Truth Tellers: The Spaz stage

Part 2 to Truth Tellers

Again, where you see purple is where I've quoted the words of Jen Hatmaker because of the commonality of the adoption process and her beautiful way in which she put it in words.

Spaz (4-6 weeks – 3-4 months)
• The straw that broke the camel's back can be anything and everything at any given moment.
His aggravation begins with something little – who had the water gun first, who got to take shower first, who got out of what side of the car, not liking what his food looks like though over 3 weeks he's discovered that judging a book by it's cover isn't a true test of goodness. There have been a few enraged and out of control fits – with screaming, kicking, hitting, wailing, tantrums that last longer than we have the energy for. There were moments I wasn't sure I could carry this beefy 7-year-old up the stairs to the "Think About It" spot as he deadens his weight and holds onto the spindles so that my arms get weaker and I can't pry his hands from the rails to move up and forward. He has lost his door several times because he hasn't learned yet that it's not allowed for slamming or banging on it out of anger. He used to flee and hide under his bed and fall asleep there so we would have to pick him up and place him on his bed at night, but he is beginning to use his words a little more to express his feelings. He hasn't hid under his bed in some seven weeks now so this must be progress we believe. My husband has had to lug him over the shoulder in an effort to remove him from an unsafe situation. In every such instance which he refused to move on his own he claims he's tired of this earth and tired of this life, or says he doesn't care about being unsafe to himself nor cares that others care. [While my husband strong arms him to safety, he is] drenched in sweat, holding him tight, and whispering love into his ears as he continues to fight and then [our foster son] passes out from exhaustion. 
• Shares desire for his mom to move into his room in our house though we explain that adults prefer to have their own two feet under them and not be dependent on others. And due to this reality, he says he'd rather go to a family member for adoption because he's sure he'll be back in his mom's arms quicker.
• Holds tight to possibility, though low, that he can live with his mom again while experiencing real joy and peace within our family and desiring to be with us too.
• He repeatedly hates the home-cooked food we make him, when something's not fair, reacts from a triggered memory from music, smell, texture of my hair as he compares it to his mom's while showing me how she taught him to braid and he braids mine, to putting the last picture he has of her on a shelf along with all of our other family photos, to opening up and sharing past "scary and gross" (his words) trauma and at the most awkward times and places (specifically, the dinner table). It's not helpful that my husband hasn't made his way home from work when some of these conversations pop up.
• He still refers to himself as dumb, ugly, and stupid though we pour in confidence, love, reassurance of his beauty, wildness, and uniqueness that God created in him. Even so, just yesterday when he and our bio son were fighting over the fire truck on the playground, our bio son got hurt and he told our foster son he is mean. Though completely inappropriate to be said, that word mean translated to even more for our foster son and it was a lesson to us all how deep his hurt remains. He was adamant that he was also told he was dumb, ugly, and stupid. One negative name-calling, turned to four in his mind and he accepts it as true, even after apologies and forgiveness between our boys. Those words have been nearly ingrained in his innermost being.

Your sweet one is grieving. This is not about us – you've learned to not take it personal. This is sorrow, loss, fear, and trauma. It is devastating, disheartening, and confusing. You and your spouse are exhausted, unhinged, question yourselves and how you handle it. Is this making a difference in his life? What about our lives – our bio son's life? Will he grow up and look back at this season and say his character and compassion was built here or is this where his destruction begins?

Your bio son tells you as you tuck him in at night that this is a lot harder than he thought it would be. You tell him you understand and relate to him. You remind him of God's unconditional love for all of us, and of the ways we act up against God's leading and teaching, and still the Lord chooses to love us despite ourselves. People ask you how it's going. You quickly say it's 90% wonderful and 10% ugly, but you know those numbers are off, but you're hopeful so you leave it with that. You want to be real with others about your journey, but you don't want to scare them off to not follow if the Lord is piercing their heart to open their home to a child who needs them. Because the scary or ugly won't last forever, or will it? You discover as time goes on your reply becomes more transparent when you breathe the words, "It's hard, SO hard." You find more training, more books on specific issues, join multiple blog and online discussion groups so that you can get wisdom from others' trial and errors, or simply to know you're not alone. You wonder if you should add to your schedule by joining an adult sports team because exercise and a break for you and your spouse would be good, but then you feel guilty for even thinking such things because your children need your time. Your foster son says hateful and disrespecting things in anger as he fights for control and self-preservation like he's used to, but then when he breaks out of his tantrum he is remorseful most of the time, loving, and reaffirming of his new-found love of being a part of the family. And sometimes you have a pleasant day, almost superficial kind of day – where your foster son attempts to wait on your every need, offers to help in ways he's never attempted before to lift a finger. You and your spouse see a different side of him so you overly praise him for his kindness and thoughtfulness, reminding him that he is a great kid, he is a child of God, he has great purpose, he is smart, he is handsome, he is fun, and he is loved, no matter if he's choosing a good day or a bad one.

