My Thoughts on the "Rules"

Before I try to catch everyone up on our story, I thought I'd back up a minute and explain how we got here.

I fully realize there are "rules" in international adoption. Adoption agencies embrace these to varying degrees, from absolute allegiance to all of them, to allowing families to make their own decisions. The agency I work for, allows some flexibility on most of the "rules", which allows me to work there and feel good about the adoptions I am part of. The agency we have adopted through, is closest to my heart with regards to the "rules".

So my philosophy is that the "rules" are good guidelines for discussion among family members making adoption decisions, and probably also with the social worker doing their homestudy. I respectfully and firmly disagree with agencies that require families to follow all of them.

If you are unfamiliar with international adoption, these are the rules I am talking about.
1. You should not adopt out of birth order. Meaning - you should only adopt a child younger than the youngest in your home.

2. You should not add a child to your family less than a year from your last addition.

3. You should not adopt 2 unrelated children.

4. You should not "artificially twin" children. Meaning you should not adopt a child with less than 9 months of age difference from another child in your home.

5. There should never, under any circumstances, be a reason to disrupt an adoption.

I'm sure there are others, but these are the huge ones.

I fully realize that what I am about to say is controversial. That's the point. It is my opinion. I don't intend to speak for anyone else. Since my family has broken many of these, I'd like to share our reasoning.

I believe that all of these rules are put in place by well-meaning social workers who want to protect children and families. There are many horror stories behind the rules. Aren't bad experiences usually the grounds we use to set new laws in this country? There is good reasoning behind each of these, and I don't disagree with the reasoning.

My disagreement is with binding all families to them without discussion. I believe every family is unique. We parents know our kids best. So with the help of a wise homestudy worker, a family can truly make the best decision for their family.

Chris and I come from the world of foster care. As a state foster care family, none of these rules are part of things. You often take in kids in less than a year's time. You often take in unrelated kids, and they are sometimes the same ages. We had many kids older than our oldest biological child. And sometimes kids are moved because there are issues with the placement - it isn't the right fit for the child or the family, and since the relationship is not legal and final, there is no one to blame in that. The child is able to find a family that better meets their needs at that time, and the foster family is able to heal and grow in ways they couldn't during the placement. So that's our history. But I have a few more thoughts to add.

The birth order one, is a big one for me. I grew up in a family of 6 kids from 2 marriages. I was the 4th in the line-up, but the oldest in my parents' marriage. I wasn't screwed up by having 2 birth roles. In fact I feel pretty enriched by it. I have all the traits of an oldest child, but I also have 3 amazing older sisters, and got to have the experiences of being a younger sister. I'm not advocating divorce, but I am saying that families are sometimes more complex than they first appear.

I work with blended families in my work. In the process of becoming a new family, these families have grown and stretched, and worked hard at forging new roles and relationships. - All of the experiences that they will need as an adoptive family. So in looking at some of these families (as mine was), say there are older kids from one marriage, and younger kids from another. Adding a very young child would preserve the new roles of the family, but would definitely disrupt the youngest child's delicately balanced new role. Adding a child in the middle makes perfect sense to me. The oldest kids keep their places, and the youngest kids keep theirs. For some families this makes the most sense, and to me, this is a decision that a family will know the best answer for.

In our family, Chris and I started out as foster parents 10 years ago. Our first child was 16. We are already unconventional right there. We both truly enjoy older kids. We also fell in love with specific kids, who happened to be older. Our boys are used to our family having flexible roles, and the younger two maintain their roles as youngest anyway.

When we added E.R., she came into our family older than our new birth son. She absolutely adores her role as big sister, and no one can imagine J.T.'s life without his sister. She also entered our family 6 weeks after his birth. It was a rough summer, but that is how the timing of her adoption worked out. And Chris and I are used to adding sibling groups to our family in foster care, so again, this was a decision we felt comfortable making. And we wouldn't change a thing about it now. I guess my point is that while we gave the rules much thought, we made the decisions that we felt led to make, and they were right for us.

Our most successful foster placement was a child that was 3 months younger than our oldest (so an artificial twin), and older than our other son. That child fit into our family much more easily than their younger sibling who broke none of the "rules".

My final argument is based on my faith, which I fully realize won't apply to everyone. But as a Christian, I feel that adoption rules are guidelines. Jesus said nothing about what kind of child we could adopt, or where they should fit into our family, or what to do if there were serious safety issues after their adoption. So I believe that it isn't an agency's right to dictate those rules as some sort of adoption gospel. Maybe the biggest reason is that I believe that above all, Jesus wants us to take care of the children orphaned in this world. And in my opinion, the best way to do that is in a family. Any rule that will decrease a child's chance of having an opportunity at a family, should really be evaluated. Teens, like our girls, are pretty darn limited if their only option is a family that has already raised their kids. There are some great families like that. And there are many more like ours - with energy, and space, and a deep commitment to making a difference for a young person who needs a future and a family.

Another issue with the birth order question is that the rule is looking at the adoptive family. The other huge factor in the equation is the new child. Were they the oldest, the youngest, or the middle in their birth family? Does middle mean middle of 3, or of 18 - big difference. Adding an older child to your family that was an older child in their birth family might make more sense than adding a younger child to your family that was the oldest in their birth family, or an older child that is the oldest in your family, but the youngest in their birth family. Or any of these situations might work great, depending on the personalities of the kids involved. But discussing the new child's experience makes sense to me - and we don't seem to do that. We just expect them to fit into the role we assign them, yet the rule basically says that the family's other children can't adjust their roles. Confusing!

