Adoption: Love is all you Need

I remember so vividly the scene in 16 & Pregnant when Tyler and Caitlin told their parents they were giving their baby up for adoption.  When they listed all that they couldn't provide for their child.  And Tyler's father's response was "Love is all you need."  And I was dumbfounded when this 17 year old boy responded, "No, you need more than love.  You need diapers, you need food, you need a job!"  How telling that this kid realized that you need more than feelings (or Beatles' lyrics) to raise a child.

Some children are adopted because they come from poverty or young parents, like Tyler and Caitlin.  And some kids are adopted because someone intervened to protect them from abuse or neglect.  Either way, children who leave their birth parents experience a huge loss.  As I have traveled on this road of adoption as a foster mother and adoptive mother, I have learned more and more about the deep wound of separation and loss.

Hearing adopted people talk about their grief makes my heart constrict.  Partly it hurts me to watch people experience this level of trauma.  After all, it was the deep love and compassion in me that led me to fill out all the papers and make a place for this child in my home and in my family.  I don't want him to hurt, to grieve.  My greatest desire for all my children is wholeness.  But part of me is selfish.  Part of the pain I feel centers on my wish to be enough.  I want to be the only mom some days.  I want to fill all the empty places in my child's heart.  The reality is that I can't.  I can't be the cure.  I can't erase the past.  I can only love enough to fill one piece of my son's heart; that love can't fix everything.

As adoptive parents, we have two choices.  We can stick our fingers in our ears and hum "La La La" as loudly as necessary to drown out the voices telling us that adoption is painful, or we can surrender our pride and accept that our children need more than our love to come into adulthood with healthy, intact hearts.

Brother and Sister 2014

For me, this means doing all I can to maintain relationships with members of my son's first family.  We are not necessarily close or in daily contact, but we are able to get together once or twice a year and celebrate this boy that we all love.  It means letting another woman share the title of "Mom", of stepping aside so she can bond with our son.  It means sharing my weaknesses and frustrations and selfishness with my husband behind closed doors, and not making a child responsible for my happiness.  It means learning and researching adoption issues and preparing myself for future conversations.  It means pointing out people who have already walked this road, whether they are friends and neighbors or Buddy the Elf.  It means parenting without a map.  It means delving into the Beatles' catalog and choosing to quote from the song "Help!" when discussing parenting and adoption.  It means I need more than love; I need openness, grace, and support to keep going.

Two mommies

On Getting Messy

A few years ago, Chris and I decided it was no longer enough to say and do all the right things without actually touching the hurting world around us.  We weren't satisfied to remain in our comfortable suburban life, raising our two biological sons, so we went out.  Outside the box, outside the established order, outside what we knew.  We looked complicated and messy in the eyes and rolled up our sleeves.

It would be inspirational to say that we love this life.  I would challenge you to join me in this messy work because I would show you pictures and tell you amazing stories and I would say, "It's so worth it."  But the truth is that stepping out of comfort and into the messy lives of other people, touching their wounds and sitting through their dark nights is hard.  And there are days when I wish we hadn't changed anything.  Days when I long for suburban comfort and simple answers.

And then I pull out my Bible.  Something that has been hitting me hard lately is where I find Jesus in these stories.  Jesus is never at the extreme.  He isn't supporting sexism or racism or elitism or terrorism.  Because those are easy.  It's easy to say you don't like people who don't look like you or live in your neighborhood or speak your language.  It's much, much harder to take each person as they come, to get to know them all and realize that some poor people are great, and some are kind of obnoxious.  Just like some rich people are kind, and some are huge a-holes.  Good leaders can be found among men and women.  Jesus knows that, because He knows people.  Jesus can always be found in the middle, in the tension between two extremes.  While politicians debate and opposing sides entrench in their beliefs, Jesus walks among the crowds, healing and teaching.

This is where I am tonight.  I am frustrated and tired and not sure what comes next.  I am looking back with longing at the life I could have continued in and wishing for easy answers.  I don't feel like an inspiration or a paragon.  I can't promise that you won't get dirty in this tension.  But it's the only place I know to find Jesus.