At the tail end of three and a half months we are seeing a light, yet sometimes that light still flickers.
The glimpses of affirmation of his love for us has helped us through the tougher moments for sure. But now we can look back and recognize that he has time-limits on his tantrums/shut-down moments – they don't last forever. We have learned ways to help him break out of anger mode before it escalates. We know how to use humor, love, discipline, and boundaries to teach him about obeying authority over you because they know what's best and see the bigger picture. We are feeling more confident in ourselves and less personally attacked by his angry words. He is stabilizing, slowly but surely. But there are days or weeks we feel we have regressed and it's back to square one.

Just last week three surprises in conversations involving our foster son happened and it's just now sinking in how very BIG these are:
• May 18: He overheard a convo I was having with a friend. When asked when he had moved into our home I replied in May. He popped up and said, "18th. May 18th." We hadn't realized how good his memory is with numbers, or at least with important numbers. That's special that the specific date means something to him.
•"Mom": Last week I was picking him up from after care. While I helped him get down from his high swings on the playground he asked me if I heard him when I was pulling into the parking lot. I told him I hadn't heard him and asked what he needed. He needed to tell me that when he saw me pull up he told his new friend there that "my mom is here to pick me up!" I thanked him for making me feel so special, reminding him that though I'm not the only mom in his life it's OK to love us both.
• "Dad": This week as he was eating breakfast before school Steve was making jokes as he always does. The boys love this about him. Our foster son told us he has a friend at school who makes lots of jokes as he told us, "I told my friend my dad tells lot of jokes too." A special moment and Steve said, "Aw, thanks bud. I love you too."
• But then yesterday, he challenged our authority when he wasn't getting his way, 12 times. And at the end of the day when we were discussing with him whether he had earned a sticker on his behavior chart, he had thought it had been a pretty good day.

Breathe – and Lord thank you for the reminders how this journey is an overwhelming picture of your love for us. Because YOU live, we can face tomorrow, because YOU live, all fear is gone. Because I know, YOU hold the future, and life is worth the living just because YOU live. (in case you didn't grow up in a good ol' Southern Baptist church with traditional music those words from a hymn from the 1970's immediately came to my heart when writing this post. Though it's been years since I've held a hymnal or been in a traditional worship service, the words ring in my heart still at times when the Lord knows I need it and they are comforting for me, so I wanted to share it with you.)










 

Truth tellers: Pre-placement & Honeymoon stages

I have become inspired to speak to the stages of our experience after a friend also going through the adoption process shared a link for Jen Hatmaker's blog. Hatmaker honestly and wittingly shared about being a truth teller on the adoption process. This blogger had so many great morsels of organizing her thoughts and the process, that I've based them as my starting points since there are a lot of commonalities on the adoption journey. I have shared them through out this post, coloring them in purple to give her the credit where it is due. You can look at it this way, when you see purple, that means that these are common experiences in adoption you may experience, though the details may be different. I also recently read a great book I found at the library, "Telling the Truth: Older Child Adoption" which you'll find a review of in my previous post. All of this stirred some thing in me to share more transparently without worrying about painting the 'right' picture for adoption – after all God doesn't paint a story for us that our lives will be without trials and still he asks us to join him in it and through it, share how He has moved through our story, and give Him the glory – for by it we our transformed to reflect more of Him.

It's been 14 1/2 weeks, which sounds like we've had so little time with our foster son so far, but the amount of time we have invested, been challenged, built memories, and progressed seems to fit more when you consider 14 weeks is really three and a half months. And just last week, I felt a little pat on the back by his therapists who asked us how we know many of the same tools they would implement before they suggest them to us as they hear me sharing how we are striving to handle the daily challenges we still struggle with. Props to God, really, reading lots of books, and training by Bethany Christian Services – we have seen progress in many areas, but there are still many times that are difficult to break through as we strive to re-train his way of dealing with day-to-day emotions.