In a perfect world we wouldn't even need a discussion about adoption disruption. But this isn't a perfect world, as adoptive families know as well as anyone. Sometimes a placement doesn't go well, and it doesn't get better over time. Sometimes there are safety issues, and the safety of other children in the home HAS to factor in somehow. We had several foster placements that ended when things weren't working. One was intended to be an adoption. I know how excruciatingly painful those decisions are, and I can only imagine how much more painful after a legal adoption. We can only support families to the best of our abilities, and then continue to support them in the painful decisions that sometimes have to be made. I don't really expect anyone to understand what we went through, but the support we received meant everything to our healing. And the child we loved, was eventually adopted by the truly "right" family for them. To preserve an adoption at the cost of the rest of the family - I'm not sure is the best thing for anyone involved, but that is a decision that MUST be made by the family that will live with the consequences either way.

So I don't feel particularly defensive about my stand on the rules, but I do feel strongly that parents are capable of making the best choices for their families. And if I am defensive it is simply because if we had been forced to follow the rules, not one of our 3 adopted children would be part of our lives - and that would be a tragedy for all of us.

And that's how both of our adoptions have broken the birth order rule, and one added 2 unrelated (biologically - aren't we adoptive families always trying to explain that biology isn't everything?) kids within 6 weeks of each other.

We are totally happy with the decisions we made, and I wanted to explain why.

So Much to Say...

We have been home 2 weeks now. It has flown by, but also seems like forever ago that we were in Ethiopia.

I have no idea where to start. This adoption is so different from our last. There are so many more layers involved because of the girls' ages. There is so much more that I feel protective about. I'm not sure where the lines are about what is okay to share publicly. This isn't just my story, or Chris and my story. It is theirs - possibly even more. I've been tempted to end this blog with their arrival. (It doesn't help that blogger has some changes, and for some reason I can't log into my blog anymore! I can only get in by clicking on a link when someone responds to a post. So if I disappear completely, that is is what happened). I'm just unsure how to proceed, and how to have a family blog with older kids, whose friends all have access to the information!

So I don't know how this will all work out long-term. But for right now, I'm coming to the conclusion that our story needs to be told, somehow. There are older kids aging out of orphanages and transition centers everyday. If we can encourage even a few people to take this leap, and take a chance on changing a young person's future forever, then it is worth it to me to try to figure out a way to protect my kids, and still tell our story.

So let me sort this out over the next couple of days, and then I promise pictures and updates for everyone that is trying not to hound me. :)

We are doing great overall. I always tell the families I work with that the first 2 weeks of placement are the absolute hardest. Post-placement panic is real, and can affect everyone in different ways. And then there is the grief factor, and language barrier, and cultural differences, and the hard work of becoming a new family that is a bit different from what everyone knew before. That is where we are at.

This is different than a younger child adoption. And by younger, I mean 10 and under. It is deeper, more confusing, and in some ways scarier for all of us. Our girls can cook, and we are committed that they often have food that is familiar to them. They are fluent in their native language, Amharic, and we are committed to it always remaining their first language. Our phone rings off the hook with calls from friends around the country. It means a lot to Chris and I to see their faces light up at the familiar voice of friends they shared their lives with.

Lots of the attachment advice we treaded through with E.R., just doesn't seem to apply in this adoption, with our teenage girls. They needed school quickly, and jumped in. They need old friends, and deeply need new ones as well. Yes, I'm all for grieving and making sure there is space for that, but at their ages, they also need joy, and memories, and new adventures. So Chris and I are formulating our own attachment philosophy for way-older kids. It is much less clear than the theories we are used to, and much more interesting to think about in so many ways.

With E.R.'s adoption, we were an American family, committed to embracing Ethiopian culture in our family. With this adoption, we are becoming a sort of blended Ethiopian-American family. Since we are committed to the girls keeping their Amharic, the girls speak Amharic to each other and to their friends. The hard part of that is that the rest of us are left out of their intense joy, humor, and probably sadness. The things that are too hard to translate in the moment. But we are getting used to that. And I enjoy seeing their lively expressions, when they can talk to each other, and not have to think about how to say something. They can just "be". And they both need that right now.

So we are great. And this is hard. It is hard in ways I was prepared for, and in ways I wasn't . And we love both these girls so much more deeply than we could have imagined.

Stomach Flu

So we are home, and the girls are amazing. I will post more. But for now, we are trying to pull ourselves out of a brutal stomach flu that started yesterday with me, and then G.J. and M.C. Chris is fighting a bad virus of some sort that started our first day in Ethiopia. He is miserable too, but for now has evaded the stomach part.

I'll post about our trip and adjustments as soon as I can see straight. For now, I'm so exhausted I can barely do what needs to be done - like laundry, food, diapers, and appointments (6 health ones scheduled so far this week).

We are in love with the girls. They are more amazing than we could have hoped.

Thank you for all the prayers, well wishes, the gifts in the mail, and the party that met us at the airport! The girls definitely felt welcomed and cherished! More to come...

On Our Way!!

We are sitting in SeaTac waiting for our flight that boards in a half hour. Super excited. G.J. and M.C. got their first cameras this morning. So far G.J. has taken pictures of every body part available, and is experimenting with settings. He's currently videoing himself - the eternal actor. His world just changed forever, and we haven't even left the west coast.

