Lottery

It seems as though Russian adoptions gone wrong has been in the news for quite some time now. What started with Torry Hansen, the single adoptive mother who put her 7 year old son on a plane, alone, and sent him back to his country of birth, has spiraled into accusations of abuse and even murder of Russia's children adopted into America. And while I don't condone what Torry did, while I feel that she should be treated as any other neglectful parent would be, I do worry sometimes that the issues we read about in the paper and hear about on the nightly news might be affecting adoptive parents' decisions to seek help. Or, at the very least, might give us reason to pause and not truthfully answer that loaded question, "How is everything going with (insert child's name here)." Might stop us from sharing how exhausted we are, both mentally and physically. Might prevent us from disclosing how we secretly worry about the emotional health of our older, non traumatized, children. Might force us to hide behind the walls of our homes, (walls probably covered with remnants of last night's dinner), and not discuss how frustrated with are with our spouse, or how sometimes we just want to run away.

Maybe we feel as though we have to put on the "happy family" face so that we are not compared to these parents who may have made poor parenting decisions. Maybe we feel as though we will sound as if we are complaining, when, in reality, we are reaching out for help. Reaching out for understanding. Reaching out for compassion and a friendly reminder that we are doing OK. Maybe we feel as though we have no right to complain, because we wanted these children so very badly. Who are we to complain about parenting, when we moved mountains to bring these children home?  And if you are on the other side of the adoption line, you may think us adoptive moms are over reacting. Every parent is judged. Every parent is unsure of certain parenting choices. True, no doubt. I know everyone is judged. This is what we do in America. And this is part of the problem.

Last month a family friend spent about 15 minutes with my family, watching me struggle to maintain a conversation with another adult while keeping my 4 year old safe and happy. My little guy was climbing into his tiny folding Spider Man chair and then launching himself from the seat of the chair into my lap. No amount of snacks, drinks, or distractions would stop him from this behavior. I know I appeared frustrated. This particular activity hurt me, and I had the bruises on my legs for weeks to prove it. Not to mention how unsafe it was for my little guy! Later my sweet husband told me that his friend had said, "I have heard that you just never know what you are going to get when you adopt, especially internationally." Wait, what?

Hey mom of a beautiful Downs Syndrome baby, did you know your baby was going to be conceived with that extra chromosome? How about you, mother to a pre-teen boy with Asperger's? Did you know? You, over there, mother to the beautiful teenager who cuts herself? Any clue when she was born that this would be your future? But that is what we do. Expect perfection. And for some reason, when adoption is in the mix, that perfection expectation grows. After all, we did this on purpose, right? We asked for this child. We asked for the drastic lifestyle change, the money spent on medications and therapy, the sleepless nights and the distance that can grow between a husband and a wife when so much energy is focused on a child. And it is comments like the one my husband endured, spoken by friends who don't mean to hur,t but, frankly, are clueless, that make it hard for families like ours to reach out for help. It is the constant media scrutiny of international adoption that makes us want to keep our dirty laundry packed up tightly inside the house. Believe me, neighbors, I don't like chasing my son down the street or forcing him into his car seat while he screams, any more than you like hearing our chaos at 7:15 in the morning. I know that you hear me repeating the rules to my young son, over and over again, and think I am just another helicopter mom. You might just thank me for those repeated rules one day, for those rules that, at the very least, keep our chaos in our yard and out of yours.

Unconditional love and realistic expectations, that is what it takes to raise any child, traumatized or not. ADHD or not. Unconditional love. I will love my boys no matter what. When I have been hit in the face during a temper tantrum and there are tears streaming down my face, I will love. When I have left the grocery store without everything on my list. When I have asked, three times, if my little guy wants me to open his yogurt, and then find myself cleaning up said yogurt because he, in fact, did not want me to help him, I will love. Realistic expectations. I don't know what the future holds, for either of my boys, and I will strive to not make them crazy with my expectations. Right now I expect to have issues when we spend more than 30 minutes in the car. I expect to, more often that not, have to eat dinner in shifts, so that we can minimize the meltdowns that lead to food all over the floor. (That particular meltdown leads to a meltdown of my own, every single time!). I expect to manage bedtime, every single night, for a while, to prevent that primal screaming my little guy conjures up when faced with spending even one moment without me. I don't come to these expectations easily. I have to remind myself of them daily. I have to re-commit to this life, every single day.

