The End of that Chapter

Life has more quiet moments now that school is back in session. This morning I continued cleaning and organizing my desk area. Something that has piled up over the years in no particular order is the paperwork associated with our adoptions: overflowing hanging files, random documents in a pile on a shelf, in an envelope that never got fully emptied. Receipts, papers poached to request social security numbers or a passport and never returned to the file...I looked at and sorted it all. I also dumped all the infertility treatment forms and medical reports into the "shred" pile. They are no longer needed.

Not gonna lie. The emotion swelled and took my breath away a couple of times.

I'm not sure where the emotion came from - I wasn't sad. It was just a period in our lives that was so...intense. To look it in the face again - the checklists of things to do, the piles of receipts, the lawyer notices, the thick stapled packets of information about ourselves or the birth parents, it opened a tender place in my heart that remembered, viscerally, the weight of it all.

At the same time, that period in our lives is OVER. Done deal. And I experienced great joy in keeping only one copy of each item in a file for the appropriate child and throwing out the duplicates. Each child has a file with his or her origins told in the indifferent language of legal documents. One day these papers will interest them.

I'm trying to understand the hollow feeling of loss that is still there when I say goodbye, in this concrete way, to that chapter in my life. It makes no sense - I am glad to leave it behind. Maybe it's that, while there's finally closure for me, it is still something my kids will open up and experience for the first time one day. Those papers are all familiar to me; I signed most of them or took them from envelopes myself while standing on the wooden staircase of our Albany home, reading them in the winter light that glowed softly through the arched window of the front door. I sat across a table in a room lit by fluorescent lights and helped draft some of them with a couple we were just getting to know.

Closure is good, and closure I have. We are truly in a new chapter in our lives. It is apparent in the way our family has settled. We are one. We are parents and children, brothers and sisters, and the "how we got here" does not diminish this bond. And this new chapter is oh so good. So onward.

Adoption Hard Stuff...Like Death

We know that adoption happens because there's stuff that makes parenting appear impossible. And many times that stuff is big and hard. Last month that big hard stuff resulted in our son's birthfather leaving the earth tragically and by his own hand.

We only saw his birthfather occasionally - partly because of the physical distance between us, and partly because of the big hard stuff in his life interfering with his ability to be very demonstrative. But we always knew he cared.

He called sometimes, and we talked about Benji's challenges, and I asked him how he felt at that age - what would have made his life easier in school. He told me he appreciated our parenting style. He sent money for some enrichment activities one summer. He cleaned up his old G.I. Joe figures and sent them to Benji. He found kids' books about science, and he made a gift from time to time for him. Yes, he cared, greatly. I know that these gestures took much effort on his part to accomplish, and they are precious. So very precious.

Whenever we did see him, he wanted to make the time together meaningful. We went on walks in his favorite places. He wanted Benji to know the places that he loved.

So when he passed, we told Benji the truth. The truth about the how and why. We told it gently and clearly, following the wise counsel of a therapist who deals in adoption, grief, and loss. We want our boy to know we would never lie to him. We want our boy to have empathy and to see the tragedy in it. We want our boy to know that taking one's life is never the best option, that it does have consequences for everyone who loves you. And we want our boy to know that no matter how things ended, we still love, respect, and miss his birthfather.

After we got through the tough discussion with him and Sadie (she's just as mature as he is with stuff like this), we asked him how he'd like to honor his birthfather. We were too far away to make it to the service, but we could have our own service here.

We thought about how he loved nature. And we thought about how we could symbolically "release" him. Thus we found ourselves at the lake looking for rocks. Benji wore a floppy hat that looked like the hats we had often seen his birthfather wear.

Benji found a rock he liked and wrote his birthfather's name on it with a yellow crayon. (It doesn't really show up because of that, but he chose the color himself.)

Then we shared things we appreciated about his birthfather. Each of us said something that we loved.

And then he threw the rock into the water.

Comprehending such a loss at the age of seven is something that will happen over time and in layers of understanding as he matures. We know we will revisit much of what we discussed. But the key here is openness and letting him have his feelings of loss whenever they do present themselves.