M.C. was pretty anxious, but is dong better now. Thank goodness for Calvin and Hobbes books.

We are taking a friend with us, our friend's high school daughter, and we are excited to have her.

We heard from another family that got home last night that our girls are excited and ready for us to get there.

We are on our way!!

Oh Yeah! It's Official...We are a LARGE family.

We know many large families through our adoption agency. And I mean LARGE. A friend of mine has 11 kids, and rumor has it is working on another one. Then there are other families who probably can't remember a family that small. They have up over 20 kids. These are all adoptive families, and many of them also have a few birth kids too.

But in our community of 1-2 kids per family, we already felt very out-of-place with 4. When people hear we are about to have 6, the look of shock is usually the same. And "speechless" is really the only word to describe their response. I try to smile to myself, and reflect on the email I just got from an amazing lady who was getting her 16 kids still at home, ready for school, while starting a new job. I'm sure her grandchildren could populate a small school. I breathe in and out, and realize that I have nothing to fear. Six should be a piece of cake.

We still fit in a normal size, (now) 4 bedroom home, and we can all fit at our (already large) dining room table. But the one thing that will set apart the "large" family from the LARGE family is their vehicle size. Chris and I spent months researching our options. I am a small car person. My first car was a Sprint, and my second was an Aspire. I know I'll never be able to afford a real sportscar, but the little cars make me feel like I can. Chris likes vans and would still be driving a Vanagon if we could keep one running. But he always swore we would never drive a group home van again (we met working in a group home driving a big diesel van full of people). We looked at every possibility for an 8-9 passenger SUV or van. But with the combination of need for car seats, and space for high school bodies, we realized that those days of "normal" size vehicles are over for us. We tried desperately to find a 12 passenger van we could afford. But it wasn't to be. We kept coming back to the car lot down the street from our house, where they had a 15 (no, that wasn't a typo) passenger Chevy in our least favorite color. White is great for a car, and we had a white Mazda MPV we loved. But the big vans in white just scream "GOVERNMENT COMMUTER"!

But it has a good engine, and Chris likes the sliding door since it slides open to reveal a space big enough for 3 of us to move in and out at the same time. It has running boards to help us heft little ones into car seats, and after looking at what felt like hundreds of options, I'm trying to convince Chris that it actually looks sporty.

So we will now cruise into the school, church, and our local Dairy Queen in a BIG van. But to be honest, I actually really like driving it. It has lots of power, lots of room, and I swear - drives kinda sporty! We'll never be able to afford a boat or a trailer, but if we could, we'd now be able to tow it...

We broke it in by taking it for a road trip up to Bellingham and Blaine, WA, and we all fell in love with it. It's like having our own apartment to take with us wherever we go. The main drawback so far is that it is so wide that when we are driving in it, Chris and I are so far apart, it's hard to actually see him.

Trip Change

Fortunately I took today off to take E.R. into Shriners to have her leg adjusted. It was lengthened, but the prosthetists also decided it is time for her second leg! So she was casted for it, and will probably get the new one in late October.

When we got home, we found out that our embassy date in Ethiopia had been moved up 2 days! This meant that our flights needed to change. So today I worked on all the arrangements necessary to make the change.

SO - now we are leaving from Seattle on Thursday September 16. The other change is that we now plan to leave Ethiopia one day earlier than originally planned, which will give us a day and night in Washington DC on the way back. None of us have been there, and we think it will be an amazing ending to our trip. It will also let us ease into America and slowly cope with jetlag before we get home and jump back into our crazy life.

So now I have to wrap things up at work faster than I had planned, but otherwise it looks like the change will work out well. The other cool thing is that we will get there on Saturday morning and have the whole weekend with the girls. We get to be with them 2 days sooner!

Weird Fun At Our House

Chris and I have been busy today trying to get things done. I put together E.R.'s new bed in her room and used the vacuum to clean under her old bed.

So all FOUR of my kids have been in her room for over an HOUR now playing with the vacuum. Now this is something that J.T. loves to do. But E.R. has always been terrified of it. As soon as you start the thing, she goes running into the next room, grabbing her precious stuffed elephant on the way. Who would have thought that a vacuum (that I use at LEAST once a day every day) could hold the attention of a 7 1/2 and 9 year old? But all 4 kids have been in there, without fighting, taking turns sucking things up, laughing, and cheering. There were no injuries, and only one minor fight.

Weird.

Apparently we can box up all their toys, and just leave the vacuum out.

And Finally, Introducing Our New Girls!

On July 21, 2010, Chris and I became the parents of our new Ethiopian daughters F. and E. We don't know yet what they would like to do about their names, specifically their middle names, so for the next few months, I'll call them F. and E.

This is F., our beautiful new teenager. She is kind, thoughtful, very intelligent, artistic, and has a very deep faith. Chris and I are so excited to have the chance to spend her important teenage years with her, and to be the ones to help her sort through her past, and decide about her future. If we had waited much longer, she would have aged out of the adoption world. But God's timing is perfect, and she is the new leader of our kid clan! We have heard from so many people who know her, and everyone has told us how incredibly special she is. I didn't know it was possible to love someone so deeply that you've never met. I'm jealous of Chris for his chance to spend time with her a year ago, and can't wait for my chance in September. Isn't she beautiful?



























































And here is E. This girl is one of those people that you meet and you never forget. She has a gentle, quiet strength. But her sense of humor and joy is contagious. She looks at the world with trust and hope. We are honored to be her parents, and excited to see what she does with the amazing spirit and life she has been given. I can't express how excited I am to hug this girl again after almost 2 1/2 years. She has grown up since I said good-bye to her then, and I don't want to lose any more time with her! We have been told by her friends that she loves little kids and gum. We should be able to accommodate both!






























































We are excited to get to know each of our girls, and also so happy that they will remain together.

















