“Our First Christmas” by Cindy

I really want to write a more detailed update about our family’s transition, but for now, I want to say a few words about Christmas.

Leading up to the holiday, John and I struggled to respond to the, “you must be so excited about your first Christmas as a family” comments. Excited wasn’t exactly how we were feeling. Fucking terrified might be a bit closer.

Christmas is a loaded time of year for most people. Consider what it means for kids dealing with the loss of loved ones. This was the first year they weren’t going to see people they loved from their past. This was their first year with a new family with new traditions and rules. They didn’t know what to expect, and even when they were having fun, they had to wrestle with feelings of guilt for betraying the loved ones they have lost. We knew that no matter what we did, the holiday just wouldn’t feel quite right for these kids, so we tried not to overload ourselves with expectations. We anticipated supporting our daughter through some rough emotions, and we knew that the young lad would likely also feel that there was something missing but be unable to tell us what it was.

On our side, we wanted to carefully consider what traditions we wanted to continue and start. Yes, there were too many presents under the tree. My bad. (I don’t really feel bad about that). We also wanted to visit our extended family because that is part of what Christmas is for us, and we wanted the kids to know how many people love them, but we were worried that it might prove overwhelming for all of us. In the end, we decided to risk it. This way, we thought, they would know what to expect next year, and maybe going through the tough stuff this year would make it easier for next year (just ignore those more experienced parents laughing in the background). Basically, we wanted to embrace the magic and fun of the season without overloading our kids. We tried to keep the excitement calm, as much as possible.

Now that we are back home and settling into our home routines, and recovering from my brutal Christmas cold and John’s bout with a Christmas flu, we are feeling like we did OK. Our families were wonderfully understanding, and the kids had a good time visiting, ate delicious food, and got more presents than they needed. Yes, there were some tears that needed to come out from time to time, but I think we managed to use those moments for building attachment.

It was also kind of exhausting. At this stage of attachment-building, we have to maintain a level of vigilance that other parents do not. As my mother-in-law pointed out, it’s a little like having a newborn. You can do whatever you want, but you will deal with the consequences. Leave the child with someone for a night out, and you can expect some readjusting time when you get back. Give the child access to too much sugar, and clean up the vomit from the sink at 10 p.m.

We are still new parents. We are still learning how to adjust to our new life roles, and, like most new parents, we are grieving the loss of who we used to be. We also grieve for our children’s pain. It’s not fair that these kids had to go through what they had to go through in order for them to come to us, and even though we are so happy they are our kids, we are sad that they and their family had to experience such loss in order for that to happen.

But, we cannot change the past, so we focus on what we can do today and tomorrow (next week is way too far ahead for me to think about, but you can talk to John about that), and we just keep doing the best we can, learning, and then doing better. We think.

More on that one later.

So, with careful planning, a little calm excitement, and some super supportive family members, Christmas was filled with wonderful moments, and I hope that is what our children will remember.

The aftermath… I sort of feel like this – a partially-controlled and somewhat satisfying mess.

“Suddenly Mommy” by Cindy

So, this amazing thing happened this summer. When I turned 40 exactly a year ago, I was feeling a bit lost and stuck. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I felt overwhelmed with choice and stuck in the overwhelm.

Today, I am overwhelmed by how much has changed and how much I have to learn about my new role in life – as Mommy.

When our foster resource worker called to tell us about these two children who were ready to be adopted – a sibling pair – we weren’t even thinking of adopting. We were waiting for a foster placement call, so this call was quite a surprise. Even more surprising was how excited we got by the idea. Because of the older child’s age (6), we had to decide whether or not we would adopt these two before we could meet them, so our main question (as it should be for any prospective parents) was whether or not we actually still wanted to be parents for life. There were some pretty heavy discussions as we tried to figure out if we were on the same page or even in the same book, and in the end, we were able to move forward together, confident that we would be able to parent as partners (at least most of the time).

Meeting the kids was such a surreal experience. Here were these two fully formed people who were being introduced to their new parents while their foster mom and two workers looked on, and I had no idea of what to do. John was amazing – as he always is. For a few weeks, we had visits, and then an overnight, and then two overnights, and then 4 overnights, and then the move-in day arrived. We went from John and Cindy to Daddy John and Mommy Cindy to Daddy and Mommy in a matter of a month.

Imagine being introduced to a child with a history you know little about and making the decision to love this child, no matter who he or she turns out to be, for the rest of your life. It was nerve-wracking, and I can’t imagine what it felt like for these two little people. If I am being honest, even as I was worried that they might never love me as a mother, I was worried that I might not love them the way a mother should.

