Eyes Wide Open

Chris brought my coffee to me in bed this morning before he left for work.  He knew I was struggling...last night was another sleepless night.  I woke around 2:30am to Tess crying.  She's had a croupy cough since the weekend, and after I went in to give her some more Motrin and tuck her back in, I knew I was doomed. I got back in bed, and my thoughts took over.  I tossed and turned until about 6am.  

Chris brought me my coffee in this mug, 

which is an extra special touch on mornings like today.  

"Mommy Needs Sleep...

But She'll Settle for Coffee"

Chris and I haven't been sleeping very well since last Friday, when we met with our social worker.  Overall, the meeting went very well.  Kathy is upbeat and enthusiastic, and has been helping families with adoption for a long time.  We all sat around our kitchen table and she told us a bit more of her story before diving into questions for Chris and I.  

Kathy has one biological daughter and she and her husband have also adopted internationally twice.  They adopted a healthy infant boy from Russia first, and then they adopted a two-year old girl from China with a heart defect and developmental delays.  She shared that their son from Russia died a few years ago, but did not give details. She indicated that he was not the healthy child they thought they were getting.  My heart sank as she told us this.  I found myself wanting to know more, but didn't feel it was the right time to ask her questions about it.  Her Chinese daughter, Gracie, is doing well.  She is seven now, and her heart defect healed on its own.  She adopted Gracie five years ago from the Sichuan province.  The orphanage where Gracie lived had three thousand children living there.

Three thousand children.  In one orphanage.  

I thought I'd originally misunderstood her when she told us this.  

We talked with Kathy for almost two hours on Friday, but mostly, we listened. She shared a lot about how parenting our son will be vastly different from the way we've parented our girls.  As I heard her speak, I felt my heart start to break all over again at the reality of what our son's life will most likely have been like before we get him.  

Most likely he will not know how to cry.  Crying has never worked for babies in orphanages.  Overtime, they learn that no one responds to their cries, so they just stop.  They give up.  

Most likely he will be months behind where most normal, healthy babies/children are developmentally.  A typical two-year-old orphan from China has the social development of a ten-month old because they lack the one-on-one care that all humans need to develop.  In order for humans to grow and learn, we need human touch.  We need relationship.  We need to attach to our primary caregivers. These children do not have primary caregivers. They have never attached to anyone.  For most of the day, they lie alone in a crib.  

Kathy explained that she highly recommends that once we get our son home, only one person feed him, bathe him, and care for him for the first four weeks--this will help enforce attachment.  She also told us that there is probably more stimuli in our kitchen and family room than he will have ever experienced in his entire life.  

She talked about the scrutiny our family will get when we are out in public with our son.  She talked about the nosy questions people will ask, or flat out rude and mean questions, like "how much did you pay for your baby?"  She has been the recipient of that one.  

She said that the way we discipline our boy will probably be different.  She strongly discouraged ANY use of physical discipline on our son.  She said that human connection should always remain intact during discipline.  If we give him a time-out, we should pull up a chair and sit next to him.  Everything we do with him should be about attachment--gaining attachment and maintaining attachment.  We should never send him to a room alone.  He will most likely feel abandoned all over again.  

My friend Molly has a quote on her blog from one of my favorite authors, Flannery O'Connor.  It says,

"The things we see, hear, smell, and touch affect us long before we believe anything at all."

These words ran through my head over and over as we met with Kathy.  Our son will still be too young to have words when we get him, but he will have been deeply affected by the life he's lived thus far.  We will be trying to make up for lost time.  I recently read that one month with a loving, stable family is equivalent to three months without. 

Kathy also shared the the special-needs kids coming out of China seem to be sicker and needier now than ever before. 

Kathy left our house about two hours after she'd arrived.  I was sad to see her go.  I wanted to talk to her all day about her own experiences, the stories she's heard and seen, and more of what we should expect as we bring our son home.  Chris left to go back to work at the hospital at the same time Kathy left. In an instant, the house was quiet and the fear started to seep in. Suddenly, it all seemed REAL. I started to feel a bit panicked in our big, empty house, just me and Lucy.  So I took Lu and went to Costco--the Great Number of Human Emotions.  I bought 25 lbs of flour and 10 lbs of sugar.  Then we got Tess from preschool and came home and made a pound cake.  It made me feel a little more in-control.

Last Friday, a big shift occurred for me.  I realized that this adoption isn't just a cool idea anymore.  This is our life.  This will rock our world.  This will change our lives forever.  There are an overwhelming amount of unknowns.  

I don't know how I'm going to do it.  I don't know how I'm going to care for our son along with the girls we have.  I don't know how we are going to do this and move across the country in 18 months to an unknown location. The only thing I do seem to know is that we can't do it without God. I have to trust that He will equip us to do what He has called us to do.  I'm finding that this kind of trust is easier said than done.  My fear, doubt, and worry are keeping me awake for hours at night, telling me that we are crazy and foolish to trust Him like this.  I have never lived my life this way.  It is completely unnerving. 

Our small group is starting a new study--a book called "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan.  I'm a few chapters in.  I read these words last night and they resonated strongly with me:

"Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives.  Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control...Both worry and stress reek of arrogance."  

My eyes are open more to the reality of what this journey will involve.  They are also open to how deeply engrained my own sense of self-preservation is. It's leading me to wonder if I've ever truly allowed God to take care of me--if I've ever really trusted Him with my life up until this point?  When have I ever been in a situation where I haven't relied on myself--my own resources and abilities? So far, the answer appears to be "hardly ever." 

As I listened to music in the car this morning, I heard these lyrics and they seemed to meet me right where I'm at...

"a mind full of questions

and a future unclear

but Your perfect love scatters fear

'cause Your will is to build up

and not to harm

but to complete us

it's time to stretch these legs of faith

and run into this unknown width

with truth of your love for us"

--Rend Collective Experience.