Here is a picture of the girls as they opened their welcome bags from us (gifts, letter, and Oregon T-shirts). The girls had already been told we were adopting them, but this is sort of the official day when they heard it directly from us! It was a very big day for them. And a very special picture for us to receive as we saw them opening the bags we had packed with so much care and love. I hope they could feel it all.

Preparing for the Girls

We have a confirmed embassy date of September 22! I cannot wait. But we have so much to do before then. This adoption was so smooth and quick that it caught us a bit unprepared...

Chris finished his first semester of his doctorate program last Friday. He really enjoyed it, but I think in the middle of all that we have going on, he is glad for the break from school.

He is working hard to build the new bedroom downstairs. We bought beds and dressers. He and his dad ripped out the old carpet in our downstairs, and we bought the new laminate that will go down there. It will be beautiful compared to how it looked before. We will have another bedroom, and still have room for a family room too. It will be perfect.

We're van shopping. And cleaning out and fixing up our minivan to sell. And gathering clothes, and trying to think of all the other things that need to be done in preparation for the girls.

Chris and I are going back and forth about how many of us will go. As of today we are thinking it will be Chris and me, and Gabe and Matt. But we still have a few weeks to decide. It's Matt's turn to go, but Gabe wants to go back so badly, that we are taking that into consideration. The other thing that is different about this time around is that Gabe is losing his place as the oldest of our clan. That is also weighing in on our decision.

We've decided to use the adoption medicine clinic at OHSU this time around. We have a great pediatrician that worked out very well for E.R.'s transition. But because of our older girls' ages, now we are thinking of using the adoption medicine clinic for their transition, and then having them use my doctor after that. It's a little weird to start going to a pediatrician when you're in high school. Plus, most likely we may need to consider changing the girls ages from what their new birth certificates say, and we hope the OHSU clinic can help us with that.

As usual, we have lots going on, and just over 6 weeks until we leave!

We still have a family camp to go to for Free Methodists (our denomination), and we're determined to make it up to visit our old town in Washington before the trip to Ethiopia. We have friends up there that we really need to see, and we know that things will be so much busier as we are transitioning the girls into school down here.

I have had the awesome chance in the last few days to spend time with 3 recently adopted Ethiopian teenagers. The kids and their families are amazing, and it is so incredible to think that in 7 weeks our girls will be part of our family!

I'll try to keep up on this blog better as we are getting closer!!

It's Official - We are Eight !

So this morning we just received the best news possible in our adoption!!

The judge approved our request for an exception to appear for the second date. But not only that, the judge also decided to waive the second court date, and just officially approve our adoption today!!!

The girls are ours!

So we are waiting to hear when our embassy date will be, and that is when the girls will come home. It is looking like September.

We are still adjusting to the news. We had prepared ourselves for so many scenarios from power outages to the judge getting sick, to one of us traveling, or both. I didn't really think that EVERYTHING would work out!

We have two beautiful teenagers waiting to come home....

It is a very good day.

Court Date!

Life is going by at a crazy pace for us. We are now solidly into summer, and enjoying the time and the sunshine that thankfully is finally showing itself regularly.

Chris has started his doctorate program, so we've gone back into the juggling act of trying to balance our busy life with papers and reading and classes.

The big news is that we learned today that we have a court date for our adoption next week!!! Our case is set to go before a judge on July 21st. We had resigned ourselves that we wouldn't make it in before the court closure, so this was unexpected and very welcome news! The girls are both excited and ready. We have received very sweet letters from them, and we are so hoping for good news on the 21st...

So we shall see what next week brings!

Deep Thoughts by E.R.

So E.R. was talking to her Aunt Emily during a 4th of July Parade. She was enthralled with all the horses walking by, and particularly with one that was all decorated in pink, her favorite color. She was clearly imagining having a pink pony of her own, and talked about it for days afterward. But during the parade she turned to her aunt and said, "When I grow up................... well, first I have to grow up."

Big News!

So we are ready to go public with our news!

It is official! We are adopting! This time around we are adopting sisters, 12 year-old E. and 15 year-old F. We are so excited!

We have known E. since I met her 2 years ago. Chris met both girls when he went to pick up E.R. exactly a year ago this week.

SO MUCH prayer, discussion, sleepless nights, fear, hope, and joy have been part of the journey to this decision. We have worried we weren't the right family for them, and whether they would be happy with us -- and everything in between. Last week we sent our official paperwork to accept the girls' referral. A couple of days later we got an email from our agency describing the girls' reaction to being told. It absolutely melted away any lingering doubts about whether this was the right thing to do.

The girls are so excited. F. was getting older, and starting to worry about what her future might hold if adoption wasn't her plan. They can both be at peace now, knowing they will stay together. They are also excited about being adopted by a family that they know. With our agency, that isn't so rare, but in the world of international adoption, it is extremely rare, so this is pretty special for all of us.

