Growing Family

Cornrows

Today I took Small Sun to have his hair braided. I finally found someone here who was happy to do it. She is a student at Hillsong College, and hails from Barbados. 

He did a great job sitting still, watching shows on the iPad. 

The farther into it she got, the more he pulled and cried. He can tend to have a tender head and certain spots really bothered him. We just made it to the end. Much longer and I think he would have taken off!

I loved watching the process. I was amazed that she did everything the same as when I've tried, but her fingers were just somehow much more dextrous. Where I get tangled and let the hair go and it ends up all lumpy and bumpy, she just flew through the stitches. The Captain asked if after watching I will be able to do it...heh, I think not. I'm trying to do just what she did, it just hasn't resulted in a wonderfully smooth braid like she turned out over and over.

He started off shy, but by the end he felt like a million bucks, and it showed. When we arrived home, Sprout was all adoring and exclaimed "You look JUST like 'kuwati' kid!" She thought he was AMAZING, and chased him around asking to touch his braids.

A couple hours on is another story. He is crying and scratching, saying the braids make him itchy. 

I haven't found a do-rag in Sydney, so I sent him to bed with the old pantyhose trick. I should not have been surprised when The Sprout insisted on having one too. Those two are thicker than thieves and she couldn't bear to be left out. Of course on her glossy hair the cap kept popping right off! She went to bed dedicated to having it on.

The girl who braided it said she hopes he gets two weeks of wear out of them. I'll be surprised if we make it to Christmas, at the rate he is wiggling, and scratching and whining. If he likes them and learns to leave them be, and his hair holds them, then we may go for a more extravagant style next time. I just loved watching "S" braid, and I loved when his hair was half braided, and still brushed out on top. I just imagined all the wild and crazy styles we could do if I could get my braiding down. I'm one of those moms that would say a fast yes to a mohawk, blue stripes, you name it. It's just all so much fun! 

To You, Daughter, When You Became Four

Darling Sproutje,

It was on the trip to Currarong that I saw you, contrasted against your friend, and the lines and colors of your person-hood were so clear that I laughed. You, always in a dress, always deep in make-believe, always looking for beauty, and finding it.

You might not remember, but I think I always will, the day we collected shells on the beach.

From one end of the beach to the other - from cliff to jetty there were millions and billions of tiny shells. The whole beach was shells. When our happy party broke from the bush line, out of the trees, and onto the beach, in expectant search of a shipwreck, you plopped down and focused on all those minuscule delights. We tried to persuade you to come see the shipwreck, to explore, to continue, but you were too deep into the world of sea shells. You learned the word "iridescent" and have used it appropriately and passionately ever since. You filled up a large bucket, one by one, and were later beside yourself with grief when they were upset into the dirt path and you wailed "It will be so hard to wash all of them!"

You are so fierce, and I have it recorded in numerous pictures - you yelling straight into the camera with all the savagery and braveness of a ruler. While I protect you, I do not fear for you in the world, or your place in it. I have seen you, often enough, wade into a crowd of boys and girls heads taller than you, to make a place for yourself.

Like at Small Sun's Grandparents' Day concert, where I couldn't find you anywhere, and realized you must be up front, singing with your brother, despite the fact that you are not a student at the preschool and do not know the songs. A tiny shimmer of golden hair next to your brother's shoulder confirmed my suspicions.

And you are also kind. Really, very, wonderfully kind in a way that makes my heart sing. 

Sometimes your brother asks you for things he shouldn't. Sometimes I want to draw a line for you to say "you don't need to give him that," but I see how big your heart is to offer him what is yours, with no consideration at all. I see how you respond to him when he is hurting, how you offer a hug and a pat and kind words. You are only small, but you are a very big person.

 Today we were meant to go to the beach. We had a wonderful party planned. When it rained all week, and was still raining this morning, we changed plans and had a beach party inside instead. 

We had our morning tea boxes on beach towels in the living room, instead of the sand. 

We feasted on beachy cupcakes, and you were thrilled with the whole event, even though the beach party you had been anticipating for weeks, was rained out. You're that kind of girl.

At the end of the day, while I was filling the washer with laundry, you were wandering around the garden saying "I miss my friends. I wish they could all be here forever!" And, on the way home from eating Mexican food for dinner, your voice rang out from the backseat "can I go to school tomorrow? I want to go to school!"

