Adoption Part 3: Are You Ready?

My family, spring 2011

I just said goodnight to my foster son.  Tomorrow, I will put my son to bed, no qualifiers, because tomorrow we are adopting him!  Now I just have to check off my list of preparations, which includes ironing shirts, trimming my husband's bushy winter beard, and packing a bag of distractions to keep all three boys busy while we make this thing official.  I can't help but draw comparisons to that night, almost 6 years ago, when I made similar preparations to become a mom for the first time.  I was nine months pregnant and ready to pop, heading to the hospital for my scheduled c-section.  James was in a breech position, head-butting my ribs until the last moment, standing on my bladder.  I talked to my belly, I told him how excited I was to meet him.  I tried to imagine what he would look like, if he would have my blue eyes or my husband's crooked toes, if he would look like other family members or be a complete original.  I hungered to hear his cries and hold him in my arms (also, I was just hungry, on a 12 hour pre-op fast).  I wondered if I would be a good parent, if the months of preparation had done exactly that, or just alleviated my nerves until it was game time.  Passing the night was the hardest part, I might have gotten about 3 hours of sleep before I was showering(in peace for the last time), and waddling out to the car with my husband.  My parents and mother-in-law met us at the hospital, and everyone excitedly chattered and smiled at each other as we waited for the big moment.  I saw my sister come in just as they wheeled me back to the OR, and it was a special moment between us before everything changed...and how quickly the change happened.  The blue tarp had barely been fastened in place before the doctor announced they were opening me up and suddenly the room was filled with my son's cries.  Thinking back feels like watching a movie on fast forward.  The flurries of activity, the mind-numbing exhaustion, the parade of visitors, and suddenly back home to do this thing for real.

In the morning, I expect no less frantic, emotionally-charged activity, although I will be marching to the car with him in my arms.  The big moment will only take a moment, and then we will be free to go, free to enjoy our new family of five, no nurses, no medicine, no hospital food.  I don't have to wonder what this little boy looks like, I can glance at his cherubic face, consult my mental catalog of moments together and think of his hiccupy laugh, his chubby fingers, his wispy hair.  I had hoped that becoming a foster parent would open me up to a variety of features different from the matching set of boys Chris and I produced together; maybe we would get a kid with brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin, even a girl.  What we got was the third piece to our set, a blond haired, blue eyed rascally boy who now eagerly toddles after the boys he's come to know as brothers.  We'll see many familiar faces from our time in the maternity ward, friends and family who are excitedly sharing this big day with us.  There will be some new ones there too: the caseworker who made this whole process easy and straightforward, the adoption worker who processed our paperwork as quickly as we could fill it out, the tough guardian ad litem who put me through the ringer to make sure I was a suitable parent for Michael.  And, yes, one more similarity:  every so often, I am gripped by that nagging doubt.  Can I do this?  Can I be the mother that he needs, give him the permanence and stability he needs?  Am I ready?  Fortunately, these questions are easily answered.  Yes.  I am ready.  I can be, and have been, this boy's mother.  I know I can give him what he needs, because I already do that.  I whip out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches en masse, I open everything one-handed, with this guy on my hip.  I sing and tickle and kiss and hug times three, and try to make enough room on my lap to hold everyone who wants to be there.

My family, summer 2012

Happy Gotcha Day Bubby!

Bare

 

On Monday, I sat in this very same chair and typed out my deepest, darkest secret.  It was something I had struggled both to hide and to share.  I had tried many times before to write it out, a means that is often easier than speaking.  But for this giant shame, even the written word failed me.  Until Monday.  Until my heart was so moved by the words of others, that I finally pushed back at the shame with a loud "I don't care what they think!"  I didn't post it to impress people or win friends.  My whole life, I had basically feared that anyone hearing this secret would think less of me.  I clicked the button to post it in a surge of emotion.  A moment later, I went back to edit a sentence.  I considered taking it right back down.  But someone had already read it.  Another moment passed, and four people had read it.  I sat back in the chair, the comfy black chair my mom gave me a few months ago, and I faced the fact that it was finally out there.  I couldn't take it back, even though part of me desperately wanted to.  And then the comments came.  They came from friends and family, acquaintances and soul sisters.  Every one was positive, encouraging, calling me brave and applauding my writing.  Wow.  It wasn't what I expected.  It was, in fact, the exact opposite.  I have never felt so loved and supported, and what a moment to experience that, when my soul was bared online for anyone to see.  But the thing that rankled me, made me cringe, was the frequent use of the word "brave".  I didn't feel strong and courageous when I banged out those words.  I felt small, scared, shaky.  I was attempting a break from the prison of shame, and I wasn't sure I would make it out.  But maybe that's the thing...maybe real courage is going forward through the fear.  I have felt so much lighter, breathed so much easier this week.  I had no idea how much that shame weighed me down every day, even as I denied it and hid it and held it in.  I wish I had spoken up sooner.  I wish my words could have given justice to the crime.  But they are out, they have finally freed me.  That's enough.