I was fortunate to be able to talk to a friend who has adopted, and she assured me that it was OK not to feel totally attached right away; she reminded me that love is an action and grows through the action of giving love. Caring for the children every day creates the love. Every time I rock my crying toddler son to sleep, every time I brush my little girl’s hair or help her through a ‘learning to bike ride’ meltdown, the love inside me grows. Even when I am, shall we say, a little tired. I have learned to apologize when I am overly grumpy, and we now have a saying in this house that goes something along the lines of, ‘it’s OK, even though you made that mistake, I still love you.” It always gets a smile and a hug.

People say that love is all you need, but I will be eternally grateful for the books I read to prepare myself. I am a naturally reserved person, so if I hadn’t read those books, I would have focused on waiting for the children to come to me, which would have been terrible. I learned that it is my job to initiate and direct the relationship (which sounds like ‘d’uh’, but wasn’t a natural conclusion for me). I have to teach these kids what it is like to have a Mommy at the same time as I learn what it is like to be a Mommy.

We didn’t get that chance to bond when they were infants and grow together, so there have been some awkward moments (bath time!), but we have come a long way already. Both kids now initiate hugs (sometimes, I actually find myself wanting space!), and we are learning how to negotiate whining and tantrums and shut downs (I know that trick all too well, Missy), and we are having lots of fun. We have a long way to go, and who knows how long this honeymoon stage will last, but for now, we are getting to know our kids as they get to know us, and we are learning more about what kinds of parents we want to be. We expect there to be some bumps along the way, but we are starting to feel more confident in our ability to handle those bumps, learn from them, and move forward as a family. Of course, we will not be shy about asking for support when we need it!

A year ago, I couldn’t have imagined that things could change so quickly and in such an incredible manner. Somehow, these kids seem perfect for our family, and we couldn’t have envisioned that it would be possible to find such an amazing match. In our case, it was a matter of workers getting to know us a bit through a foster placement and then thinking of us when these kids became available. The adoption list is not ‘first come, first serve’ – it is a matter of finding a good match, and we think we are a pretty good example of the system working. On our side, I’m not sure we would have been so open to adopting older kids if we hadn’t had the newborn experience with our foster baby. Sometimes, taking any path can lead you to the right path.

While we are in official adoption probation, the legal process won’t be started for at least six months, so we have lots of rules to still follow (although fewer than we had as foster parents). We won’t be able to post any identifying photos until the legal process is completed, for example, but we get to choose whether to give the children over the counter medication etc. We can expect that it will take at least 9 months for the whole thing to become legal – and it could take many years if we end up needing more support.

As part of our transition to parenthood, John and I have chosen a new last name for our whole family. It was important to us that our children share our last name, and we just couldn’t choose between our two last names, so we created a brand new one. We were certainly inspired by friends who had done the same, and we feel fortunate that our families understand and support us in this.

So, while my amazing husband takes our kids to the store to get supplies for Mommy’s birthday, I am at home writing my birthday blog post because this year, everything is different.

And I am so happy.

 

PS – the books I read to prepare included: Instant Mom by Nia Vardalos (really enjoyed this – a good story and good preparation); Building the Bonds of Attachment by Daniel A. Hughes (cried a lot at this one – both terrifying and inspiring); The Connected Child by David Cross, Karen Purvis, and Wendy Sunshine (borrowed from the library and like it so much I ordered it from Amazon); Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge; The Post Adoption Blues by David Marshall and Karen J. Foli (good to be aware that this is a thing to watch for); In On It: What Adoptive Parents Would Like You to Know About Adoption by Elisabeth O’Toole (this is what we recommend to friends and family); Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents by Deborah D. Gray (haven’t quite finished this one, yet, because I needed to take a break to focus on toddlerhood…); Secrets of the Baby Whisperer for Toddlers by Melinda Blau and Tracy Hogg (Some good ideas here, although I read it knowing that it wouldn’t all be applicable in our situation – our kids have been through the trauma of placement, so we need to consider that, and so The Connected Child is more applicable). I also read The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman (anything to help strengthen our couple relationship as we enter a whole new phase, and it is applicable to children as well – the idea being not to only express love in one language, but to recognize that we may not have the same dominant love language as the people we love, and so we may need to show them love in their language rather than ours).

 

PPS – the title of this post should be sung to the tune of “Suddenly Seymour” from Little Shop of Horrors (of course)

Being a Good Partner

Here is a another article I wrote for Fertility Matters: Being a Good Partner When Your Heart is Breaking