You see, you're the first thing that stayed in my womb and grew and grew and grew until at four in the morning, after 28 hours of travel, you emerged smooth, and white, with the rosiest lips. In my mind's eye everything is dark except your white, white skin, and that pinkest mouth. 

And now, you're such a big girl, as big as the three story dollhouse I painted and wallpapered and sewed for, only to position it at the end of your bed while you were sleeping so that you would wake up to it on your birthday morning. When you did, you hugged me and said "I dreamed two dreams last night. One was a dollhouse, and one was a horse and it kissed me!"

You are a dreamer, and you are perfect. You are four, and I love you.

Mommy

 

Saturday Evening Post

Our life is new and improved in many ways. First of all, there's Finch, OBVIOUSLY. While he looks a lot like the Sprout did as a baby, this new baby experience couldn't be more different from my last, or from my experience bringing Small Sun home.

Finch is over two weeks old and I am not sleep deprived. He sleeps stretches of at least four hours at night, and one night even did seven. So if I go to bed early, we are doing 2 or 3 feedings a night and I am getting a total amount of decent sleep. He's nursing like a champion. Really, he's nursing at two weeks like The Sprout was at six weeks. Other than the discomfort of my milk coming in and a few days of him learning to latch correctly, creating a nursing bond with him has been totally easy. Again, completely different from last time.

Even though Finch is tiny tiny and already has a cold, I am completely stress free. At the risk of sounding redundant, so different from the first two times!

Becoming a mother for the first time was challenging and I can remember a lot of panicky, stressed, nervous, fearful feelings mingled in with the pure delight. Then, The Sprout's delivery ended up being quite traumatic and the first weeks of her life are cloaked in a kind of grey stupor of weeping and pain (I kid you not). There are some beautiful moments, but really, I mostly remember the pain.

I am challenged in other ways this time - helping two very bouncy kids adjust their attitudes, while nursing, is not easy - but I am not overwhelmed. We're just kind of coasting along. TV is my friend. Very short to do lists are my friend. Keeping low expectations of what we can do is my friend. Saying "I need help with that" a million times a day is my friend.

I'm breaking my baby rule with this baby. Before I stayed in for a minimum of a couple weeks, or at least avoided crowds and germs fests, to give my babies a chance to build up their immune systems. I told all my friends that I wouldn't be seeing them for awhile because I'd be in baby quarantine...but I didn't do it after all. A few days after we got out of hospital I went to a street festival, then church, lunch at a cafe, family grocery shopping, a trip to the mall, then home group, and today another lunch out. That's how I ended up changing Finch's diaper at the park today. It ended with him doing the extra poo all over the diaper, then switching to the rocket pee as I tried to clean the poo up. And you know what dressing a newborn on your lap is like, right? All floppy head and flailing limbs? Well, doing it on a winter's day, outside, with a baby working up an appetite expressed through a scream...well, not so fun. But the point is, I haven't been able to keep us inside. I want to see people and get out! I think letting myself break that rule is doing a lot to keep the blues at bay.

I can imagine this is an incredibly boring post, but it's one for the record. We had a lovely Saturday taking new family photos with friends. All the kids are still sleeping off the adventure. The Captain is sitting in our new comfy leather chair, reading Dutch magazines. The living room is warm and cozy because of our new super-heater. In fact, this is my second Sydney winter, but I have only felt warm since we bought this heater. Dusk is settling, the fridge is full of yummy leftovers we can call dinner, I just woke up from a two hour nap and ate a yummy muffin, and life is good.

Another Adoption Head-Spin

In facing the challenges I've had this week with Small Sun, I emailed my old playgroup friends in the States. We have a yahoo group that has acted as the forum for many a lively discussion, from breastfeeding to schooling decisions. I love that group of women and often turn to them for encouragement and ideas when I'm facing a parenting challenge.

The responses I received were helpful. Some new ideas emerged, and some things I'm already doing were reinforced. Also I felt surrounded by community as I focus on parenting in this particular season. One thing that several people said that got me thinking, however, was the sentiment along the lines of "God put Small Sun into your family, so you can trust that God will help you to be the parents he needs."

I just want to unpack that statement a little bit and share how I feel about it, purely from the angle of how I react to it, not from examining the accuracy of the statement itself.

