So usually I'm the type of blogger who waits until everything thats going on in my life has been processed through and all sorted out, I haven't been the type to really open myself up and say what I'm feeling RIGHT now in the moment but I've decided to go ahead and just share whats on my heart at this time.
We've known for a while again that we were going to adopt again in the future when and how was undecided. I think it was about this time last year through reading "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper that I was hit square between the eyes that God was calling our family to adopt again. We were comfortable.... two kids, one boy and one girl. LOTS of people said oh... how nice, you have your boy and girl now you can stop. lol...right. ;) But for us, its a little more then just having the typical American life with the white picket fence, dog, cat, and two kids...my eyes were opened to a world that needed us to be Christ's hands and feet and for US....adopting is ONE way.
We've had a homestudy done, ready to go since about March of 2010 but it just wasn't the right timing yet, then in October I went to the Together for Adoption conference and I was once again reminded of the HEAVY burden on my heart for the orphan and wanting to become a parent again by way of adoption. We got really close to moving forward... so close in fact that I called the agency we had decided on and asked to set up a time for her to get our Homestudy verified to activate our file then the worst happened... Aleiya broke her leg. That situation sent me in a spiral of emotions... fear, anxiety, concern for the health and safety of my kids, realizing even more every day that I cannot completely control every situation and that having kids is HARD, its sanctifying. ;) I started thinking man, the more kids we have the more opportunity for pain and hardship to come into my life (wow, what incorrect thinking!!) Am I the only crazy one out there that has ever felt this way!?!
Anyways so for a while there I kept thinking, maybe two is okay. Well, thankfully God always uses our circumstances...even the "bad" ones for a reasons that I won't always understand on this side of eternity so all I can do is rest in knowing that He is in control and only wants the best for my life. So here is the other part that is going on with me... I've been reading a lot, books from the conference that just haunt me. Some of them I had to stop reading because I just sobbed the whole time. One is "The Castaway Kid" another is "Red Letters" and another is "The Connected Child" all are orphan, adoption, being the hands and feet of Jesus books and once again I'm hit with the pull on my hear to move and act.
I've been following a blog called babeofmyheart.com Andrea and her family are just wonderful. Shes a recently adoptive mother of a little baby from Ethiopia. I have LOVED reading her blog and getting to know her more. I got to meet her in October and will get to go on a road trip with my other adoptive friend Kristin (who is also adopting from Ethiopia) to a retreat for adoptive mommas that Andrea is putting on. Through both of these ladies for the first time my heart is actually been opening up to international adoption, which if you really know my you are probably surprised because I have always said that I could never adopt internationally. I have always thought that I didn't have the guts for the paperwork process, the unknowns, and the financial aspect of it. BUT.... as we know, God can soften any heart and mine is in that process right now. I can't have a quiet time, listen to worship music or do anything near "spiritual" without thinking about it...adopting maybe from Africa??? There are so many unknowns about it, things I'm not sure about and then we go back to maybe we should just adopt domestically again...like I said I usually don't share things until its a done deal but I just wanted to share my heart and what the Lord is doing right now. I feel like 2011 is going to be an interesting year for us as we sort of all this out, keeping the main thing, the main thing... to glorify God in whatever we do and being the hands and feet of Jesus.
12.30.2010
12.09.2010
What I wish I would have known...
This is WAY over-due but I wanted to finish all that I learned from the Together for Adoption Conference. As I said in an earlier post, this conference was so amazing because it really spoke to me in many different areas in my life. It spoke in my personal adoption from Christ, the ministry that I work with, any future adoptions that we will have, and most importantly, our adoption of J. If you are considering adoption, have adopted, or know of someone who has this post is for you! I know that we all have different ways of parenting, belief systems, and expectations but let me just say when you are an adoptive parent it is a WHOLE different ball game. Let me back up and tell you a little bit of our story....
We wanted a family...BAD... I was so ready to be a mom, all of my friends were having their first babies and I couldn't believe that I was still childless. I had so much experience- babysitting, nannying...I had a degree in Elementary Education for goodness sakes! I thought I was ready... I knew it all. Little did I know. :)
When we decided to adopt I read a lot about agencies and tried to find what would be the best pick for us. We read some books, not many but I just kept thinking...I'm just going to parent this baby like it was my own, what do else do I need to know!?! I look back now and think wow, if I only knew what I knew now. If I had only tried to glean some wisdom. If I only had someone to come alongside of me, if I had only gone to these conferences before and learned more about how to parent this child that GOD had given me...this ADOPTED child. Don't get me wrong, I love J the same that I love A and I see him as my natural born child but just because I love him as he is my own does not mean that I need to parent him like he came from my womb. I know this all might sound strange so let me back up some more and this is way cool so just hang on! :)
Karyn Puvis Ph.D was an incredible speaker at the T4A conference, she is the director of the Texas Childrens University Institute of Child Development and holds Adoption Project Hope Camps. She told story after story of how she was called upon to help "difficult" children. Many of these children were in overseas orphanages, some even jail and yes some adopted from birth. Karyn had us all in tears as she spoke about the power of God's healing in these children's life and it came from the most simple things...love, bond, attachment, eye contact, touch, proper boundaries. I kept thinking wow, this is all so great but doesn't really apply to us... J was adopted at birth, we brought him home right from the hospital... he isn't from "a hard place"....as I continued to listen to the session, my eyes began to fill with tears as I realized how terribly wrong I was.
