Another Kind of Journey

Ten years ago, I sat in an auditorium listening to an adoptee share her top 20 list of things she wished her adoptive parents knew.  She was going on and on about creating a grief box and putting something symbolic inside representing each loss an adopted child experiences.  A grief box?  Doesn’t that seem a little, I don’t know….depressing?  Morbid?  Sad?  I left with a slightly skeptical response.  It was heavy  information.  I liked to think that she had a difficult adoptive experience.  Perhaps her parents didn’t tell her they loved her enough.  Maybe she wasn’t affirmed or accepted for whatever reason.  I stored it away (not too much) as interesting and maybe semi-relevant but probably for someone else.  

We adoptive parents sometimes ( most times) think that the “issues” will show up in someone else’s family, because we will just love and hug our little ones through the yucky feelings.  It will all be just fine.

I wish I had paid closer attention.  

As a young 20 something, I just preferred living in adoption La La Land.  We will role play with dolls and speak of the gift of a family and the love of a birthmom’s choice and we will all just get it.  

Well, that was a nice idea.

Today my feet are wet.  I’ve traversed some hard conversations with the agility of an elephant.  I’ve tackled the tears of rejection and loss feeling ill-equipped, like a mumbling, keep-it-together mom.  And I’ve maybe even googled “grief box.”    Luckily, said speaker put her ramblings in a book and I’m willing to take notes this time.

These adoption conversations are hard to navigate.  And I’ve found that it’s because there are no easy answers, no reasons that are good enough, no simple fix to knowing your first year of life started with someone deciding not to parent you.  Having met each of my children’s birth parents, I can whole-heartedly say that they were well-intentioned people making a decision based out of love or necessity.  And my kids range from clueless about adoption (insert toddler) to really struggling to make sense of it all (insert oldest). But somewhere in the narrative, my children have started to understand that the” love reason” for relinquishment just doesn’t make complete sense.  Sometimes relinquishment love gets reinterpreted into…not wanting me, not fighting for me, NOT LOVING ME.

I didn’t get the loss until we set up a meeting with one of our birthmoms.  We went into it feeling like we were really good adoptive parents.  One of our kids had expressed repeated interest in meeting her birthmom and with the push today for open adoptions, we felt like this would help her answer some questions.  We spoke with experts, set up guidelines, and tried to make it feel low-key.   I anticipated smiles and hugs and the showing of pictures… and that happened.  But my little one moved closer and closer to her until she was on her lap, arms around her neck, leaning in, eyes starting to glaze over.  And then when it was time to go, she clung and wept to a woman she had met one time for one hour.   She had to be carried to the car.  I sat in the back holding her hand, tears streaming thinking “What just happened?  What did we do?  Why is she so upset? WHAT DO WE DO NOW? “   The feelings of biological connection, belonging, pain, sadness, rejection, fear…they all came bubbling up and pouring out in a deluge of tears.  They were feelings I thought weren’t even there yet.  And to be honest, I was a little confused, a lot panicky, and ready to flee hoping an ice cream would help us all JUST CALM DOWN.

But that moment was important and inevitably going to come.   It snapped me into reality and the responsibility I have as a mom to walk beside my children through those dark emotions, fold them onto my lap or in my bed and talk about it over and over, to bring “it” up, to stick my chin up when the anger comes pouring out, and to understand that for now, they just can’t understand it all.  And that’s OK.  When I put myself in their place, I can only get a bite-sized portion of what it actually feels like and it doesn’t feel good.

I wish these kiddos could process their stories with the intellect of an adult.  Maybe with the life experiences to understand the stigma that can come with an unwanted pregnancy, the difficulty of provision in a place of poverty,  that sometimes choosing what’s best for a child means making the ultimate sacrifice a parent could make.  

But they don’t.  

When we sit down for dinner and a little one says out of the blue, “Why didn’t our birthmoms want to keep us?” as though this is a conversation that every family has over green beans and grilled chicken, my heart hurts for the hearts of my children.  What a thought to have so early in life.  What a difficult question to be asking when you aren’t even old enough to tie your shoes.  To the rest of the world, we show up and are a happy, loving family.  We’re so cute and diverse and lovely and we are those things on most days…happy, loving, cute, diverse, and lovely.  But we’re also real and some days are raw and ugly and sad and angry.  How could they not be? 

This adoption journey for many is defined by the homestudies, the numerous papers, the approvals, the background checks, the trips to far places, the fingerprinting, the waiting and waiting with the culmination coming on the day we finally come home together as a family.  Thank you, Jesus!  We did it!  Adoption journey complete!  Check and double check.  

Um....not so much.  This so called journey is just getting started.

But here’s the thing.  I’m willing to take the trip.  I’m willing to take the “You’re not my real mom,”  the “I don’t even belong here,” the “I hate being adopted,” the “I wish I lived with HER” because I can recognize where the words are coming from.  

And

 I’m here to help with healing.

 I’m hear to listen and say, “I know.  That is really hard to think about.”  

 I’m here to be a safe place to land. 

 I’m here to let it come out instead of avoiding or pushing it back down. 

I’m here to set boundaries for what we can say or do when we’re mad.

I’m here to say, “I think we should pray about this.”

I’m here to remind them HOW MUCH I WANTED THEM.

I’m here to kiss the tear-stained cheeks and whisper "I love you no matter what and I WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON YOU."

And I’m here to speak of the love of a Father who has adopted us all into his family.  He takes hold of our right hand and says, “Do not fear.  I will help you,” who hears our prayers and changes our hard stories and makes them HIS stories.  