I put a lot of trust in the sovereignty of God in our lives, and find comfort in His omniscience. So on one hand, this statement could be incredibly comforting to me. It would be if it was made about my daughter. I discovered her there in my womb, and it felt nothing short of miraculous that God chose to knit her there, in me. I can believe that God meant for me to parent her because He put her right there in my body. Kind of hard to miss His intentions on that one.

But with Small Sun, well he was planted somewhere else. He was nurtured and carried and cared for in the womb of another mother. I think in most voluntary placement adoptions it's like apples to oranges if you try to line up the pros and cons of the first family and the adoptive family to figure out who was "more fit" or where the child would be "better off". I think it's a futile exercise and pointless to do. Things are lost and gained on either side. Some things are more easily measured, like financial stability, private school education, etc. But it's the things that are harder to measure where I feel the child loses and gains more: it is in belonging to a genetic heritage, matching with your family, and having your gifts, and personality make sense within the framework of your family that really end up meaning something in the end.

So to stumble back around to statements like "Small Sun belongs in your family", "You are the best parents for Small Sun", and "God put Small Sun into your family for a reason", well, they just make me squirm. I can't flat out disbelieve them because I CAN see so much Providence in the joining of The Captain and I with Small Sun's first mother. Yet I certainly can't believe them because to say that Small Sun belongs with us, is to say that he did not/does not belong with his first family, and I don't believe that to be true. To say we are the best parents for Small Sun is to say that his first mother wasn't the best mother for him and I don't believe that either. And while I do believe that God had purpose in bringing us into Small Sun's life, I don't believe that it was God's hand that severed the mother-child relationship he had with his first mother.

Perhaps some of this is tied up in open adoption longing? If we had a more open adoption, perhaps I could believe those statements to a greater extent, because my mothering wouldn't feel so much an exclusion to Small Sun's other mother. I don't want to be the only mother present in his life, but I am.

So when I receive this intended encouragement, I actually feel myself grit my teeth and batten down the hatches a little bit. I feel like I've got to do this adoptive parenting thing the best that I can, but I can't be deluding myself with any platitudes about Small Sun's supposed belonging in our family. I can't indulge in making my experience in the relationship more comfortable, at the risk of further alienating Small Sun from his first family. I can't rest easy on the belief that he is "supposed to be with us". 

Flip that coin around though, to a situation where someone is questioning Small Sun's belonging in our family, and I will fight with claws and teeth to defend him. In the space of a breath I will be nose to nose with the offender, declaring myself definitively and permanently his MOTHER. That is different though. That is a matter of defending him in our family and making sure that he is protected and that he belongs.

Belongs...there it is again. Tricky thing, belonging. I guess it is when belonging in one place means not belonging in another that I begin to squirm. I think that there are seemingly opposing truths that can exist simultaneously but I don't feel like I've matured enough as an adoptive parent to be there yet.

Instead of helping me sort out my thoughts, this blog entry feels like multiple muddy footprint trails all over a nice white rug. Rather than finding the head and the tail of the animal I think I'm wrestling, I am groping blind finding a foot here, a wing there, all muddled and confused. Sorry, but that's the way adoptive parenting is a lot of the time.

Stuck on Adoption Losses

We're in our second week of school holidays and the whole schedule is off kilter. If I know anything about my son, it's that he NEEDS to have a schedule, and know what's happening next, and how it will go down. Besides the holidays he knows that it is his birthday "soon", and baby is going to be born "soon". I try to explain that those things are happening next month, but he keeps asking "is it my birthday tomorrow?"

We are dealing with some really hairy behavior here at the moment. Hairier and scarier than any previous toddler carryings-on. Aggression. Defiance. Physical hostility (okay, violence).

The behaviors Small Sun is displaying freak me out. That is usually my response when our children start pressing a boundary they haven't tested before; I feel overwhelmed until I've got my Plan in place. Once I've got The Plan, I just keep plugging away at it until the tide turns.

Here's the thing, though - my concern over the impact of adoption losses on my son clouds my vision.

We have got a clear vision of how we are parenting. We've got our ideals and approach solidly in place. We may tweak the approach from time to time as needed, but we are unified and decided on how we are raising our kids. Within that framework, I know what needs to be done in light of this new behavior. Consistency, maintaining the boundaries even when they are being pushed to the limit, and keeping a calm and even tempered demeanor while having a backbone of steel.