The way God designed it... a mother is pregnant for nine months and in those nine months that baby begins to bond, attach. We know that they can hear the mother's voice, they can recognize it even in the womb. Most of the time the mother carefully cares for herself during pregnancy, she watches what she eats, she is happy that she is pregnant. Then the baby is born, the mother holds the baby, has skin to skin contact, feeds every two hours. Studies and research have been done showing that babies need "sensory bath" aka....feeding, cooing, talking, holding every two hours and interestingly enough most breastfed babies eat every two hours! ;) Isn't our Creator cool!? During the time that the baby feeds the part of the brain that is responsible for attachment and bonding grows, develops, and begins to build laying the foundation for life a foundation that without it, other foundations WILL NOT be built or they will be built on a rocky ground. The baby cries- the parent responds, this is attachment, its not a whining baby trying to be bad but needing something and when the parents responds it builds trust. The child continues to grow and as each new stage in life he or she comes to, the parent is there guiding, helping, directing, loving.
So what happens with an adopted child...well, depending on the age will depend on how much "catch-up" time the parent has to do. For an infant adopted right from the hospital, we can't assume that they are completely okay. We don't know how the mother took care of herself during pregnancy. Studies show that stress, drugs, alcohol all play a negative part on a developing babies' brain, something that can be helped but already that adopted baby is coming from a "harder place." Then comes birth.... and this little baby has suffered loss. A deep and profound loss. Their life began with loss, and as much as I wanted to deny that and tell myself that J was completely perfect, in order for me to be the best parent for him I needed to acknowledge the fact that he suffered a loss- he lost his mother. And it still makes me cry to think about that but its true, the person that sustained his life for the first 9 months was gone and I would be kidding myself if I tried to forget that. There will come a day that J will mourn for her, its only natural. I've read that some adoptive babies even mourn right after birth. Karyn even told us that they have been able to see the "flight or fight" receptors in adoptive babies brains already functioning so early because they know that something has changed.
As I listened to Karyn, tears streaming down my face I finally realized that J did come from a hard place, he didn't have to endure an orphanage or be neglected but his beginning started with loss. But the best part of the story is that doesn't end there.... he also gained.
So what can an adoptive parent to? Well, for starters we have to "catch- up" on what was lost. Put down your theories about cry it out methods and spoiling a baby. These babies NEED the extra love, holding, bonding, attaching, feeding, responding to their cries quickly and immediately. They have to learn to now put their trust in you- they don't know you, they have no history with you and the only history that they do have is the last person left them, I know this sounds harsh but we have to be equipped. These are the things that I wish I knew when we first adopted and things that I and MANY MANY other adoptive parents who have realized these things recommend. I WAS in theory more of a "cry-it out" kind person but thankfully I was so sick from being pregnant that J and I laid around the house all day, I held him LOTS and didn't pass him around from person to person. Chris and I were pretty much the only people that fed him, he slept in a pack-n- play next to our bed. Like I said in the beginning, you cannot parent this baby like a baby that you carried in your womb because you didn't and this new baby needs to build trust with you. So basically, think about trying to "re-create" 9 months of bonding, hold, lots of eye contact, talking, limiting the amount of people who hold the baby in the early weeks.
So J did suffer loss but he also gained... he gained two loving parents, two amazing sets of grandparents, a host of wonderful aunts, uncles, cousins and a baby sister. I pray that he also one day gains Christ as his Lord and Savior.
