I want to post a bit about what kind of help we have gotten with our adoption.  Not the help we got when preparing to adopt, but how we have dealt with some of the difficulties after the court date with two scared little boys.   Because even though adoption is awesome and fulfilling and fun and enjoyable, it is also difficult.  We hear tragic stories of international adoption with deaths and being sent back to the orphanage.  Yet these are extremely rare- and reported worldwide-while the tens of thousands of other families are living out their lives unnoticed.

Parenting is difficult, but there are unique things that go with adopting preschoolers.  We have two kids already, we thought we had seen it all.

We had seen it all.  At least, almost all.  Almost every problem that the boys deal with we have seen in our other children, just in a more mild form.  The difference is that when our other children were four, we had dealt with them step by step over the course of four years. Many of the problems the boys have now were addressed before the other two could even sit up. Now we have four years of life that have happened and all the habits and opinions and coping mechanisms and ways to get attention in a world of neglect that go with it.  (I say neglect because even the best orphanage is still… an orphanage.)  Either way, both had become Masters of Manipulation (on the level of grand master ninja), though in different ways.  One’s style is sort of Big Eyed Sad Lost Puppy Dog.  The other one’s style is more like Squeaky Wheel Hamster Fueled by Much Caffeine.

Many of the struggles we dealt with were over language. My how seven months months change things! Ben is speaking pretty clearly- still some problems, but for the most part Russian is gone save for a few words. Nathan is not speaking pretty clearly, and most times we have no idea what he’s saying, or even if he’s really saying anything at all- BUT it is improving.  Surprisingly we had few problems with idioms.  I learned the problem with speaking in idioms when I was giving my testimony in Lithuania during a mission trip.  Nobody could translate that I “broke my habits.”  All of the translators stopped and said, “did what?”  So I should have known that saying that we would “break him” of  some of his behaviors might cause problems.  We never considered the reaction when he realized that we throw away broken toys!

You’ll notice that through this post I will tend to refer to a singular boy.  That is because one boy has given us far more difficulty, so when I say “boy” and not “boys” I mean it that way.  And I want to point out that what we experienced was not what every adopted child’s family faces.  (If both children were both like the other, less um, “behaviorally disoriented,” this would have been a far easier journey.  On the other hand if they both would have been like the difficult child… well, God knows what we can handle and we’ll leave it at that. Which is of course where we are supposed to leave it!)

As I mentioned in my last post, the biggest issue faced was not being bonded.  This is something that everyone in adoption deals with-and more so with older kids.  But beyond that was us not viewing them beyond their behaviors.  It’s hard to NOT look beyond the behaviors because it is all that you see in them at first, but the behavior that they come with is not really reflective of the boy that is really there.  What we have found through trial and error and advice and sometimes tears is that behind these walls they have built- so that nobody can come in and hurt them anymore- there is a very sweet little boy.

Help One: Godly Counsel

We certainly weren’t the only ones to adopt, and we weren’t the only ones to have any troubles.  So we found two couples who gave us great encouragement.  We got reassurance when we thought things were Not Right but were.  We were corrected when things were not right when we thought they were.  So if you are adopting, seek others who have been through it.  For the most part you will get honest and helpful information.  Don’t try to live and seek advice solely through the internet.  Blogs and facebook feeds tend to be deceptively happy.  Look at this blog.  Most of what you read about is fun times and pictures full of smiles.  But don’t think that is all there is.

Many people came to us during this time and told us how great is was that we were doing this, and how great we were.  And the whole time I only could think, ‘You have no idea what I’m thinking right now!’  Neither of us found the first 4 months to be an enjoyable experience.  And the biggest struggle was that we didn’t love them. You may think, “How could you not love them!  They’re so adorable!  You spent so much time preparing for them!  They are just poor innocent little kids who have been turned away!”  And I would say Yes, that’s why this is so hard. Why shouldn’t we love them, especially when we are called to love our enemies?  If I can’t love a little orphan boy, surely I can’t love an enemy!

It turns out, these feelings are not all that uncommon.  In fact, one of the first bits of advice my wife got from someone in Vladivostok who knew what was going on by the look of despair on Shannon’s face said, “It’s okay to not like them.”  We discussed this with others who have been through the experience, and they said that they felt the same way in the beginning.  And they always got through it to the point of love.

As we now have as well.

But the internal struggle of our relationship with them and with God was the most difficult part of this.

They Respond to Us

If you are adopting, I highly recommend a book by Karen Purvis called The Connected Child.  It has been a tremendous help to us.  The biggest thing we were doing wrong is that we were treating them like we treat our own children.  But we couldn’t do that just yet.  They have to realize that we are Mom and Dad.  Most importantly that there is safety here.  So raising our voices didn’t help, in fact, it was more like throwing gasoline on the fire.  When we realized this, and what the boys had been through, and remembering at all times no matter what or who was bitten or what was broken or who was screaming that we must remain calm.  Once we began that, we had an entirely different child.  This mass bundle of horrible behaviors began to melt away and we began to find the real little boy beneath.

We Aren’t Alone in This, Part I

Don’t be afraid to ask!  We knew that we were having troubles, and we are ones who tend to not be afraid to ask for help.  So we went to our doctor, to the social worker, to other families for more advice and info.  We ended up going to the International Adoption Clinic at St. Louis Children’s Hospital to see if there was anything else we could to.  We learned quite a bit, had good conversations and got some good advice from them.  The greatest thing was when we were told, “It sounds like you are just the right family for him.  You are doing everything you can to meet his needs.”  I say that not to brag, but to say that we never felt like we were “just the right family” for him for most of this time.   But whenever we despaired we remembered, this is what God had led us to do.

If you have not yet read the book Adopted for Life by Russell Moore, please do so.  That’s not for those who are adopting, this is for anyone who reads.  He does a great job of describing the church’s role in adoption.  Not just the children and parents involved, but everyone.  And shows a wonderful view of adoption in the light of the gospel.  Tim Challies (a master book reviewer) said that it was one of the best books he read in 2009.

We Aren’t Alone in This, Part II

At every moment of despair, I would remind myself that God is sovereign.  He knew from before time that these two boys would become ours.  As we were enjoying our happy little lives and they were living theirs in the hell of permanent institutions, He knew that they would be coming to us.  The world is full of orphans.  (Think California’s big?  For every Californian, there are roughly four orphans out there.)  So out of all of these millions of children, he chose Ben and Nate to come to us.  He chose me to be their father.

Through this we have learned to rely on God.  Saying we believe in him is entirely different than believing.  Thinking we trust in Him is entirely different than trusting in Him.  And it takes a trial of refining fire to realize this.  So despite the hardships we were never without hope.  When things seemed hopeless (and there were many points of apparent hopelessness in this) we remembered that God is in charge.  We trust in Him, and follow Him.  And everything will work out.  (Rom 8:28).   Just as “A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench,” (Isa 55:1) so “we need bruising so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks,” as Richards Sibbes has stated so well.  And through these trials we have come to know ourselves better in the view of Christ’s holiness, grace and mercy.

That’s what this entire journey of life is all about.