But when I look at the situation through the lens of adoption, primarily adoption loss and primal wound perspectives, my resolve comes all undone. I see the disrupted schedule, the uncertainty of the future from the perspective of a (nearly) four year old, the looming impact of a new sibling (a boy who "matches"), and all the questions and emotions surrounding these things. I am filled with empathy and I understand the wildly ranging emotions and the difficult behavior.

That's where the gears stick for me: stalling at empathy and failing to deliver the consequences that will help my son learn self control and self assurance. It's like I can either stick to the plan and disengage from an empathetic response, or I can engage my empathy and have trouble maintaining the boundaries. I really struggle to do both simultaneously.

Here's the thing: it really doesn't help my son if I feel like I understand him, but I don't help him along in making good choices in life. And at the same time, I would be neglecting his emotional needs if I was consistent with setting boundaries for him, but didn't engage his heart. I need to do both. Some days that is just so hard.

From 2 to 3

Only six weeks and two days until we become a family of five. Time seems to be simultaneously hurtling forward, and dragging by. I am so eager to meet the new baby, and it seems like it is taking forever! But then each week I blink and the week is gone, eaten up in playgroup and play-dates and preschool and church meetings and errands and birthday parties and girl's nights and book clubs.

We bought a car seat on Saturday. The plan was to go peruse the options and then look for the favored model second hand, but after trying the only four "narrow" seats in the back of our wagon, and having only one fit where we can still close the door, we went ahead and bought it. Having a car seat sitting there, ready to go, well that feels like a big deal to me.

I thought that I would be more nervous about transitioning from two kids to three kids, but strangely, I am feeling completely calm. Now that we've got the birth plan (I'll lie still while the OB cuts the baby out), and the childcare (blessed in-laws coming to stay) worked out, I am significantly less stressed. Having three kids under four isn't worrying me at all.

Perhaps it is perspective? I know the first six months or so are likely to be VERY challenging, and I expect to feel like I'm going back to ground zero with productivity/freedom/etc. If I can keep my children fed, clothed, hugged, and get Small Sun to preschool, I will have accomplished my six month goals for our family. If that means ordering over-priced groceries online to be delivered to my door, letting the kids wear goofy outfits, snuggling on the couch while they watch too much tv and movies, and being the "bad parent" who doesn't volunteer to help with anything, anywhere, so be it.

I worry about not being able to pick up and snuggle Small Sun and the Sprout. I worry about it raining a lot this fall and us being stuck inside, snarling at each other. But really, I don't worry much.

New Baby will come. We'll all be ecstatic. We'll take it easy and rely on the help of friends and family (three rounds of reinforcements spending a total of 8 weeks with us over a four month period), we won't look too closely at the baseboards or the ceilings or under the claw-foot tub. We'll spend lots of time cuddling and eating take out.

I have a really good friend here who has three kids. Her baby is five months old, and her son is four. I don't know how she's survived the last six months, truly. But she didn't slow down. She didn't say "no". She just kept up the same pace. I don't think I can do that and stay sane. To me, having a new baby means we hunker down in the family bunker, we hang a permanent "NO" sign to the rest of the world, at least until we're ready to rejoin society.

With Easter coming up, The Captain and I were talking about how our church here has so many Easter services and attending holiday services is a big part of the church culture we're in. For both of us growing up, holidays were a time when we attended church very little, even foregoing Sunday services, as our families believed that the sharing of faith is most salient within the walls of our home, with our families. We would close the doors to huddle together to read the scriptures, to share the outworking of our faith in our lives, to eat together, savoring the blessing of family, which is the gift of God. I don't think it is selfish or indulgent to turn inward (bringing others into our family circle, at times) instead of participating in outward activities, during momentous occasions.

So, maybe I'm being naive. Maybe it will be harder than I think. I really don't know. I just expect it to be hard and beautiful as it was when Small Sun came home, and when The Sprout was born.

I am finding that I am more excited about the arrival of this baby than I was with the first two. With Small Sun I felt so much hesitation, trying to identify when he was really "mine" and I could give him my whole heart without encroaching on his mother's time. With The Sprout I had mothered a newborn, but I hadn't experienced the resulting baby after giving birth. Being pregnant was to carry mystery inside me. Now I know the before and after: the kicks inside that take my breath away, that very soon will become little feet tucked against my ribs as I nurse.