http://lisajobaker.com/

Ashamed

Something happened.
Twenty four years ago, maybe twenty five?  Before I was old enough to know that dates have significance, before I marked the passage of time.
Something happened.
My parents weren't being negligent, they weren't foolish.  They just put their trust in the wrong person.
Something happened.
Darkness came in and left with my innocence.
No one told me to feel shame.  It came the moment his hand touched me.  A shame so powerful that I couldn't even say: Something happened.  I couldn't voice the questions that haunted me.  Why did this happen?  What did I do wrong?
No one told me I was different, that this kind of thing didn't happen to the other kids.  I just knew it.  And so I continued to be silent.
Sometimes it would come to the tip of my tongue, this confession that Something happened.  I wanted to share it.  Would you think less of me?  The shame pushed it back, choked me. 
When I was 18, I fell in love with a boy.  And Something happened...he listened to my story and said he loved me too.  He held me in his arms and comforted me and cared for me and married me.  He made me a mom.  And holding my precious children in my arms after carrying them inside my body, I vowed that Nothing would happen to them.  I am probably a little too overprotective.  I am maybe too suspicious of the adults around us.  But if it means that they get to be children for all the years they are supposed to, if they can always love themselves and never feel shame, then its worth it.  I will have done my job.
A few months ago, I was reading a post by one of my favorite mommy bloggers.  One in which she disclosed that she had been a victim of rape.  I read these words:
"It's time because the shame should not be mine. It should never have been mine."
Something happened.
That long held reservoir of shame broke.  It flowed out of me with my tears.
I repeat those words, and each time, my voice gets a little louder.
Yesterday, I sat in church.  I felt like my pastor was talking directly to me.  Because he spoke of a Savior who says, "Your heart is too precious to carry that shame.  Lay it at my feet and I will take it all away."  I did.
Something happened.
My heart felt peace.

Monday Dance Party

Some mornings I wake up already feeling defeated.  I don't know where I am going to summon the energy to spend all day with my boys, keeping them happy and busy and using teachable moments to shape the men they will someday be.  Sometimes I drive to Starbucks and breathe deeply the coffee-soaked air while I wait for my Tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte.  Sometimes I reach in my cupboard for some candy or another sweet treat.  And some days, I pull up iTunes, load our kid-appropriate playlist, and crank up the volume to 11.  The boys come running and we all just DANCE.  We shake our booties and wave our arms and jump on furniture.  I swing the boys around and throw them in the air.  We shout our favorite lyrics and thrash our heads.  And it feels good.  We can't help but smile.  We laugh and connect and move.

There was a time when I was told that dancing was bad.  That if I loved Jesus and wanted to please him, I would keep my hips still and my body motionless whenever I listened to music.  But one day I realized that was wrong.  I believe that our bodies are beautiful, that we are made in God's image, and using my body in this way, to experience joy and inhibition and celebrate, honors God more than anything I can say.  And so I dance.  When I look at my children, breathless, hot, and happy, I know what God sees.  He sees joy.  He sees love. There is no shame or condemnation.  Only dance.

Two Little Boys

Today was amazing.  I am totally buzzing and ready to drop from too little sleep and too much activity, but I am so glad that I was able to do everything I had planned.  After five months of attending all-day school, I was finally able to spend some time observing my son's class, and I was blown away.  My sweet James is almost six years old, and much of his education has been adapted to meet his special needs as an autistic.  This has mostly centered around speech therapy and efforts to fully develop his fine motor skills so that he can someday write and speak to the world at large.  The process has been long and difficult, for, as his first speech therapist explained, she had to start at zero to teach him language.  But this current school year has been marked by tremendous progress on every front, most noticeably an increase in communication.  One example is the yes or no question; for so long, a question asked in this format got no response, then if prompted to answer "yes or no", he would simply repeat "Yes or no."  So we were overjoyed when he began to answer a straight "Yes" or "No", in accordance with his actual wants and needs.