Shortly after, we put a candle in the window on National Suicide Prevention Day. No one else on our block had a candle in their window, but perhaps that is something Benji will one day want to share with our neighbors. Perhaps it will be a way of working through the big stuff.

If you wish to contribute to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, you can make a tax deductible donation by clicking here. My sister is participating in the Out of the Darkness walk that raises funds for the AFSP. 100% of your donation goes to the foundation. As Benji gets a little older, it may be something he decides to participate in, too.

Isabella turns 1!

Back in September, our petite little miss celebrated her first birthday. Close family joined us and we made the tiniest cupcake for her itty bitty hands. A few notables from the day include...

-- Both of her birth parents joined us.
-- My 90-year-old grandmother joined us.
-- My grandmother was the first person Bella has ever waved goodbye to - and it happened as grandma was leaving the party.
-- We ate white chili, a fancy chicken and grape salad, and Italian cream cupcakes - the best cupcakes in the world.
-- Bella showed off her crawling and eating skills.

And now for the slide show. Many thanks to my mother who manned the camera and is therefore not in any pictures.

Adjustment for our Littlest Girl

February 13, 2014

She looks afraid of me, doesn't she? These two photos are from the second time I met our Isabella. And these were the only expressions I ever saw on her face for a while. Some of this is her personality - even now she is very observant and reserves engaging for when she's really comfortable with her surroundings - but now that we are almost 8 months into this life together, I think I might have been walking with her through her own transition, a time during which she might have grieved or been fearful or depressed.

February 13

This got me thinking - how it might perhaps be useful to talk about transition for a baby adopted not as a newborn.

I can't speak to her disposition before she came to us, but when she arrived her expression was often flat. She was observant, that was clear, but she was not about to engage with us.  She slept an incredible amount of time for a five-month-old, too. Like, most of the time. She was asleep hours more than she was awake. It made it easy to parent her, but harder to bond.

The day she moved in - February 16

At the time I just thought we had a late bloomer. Or maybe she was just incredibly mellow. Or maybe I misjudged the typical 5-6 month old. Maybe I remembered things differently from the first two, or perhaps the other two were ahead of the curve.

February 17

I've included photos to show how she looked all the time. Any smiling photo  you see represents about 5-10 shots, or about 5 minutes of time. All the staring off in the distance photos represent 25-50 photos I would take while trying to play with her.

February 18

Looking back, I think she was depressed; because today she is not a dud. She is still observant, sure, but she talks to us, grins wildly, goes after things, and eats with gusto. She enjoys life.

February 18

It looks like she started smiling a bit in March - a month after being with us, but still all these pink jammy shots were the majority full of tears. She didn't like being propped up on her tummy for long. (She didn't like anything that required effort on her part, but she has definitely improved in this area.)

March 4

March 4

She also seemed mellow, but could get really irritated by seemingly small things. A simple diaper change. Putting her clothes on. Holding her at a certain angle. It felt incongruent with the rest of her interactions.

March 4

So what can be said for folks trying to understand a baby's transition?

March 4

Babies who are adopted at several months old can get depressed. They can also grow through it. (So no need to panic.)

March 17

Bonding may take longer due to the flatness of their interactions, but that's normal. It's also not a sign of trouble to come.

March 17

With love and rest and appropriate stimulation baby will catch up and blossom.

March 26

March 26

We just celebrated Bella's first birthday and I can't wait to post those photos! Just had to catch y'all up on her transformation over the past 8 months.

March 26

There's not much more to say. The photos tell a lot of the story. Check back soon for pictures of her happy one-year-old self!

April 11

April 11

April 11

April 11

April 15

May 8

May 8

May 8

May 20

May 25 - in the mountains!

June 6

June 6

July 1

August 14

The things people say...

I grew up in a family of four kids, and I remember how even in the '80's that was sometimes considered a large family (though not uncommon). While we ain't got nuthin' on those folks who do a great job of raising, say, eight or more kiddos, we still end up as a main event when I go out with these punkins on my own.

But I do it. Going to Costco on a weekday morning is really a better use of our time than wasting family time on the weekend when The Papa is home and can hang out with us. If we have to do the divide-and-conquer thing in order to allow one of us an evening off, I'd rather meet a friend for coffee than head out to the grocery store. So I just take a deep breath, pass out some snacks, and go for it.