I don't plan to blog much about the girls' stories. They are theirs to tell, when they choose to. I will share a bit about our process, and probably quite a bit about our adjustment as a family. We are hoping for a smooth adoption process, but have no control over that!

So today is the 1 year anniversary of E.R. meeting some of our family in Ethiopia. To celebrate, we sent the girls' welcome bags in the mail today. We hope they love them. Two years is a long time to watch the kids around you getting families and going home.

Chris and I had our first kid 10 years ago. She was 16, and lived with us for six months. We had so much to learn back then. I'll never forget sitting outside her vice-principal's office, 25 years old, waiting to see if I could get my daughter back in school after a suspension...

So a decade later, we re-enter adolescence and high school, and everything that goes with it. We are older, more seasoned and wise this time around. And the girls will be part of our family forever!

So if you pray: the girls need prayer as they adjust to this massive change in their lives. They just found out they will move to Oregon, USA. They will be the oldest in our family. Their longing for a family is now turning into the acceptance of a REAL family, faults and all. They will enter the U.S. educational system with the experience of being at the top of their classes in Ethiopia - their report cards are truly amazing. We know that language and cultural differences will affect that experience to some degree.

So we are excited in anticipation of a court date hopefully this summer. We know this is a leap to some, but we hope you will celebrate with us!

It is a good week.

ENOUGH

So if anything could yank me out of a work-induced hiatus from blogging, it would be the current media frenzy around Russian adoptions.

Yes, we have been busy, and happy, and enjoying birthdays, and I am working lots. But that is for another post.

Today I need to tell my thoughts to anyone who still checks this blog.

As the media, and probably much of the world, debates adoption, and American parents, and one-way plane tickets, and reactive attachment disorder, and adoption agencies, I have something else to say...

It is WAY TOO EASY to blame agencies, and bad parenting, and disturbed kids, and the ethics of moving kids to a new country. The adoption agency I work for has a policy against speaking publicly about another agency's situation. I agree with that, and I'll extend for myself that I won't speak publicly about another parent either. It is too easy to judge with 0 information.

I received a newsletter from RainbowKids.com and the editor Martha Osborne, has very insightful things to say about her take on the current situation. It is the first time I've heard someone put words to my thoughts, and she has pulled me from my blogging slumber to put my thoughts into words. Check out the website if you aren't familiar with it.

The current Orphan Count Number has grown to 163,000,000 children living without parents. So I want to see the media and the international political community voice some outrage about that!

Yes, there will always be orphans. Tragedy, accidents, and disease will always be with us. But in this world where some people get wealthier and healthier, there is no reason for this number to be growing exponentially.

Let's see some outrage about the fact that so many kids are living throughout the world in unspeakable institutional situations. The research has been done, fellow world. There are incredibly deep medical, psychological, developmental, and spiritual, lifelong effects of living in these places for the world's children.
We know without a doubt that housing children in large numbers, without adequate nutrition, minimal adult supervision and interaction, no chance to be outside, and no one who loves YOU, is BAD for kids and the adults they will become.

If you have ever traveled and experienced the difference in orphanage care you know what I'm talking about. Some places are okay for kids for a short time. The best places might be considered good places for a short time. There are many people doing their best to care for children with limited resources, and providing the best care they can. I'm talking about the rest.

So instead of judging whether international adoption is the "right" thing to do, or judging whether agencies educate parents enough, or whether parents should or shouldn't parent tough kids in ways you wouldn't parent your own, let's DO something for the 163,000,000 children who have no voice or choice.

Do your own research. If you don't like adoption, then make some changes in disease, access to vaccines and birthing medical care. Deal with extreme poverty, and stigma about physical disabilities, and women's rights over their safety, bodies, and their children. Spend some time in an orphanage - a "good" one, and also a "bad" one. Make the changes that need to happen so that kids grow up in families instead of warehouses.

It is a tragedy EVERY TIME a teen walks out of an institution into a world of crime, prostitution, poverty, and hopelessness. Many end their own lives, and the rest make choices no one should have to consider.

And then there are the kids who never make it to an institution. They grow up on the streets, or with their siblings in a village, or as servants to extended family. These children also face hunger, abuse, and hopelessness. Their walls are not made out of brick or plaster or mud. The walls that keep them from what they could become, are the ones that we continue to allow.

So yes, in this country of privilege and endless rights, people can make the choice to turn away. 163,000,000 might be too much to think about, so it is easier to blame and go on with life.

I don't think it would take the whole world to change things. Just ENOUGH people. ENOUGH people to say "no way, not on my watch, it is ENOUGH".

Let's figure out a way to get the world's leaders to care enough to make some changes. Disease, third world debt, education on what kids need and deserve in childhood, families to step forward and say "we're WILLING, and IT IS ENOUGH".

I don't have the answers to 163,000,000 childrens' questions. And at some point, I'll probably delete this post, and return to the role of adoptive parent who chooses not to offend for the sake of the few kids who might have a chance at adoption. But today I am thoughtful, and angry enough to say,

"ENOUGH!"

Walking !

By now, I'm sure no one is surprised when I say that E.R. took her first steps on her own yesterday. Three days after getting her leg, and probably the 5th time she had practiced with it.

We were practicing out in the cul-de-sac and G.J. (who is a Pop-It lover) had a big Pop-It he was popping in front of E.R. (who is also a Pop-It lover). She got so excited that she pulled her hands out of mine and covered her mouth in an exaggerated giggle. I looked down in surprise as she stood steady on her own!