It's OK to miss your mama

As a foster parent, I've spent quite a bit of time in class over the past three years.  We took 36 hours (12-3 hour classes) just to get licensed, and we take 20 hours each subsequent year.  Sometimes the classes are really helpful, the teacher is passionate and I'm in the right mood to learn.  Other times, the teacher has trouble with the Power Point (or DVD player, or projector, really these teachers need to take a class on using technology before being released to instruct others), or I'm tired and have trouble concentrating, or another parent hijacks the class to air their grievances or get help specific to their situation.  Usually in the course of 3 hours, I can get at least one thing to take home and apply.  Especially in the beginning, I had to save these lessons for future use.  Now that we are in the thick of it, I find that I remember the words of my teachers more and more.  One thing that stood out to me, in a class about maintaining information about birth families, was the instructor's explanation that just because your kid isn't talking about something, doesn't mean he isn't thinking about it.  If a child is separated from siblings, or parents, or another close relative, odds are their thoughts are never far from that person.  She said foster parents have to open the dialogue, and let the kids know that it's OKAY to talk, it's okay to say you wish you were back home, that you miss your family, even that parent that beat you black and blue.  That really resonated with me; after all, I kept in almost everything that I thought about as a child.  I've been thinking lately that I really should have spoken up to my parents about many things that I kept secret, because they probably could have made things better, helped me.

So when a child comes to my home to live, under confusing and possibly scary circumstances, I have no doubt that they are thinking way more than they are saying.  Foster kids learn to say whatever they think the other person wants to hear; they don't know when they will see their biological family again, what the new rules are, where they fit in this new family.  While fostering is definitely similar to more traditional parenting, with the preparation of meals and the wiping of noses, the bedtime stories and trips to the park, there is an added component of nurture that these classes are meant to teach.  The most important part of foster care is the healing, taking in a broken child with no foundation, no structure, no good examples, and transforming them into a whole person, someone who knows his worth, who knows there is another way to live than what he's seen first-hand.  Sometimes these conversations are difficult to start, but if I don't help my kids heal, then what am I doing?

Our current placement is a young girl.  She came to us on a Friday afternoon.  We didn't know much about her, except that she is an only child.  She really enjoyed the experience of having other kids to play with, and jumped right in with our boys, rolling in the leaves and driving trucks across the living room.  But at night, she would cry.  She would ask me to take her home, to her mom.  And I would feel so helpless when I told her no, that she would stay with us until her worker said different.  It's a complicated situation to explain, and I've tried many different ways of phrasing.  We talk about this several times a week.  We've also gone to the library and perused books about parents and children who are separated.  I found one picture book called "I Miss You Everyday", which I believe was written for children whose parents divorce and one lives far away.  In it, the narrator mails herself across the country to see her dad.  Another one, "Llama Llama Misses Mama", is about a little Llama who starts school and has trouble when his mom leaves for the day.  This has actually become a favorite of all our kids, since three of them are in school and have experienced this kind of separation.  But our foster daughter loves it most, and these days, she asks to read it at bedtime instead of crying for her mom.  In the middle of the story, it all becomes too much for the Llama, and he cries out, "Llama Llama misses Mama!"  His teacher rushes over to comfort him, and our Girl burrows deeper into my side.  "Don't cry little Llama, it's okay to miss your mama!" I read.  Then the Llama warms up to school and actually starts to have fun, just as the words "Mama Llama, you came back!" appear with a picture of the Mama coming to pick up her son.  Although our girl can't read, she excitedly says the words at just the right time, and her face lights up in a smile.  I smile too, picturing with her the day when her mama comes to get her.  When she no longer has to miss her mama.

Our Adventure

Back so many years ago (okay, like 9 years), as I was preparing to marry my love, I read the John Eldridge book Wild At Heart.  Say what you will, but that man can energize with his words.  I was bouncing up and down, ready to take on the world with Chris.  I remember excitedly talking about the book with him, about our future together, and ready to dream big.  "What is our adventure going to be?" I asked.  Chris gave me the dubious look I have come to know and love and sometimes resent.  He said our adventure for the time being would have to be living on a single income, as he was still looking for real, full-time work after dropping out of college.  Not the answer I was hoping for.  But we got married, he did find a good job to help pay the bills, and life started happening.  Within two years we were expecting our first child, Chris was going back to school, I was thinking about quitting my job to be a stay at home mom.  It seemed like adventure was on its way in the form of midnight feedings and exploding diapers.  We bought a house and settled in, getting used to being parents and a family of three.  Chris kept at the work and school, I tried to figure out what I was doing with my baby.  When the first year passed and we had kept our little guy alive, we started thinking about another baby, and shortly after James turned two, we welcomed Winston.  Chris finally finished school and we were a family of four, just your typical suburban dream.  But still I longed for Adventure.