I don't know what the answer is. I am just now beginning this journey. I don't know what therapist, treatment, medications or supplements are best. I don't know what dietary modifications work or what form of exercise is preferred. I have a feeling that no one knows. This journey, like every parenting trip, is mine alone. I have to find the way that works the best for my family. But in doing that, I am going to make mistakes. And in making those mistakes I know that I going to need to be able to reach out. So I have to push past those perfection expectations. I have to get over the fear of being labeled as "one of those families". One of those international adoption families that can't control their child. One of those international adoption families who didn't know what they were going to get. Because my family, my life, my boys, were not brought together by some sort of lottery. No one wins or loses in adoption, or in raising any family, no matter how that family was formed. Didn't know what I was getting? Does any parent? In a very real way, my husband's friend was right. I didn't know what I was getting. I didn't know I was getting a super smart Chinese boy with very little common sense. I didn't know I was getting a Chinese football star. I didn't know I was getting a Russian boy who likes to wear flip flops and who loves chocolate cream cheese. And I am glad I didn't know. Every day I marvel at what new tidbit I have learned about  my boys. Why would I want to miss out on that?

I don't know the details of any of the adoptive families who have sadly had their lives delivered to the microscope of millions of American homes by the media. I can't speak to their decisions. No one can. The only thing we can do is admit there is a problem here, and work together to create the solution. Better mental health resources. Therapists who understand the trauma an orphanage can create in even the youngest of children. Teachers who can see our children more holistically. I know my son doesn't fit the typical ADHD mold. He has other issues at play, as do so many of our kids. Friends who don't say stupid things. Strangers who look at our family, see no obvious challenges, and then judge our parenting. Oh yes, we see your looks. We know that you are thinking, "If that were my kid..." We know you are wondering why we appear to be "giving in" to our kids, or why we are offering so much hands on assistance when our children are clearly old enough to do things for themselves. Family members who outright question the validity of our children's unseen trauma. We need to become a community, working together for our children. For all of our children. Because right now, it's me and my family with the "issues". Next week, it could be yours. Don't worry, I'll be there for you!

a handful of poor parenting choices can lead to thousands of children with no chance of a forever family

It has been a few weeks since I have posted anything and there are so many topics I want to write about. I need to complete an update on our Positive Parenting adventures. I want to share an amazing new app I found for my iPhone that helps me organize my days and weeks- basically it takes my household control journal and puts it on my phone in a totally customizable way. This little app has changed my daily routine, made me even more useful and has helped to create a little more time for the fun stuff, like playing with my boys.  We are coming up on the tiny toddler's one year anniversary of joining our family and there is so much I want to share as I look back over this most amazing and challenging year. But all of that will have to wait. Because I have to talk about this:

aren't they just adorable?

These twins seem to be the latest in the bad adoption news coming out of Russia. These 15 month old babies were allegedly left on a freezing Russian Street by their American adoptive mother with a note stating she had given them up. Children are not to be discarded, people. Birth mothers may "give up" their children but they normally do so with a plan. It is important that you understand the difference. I am not bashing responsible birth mothers who are realistic enough to know they cannot parent their child and make a plan, out of love. I am eternally thankful to the two birth mothers I will never know who gave me the best gifts of my life, my boys.

Statistics are all over the place but I can say with some confidence that there are approximately 700,000 children living in Russian orphanages and foster homes. And that is just one country. There are children needing parents all over the world, including right here in America.  And there are families working their way through the adoption process as you read this, families for whom the adoption process may now be stalled or totally stopped altogether. Because of the actions of adoptive parents like the mother mentioned above these 700,000 children may never find their forever families.