I am surprised to find that my two children are very grown up these days. At almost 2.5, The Sprout is potty trained, sleeping in a toddler bed, and can put on her own clothes. At nearly 4, Small Sun is able to help in SO many ways. This is completely different than when Small Sun was 1.5 and I had a new baby. I know their ages may present different challenges, but they are not babies that need me to do everything for them. At the same time, they were babies so recently, that I am not too far out of the habit of diapers and night feedings. I think the fact that they seem so "big" and capable is helping me not feel too concerned.

I'd love to hear feedback from other mothers about the transition from two to three, and about recovering from a c-section. This isn't a beautiful post, but it is a record of how I'm feeling, on the cusp of three!

Choosing Adoption

It wasn't until recently that I heard the term "choice adoptions" in reference to people who choose adoption as the way to build their family in the absence of infertility or other challenges to traditional family building. That is, for choice adopters, building a family through adoption is always part of Plan A, rather than a decision that comes about as a result of exploring and deciding against other family-building options, or exhausting other possibilities.

The Captain and I fall firmly within this group of people. We were talking adoption even before we were married, and it was clear that our family would include adoption and foster care. To be honest, I don't know if I would have considered marrying someone who was not on board with adoption, as I have wanted to adopt children my whole life.

When it came down to actually bringing children into our family, The Captain wanted to have a biological child first and I wanted to adopt first. There was no question we had always planned on doing both, we just disagreed about the order. Eventually we came to a compromise: we would try to get pregnant for a year, and if the year passed with no pregnancy, then we would adopt. I did get pregnant in that year, and lost the baby early on. I was excited to be pregnant and I grieved the loss deeply. Then, when the year ended, we turned to adoption, as planned.

I am glad that we found a compromise that allowed both of us to work through some things before we became parents, and I really am sad that we lost the baby we did. However, it has always really meant a lot to me that our first child came to us through adoption.

I imagine that many parents are like us; they choose to have multiple children because they so enjoy the experience with the first, or second... And I also imagine that many other parents feel about their first child like I do, that the first child kind of hangs the moon for us. Do we ever forget those first months of rocky love where are are stretched beyond our limits, yet giddy with delight? And while I don't think we do it in a negative way, I think we can tend to compare our following children to the experience with the first child. When did the first start crawling? walking? talking? potty train? They set the mark, not in terms of success or failure, but in the way they shape our parenting experiences.

Each time we add a child to the family, there is a fear of upsetting the wonderful utopia that we currently have (I'm speaking in general here, we all know parenting is not a daily state of utopia!). Over the years I have heard multiple stories that grieve my heart. Stories where there was an established family with settled biological children, who then decided to adopt, often an older child. The family goes into turmoil when the child they adopted, who has often experienced significant trauma, disrupts the wonderful life the family had previously. The absolute worst is when the child (adopted) receives blame for "ruining" the family. I think these situations could be moderated with proper pre and post-adoption education, support, and counseling, but I have not often seen those kinds of extended services available.

My point is, I am so thankful that we adopted Small Sun first. While we experience difficulties and challenges parenting him, they are always in the context of my desire fulfilled. I wanted to adopt, I wanted to do it first. I want him. I love him. I am completely overwhelmed with how incredible he is. I consider myself to be so privileged to get to be the mother that is raising him. It absolutely blows my mind.

On the days when adoption stuff is hard, and when trans-racial parenting is hard, I am so thankful that I got to adopt first. I can imagine myself parenting a biological child and then adopting, and saying on the hard adoption days "I didn't have to do this for my biological child. They didn't require this extra effort."

Adopting first puts a barrier between myself and negativity. Adoptive parenting IS hard and does have challenges. I didn't really hear that before becoming a mother through adoption, myself. I feel so blessed to have adoptive parenting as my first experience, and then all of the joys of pregnancy, childbirth, and biological parenting added to my first joy.

