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.

Provision

We meet with our home-study social worker, Kathy, for the first time tomorrow. She told us we'll be discussing topics such as parenting, discipline, as well as how Chris and I deal with marital conflict.  It's always fun to discuss your marital issues with a stranger--particularly a stranger who is trying to determine if you're fit to parent another child.  Please pray that all goes well!

I've been in contact with Kathy over the past week.  Although this home-study process is a bit nerve-racking, I have been encouraged that we were assigned to her, as it seems she will be a fantastic resource to us on this journey.  About five years ago, Kathy adopted a special needs girl from China.  Her daughter was two years old at the time Kathy got her.  She had an atrial-septal heart defect and developmental delays.  I am looking forward to get to know Kathy better--to hear her story--to seek her wisdom as someone who has walked this tenuous road before us.  

God has been showing up in very tangible ways over the past few weeks.  Last weekend Chris was working on our taxes.  As we drove to church last Sunday morning, Chris looked over at me in the car and asked, "So, guess how much we are getting back in taxes?"  I told him to just tell me because I'm horrible at guessing things like that.  He told me.  The number was quite big... twice as big as any return we've ever gotten.  The number was close to what we need to finance this adoption.  My jaw dropped open and I became silent.  

Just a few weeks prior, Chris and I sat down to look at our budget.  Our eyes got wide and our mouths became dry as we looked at the numbers, at how much we'd spent over the holidays, at how much we'd need to cut back in order to finance this adoption, how much we'd need to alter our lifestyle, and how big the upcoming payments were to our adoption and home-study agencies.  We had some cushion to rely on, but we wanted to try to avoid having to tap into it.  

Since then, money has started floating in from unexpected places, in amounts that seem to match exactly what we are needing at the time.  I've heard it said that "Coincidence is God showing up in disguise."  God is showing up, He is providing for us, and it is miraculous to watch Him work.  His glory is on display.  

At church last Sunday, our pastor, Bruce, said several times...

"God takes care of His church."

We are feeling God's care.  We are feeling Him pave the way before us.  My heart feels tender with gratitude as I see Him show up in ways we didn't expect. 

My friend, Karen, posted this video on her blog a few days ago.  For me, it is such an awesome portrait of God as our protector, guardian, provider, and Father.  I hope this image meets you in whatever stress, anxiety, fear, or doubt you are feeling this week.  

Simple Pleasures

As life rolls along, I'm starting to realize that having a routine is just as important for my own mental/emotional wellbeing as it is for that of my children.  A sense of predictability and structure gives shape to my days; it makes me feel a little less out-of-control in an out-of-control life.  

There are parts of my day that I come to rely on.  I know I can count on them even when life feels fragmented and hectic, and these sweet, simple, loyal moments in my day bring me great joy.  These are things like a cup of hot coffee first thing in the morning, my mid-morning cup of sweet, milky British tea, and the promise of a shower around noon when Lucy goes down for her nap.  

Another one of the simple pleasures I enjoy most about our daily routine is the morning drive to take Tess to preschool on the Air Force base by our house.  Though it's in fairly close proximity to big cities like SF and Sacramento, as well as the beloved Napa Valley, Travis Air Force Base is otherwise out in the middle of nowhere.  It is bordered by pastures of cows, horses, and windmills.  For me, the scenery is breath-taking, particularly during this time of year, when the rolling hills have turned to a vibrant green from the nourishing winter rains.  

This past week, the dense fog finally broke and we have experienced a few days of bright, clear, sunny weather.  As I drove Tess to school yesterday morning, I was struck by the beauty of our little cow town and thus inspired to try to capture it on my dinky iPhone camera.  

 

This stretch of the road is my favorite.  The sun peaks up behind the hills to the east and illuminates the frosty pastures that the cows graze on.  I love this wooden fence.

I also love watching the cows, especially the baby calves.  They graze next to their mommas and I often get a quick glance at them drinking from their mother's swollen utters.  They remind me of the sweetness of new life.  They make me vow that I will never eat veal again and I feel a touch of guilt that I enjoy cheeseburgers so much.