Therefore, I was completely floored to hear my son sing along with FOUR different songs with his class in circle time, followed by an individual recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.  Does my son know what "One nation, indivisible" or "Liberty and justice for all" mean?  No.  But he said those words, that unifying pledge, without hesitation, and I wanted to cry, my heart was so full.  James actually has a friend in his class, his buddy from the bus, Sam.  I met Sam on the first day of school.  Its hard to miss him.  He's the boy in the wheelchair.  Now, for all the difficulties and extra services needed to raise a child with autism, I cannot imagine how much more Sam's parents have to do for him.  I will admit, whenever I see anyone in a chair, I just think of how much WORK the people around them have to put in.  And here I sat, in this classroom full of children with special needs, feeling so proud of my child and all he has overcome, and then Sam spoke.  He talked back and forth with the teacher about how he lost another tooth over the weekend.  He smiled and participated in the circle time.  A little later, during their free time, with my son happily crashing cars on the floor, I found myself sitting beside Sam.  Somehow spider webs came up, and how that is a spider's home.  I turned to Sam and asked, "Do you live in a web?"  I didn't know what to expect; with my own children, I don't get much of a response from the imaginative conversation attempts.  Sam turned his mega-watt smile on me, and said, "No."  He waited.  "Do you live in a tree?" I asked.  He thought about this for a moment, and his smile got even brighter (how that was possible, I don't know).  "YES!" he said.  "I live in a tree!  Tell the teacher!  Tell her right now!  I live in a tree!"  I started cracking up at his answer, and then we looked around the room and decided that two other boys in the class live in a cave in a mountain, and James and Sam live together in a house in a tree.  In that moment, that small conversation, I got a glimpse of what his parents must feel every day...not how difficult he is, but what a JOY he is.  Yes, his food has to be mashed and thickened for every meal.  An adult is needed to push his chair around the building, and he rides the special bus that has a lift to get him on and off everyday.  But that's the what.  Sam is the who.

It seems to be the theme of my adult life, this realization that every person is actually a person; not a stereotype or a label.  No one thing defines me, nor my children, so why do I always assume that it does others?  Today was amazing.  Not just because my son is getting a fantastic education, but because I am too.

No Ordinary Marriage

Eight years ago, Chris and I were in the midst of one of the most stressful things a couple can experience: planning a wedding.  Is it any wonder that rich people hire someone to do this for them?  I mean, flowers and locations and photographers and caterers...its exhausting.  Throw in the fact that I thought it would be a fun and low-cost decision to make my own invitations (in what spare time,  I wonder?  I was working a full-time and part-time job, and being an awesome fiancee!).  Something that we said over and over, to each other, to our parents, to those pushy folks trying to upgrade us to the "deluxe" package, was this...We want a nice wedding, but we want a GREAT marriage.  In other words, this is going to be the first day of forever, and its not as important as all the days that will follow it.  This became our mantra.  We are not going to spend a bunch of money.  We are not going to insist that Chris be called "Christopher".  No one is rolling a special mat down the aisle for me to walk on.  We are not rearranging the furniture in the church.  We are simply two people who wish to commit their lives to one another in the presence of God and their loved ones.  The one thing we did spend an excessive amount of preparation for was our vows.  We read books and searched for the perfect words to encompass what was transpiring between us.

We wanted love and joy and peace to be the theme of our special day.  Of course, we invited other people, so that was beyond our control to enforce.  What is it about another person's wedding that makes you want to act crazy? (ahem, father-in-law)  But when all was said and done, we accomplished a fairly low-key wedding and embarked on a marriage that was worth so much more.  I occasionally see or hear about something that someone else is doing for their wedding that makes me want to go back in time and add it to ours, but overall, I know that we put priority on the most important part: the years to come.  Now they are here, they are coming and some have already passed.  We have grown a family and built a home and continue to put a priority on the marriage.  Because now we look around at our loved ones and say this...We don't want to just stay married, we want a GREAT marriage.  Its not enough to just travel life next to each other, to honor the surface commitment of fidelity while allowing all number of mistresses to come between us.  This is so much harder than keeping a wedding small.  This means every day choosing us over me.  It means going against so much of what I see and hear and absorb.  It means patience and grace and side-stepping conversational land mines.  And it means that my husband has to be just as committed to making this great as I am.  The complexity of trust that is essential to a marriage just astounds me when I really think about it.  But he does it, and I keep doing it, and by the grace of God we keep going and loving more every day.  The other day I was reminded of a phrase that sums it up: "There is no short cut to any place worth going."  There is no short cut to a fulfilling marriage, but I refuse to give in to being ordinary.