Our neighbors were with us and very excited for her. I cautiously let her take a few tipsy steps, and then she took off down the street! I caught her as she was falling after stepping into the curb. She walked up our short driveway, and we went inside to take a break.

The funny thing is that all of us watching were waiting for her to realize that she was WALKING! But she didn't seem phased by it all (which is not her usual personality - she can get excited over anything and nothing). But this was different. It was like all this energy that had been lying dormant in our little girl since her surgery 10 weeks ago, busted out. And she walked as if she knew she always would when she had the chance.
Here E.R. is dancing. She loves to dance, and it has been 2 1/2 months! Unfortunately she is still learning to maneuver her legs. Her prosthetic foot got caught in the crack in the deck board, and she fell, flying right out of her prosthetic leg that was caught tightly in the crack! She was spread-eagle on the deck and looked at me with concern, while I calmly unwrenched her precious new leg and said, "oops!".

Prosthetic Appointment #2 - Jan. 27

So today turned out to be the day Chris and I have waited for over 14 months, and E.R. has waited way longer.

E.R. had her regularly scheduled check with her surgeon in the afternoon. But in the morning we got a call from Shriners that the prosthetic lab was working on her leg all day, and MIGHT be done by her appointment time, and that we should stop by. I was warned not to get my hopes up, but of course that had already happened!

A few hours later I realized that I hadn't gotten E.R. shoes for the fitting yet, since I had thought we still had a week. So E.R., J.T. and I rushed to the shoe store. I didn't really know what to get except that they had to be as flat as possible, so we bought four pairs that looked like they would work, and I decided to let our prosthetist choose what would be best for our girl to learn to walk in.

So I packed extra snacks and toys for J.T. as I remembered how long we were in the prosthetic lab last time. We headed into Shriners after school and when we were checking in, I was told that our prosthetist had come looking for us about 20 minutes before. No one knew what it meant!

So we did our regular appointment, and of course all of the snacks were gone by the end of that, and then headed around the corner. We waited in the reception area, and the coordinator said "I haven't heard yet!" By now I'm starting to think that it isn't ready and no one wants to break the bad news. We waited for what seemed like forever. Then our prosthetist came out and said she had just checked, and it was DONE.

You know those feelings you have sometimes when you realize that your whole life just changed in the last moment, and nothing will be the same ever again? Well that's what I had when I heard the word "done".

So she brought in E.R.'s new leg, and began to work to get it to fit. E.R. still has lots of swelling, so it was a bit of a challenge. But finally it was on, and E.R. was up standing straight and tall for the first time in her life! I took pictures and then put the camera down so I could help the girl walk. I wanted so badly for Chris to be there, but it all happened too fast for us to plan well.



Holding tightly on to one of us with both hands, she was able to walk around the room and into the hall. She would have walked her little self right out of Shriners, but we had to bring her back to check her leg. Her leg looked okay after the walking, except for that darn open wound. It oozed out onto the sock, and our prosthetist told me would really have to watch that, and not let her walk for as long as we had just talked about. I could already feel the battles coming over that...


The most interesting thing is that I was expecting some sort of excitement, or shock, or light-bulb moment from E.R. where I saw that finally everything she had been through now made sense. But it never came. She was so determined to walk that she didn't seem as excited as she usually gets about new experiences. And an uncanny feeling began to wash over me as I realized that I think this girl has understood everything all along. I always assumed she only understood things at a 2 year-old level, in bits and pieces. But as I watched her at Shriners today I realized I was wrong. This kid understood all of the conversation we've had. She recognized what her Cabbage Patch Kid's foot symbolized. I think she got it all...

I think somewhere deep down she was ready for the first day of the rest of her life.

Outpatient Check #2 - Jan. 27

Today, again I trudged into Shriners with all four kids after school. We didn't have to wait long which was nice.

The kids tanked up on granola bars, cheese sticks and juice boxes in the exam room, and listened to an unsolicited lecture on how long they should wash their hands by the nurse. My kids can be such good sports sometimes.


E.R.'s surgeon seemed disappointed that she wasn't more healed. She still has an open wound on the side of her leg that hasn't closed. We set another appointment for 3 weeks from now, hoping that she will be healed by then.

But the big news is in the next post!!!

Prosthetic Appointment #1 - Jan. 20

Today, the little kids and I picked up the boys at school, came home for a snack, and then headed to Shriners for E.R.'s first prosthetic fitting.

J.T. sat in a stroller, and the boys helped me entertain him and give him a bottle.

The prosthetist brought in a mold of something that is similar to what E.R.'s leg will look like. I am still a total novice to this field of medicine/therapy, so it was really hard for me to picture what it will look like eventually. Mostly I just had to trust that she knows what she is doing!

We had a heck of a time getting it to fit on E.R. In fact at first, it just didn't. Apparently E.R.'s leg has swollen quite a bit since surgery, so it is bigger around and without the muscle/bone definition it had when she was originally molded. The swelling will go down, but for now it throws things off a bit.

The funny part is that the leg mold just didn't fit, and fell off a few times. So for the rest of the hour+ that we were there the same scene played over and over:


Our kind and very positive prosthetist would try to get the leg to stay on. E.R. would watch her and then say sadly but firmly, "It don't fit." Then the prosthetist would look in her face, smile at her and try to assure her by saying, "It will fit. I'm DETERMINED to make it fit." E.R. would look at her with sympathy and simply say, "It don't fit." They had this conversation over and over to the point that the prosthetist and I would already be hiding our chuckles before E.R. said "It don't fit". But E.R. saw absolutely no humor in it all. It was like she had some inner knowledge that she was bound to only have one leg the rest of her life, and we were fools to keep trying. The interesting thing is that until the end of our appointment, over an hour later, she was right.