Below is the back stretch of the road.  You can see the western hills in the distance, closer to wine country.  The hills are beautiful at this time of year.  Their green folds are embellished by the extreme angles of the winter sun.

And, of course, it is impossible to write a post about the simple pleasures of daily life without somehow including music in the mix.  My friend Katy turned me on to this Irish group called Rend Collective Experiment.  They started out as a group of confused twenty-somethings who were trying to navigate life, God, and community together.  And, they happen to make awesome music.  I've been listening to their album "Organic Family Hymnal" on repeat in my car for months now.  

This song, Movements, is often blasting in my car as we drive by the green hills and grazing cows.  Tess and I sing,

"I'm running fast and free to You

'cause You are movement and fight in me

I'm running fast and free to You

'cause you are my Home, 

where I wanna be, come move in me

I won't walk away..."

I often experience God most tangibly in these small and simple moments during my day.  I am thankful for them.  I am thankful I have them to look forward to.

What are some the sweet moments you enjoy during your daily routine?

Something's Gotta Give

I know I'm probably a little behind the times, but I just discovered who Pioneer Woman is.  Apparently, she's been a big deal for a long time and I'm just catching on, thanks to my friend Lory, who served me a delicious PW pizza recipe several weeks ago when I was in San Antonio.  

So, since then, I've found PW's website, which includes her personal blog, cooking blog, photography blog, gardening blog, and home-schooling page.  I've made a few of her recipes and they are delicious, but the thing that keeps running through my mind after visiting her webpage is SERIOUSLY???  HOW DOES SHE DO IT ALL?  


I know it's extremely un-constructive and even damaging to compare ourselves to other people, and I'm guilty as charged of doing so.  I just wonder how the PW cooks, blogs, gardens, takes photographs, writes books, goes on book tours, and home-schools four children.  Surely, she must have a team of people behind the scenes supporting her blogging empire?    


Anyhow, perhaps this all resonates with me because I'm personally at a place where I've had to recognize my own limitations.  I just dropped the class I was supposed to start today because it was all feeling like too much.  I also had an hour-long phone session with our China case manager, who outlined what will be involved in compiling our massive dossier packet within the next six months, as well as the thick workbook and online education Chris and I need to finish as soon as possible.  I realized I don't have enough space inside of me to continue to immerse myself so deeply in the stories I'm writing, while still being present for my family, friends, and the rest of life...as well as this adoption process.  The past few months have stretched me and challenged me, but now I feel like I need to deflate again...otherwise I'll pop.  I can do it in 8-week stretches, but then I feel I must pull back and regroup a bit.    


For me, it seems that the life of a woman and a mother is a constant yo-yo between expanding and retracting...of giving and receiving...of pouring out and then resting.  Over the past few weeks, I heard myself say "something's gotta give" multiple times, which was a sign that it was time to retract for a bit.  


In my life, I need space to just BE.  I can't live the kind of existence that demands I be somewhere or with someone or doing something every second of the day.  I don't want every minute of my life to be accounted for.  


Most days, it's all I can do to take care of my two girls, cook a healthy meal for my family, keep the house in a somewhat respectable state, stay on top of our adoption paperwork, keep up with phone calls and correspondence, and still have some downtime to be alone with my thoughts and with God.


Clearly, I am not a pioneer woman.  And I'm okay with that.

Hodgepodge

A stream-of-consciousness purge of some of the thoughts coursing through my mind today...

Here in the Bay Area we are literally incapsulated by fog. For most of the day, I could not see further than fifty yards in any direction. It feels eery yet cozy. Not only can I not see very far, but fog like this makes me feel like I can't be seen by others either. It feels a bit isolating, like I'm cut off from life.

Chris is gone on an interview right now in Virginia Beach, one of the potential places for relocation once he's done with his military stint. He'll be back tomorrow, thank God. One would think that his absence of a few days would be a piece of cake after enduring deployment, but actually, it feels awfully hard. I'm starting to think I have a touch of post-traumatic stress in this area. His absence just unleashes all the same emotions I felt while he was deployed; the wound is reopened. It's been hard to sleep at night and hard to take care of things during the day. It's hard to explain.