As someone who has made this adoption journey I can tell you that the blame lies in a variety of places. Maybe the adoption agency didn't thoroughly explain the issues often related with bringing an institutionalized child into your home. Maybe the required pre adoption parenting classes didn't cover bonding and behavior management as well as they should have. Maybe the orphanage wasn't able to create an atmosphere in which children learn what it's like to feel love. Maybe the adoptive parents wanted a child so badly that they chose to ignore the warnings of what all can go wrong. One thing is obvious- these parents, and others, like Torry Hansen, were not prepared.  And they were not invested in becoming the kind of parent a child needs in order to be prepared for life.

I can say this because it happened to me. I wasn't 100% prepared for my tiny toddler. I had his room ready and the baby toys had been brought up from the basement, washed, and added to the toy box. The tiny clothes had been put into the drawers in the baby's new room and his older brother had been prepared for the new addition to the family. I had taken the classes and my adoption agency had been very clear about the issues we may face. I had read the books and, maybe most importantly, I had done this once before. I knew how to parent, I knew how to bond, I was confident in my abilities to mother my new son. But in hind sight, I was not 100% prepared.

Our second adoption journey was very different from our first one. The paperwork was different. The hoops we had to jump through were a little higher. The trips were a little more difficult and the things we saw were a little harder to see. And I was just as naive as I was the first time around. I expected that if I followed the rules about bonding and just loved this child, the outcome would be just as amazing as it was the first time, with our oldest son. And I was wrong.

Maybe it was post adoption depression, which I firmly believe I was experiencing for months after returning home. Maybe it was the fact that the tiny toddler was 9 months older than his brother was when he came home. It may not sound like a long time but the difference between a 15 month old baby and a 24 month old toddler can be astounding. Maybe it was the lifestyle differences; the tiny toddler had more ability to roam around his little hallway at the orphanage and had experienced the need to fight for food and toys and love. The big five year old had been taught from birth to sit quietly in his crib and wait for the busy nanny to hand him a bottle or carry him to the bath. It is quite possible that he rarely played with toys or spent time with the other babies in a social setting. One learned to cling to love when it was offered and one learned to fight and push it away.

So I was caught off guard, initially, when we opened our front door off that plane from Russia and walked into what felt like someone else's life.  But I had been prepared, at least a little. I had the knowledge to solve the problem and I had the resources to help me. I, like 90% of adoptive parents, did what had to be done. I got a handle on the situation. I worked with my husband. I learned to walk away when the frustration got to be too much. I learned to take deep breaths while holding the refrigerator door closed when the little guy wanted to dump it's contents on the floor. I learned to duck from his swinging arms and to hold him so he could see my eyes but couldn't hit me. I had never done those things before. Teaching a toddler to trust and love when he had been burned every time he gave that trust away before was the hardest thing I have ever done. And there are days that I feel I'm not done yet. But through all of it, I never once thought that I made a mistake. I never once thought of not parenting this child. I am his mother. Period. I shed a lot of tears, but through it all, I loved him.

And I am nothing special. I am no different from nearly every other adoptive mother out there. We all understand that there is no difference between biological children and adoptive ones. We know that you get what you get. We know that behavior and health issues could pop up at any time and just because we adopted our child doesn't mean we have any less responsibility.

We fight for our right to parent our children like every other mother. We get upset when we are referred to as "adoptive parents" or when we are asked if our children are "real".  We stand up for our rights when the hospital wants us to show the court paperwork that proves our child is ours. We point out that biological parents don't have to prove these things. We cringe when our children are introduced by their adoption status or birth country. "This is Matthew, he's from China." ugg. You never hear, "This is little Johnny, he was born in Akron, Ohio at Akron General Hospital." Yes, we have a lot to fight for, where our kids are concerned. And we do it gladly, because we love our kids. But we can't have it both ways. We can't fight for equality if we don't perceive our children as truly "ours". And it is obvious that the adoptive parents who make the news, the ones who hurt their kids or try to "give them back" do not feel the same way.

Help is out there. There are books and doctors and social workers and other mommies who have been there. There is somewhere to turn. There is never a reason to do anything to hurt your kids. And make no mistake, no matter how they came into your life, they are your kids. As my big five year old often says, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." Well said, little man.