So we had lots of time to amuse ourselves as our prosthetist would leave us, make some adjustments to the test leg, come back, try it, have the same conversation with E.R. again, and then leave to adjust it again. So in the meantime we amused ourselves with the camera...










So the prosthetist was finally fairly happy with the fit. Here is E.R. standing for the first time...





As we were packing up to go, she told me we would only need one more appointment, and not two! That means E.R. will have her new leg in 2 weeks!

Eye Trauma

So yesterday evening while I was at work, G.J. was upset about something and went to lay on his bed. He started screaming in pain, and Chris rushed in to see what had happened. G.J. was clutching his eye and screaming that it hurt!

This triggered some major anxiety in G.J. that we hadn't seen for awhile. He refused to let anyone look in his eye. He slept for a few hours, cried a lot, and Chris and I weren't sure what to do. When G.J. is in that emotional space you can't talk or reason with him. He is just panicked and unable to think clearly and calmly.

This morning the pain wasn't any better, and his eye was red and puffy from G.J. pressing on it. He spent the morning with us taking E.R. to her Shriners appointment. Then I had to stop by work to take care of something, and then we were finally able to get to G.J.'s appointment.

His doctor put some green dye in his eye and looked in it with a black light. She was pretty surprised and said she saw something pretty big on his iris. I could tell she was worried, and she left quickly to get him an emergency appointment with an opthamologist in the building. Another doctor came in to try to look in his eye, and by then I realized this might be serious. Both doctors quizzed him on what could have happened - saying that it looked like some sort of trauma. G.J. honestly had no ideas for them. He didn't know what had happened!

We went to grab some lunch before the next appointment, and Chris decided to come help. He met us and took G.J. to the appointment, since someone needed to feed J.T. who had been an amazingly good sport through all of this. We also had M.C. who needed to be picked up at school.

So G.J. saw the specialist who was able to get in his eye and remove a microscopic piece of white plastic tucked into his eyelid. It was scraping his eye every time he blinked! After the removal and some numbing cream, G.J. felt like a new man.

It will take a couple of days for his eye to be back to normal, but apparently eyes heal quickly...

This qualifies for our freaky family list of "What in the World?"

Post-Op Outpatient Check-Up #1

Well our girl, being the survivor that she is, surprised the heck out of me on Monday.

She was whining and crying in her crib as she woke up from her nap. When I went in to check on her, she was crying and saying "OW!" I looked down and saw that she had ripped off all the dressing and bandages on her leg and it was bare and bleeding a bit. It was the first time either of us had seen her leg, and I didn't know if the blood was from the unhealed wound, or if she had picked open some stitches!

I spent the next hour and a half trying to get a live person on the phone at Shriners to give us some advice. Chris came home and we bandaged her up again. We were finally told to do just that, and then to bring her in for her already-scheduled appointment Wednesday morning.

So then this morning, J.T., G.J. (who had hurt his eye and was waiting to get into the doctor himself), and I took E.R. into Shriners. Her surgeon was pretty happy overall with how it looked, and now we just need to keep a couple of band-aids on the healing scab.

We went over to the prosthetics lab at the end of the hall and made E.R.'s 3 appointments for that process. At this point she is scheduled to be all done on Feb. 10th.

This girl wants the world to know that she is DONE with recovering! She is ready to get on with her life.

Praying For Haiti

Our hearts are hurting over the tragedies facing our Haitian neighbors.

Chris wants to get down there so badly. We have been sponsoring a teacher in the orphanage school that Chris visited 6 years ago. It seems so long ago, and then not so long at the same time.

We are praying for the millions of people who lost family, friends, neighbors, homes, workplaces, churches, and cherished pieces of their history.

May the world's help get there in time to make a difference in their pain...

My Amazing Job

Today I got to give my first referral to a family! I got to be the person on the other end of the phone as the lives of one loving and waiting family intersected with the life of a little boy (who needs that family very much) on the other side of the world.

An amazing and humbling experience. A day none of us will ever forget.

Adoption Decree Headache

I'm sitting with my hot chocolate recovering from the headache I've had since Saturday night when I actually looked carefully at E.R.'s brand new adoption decree.

If you aren't familiar with adoption, once a child is adopted internationally, they generally need to be re-adopted in their state (depending on their state). So all their international paperwork has to be filed in a local court, and then a judge finalizes their adoption in their new state. From this they can get a birth certificate from their state, and a SS card. There are other ways and orders to getting these documents - but that is how we did it.

So on Friday, her decree came in the mail! This means her adoption is recognized here in our Oregon court. Huge waves of relief washed over me to see that piece of paper and to know that process was over.

Then Saturday night I read it carefully and to my horror, I realized that where her birthday should have been, was instead her placement date. That means that according to our new decree E.R. is not 2 1/2 years old, but about 7 months old! Ahhhh!!!