I'm in the thick of a severe hormone cycle right now and my diet is a reflection of that. Sorry to any dudes who happen to read my blog and don't want to hear about it. Tonight for dinner I popped open a new bottle of Napa Cellars Zinfandel and it was delicious; Chris and I are on a Zin kick these days. It was especially good paired with half a bag of barbecue Kettle Chips, a thick slice of pumpkin bread slathered with butter, and a few bites of lentils and rice thrown in for good measure. I believe that is what we call "chick food"...a decadent blend of carbs and fat (no need for protein!) with perhaps a touch of fiber, washed down with some good grape juice. This is how I roll when there isn't a man around the house to feed.

Everything feels like work right now. I realize that the syndrome mentioned in the above paragraph might be contributing to this somewhat dismal sensation, but I've also been thinking that mostly, this is just reality. When you start out any new quest or journey everything feels exciting and hopeful and promising. Then, you start to plug along and you leave the land of idealism and enter the territory of realism, where living a purposeful life is full of hard labor.

I'm in my final week of class at school and about to start another one next week (which I'm tempted to drop). It's revision week, meaning that all week I've been reworking my manuscripts based on the workshop feedback I received from my professor and classmates. Writing is hard work and when I started this degree I had no idea what I was getting myself into. As someone once said, "easy reading is hard writing." Writing is mentally and emotionally demanding, and right now, in the midst of this adoption process and the daily rigors of raising a family, I feel like I'm spread a little bit thin. Sometimes I toy with the idea of throwing the towel in on this degree and just using the blogosphere to satiate my urge to write. I'm left wondering how I entrench myself in the past (in order write), while still actively engaging in the present and working towards the future. Is there room for all of this inside of me? Some days it feels like there is; some days it feels like there isn't. Donald Miller says that people who live good stories don't have time to write about them. I've been chewing on this idea for a while now. I think this is true. I also think that we need to tell our stories. So how do we do both?

I'm a horrible multi-tasker. Through all of this, God is showing me how much more I'm capable of than I thought I was, and I'm also learning that I do need time and space to center myself everyday, otherwise I'm left feeling as though I'm spinning out of control.

good times.

A gargantuan folder of more adoption paperwork came via UPS today. This is turning out to be what most people say it is: an administrative nightmare. For those of you who know me well, you know that administration is not my strong suit. I loathe it. On the spiritual gifts test I took in high school youth group, I failed the gift of administration section. Anyhow, all of this is to say that I'm being challenged in this area and God is showing me that I'm actually better at all of this than I thought I was, as I am primarily overseeing all of the paperwork involved in this process. This is a real-life demonstration that the Holy Spirit has got to be driving this thing--I'm in charge of the paperwork and things are actually getting DONE! Last week we completed our adoption agency contracts. We had to get twenty signatures notarized--yes, twenty--at $10 a pop! It seems that everything worth doing in life has hidden costs, literally and figuratively speaking. In any case, we are official clients of our agency, AGCI. We are officially LOCKED in; no turning back. Our first meeting with our home-study social worker is set to take place next week.

I went to San Antonio a few weeks ago to visit dear friends. During my time with my awesome friend B, she asked me, "Do you feel like you have a lot of thoughts lately?" I think she asked me this because I was talking a lot during the few hours we had together and she probably sensed that I could have carried on for hours more. But, yes, to answer her question, I do have so many thoughts coursing through me all day long. I wonder if my brain is overly active lately. The mental mice are running like they are high on meth-amphetamines.

So, this is probably a good place to stop because I could seriously keep going all...night...long.

Sweet dreams everyone.

Layers

It's Saturday afternoon and the house is quiet. The girls are napping and I'm sitting here at my desk drinking more coffee and putting off my schoolwork that's due tomorrow.