Now to the many who have shared with me, "I couldn't do what you're doing – love a child that's not my own," or "you guys are saints," or "do you still plan to adopt even though it's been hard?" or "don't you and Steve want to have children on your own through pregnancy?" – think a little about what your words are really saying. As Christians shouldn't we be encouraging one another and pointing each other to what Christ says rather than discourage and weigh on the side of what's comfortable, easy, and the American-dream style of living? What about Proverbs 16:9 where wisdom is imparted, "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps," or Proverbs 19:21, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." And what about His command to love the fatherless in James 1:27? Yes, we still pray for God to bless us with a child biologically, but we know that opening our hearts and home to a child through adoption is also part of His plan for us. And so, here we go ...

We have many friends who are adoptive parents through domestic infant or international adoption. In fact, I have a friend who's in China right now holding their sweet toddler whom they just met Saturday. We know only one couple personally who are in the waiting process for a foster-to-adopt child(ren), like us. The need is so terribly high for children who need homes everywhere, but it seems we have very minimal families around us willing to adopt an older child through DFACS. However you feel led to adopt if you do, know that whatever age range, ethnicity, or culture you open your heart to God will be there to lead you through the issues of commonality – identity, trauma, and buried or unidentified pain that all children will eventually have to deal with for complete healing. Even recent research shows that babies in utero experience the stress of their mother, even when alcohol and drugs are not involved, which all impacts the child's neurological abilities in various ways. It's not the child's fault for their past. It's up to Christians to love them where they are and help them learn about a loving God who wants to restore them and make beauty of their story. Then, it's up to the child in how they choose their response in the future. For the many that have questions about some of the commonalities you can expect when opening your hearts and homes to a foster child I will share a bit of the process in more detail than I have before. And, heads up, it's all worth it ...

Pre-placement (as you wait for a child who needs you)
Your days are filled with questions, planning, appointments, referrals, conversations with case workers, therapists, and endless paperwork that must be filled out sometime amidst your very long day at home and after work. Yes, your time is full. Your heart is full too – full of eagerness and deferred hope all leading to a hurry-up-and-wait mentality because your end of the preparation is the only thing you can control while you wait.

Then as you are referred a child, you pray over a decision. If it's a no, you suffer anguish because you know that every child needs a loving home. You also experience unexplainable peace if you know the Lord has told you he has another home planned for that child – just not yours. So much surrender is learned.

The waiting process is SO hard as you wait for the unknown – especially if you're open like we were to any child no matter the sex, race, and age range spanning ten years. You don't quite know how to pray for the specifics – just that God would give you wisdom for this part of the journey. You think if you can just get your placement, a child you know God has placed on your heart in your home, then the wait is over. I remember feeling a similar way when my bio son was first born. I clearly remember feeling relieved when he was born healthy and beautiful, that all my prayers for him had been answered. But just as quickly it hit me that my need for praying for him for the rest of his life has just begun. This is just the beginning – oh boy, I'm responsible for raising this child through adulthood! As parents the prayers, concern, and purposeful involvement in your child's life never end. Hatmaker shared it well when she said "the upside is in any early doubts about loving a child without the helpful instincts of biology [they] are put to rest." You may not know the child yet, what they look like, what challenges are ahead, or how your family will mold and love him/her in a way that shapes all of you, but it doesn't matter because as a believer you know that the Lord will provide for everyone's needs and will guide you along the way. He changes us for one another. We are all shaped in this process – our character, compassion for God's hearts cry for others, and our need for the Lord's leading in our lives daily. "God can create a family across [states], countries, beyond genetics, through impossible circumstances, and past reason."

