landed in north carolina:

so the next time you fly with your child, consider it a success if (a) your clothes are appropriately covering you and not covered in your baby's pee (b) your baby lets you change his diaper without the help of a flight attendant and (c) your child obeys you rather than the flight attendant.

should you adopt?

when we started the adoption process in 2009, we knew absolutely nothing about parenting adopted children.

what we did know was that God was calling us on this journey, so we committed ourselves to learning everything we could about adoption. we read books, we talked to other adoptive parents, and we attended a seminar on attachment. we became pretty fluent in talking about brain development and attachment and all the other things that come with adoption.

however, being proficient in all the right things doesn't really sustain you when you delve into the hard part of parenting adopted children. don't get me wrong -- i'm extremely glad we did our research. the literature on adoption is out there for a reason, and i honestly cringe when i hear that adoptive families bypass resources that will help them help their child heal. but there are days when my kids don't react to my intentional parenting the way the books say they will, and there are other days where i know exactly why my kids are behaving a certain way and exactly what i should do to help them, and yet i don't do it because it would be inconvenient for me (and also, sometimes it just feels good to lose your temper...so cathartic, yet so sinful).

the truth is, EVERY adopted child has special needs no matter how old they are or how well they seem to be doing or how healthy their paperwork says they are. and so, for me, the thing that gets me through the day is remembering that God called us to this and is helping us uphold our commitment to our children's healing -- even when it's really hard.

and this is precisely why i hate that adoption has become a fad, even among christians.

there is, without a doubt, a revival sweeping through the church where the hearts of God's people are being called to care for orphans. many families i know sponsor children through world vision or compassion international. i've watched my church gather around adoptive families by supporting them in fundraising and also in setting up an adoption fund. there are a number of organizations that now exist to serve orphans through mission trips or to empower women through job skills training so that poverty doesn't force them to abandon or relinquish their children.

as people hear more and more about God's heart for the orphan, i think many of them are genuinely concerned and want to do something. this is why so many of my conversations about adoption with others almost always begin with, "oh, your children are adopted!? we would really like to adopt one day too." unfortunately, when something explodes in popularity (even when it's a good kind of popularity), some people tend to jump on the bandwagon without having a clue what they are doing.

like i said, we knew nothing about parenting adopted children when we began. and if that's you, but you feel so strongly that God is calling you to this journey and you are ready to commit to whatever your child will need to heal, then you need to go for it. not a day goes by that we don't think about all the other children who are just as bright, just as funny, just as bursting with personality, and just as in need of a mom and dad as kalkidan and rebuma.

but if you just want to adopt because it seems like a nice thing to do or because all your friends are doing it or because it'd be convenient for whatever circumstances you find yourself in (ie, you have 2 sons but really want a daughter or you really want kids but have never been into pregnancy), then you should remember that fads come and go, but a child who comes into your family -- even if they are difficult to deal with or bring lots of baggage -- is forever. i can't say enough that it would suck not to have something greater than myself or my "wants" to fall back on when we're having a hard day in our house because of trauma-related behavior.

i still dream of the day when all christians will at least consider whether God is nudging them to adopt, even while believing that not all people will or should adopt. even on the hard days, i'm so glad God called us to this and 100% believe these 2 goobers are totally worth it.

on naming our children

when we set out to choose names for our children, we knew we were undertaking a very serious task. we didn't want to choose names simply because we liked them or how they sounded or because they were family names. we wanted names with meanings, names that our children could live into.

i know the question of re-naming (or not re-naming) adopted children causes friction in the adoption community. i know some people who think it's simply wrong to take away a child's given name, primarily because it's stripping them of the one last tie they have to their birth culture (and, in some cases, birth family). i know others who believe it's the privilege of the adoptive parents to give their child a new name (like God re-naming abraham and sarah after he makes his covenant with them). and still, i know others who believe re-naming an adopted child is good for practical reasons (for example, so your child isn't the kid who gets his name mispronounced on the first day of school every year).

the thing is, based on how things have worked out for us, i'd probably tell all prospective adoptive parents to "wait and see" on the name. otherwise, you may have to write a blog post and circulate it to all the people who now know your children by the wrong names. most people go into the adoption process feeling really passionate one way or the other without considering all the variables. for the person who "knows for sure" they're going to give their child a new name, consider that your child may flat out refuse the name (this most likely won't happen if you're adopting an infant) or won't understand (because of language issues) that the new name is a name and not some other way of categorizing identity (ie, another title like "mommy" or "sister"). this has been the case with our daughter, and the reason why we have ultimately decided not to change their names. at 4 years old, our daughter knows her name is kalkidan. and while she seemed to like the name ruthie, she never latched on to ruthie kalkidan and instead consistently referred to herself as kalkidan ruthie. frankly, we decided it was unfair to force a new name on a child who so adamantly preferred her given name, especially since we have no way of really explaining the re-naming concept (likewise, i'd also say it's unfair to force a child to keep their given name if they specifically ask for a new name, which i know is common for older adopted children to do). plus, kalkidan (particularly her nickname of kal) is much more fitted to her fiesty personality, something we wouldn't have realized had we not at least been open to not re-naming her.

and for the person who "knows for sure" they're going to keep their child's given name, consider that your child may come to you with a name that's flat out crazy (ie, they could be named madonna or obama or something like that) or their name could present a religious conundrum for you (ie, you are a christian but your child's name means "the strength of allah" or something like that).

so if you know us in real-life, this is the newsflash that we're going to confuse the heck out of you by telling you that our kids' names are rebuma and kalkidan and not ruthie and ephraim. their full names will be rebuma ephraim dean and kalkidan ruth dean (because ruth flows better than ruthie after kalkidan), and you can go here to see what each name means.

and if you're thinking about adopting, my advice is to remember that there's no right or wrong way to approach naming your child. our kids may resent us one day for sticking them with names that are extremely unique and, for some, difficult to pronounce. they may also have resented us if we had changed their names and taken away their ethiopian names. i think each child, once they understand the issue, has the potential to take a different stance based on his/her personality. for now, we've done what seemed best with what limited perspective we all have.