Those girls

I was having a bit of a stressful week, feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated, when my very darling husband offered to let me take a little break...Go to Chipotle and have a treat and read my book and basically be alone for a while.  Bless that man, I really needed it, and I was able to come home feeling so much better because of it.  But it was not just the silence and personal space that had me rushing in the door and scooping up my babies and excitedly preparing dinner for the family.  When I walked into the restaurant, I spotted Those Girls standing in line just ahead of me.  You know them...if you are like me, you used to be them.  There they stood, a pack of three (isn't it funny how young people always seem to travel in threes?  I never noticed until my mom pointed it out, then laughed every time Melissa, Tracy and I would go somewhere together...especially if we happened to meet up with the Micciches and Mike, and our trio would join their trio... I don't know why, but its a thing), fresh from the gym in their form-fitting shirts and capris, every part of their youthful bodies exactly where its supposed to be, not yet stretched from the growth of a child within.  The young man making their burritos looked like he had hit the jackpot, as he flirted and chatted them up and took A REALLY LONG TIME putting their food together, distracted as he was.  They tossed their hair and giggled at everything that was happening, so that I started to feel a little paranoid that perhaps they were laughing at me, the middle-aged lady behind them trying to stare or become too impatient.  Because, of course, I remember when every boy represented a Possibility...maybe not The One, but someone with whom to spend some time, boost my self-esteem, make me feel special and beautiful.  I remember the butterflies that made eating impossible (a real feat for me, let me tell you) when a Possibility was around, the hope and excitement of the unknown.  As we sat to eat, Those Girls wound up within earshot, and again, I swear, I was trying not to eavesdrop.  But then they told a lengthy story about their friend Rachel, and it was impossible not to tune in with my own name being mentioned so many times.  See, apparently some girls were going back to their dorm room, but accidentally walked in on Rachel and a dude "hooking up hardcore".  Cue more fits of giggles and exclamations, and, oh yes, I am remembering when I was the one walking in on a "hardcore hookup".  Only I think we called it "getting all up on each other" or "like, totally getting it on".  And Those Girls, bless them, made me so glad to be the me I am today, and not the them I was a decade ago.

Every time I sit through a movie or TV show where someone is getting married, and they are stressing about it being "the last time I fall in love" or committing to "one person for the rest of my life!", I have to roll my eyes.  Because I definitely don't miss the stress and confusion and broken heart of young love.  I like the stability of knowing that I am committed to this one man, and he is committed to me, and I know when I will have my next 10,000 kisses, and they will all be wonderful, because I know exactly where to put my lips and where to expect his to be, and I know what he tastes like, and the smell of him up close.  I don't have to worry about if either of us has braces (or both! We'd be stuck together and the principal would have to call the police to separate us!), or terrible breath, or just really does not know what goes where.  Surely I'm not the only one who had some bad first kisses?  And its a relief to know that my husband has seen me at my best and worst, and can mentally do a composite of all those times he's seen me, so that he's not even seeing how bad I might look at any given moment (its a real thing, I heard it on Fresh Air), and certainly not begrudging me for some frizzy hair or dark circles.  I used to try to look "perfect" every day in the throes of youthful obsession, and it is EXHAUSTING.  I would much rather be myself, highs and lows, flaws and fabulous, than depend on a fleeting attraction to sustain a relationship.  And the thing I love the absolute most about this moment in my life?  I live with NO ONE else who is "hooking up hardcore".  I never have to see a roommate topless on my couch with her boyfriend, or hear moans through a wall late at night...the only people getting some at this house are the ones sleeping in my bed.  And that is such a relief.  Because no one should have to confront another person about staying clothed in a common area, or see the genitalia of some other girl's dude.  I don't want to know about anyone else's sex life, and I don't have to!  And I will be so sad to leave this phase of life, especially if it means walking in on one of my boys "crashing" or "boinking" or whatever they'll be calling it in another 20 years (please, let me have this one). 

Oh its good to be 30.  Its good to be happily married.  Its good to no longer be one of Those Girls.