Outside my window the scene is typical of northern California at this time of year. Gray, cold, damp. The hills in the distance are hiding behind a thick fog that still hasn't lifted since this morning. I remember this past summer, when there was scarcely a cloud in the sky for over four months straight. The contrast seems so strange to me now, but I always find myself more partial to the grayness.

Chris and I have finally finished up our adoption home study application, which has been in process for almost three weeks. We each completed our personal questionnaire, which consisted of forty questions asking us to divulge our life story. We sat together on the couch last night and shared our individual answers to each question, curious to see what the other person had written and how similar or different our responses were. My finished questionnaire was 9 pages long, single spaced, and Chris's was 16 pages.

It's funny, after almost six years of marriage, I can start to feel like I know most everything there is to know about my husband, but this adoption process is reminding me that each person is an onion. Layers are gradually pulled back, and just when we think we've reached the center, we find more pieces of skin that have not been exposed yet.

How intricate and deep we all are--is there ever an end to it? Is there ever a limit to the amount of knowledge we gain about one another, or a cap on the level of intimacy we can reach in relationship? It seems infinite, not only with one another, but particularly with God. I hope the journey never ends.

One of the things I love most about this adoption process so far is the exposure. This process is like a microscope, shedding light and magnification upon things that aren't always been visible to the naked eye. As we unveil places of our past to one another, to our social workers, to our adoption agency, it's giving us more perspective, more clarity, about the story that God has written for our lives so far. There are dark places we don't like to revisit, but when we allow these places to be illuminated by a focused lens, there is much beauty to be found as well. We are learning more about ourselves, about one another, and about God. It is scary and freeing all at the same time.

Growing Pains

I realized a few months ago that I've been waiting around for someone to turn up and tell me what to do with my life. I don't know who, exactly, this person is. All I know is that whoever this person is, he or she is not coming.

I don't know why I started believing this. Maybe it's because for 18+ years of my life I have been told what to do. The course was set for me. Go to school, go to college. I even chose a profession, nursing, in which people were constantly giving me orders and my job was to carry those orders out. After college I joined the military and was told what to do for another four years. So I suppose it's no wonder that from the age of 27 until the recent past, I've been floundering, waiting around for someone else to step in and tell me how to live my life.

I just had an epiphany a couple of months ago, right around my 30th birthday, that this person is imaginary, and that the only person who is responsible for my life is me. It seems so simple, but it was a really hard concept for me to grasp.

I am responsible for me.

The thing about waiting around for someone to show up and tell you how to live your life, tell you what decisions to make, etc, is that when things aren't going your way, you always have someone to blame, even if you don't actually know who they are. It works for a while, but overtime, I started to get a clue that blaming this imaginary person won't reverse any natural consequences associated with avoiding my life, and that ultimately, I'm the one who is hurting myself.

This phenomenon played out just this past spring. I had waited for over three years to go to see a dentist because I was waiting for someone to show up and tell me I needed to go. Even when I was in the military people told me I had to go and they booked my appointment for me. But last April I finally made my own appointment and went, and I was terrified that I'd be punished for waiting so long. As it turns out, I had three, maybe four cavities, I don't even remember, and one of them was so deep that I was close to needing a root canal--I still might, only time will tell. I cried in the dentist chair that day, cursing myself for waiting so long, and angry that I couldn't curse someone else instead.

I recently told my mom about all of this--about my recent revelation, and she said that I'm quite young to be figuring this out, but I feel like I'm catching onto this nugget of wisdom a little late in the game.

I realize now that if I refuse to open a bill, it won't pay itself, and it also won't magically disappear. My teeth won't become impermeable to decay and plaque just because I refuse to make myself a dentist appointment, and my problems won't go away just because I don't want to deal with them.

Gosh, why is life so hard? Can't I just be a kid again?

So, all of this is to say that I'm thirty years old and I just realized that I am, in fact, an adult now, and my job is to take care of myself and my little chitlin's who still do need someone to tell them what to do. And in all honesty, I don't want to be a kid anymore. There's a lot of responsibility that comes with being a mature adult, and sometimes if feels like a lot to carry, but I would never want to go back, not even if you paid me to. So it's time to turn over a new leaf.