Since this is the process we used to get her an Oregon birth certificate and SS card, I was having huge anxiety about how to halt the paper trail that had been started. The last thing I want is for her birthdate to be 2 years off! I told our pediatrician about it early this morning at J.T.'s appt. and she joked that I would have to homeschool E.R. since there is no way she could wait until she was 7 to start kindergarten, and a school wouldn't register her if she was only 3 on paper! I tried to manage a pained smile to acknowledge her humor, but that was about all I could muster, since at that moment I felt no humor in someone's mistake that created such a huge headache for us.

I decided my best bet was to get over to the courthouse in person to get things straightened out. So I lugged E.R. on my back in my Ergo carrier, and J.T. rode in a little stroller. I smiled kindly but unapologetically at the ugly glares I received from the security guard, knowing full well there is an unwritten rule about bringing kids into a courthouse. I was determined to get those 2 years back for this little girl who had been through too much in her life to be robbed of any of it. And there is NO WAY that she wants to be J.T.'s YOUNGER sister!

So I carried J.T.'s stroller, clutching our adoption documents, down several flights of stairs to the basement. The lady who works down there was definitely shocked to see us coming in the door of her quiet office. I just about knocked her over with kindness - which usually works with grumpy court folks (thank you Lord for all the time I've spent in courthouses). In these situations it usually works to play dumb about any procedures you actually may understand, and just be a really honest, pleasant, confused person in need of the expertise that only the person in front of you can provide. By the time we left she was actually trying to pronounce "Elmo" in response to E.R.'s babbling conversation about her Elmo sticker.

Turns out that the decree is not sent on to the birth certificate office. All of our court documents were correct, so much to my relief, my panic can now subside. E.R. will remain 2 1/2, and our new friend in the courthouse basement whipped up a new, correct adoption decree for us. When she handed it to me, I exclaimed "That is a beautiful thing!!", and she almost smiled.

We headed out into the freezing cold Oregon morning chatting and cheering about how E.R. was 2 again. The attorney walking in front of us turned around to smile as E.R. was yelling "Woo-Hoo!!" and pumping her fist in the air about being 2 again.

It's almost as if she understood everything we just went through - which makes her so much older than 7 months...

7 Week Wound Check and Cast Removal

So yesterday E.R. and I headed into Shriners just before 5:00am. We got set up in the room that we had for her recovery after surgery. I don't think she recognized it, but it brought back memories, some good, many not-so-good to me. We shared the room with a family of a baby with club feet.

The procedure today was to remove her cast and check her healing. Best case scenario was that she would be doing great, they could take the pin out of her ankle bones, prepare the first mold for her prosthetic foot, and simply wrap her in a soft wrap (like an ace bandage). If she wasn't ready, we were probably looking at another cast for 2 weeks. By now I knew we could survive another 2 weeks if it was necessary, but it would be SO nice to be on our way to the next stage! If the best case scenario happened, the surgeon said it would take about an hour. Less than an hour if they couldn't do the mold yet.

E.R. was ready to go home after we had been there about 20 minutes. She got pretty mad at me when I wouldn't put her clothes back on and take her home. A big stuffed My Little Pony helped for awhile.

I carried her sedated little self down about 7:40am. There was some kind of computer glitch with paperwork, I think, so we waited awhile. Then they decided to just go ahead since she had been waiting so long. At 7:50, I left her and returned to the room to wait. The nurse told me I would be called when they began the procedure, but I never got a call. By now, I assume they know what they are doing, and I just chose to rest, since there was a LONG day ahead of me and I had to emotionally prepare for E.R.'s reaction to the anesthesia.

To my surprise about 35 minutes later two nurses came in with a calm, peaceful little E.R. They handed her to me and the prosthetist came in to tell me that everything had gone wonderfully. She made the first mold, and E.R.'s leg looked great. I felt E.R.'s left leg dangling down and realized that she felt lighter because she was CAST-LESS! I had to sit down on the bed with her because the relief just washed over me. As all the shock was wearing off (since I wasn't ready for her to even be done with the procedure - let alone already up here), I also realized that she was completely peaceful and not screaming and thrashing as usual. Part of me was afraid to hope since there was still time for her to fall apart, but the rest of me was realizing this was COMPLETELY different than our last two times coming out of surgery/procedures. The nurse told me that they hadn't had to put her under completely since there was no cutting or stitching needed. So the medication that she doesn't tolerate well was never used!!!! Oh the joy!

I snuggled on the bed with E.R. as I had seen many other parents do post-surgery (and hadn't been able to do with her before!). She was calm and quiet and seemed relieved to see me. There was no trauma, no trying to jump off the bed, just peaceful recovery. Within about 10 minutes she was sitting up, asking for juice, and her clothes, and ready to pack up and go home!

Today she was given a Cabbage Patch doll that she had picked out way before her surgery. The doll had been given an amputation on her left foot, and has a prosthetic foot as close to E.R.'s as possible with a doll. The prosthetist showed her how to put the doll's foot on. E.R. loved it.

We were in the car 4 1/2 hours after arrival. I think both of us felt much lighter!

E.R. has had about 24 hours now to get used to her new leg. She is able to really crawl and play on the floor now, and she can use her left leg for the first time in 7 weeks. She is not going to walk on it for at least a week. But it is fun to see her getting around, and completely comfortable with her leg. She isn't concerned at all. In fact the cast was so annoying that I think she is just 100% relieved to have 2 legs now!

We go back in for a follow-up check with her surgeon in a week. No more inpatient appointments for us!!!

I really think the hardest parts may be over! Thank you for all the prayers and support over the last year, and especially the last 2 months. We are on the home stretch now...