The Honeymoon (supposedly first 4-6 weeks)
So we heard about a honeymoon stage when adding to your family outside of having children biologically. It's sort of like what I see as teachers begin the new school year – they must be firm and even rigid at first to set the pace for the year otherwise the kids will take over. But in adoption and foster care that firmness needs to be balanced with love and extra mercy because most likely your child has experienced trauma of some kind, and they haven't learned you. You haven't learned their triggers either. You'll realize they tend to act younger than their age because their growing process got stuck whenever their lives got out of control in previous environments. They need to learn you too, to know that you will be there for them, that they are in a safe place to be themselves and will be loved anyway, so that trust and bonding can happen ... so that healing can follow. For some reason I felt offended when someone suggested there would be a honeymoon period when referring to our new family member. I have an issue with people using terms in negative context – coupling honeymoon period with a temporary happy feeling that isn't real and won't last is not exactly what you want to hear, but it's reality, for a season at least. You pick him up at his foster home, treat him to his favorite eat-out spot, talk about all the exciting things you do as a family. You introduce him to all the rooms in your home, to his new room that is pre-decorated with pictures and love notes from the family to help make him feel at home, you drive him around the neighborhood and show him around his new fun surroundings, let him feed the ducks, laugh when he catches a duck on his fish hook and move quickly to release the poor creature, and shut down all previous activities originally planned to just BE – as a new family start together.

Our honeymoon with him lasted two days. I was hoping for a week like an average honeymoon for a new marriage – two days? Two days of complete compliance, manners which we didn't expect him to have but was obvious someone has taught him a few good things, obedience, and easy affection on both ends. But quickly we learned he has also been taught to lean on no one for help and to respond with a fight, flight, and fright mentality. The understanding that we are here to love him through this, pray over him daily, and need to quickly learn some key points of neuroscience hits us like a brick.

To us we know of our hearts desire to adopt him into our family if we can. We know we have been praying for some time for God to add to our family in whatever way he sees best. We have watched God open our hearts to having compassion for children already born who need a loving, supportive, healthy home. To him, we are just another foster family – another stepping stone. We are his fifth home, sixth if you count the group home he initially was taken to, and we are new faces, new rules, new boundaries, new cool factor until he doesn't get his way. He has been in the system long enough to know we can't spank him, to threaten what he believes he can control, that he can just ask for another foster home if we don't give in to his demands. Really? What happened to the ideal of him being so covered in love that he can't see himself anywhere else, or the appreciation for all the effort, love, teaching, and fighting for him we would come to do? Like many children, he believes he has the power to fix adults bad decisions – that if he believes something will come together the way it was supposed to, then it will – simple as that. We question ourselves – are we handling this the best way? What would the therapist do here? What did that book we read on loving discipline for trauma kids say again? It's not according to any script – even once I ran downstairs and read a discipline technique in a book word for word in my head and tried to apply it and it sort of went the way the highly esteemed author and researcher shared, sort of.

You wonder why no one has celebrated with you like they would if you were having a biological birth. After all, your newest family member who is rocking your world is not a newborn, but they are still helpless, dependent, needy. Emotional bonding and building trust are still key in forming a healthy relationship with one another. You don't expect any real offers for a shower of the items you need to make them a part of your family, but you want a celebration. Or is it too early for that? A few people at work were surprised I was taking 4 weeks off from work to help him transition initially. Why? When you bring home a newborn 8 weeks is expected. I'm glad others saw the importance of it and allowed us the time we needed as we grew as a family – that time was precious, and absolutely necessary. You read blogs of others who choose to celebrate early and there are others who wait until the court date for the adoption finalization happens. What to do? You just want to celebrate.

Rather quickly we've learned of the flux of professionals who will walk with us on this journey. We have had many changes: three adoption specialists (who supports us as a couple; partly because our course changed), three groups of therapists (partly because our son changed counties; partly for good fit), and possibly changing to a new case worker (who supports the child; due to the process moving forward in pre-adoption). You'll learn that change is ongoing, not like a child who's already been through so much should continue on the change roller-coaster, but it is what it is. You'll learn to fight for your child's best interest where you can impact stability, but a lot of this is just the protocol. It can be difficult waters to navigate since your child has already likely experienced trauma, learned difficulty in trusting adults, struggles with opening up verbally, and simply gets tired of meeting new faces. And new faces don't end with the professionals. Each time your child has moved from one stage of the process to the next, they meet new faces. Since he has moved home with us, he has developed friendships, trust, and love. But it didn't come easy, nor without prayer, encouragement, and extra effort on everyone's part to assure him that not only are new faces a part of this process, but a part of everyone's lives.

Boy, have we learned so much, but we still have so much to learn. And every time I look back I see this story reflecting how much God loves us through our stubbornness, fear, and mistakes. Praise God for his unconditional love, because we need it as much as our foster son does.