Notes from November 5th

• So in the end, I didn't vote. When I was still and quiet, I couldn't find peace either way. Initially I had it, but then it left. So I waited. I waited, and it didn't come back.
• So it looks like Barack Obama won. I'm so excited. Apprehensive. Excited.
• Yesterday was my daughter's 2nd birthday.
• She is the spiciest little treat I've ever seen. You love her while she drives you crazy. You grin while you carry her to time-out, again.
• I am 12 weeks pregnant with our third child. I have spent the last six weeks sick and depressed. I've tried to maintain a sense of humor, but having vomit come out of your nose makes that a little difficult. I think I'm as dehydrated from crying as I am from being sick. It's been a really dark six weeks.
• Today I went to the OB and saw the baby on the ultrasound. (S)he was bouncing and kicking wildly, formed, identifiable head, arms, hands and feet, waving, kicking. Seeing the baby, I felt such pure joy. It was an incredible moment. Up until then, pregnant=sick. Now it really means a baby.
• There is so much to anticipate for my country, for my family, for my children. As I lie, exhausted and ill on the couch, I watch my happy children and my faithful husband. There's a lot to be thankful for.

Rememberings

Lately, without intention, I have been remembering my pregnancies with vivid intensity. Perhaps it is because of the dream I had, shortly after the meeting with the immigration attorney. In the dream I was in transition, the scary intense part of labor, that is unlike anything I have ever experienced before or since. The feeling is so other-worldly that I have never been able to re-create it in my mind.  Since plunging into it, in my dream, the feeling has come back several times, and I have remembered birthing my daughter with greater clarity than I have since the experience occurred, 21 months ago.

Then, today, I am remembering my first pregnancy. The one that ended early on, in a painful miscarriage. I am remembering being in the airplane bathroom, an hour from Schiphol airport, soaked in blood and panicked with grief. I am remembering staying at my husband's relative's house, excusing myself from a large family dinner, to sit on the toilet and lose my baby, spending hours in bed sobbing, and in pain. I remember feeling so empty, like there was a vacuum inside where the life had been, sucking all the color out of me.

Having children, bearing children, and raising children is intense. Most of the time here I focus on the intensity of my adoption experience, but these last few days, my experiences with carrying life in my body are often on my mind.

Conversations of the Week

Conversation #1

Last week, we were walking down the street when a man was looking for the entrance to a construction site near our house. I pointed him to the entrance.

Man: "are these both your children?"

Me: "yes, my son and my daughter."

Man: "but they are...but he is...are there two different..."

Me: "we adopted my son"

Man (puzzled): "what"

Me: "we adopted my son"

Conversation #2

Visiting a home-group for a church we're considering, the members asked lots of questions about our family and were interested in Small Sun. We had already told them that we adopted him into our family.

People: "what is he?"

Us: "he is black American"

People: "is he all black? because his skin is..."

Us: "yes, he is biracial"

People: "the other half, what is it?"

Conversation #3

Today at the park, my kids were playing with a little boy who was there with his grandmother (I think she was his grandmother but she might have been his nanny.). 

Grandmother: "these are your children?"

Me: "yes, my son and my daughter."

Grandmother: "he is brown and she is white"

I nod.

Grandmother: "is he from mixed

I say "yes" while hearing her continue "mixed marriage?"

I don't correct her.

Grandmother: "children from mixed marriage are the most beautiful children. Such beautiful, beautiful children."

It might bear mentioning that the man in conversation #1 had accented English and appeared to be from the Middle East, perhaps? In conversation #2 the participants were Malaysian immigrants and Australians with Vietnamese heritage. In conversation #3 the grandmother was speaking accented English and another language with the little boy. I believe I recognized Italian, given that our neighborhood is historically Italian. Also, the more I look into it, the more my initial impressions are confirmed. Adoption is not common here. No one has assumed that possibility. At the playgroup I've attended for the last month, I'll mention that we adopted and people will say "I wondered why they looked so different" or someone asked me "does your husband have hair like your son?" with my daughter there as an obvious contrast.

I am facing two obstacles: back in the U.S., I would have quickly put people in their place for asking such forward questions. Here, I don't know what the cultural rules are, especially given the great mix of cultures, both first and second generation. Then there's the matter of Small Sun being at the age where he is listening and internalizing my answers. I feel like I'd know what to do, back in our old stomping grounds. But then again, back in our old stomping grounds I don't think I'd be fielding these type of questions. Or at least not three in one week! Suggestions?