On the fifteenth of August, our family celebrated our third Forever Day. I feel that this is a good time to take a step back, to reflect on all the changes that these three years have brought.
At this time in 2008, the children had been back with us for five months. The idea of being adopted took some time for them to get used to, as they had been led to believe that coming to our house was the final step before being reunited with their biological mother. In fact, there were a great many details concerning their future that had been withheld from them. I discovered quickly that they were completely unaware of many facts that I had been privy to. My first order of business was the unpleasant task of aquainting them with the facts. Gentle as one may try to be, ugly truths cannot be made beautiful. We took a few weeks to share the most important aspects of what was now their reality. Many, many family discussions, countless hugs, endless tears, and a plethora of sleepless nights accompanied those few weeks, but at last, the children all understood that they, in essence, had become orphans.
Then came the first awkward, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempts on my part to bring healing from the abandonment that they felt. It would take a couple of months before I would realize that no matter what I said, no matter what I did, and no matter what I gave . . . I could not make their pain lessen, let alone, go away completely. That was the beginning of my personal education on healing - it is God's business, and His business alone, to bring healing. I may be an instrument, but healing does not, will not, and cannot come from me.
Once the painful facts were out in the open, we needed to discuss the idea of making them a permanent part of our immediate family. This was a decision that we forced on none of them, although a fitting argument to the contrary could be made in the case of Camrie and Savannah, who were 18 months and 3 years old, respectively. We asked Savannah if we could be her mommy and daddy, to which she gave a playful nod, then continued playing with her stuffed animal. For Camrie, I held my arms out to her and asked, "Come to Mommy?" Of course she came, and I figured that would be the closest we could get to a consent from her. For the older three, however, it was quite different. One child enthusiastically shouted, "YES! I don't EVER want to go back to her again." We found later that her young ears had been subjected to an unhealthy dose of disparaging remarks regarding her biological parents in the time that she was away from us. I made a mental note to discuss this with her at length when the timing was more appropriate. Another child simply cried out in despair, "But I really wanted to go back home!" Before the end of that discussion, however, he accepted the reality and said he would prefer adoption over having no parents at all. The third child seemed a mixture of the two. While she plainly did not want to return to her prior home, neither did she want to be adopted. She wanted to simply be left alone, to be who she was - nothing more, nothing less. We told her that no decision needed to be made immediately. After a few days or so, she overcame her fears and chose in favor of the adoption.
The next task at hand was the issue of choosing names. It was agreed upon by all that the names of the youngest two would definitely be changed, as they had been given namesakes that brought up painful memories for the older children. The oldest also expressed a desire for a name change, as she, too, carried a namesake which brought up ties to her former family. Another one, not wanting to be left out, expressed a desire to change her name to anything and everything, from Dynasty to Victoria. The one remaining child resisted any changes, save the addition of a middle name. None of them had a middle name, and all wanted one. There was some awkwardness over the change in the last name. None of the children really seemed comfortable with it at first, but, alas, that was the one name that HAD to change! Eventually, the awkwardness wore off, and it became a non-issue.
Although our adoption was still nowhere near being finalized, we realized the importance of beginning to gently insist on the use of the new names, including our "new" names as "Mommy" and "Daddy". This took a lot of time. The words seemed foreign, forced, even disgusting at times as all the emotion and turmoil from such tremendous change was poured out. It was not easy to constantly remind someone, "That's not their name anymore" or "That's not what you should call me anymore" in the middle of disagreements - which occurred frequently. Nor was it easy for me to think of myself as their "Mommy" and of my husband as their "Daddy". I don't look back on that time with much regret though, because I feel that God poured out His grace in a very special way on all of us. I felt that He kept a good control on my words and my emotions during that time of transition and adjustment so that the children would not experience any more hurt than they already were by any insensitivity or ignorance on my part.
Throughout all of this, I was also working full time. That was usually the hardest part of my day; leaving to go to work, knowing that they were left with a babysitter who was probably so overwhelmed she didn't even know where to begin trying to deal with the issues that were constantly surfacing. Phone calls and trips home were more frequent than I desired, but I was very blessed to be in a work situation that could allow it.
At last, our court date was set, and when August 15th finally arrived, we were a tentative, yet happy group. We were unified at last . . . and then came "life after happily-ever-after". At this time three years ago, we were still so awkward as we were learning how to deal with the logistics of having a family of ten. Things rarely went smoothly, and six weeks after the adoption was finalized, I resigned from my job and became a desperately-needed stay at home mommy. I faced an onslought of issues that had not been dealt with, due to my absence from the home, but I put my game face on and began to wade into the deep, tackling things as best I could.
At this time three years ago, I was extremely over-whelmed, and was seriously (though very painfully) considering that it may have all been a big mistake. My edurance and my determination had been depleted during the previous five months, and I was just at this time beginning to get my first slippery grasp on just what a huge, life-altering decision we had made. I was not quite to the stage where I realized that I had actually "gotten in over my head", as the old saying goes, but I was not far from it. I was still clinging to an ever-dimming belief that I could rally my strength and make it through. It was not until I stopped working and began staying home that I passed through that very dark place, although that is a topic for another blog.
I am happy to report now, however, that the doubts and the confusion have completely disappeared, along with most of the issues that were so overwhelming in the beginning. In future blogs, I will discuss these things at length, but for now, suffice it to say that they are resolved and, as my husband sincerely remarked as we celebrated our third year together as a "Forever Family", I wouldn't have it any other way.
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