And as we continue to lead, disciple, love, and nurture our son it will be important for me to acknowledge that he is adopted, to be able to talk openly with him about that, and to shed a positive light on what adoption is both physically and spiritually. I pray that God will give me the grace, wisdom, and strength to do this because after all, J is really His to begin with. ;)
Thanks for reading,
Kelly
We wanted a family...BAD... I was so ready to be a mom, all of my friends were having their first babies and I couldn't believe that I was still childless. I had so much experience- babysitting, nannying...I had a degree in Elementary Education for goodness sakes! I thought I was ready... I knew it all. Little did I know. :)
When we decided to adopt I read a lot about agencies and tried to find what would be the best pick for us. We read some books, not many but I just kept thinking...I'm just going to parent this baby like it was my own, what do else do I need to know!?! I look back now and think wow, if I only knew what I knew now. If I had only tried to glean some wisdom. If I only had someone to come alongside of me, if I had only gone to these conferences before and learned more about how to parent this child that GOD had given me...this ADOPTED child. Don't get me wrong, I love J the same that I love A and I see him as my natural born child but just because I love him as he is my own does not mean that I need to parent him like he came from my womb. I know this all might sound strange so let me back up some more and this is way cool so just hang on! :)
Karyn Puvis Ph.D was an incredible speaker at the T4A conference, she is the director of the Texas Childrens University Institute of Child Development and holds Adoption Project Hope Camps. She told story after story of how she was called upon to help "difficult" children. Many of these children were in overseas orphanages, some even jail and yes some adopted from birth. Karyn had us all in tears as she spoke about the power of God's healing in these children's life and it came from the most simple things...love, bond, attachment, eye contact, touch, proper boundaries. I kept thinking wow, this is all so great but doesn't really apply to us... J was adopted at birth, we brought him home right from the hospital... he isn't from "a hard place"....as I continued to listen to the session, my eyes began to fill with tears as I realized how terribly wrong I was.
The way God designed it... a mother is pregnant for nine months and in those nine months that baby begins to bond, attach. We know that they can hear the mother's voice, they can recognize it even in the womb. Most of the time the mother carefully cares for herself during pregnancy, she watches what she eats, she is happy that she is pregnant. Then the baby is born, the mother holds the baby, has skin to skin contact, feeds every two hours. Studies and research have been done showing that babies need "sensory bath" aka....feeding, cooing, talking, holding every two hours and interestingly enough most breastfed babies eat every two hours! ;) Isn't our Creator cool!? During the time that the baby feeds the part of the brain that is responsible for attachment and bonding grows, develops, and begins to build laying the foundation for life a foundation that without it, other foundations WILL NOT be built or they will be built on a rocky ground. The baby cries- the parent responds, this is attachment, its not a whining baby trying to be bad but needing something and when the parents responds it builds trust. The child continues to grow and as each new stage in life he or she comes to, the parent is there guiding, helping, directing, loving.
So what happens with an adopted child...well, depending on the age will depend on how much "catch-up" time the parent has to do. For an infant adopted right from the hospital, we can't assume that they are completely okay. We don't know how the mother took care of herself during pregnancy. Studies show that stress, drugs, alcohol all play a negative part on a developing babies' brain, something that can be helped but already that adopted baby is coming from a "harder place." Then comes birth.... and this little baby has suffered loss. A deep and profound loss. Their life began with loss, and as much as I wanted to deny that and tell myself that J was completely perfect, in order for me to be the best parent for him I needed to acknowledge the fact that he suffered a loss- he lost his mother. And it still makes me cry to think about that but its true, the person that sustained his life for the first 9 months was gone and I would be kidding myself if I tried to forget that. There will come a day that J will mourn for her, its only natural. I've read that some adoptive babies even mourn right after birth. Karyn even told us that they have been able to see the "flight or fight" receptors in adoptive babies brains already functioning so early because they know that something has changed.
As I listened to Karyn, tears streaming down my face I finally realized that J did come from a hard place, he didn't have to endure an orphanage or be neglected but his beginning started with loss. But the best part of the story is that doesn't end there.... he also gained.
So what can an adoptive parent to? Well, for starters we have to "catch- up" on what was lost. Put down your theories about cry it out methods and spoiling a baby. These babies NEED the extra love, holding, bonding, attaching, feeding, responding to their cries quickly and immediately. They have to learn to now put their trust in you- they don't know you, they have no history with you and the only history that they do have is the last person left them, I know this sounds harsh but we have to be equipped. These are the things that I wish I knew when we first adopted and things that I and MANY MANY other adoptive parents who have realized these things recommend. I WAS in theory more of a "cry-it out" kind person but thankfully I was so sick from being pregnant that J and I laid around the house all day, I held him LOTS and didn't pass him around from person to person. Chris and I were pretty much the only people that fed him, he slept in a pack-n- play next to our bed. Like I said in the beginning, you cannot parent this baby like a baby that you carried in your womb because you didn't and this new baby needs to build trust with you. So basically, think about trying to "re-create" 9 months of bonding, hold, lots of eye contact, talking, limiting the amount of people who hold the baby in the early weeks.
So J did suffer loss but he also gained... he gained two loving parents, two amazing sets of grandparents, a host of wonderful aunts, uncles, cousins and a baby sister. I pray that he also one day gains Christ as his Lord and Savior.
And as we continue to lead, disciple, love, and nurture our son it will be important for me to acknowledge that he is adopted, to be able to talk openly with him about that, and to shed a positive light on what adoption is both physically and spiritually. I pray that God will give me the grace, wisdom, and strength to do this because after all, J is really His to begin with. ;)
Thanks for reading,
Kelly
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