 Because that’s what real moms do and we don't let our kids journey alone.  

Today I heard my oldest say to her little sister, “You are in our family because you’re birthfather loved you and he thinks about you every day .”  I knew that all the times I felt like I’ve messed it up, wished I could have said something differently, wanted for more advice…some understanding that love can be a part of relinquishment  is slowly seeping in and I’ve done something right. 

Worth My Words

What if I had turned in our paperwork 3 weeks later?

What if she had changed her mind at the hospital and decided to parent her child?

What if I had gotten pregnant?

What if she hadn’t died from something so stupid as a preventable disease?

What if a document had gotten lost in the mail?

What if she had chosen someone else?

What if we had stayed and waited at that agency?

What if someone had supported her instead of taken advantage of her situation?

What if a family had embraced the idea of an illegitimate grandchild instead of shunned her?

What if we had decided three was enough?

What if that country decided to close its doors to adoptions?

What if we had pulled out when things were looking tricky?

A lot of things lined up for this family to be this family.  Had any one of those questions been answered differently than reality defined, my family photo could look completely different.   The four framed faces sitting on my desk could be four different faces.   I think about that sort of thing, the “what ifs”of a family made through adoption, of all the factors that go into a child eventually being matched with a family.  What role does God play?  Is it a tangible working in the minds and hands of people involved?  Or is it more abstract and permissive of situations taking place?  Does he sit up in heaven pointing and nodding, “Yes.  That little man is going to go in that family of three.  And I’ll use that couple to shape the future of this sweet potato.”?  I don’t know.  The more I think about it, the more complicated it feels.  But I believe strongly that prayers are heard and answered in concrete ways.  I have stories to prove it.  God is a part of all of this.

But if I’m going to be honest, more than all of those I think about this:

What if my children were growing up in their first families?

What would that be like for them?  Because in a world without sin and pain and poverty and brokenness, that is exactly where they should be.  And as a mom who loves them so deeply, I’d rather just not even think about that.  I’d rather nuzzle them and squeeze them and pretend they should have been mine all along like somehow God ordained their broken starts so that my motherly longings could be filled. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? (No. Not really.)  I’d like to imagine that the days I looked down at their real or photographed faces, they came free of a history.   I like to pretend that they were gift-wrapped with a large bow just for me.  But I know it is more realistically and theologically complicated than that.  And when I think about their first families, my heart hurts.  I think God’s heart hurts, too.

And then there is this:

What if I could have done something differently?  What if I had redirected my adoption expenses in a way that would have allowed a family to stay together?

If you want to keep an adoptive mom up at night, just have her start mulling on that question.  I’ve learned that in most cases, the answer is not as simple as more money.  There are so many factors going into decisions about parenting or not parenting.  There are social stigmas, family pressures, personal goals and futures, and ultimately unselfishness and love.  

But what if?

I like the idea of keeping kids in their families and being used to make that happen.  I like the idea that a little bit out of my pocket could make a significant change for a little person.  I like the idea that it could be much simpler.  I like the idea that I could provide a meal, some extra clothes, school expenses, medical care all from the comfort of my living room.   I like the idea of being a parent helping another struggling parent.  I like that I could be the difference for one.  Or three.  Or…

So, let me introduce you to some other members of our family.

Mihiret is 9 years old and my Hannah chose her because she is the same age and she liked her hair. 

Eden (no joke.guess why we picked her?) is about to turn 7 and is currently in kindergarten.

Bereket has a face I could eat.  Something about him reminds me of my boy and when I saw him, I knew he was ours, too.  He is a strapping young lad at the age of four.

And all of these kids grew up in the same neighborhood as my youngest son.  And all of them still live there with their families.  And all of them have the same child status:

VULNERABLE.

What if God has somehow ordained, once again, the crossing of my path with the path of these three little ones?  What if our encounter with one another could change their status from vulnerable to hopeful or better or just plain more comfortable?

I try to walk the balance beam of advocating for kids.  It’s tricky.  Don’t be too outspoken that people get tired of the message or tired of you.  Choose your conversations.  Be challenging but not overbearing.  Be well-rounded and approachable.  Don’t overdo it.  Be passionate without being a lunatic.

But here I go again because I just really believe this is good.  It’s worth my words and worth your time.

Children’s Hope Chest is a child sponsorship program. (Do. Not. Stop. Reading.) It meets the basic needs of kids.  It’s a program that has been researched and visited by people I know and trust.  And they’re working in Woliso, Ethiopia, a place that is dear to my heart.  A place where I’ve seen what kids living in poverty looks like.  It’s a place you go to and don’t forget the faces and the dirty clothes and the barefoot feet.  And the smiles.

I want to bring it up because many people want to help but don’t know how.  

I want to bring it up because many people have the heart for kids, but can’t take the leap into adoption.

I want to bring it up because these little ones can’t be spoken about too often.

I want to bring it up because it’s important.

I want to bring it up because part of my heart is in Ethiopia.

I want to bring it up because these kids are just as valuable as our own.

I want to bring it up because I think it’s the right thing to do.

So, will you just do a quick tap on one of these links and look at these faces and ask yourself if you could make a difference for one?  Or three.  Or….  

Get on it. (I mean that in a gentle, loving way.)  But seriously, get on it.

http://www.hopechest.org/community/woliso/sponsor/

http://www.hopechest.org/community/burayu/sponsor/