It started small, a yellow highlighter through the books I was reading, a whisper as I scanned newspaper headlines.  When I look back now, I see a bright ribbon woven through my life from the very beginning, a ribbon that leads to children.  Children who are hurting, children who have been abandoned.  And the voice whispering, "They need good people to help them.  They need parents who will heal them."  And the realization: We are good people.  Chris and I are good parents.  They need us.  Slowly, timidly, we talked about foster care.  Slowly, timidly, we looked into the reality.  Slowly, timidly, we went to a local children's home for the weekend.  And that was when we said the bold YES.  Yes, we will do this.  Yes, we will be the parents who help children heal.  Yes, there are many reasons to hold off and wait, but there is one reason (one way more important reason) to say yes now.  Because they need us.  Now.

We began our training classes in March.  In fact, we spent our sixth wedding anniversary learning about attachment disorders with Miss Jan.  At one point, as we left another totally depressing class, Chris turned to me and said, "I don't think I can do this.  Its too much, the hurt and the brokenness."  I nodded.  He was absolutely right.  Our hearts broke each day as we learned about what happens to kids who are abused, neglected, abandoned.  Then I said, "There are always going to be kids in foster care.  The abuse isn't going to stop.  And knowing what we know now, I can't just go back home and pretend like its not happening.  We have the opportunity to help."  And the doubt was gone.  We were full-steam ahead through all the paperwork and interviews and inspections, and in eight months time, we were licensed foster parents.  They called us to take baby Michael after a month of waiting.  That placement became an adoption and now we are the happy parents of three amazing boys.  So we became open again.  We waited five months for a call, and were so excited on the day one finally came.  But within 15 minutes the circumstances had changed and there was no placement.  We waited some more.  The next week, a call came to provide respite.  This is a short-term placement wherein one foster family watches the foster kids of another family while they are out of town, medically unable to care for the kids, overwhelmed, whatever.  Only one thing gave me pause.  There were two kids needing beds, a brother and sister.  If you're doing the math, that would mean five days with five kids in the house.  Maxed out for space in the car and the beds.  Food disappearing from the fridge at an even faster rate.  I looked at the phone for a beat, and then said yes.  This is our adventure.  This is our calling.  This is our heart.  (And not to brag or anything, but we totally nailed it.  It was exhausting, it was challenging.  But we did it.)

While we were hosting these two spunky siblings, I read the story about Davion and his plea for parents.  I cried at how many children are still waiting for that placement, stuck in group homes or an endless parade of placements because there aren't enough good people willing to become foster parents.  I remember how scary it seemed to open our home to an unknown child with unknown issues.  I know its different from the Hallmark picture of giving birth in a halo of light to a child who will be yours and yours alone forever.  But if you are reading this, nodding your head and agreeing, Yes, they need parents!  They deserve parents! Please.  PLEASE.  Consider what you can do, right now, to change the life of a child in foster care.  Because as long as there are people looking for a way out of their present reality through drugs or alcohol or World of Warcraft, there will be dealers and enablers, and the children will suffer the most.  As long as there are cycles of abuse and poverty, with no one to intervene with education and healing, children will be at risk.  They are the most vulnerable people in the world, and they need someone to stand up, to speak out, to give them a safe place to grow.  Its my adventure, and it might be yours too.

For local folks: www.starkadoptfoster.com
For the US: www.heartgalleryofamerica.org

Great Expectations

I felt like a different person last night.  I offered up an invitation on facebook..."Any ladies want to come over and watch Pitch Perfect after 8pm?" and three of them said yes.  The boys went to bed, my husband made popcorn and then disappeared upstairs, and we watched a funny, girly, grown-up movie together in the middle of the week.  One thing I've lost in motherhood is this time to sit and watch together with girlfriends.  The last time I watched a movie with a friend at home was a year ago when I spent the night with my best friend in Columbus, and after karaoke and Taco Bell, we stayed up ridiculously late to watch Bridesmaids.  Before that?  I think I had one kid, and I watched Mad Men at a friend's house.  I miss that friend time.  Because, of course, once the movie ends, the girl talk begins.  We talked about pregnancy and shared belly photos.  I ran upstairs to get my pregnancy album, and then started flipping through James' baby pictures, and then I got lost in memory.  Seven years ago...

A newly pregnant Rachel thought and planned for her future.  She thought about all that she would do with her child, where they would go, who he would become.  The plans for the child were as high and far-reaching as the plans she made for herself.  And then came the day when the doctor sliced her open to bring the baby into the world, and her heart and her mind were ripped open too.  There was nowhere to go in the hazy days of her son's infancy.  Just to the changing table, the bathroom, the couch, and back to bed.  Over and over and over.  And the child she brought home was not the empty vessel she had planned to fill with all her loves and passions; he came fully-formed with a voracious appetite for breast milk and a primitive religion that worships vacuum cleaners.  He didn't want to lay in the air-conditioning and watch Gilmore Girls or sit quietly in his stroller while she browsed at Borders.  He wanted to be outside, on the move, learning about this great world.  And so Rachel took him outside.  They walked around the neighborhood, they explored the flora and fauna in their very own yard.  She found a book about trees so she could say "This is a spruce; feel its soft needles" and "This is a maple; touch its huge leaves".  He learned to roll over on the grass, he played with sticks and pinecones, and as he grew, he chased squirrels in an attempt to befriend them and join their society.  And so it was that the child became the teacher, and the mother became the student.  She learned to see up close what had all been background.  She began taking in the stillness of a summer morning and existing in the simple moments motherhood offered, instead of planning for the future and running off to do.

The son grew older and learned new ways to have fun: video games and cartoons, bowling and swimming.  But he remains a lover of the outdoors, as he spends his days spread on a blanket in the yard, watching the birds that fly from tree to tree, and exploring gardens and parks.  And he was followed by two little brothers who shared his appetite for milk, his reverence for the vacuum, and his need to be outside.  So this morning, when my plan for a morning outing went sour and we returned home to regroup, I found myself once again exploring the yard with my youngest.  It started as him streaking, running through the still-wet grass, free as he has never been before, and delighting in the chance to watch his pee stream forth unchecked by a diaper.  But after a while, I dressed him, and then he took my hand and said, "Walk."  So we made a tour around the front yard, then back past the garage to check on the garden.  We picked flowers and pulled leaves off the tree and he made his own garden.  The big boys were inside with their electronics, but out back we simply delighted in the fresh green space we've been given, the calls of the birds and the swift movements of the squirrels.  I left my phone on the picnic table, because I didn't need to connect with anyone outside of our yard.

Its the biggest lesson the boys have taught me: to be and enjoy, to slow down and look at all the beauty and differences in the world.  To leave deadlines and schedules and expectations behind.

Adoption: Words

I've mentioned before how important words are, how they affect people, and nowhere in my life do the words become more emotionally charged than adoption.  Especially labels.  What do I call the woman who gave birth to my son?  Sometimes, for fun, I call her my "baby mama"...because I'm a woman, and this is my only chance to use this term.  Some people choose to say "biological mother" or "birth mom", and these terms are accurate.  The worst thing someone could call her is his "real mom" or "natural mother".  Because what is natural about abandoning your child?  What makes someone a "real mom"?  Is it giving someone your DNA, or is it wiping their tears and changing their diapers?  The phrase I've come across that I like best is "first mom".  I love how it rolls off the tongue, and I love how it represents her best.  She loved him first.  She held him first.  She called him Michael first.  And just like a first love, he'll never forget her.  She is there in his blue eyes and pink lips, in every beat his heart makes.  I also like how "first" can be applied to all the other family members we have gotten to know, the aunts and grandmas who long to see him and keep him in their lives.

Its scary, this forging of new relationships.  When the judge made him ours, and the social worker told us he has three sisters, we knew we had to do everything in our power to meet them.  He needed to know them, to bond with them.  But we didn't know what would happen, what we would find when we sought them out.  Who were these other caregivers?  Would we get along?  Would they want to stay in touch?  Would they murder us and dump our bodies in the woods and take Michael away?  Fortunately, we found the one thing that makes this whole crazy situation work: LOVE.  For Michael, for Gianna, for Melodie and Kelcie.  These other moms and dads who stepped in to care for them, their love is so powerful that it makes the visits and the picture exchanges possible.  It is a love that sacrifices self to do what's best for the kids.  And we all agree that what's best is for them to play in a yard on a cool spring day.  To play catch with each other, to chase cats and fight over cars.  To play peek-a-boo and dance to One Direction songs together.  I did the math today.  When his oldest sister is a senior in high school, he'll be starting first grade.  What is going to bridge that age gap?  What is going to be the common denominator when he's not a cute little baby anymore?  The answer is love.  This space that we are giving them now, to know each other, to play together, is going to matter in the future when they are the ones deciding whether or not to call each other, when they are deciding who to invite to their graduations, weddings, baby showers.  When they no longer have to use qualifiers, but can just call each other "Friend".