And here's what we look like: I am wearing Bella on my back; Sadie and Oli are in the child seats, and Benjamin is either orbiting around us like a satellite or dangling off the side of the basket like some sort of unfortunate growth.

I can see why we attract attention.

Most of the time comments are benign:

       "Oh, you've got your hands full!"

       "Wow, how old are they?"

       "Are those two twins?" (Indicating Sadie and Oli.)

       "I could never do that. I can barely handle one." (I have empathy for this parent. That's how I felt for a while with one, and then two. But as they get older, you find strength for the next.)

Sometimes people are a little more intrusive, more out of ignorance or an attempt to be nice than anything:

       "Are they all yours?" (Definitely noticing that we don't look much alike.) When I answer, "Yes," they sometimes follow up with, "I mean, are they all yours?"

       "Wow!  You look great for having all these kids! I mean, look at you!" as they eyeball my 10 month old.  (So...do I take credit for a body that didn't actually bounce back from labor four times? One time I mentioned adoption, but that opened up a can of worms with a very loud and tactless lady, so now I just say thanks and let them think I'm Supermom.)

I do try to be strategic about when we go out en masse. I much prefer decently behaved kids to wild and whiny ones. Folks will often use my children's occasional good behavior as a segue into telling me about the kids they witnessed yesterday melting down in public. A checker at Costco once went on and on about the parents who went through the entire warehouse with two screaming and crying little ones.
       "I mean, why didn't they just take them home? Who does that? They should have fed them something."
       What I am thinking is, that could have been me. That could be me tomorrow. The thing is, if the bystander is irritated by the child's behavior, you can be darn sure that parent is, too. No one likes being the person with squawking kids in a public space. No one goes out thinking - "I feel like getting judged for my parenting today. Come on tired, hungry kids, let's do this!" But we all find ourselves in that position from time to time. And we are there because we feel like it is the best option out of available (unfortunate) options...like feeding everyone water and dry beans for dinner that night.

Anyhoo. My favorite story is next.

One morning I'm walking through the halls at the doctor's office, herding the children to someone's appointment. An old man starts talking to us as we pass. "Oh, you sure got your hands full!"

"Yes, I do." I smile at him. He smiles at me, but his eyes are already drifting from one child to the next. He is counting and processing.

"Ah, you've got quite a young man right there," he says, indicating Benjamin.

"Yep, he's getting big!" I beckon Sadie to catch up; she's a drifter. The man continues taking it all in.

"Wow, those two are barely...wow...how do you get them all places? Oh."  He spots Bella on my back now. "Oh..."

Here we go.

"Are those all yours? Don't you think you have enough?"  We keep walking.

"You probably should slow down now!" His voice is raised, and he is irritated. He does not like that I have four kids. He thinks I procreated four times. He thinks there is something very wrong with that. He probably noticed that three baby daddies were involved.

We now get to absorb the discontent of any vocal person who believes that four plus kids is a problem. And this happens (not always as colorfully) with some regularity. Since we became a large family six months ago, I have fielded verbal barbs three times. That's an average of once every two months. I do think that the ages of the kids is part of what bothers people - they just look like so many and so unmanageable. And not everyone is comfortable with the busy-ness of little people. (Heck, I'm not totally comfortable with the busy-ness of my little people!)

I'm not mad or on a rant or anything. I know there is a lot of ignorance that simply comes from lack of experience. But I am baffled by the mindset that it's OK to make public comments about a stranger's family. In every instance of disrespect, the individual was someone who had gray hair. In other words, they were old enough to know better. Or perhaps they were old enough to think that their opinion mattered more than mine when it comes to my family.

I'll leave my observations there. For now, if you see us out in public, just imagine the circus dropped by. Feel free to smile and wave.

Annual Adoption Picnic

Every year our adoption agency hosts a huge picnic. Adoptive families come, birth families come, even friends of either side come. Bounce houses, grilling, a clown, and lots of chasing of children provide entertainment. This year we went with Sadie's birth father and his parents - her Nana and Tata. Sarah, our fabulous adoption facilitator (she helped with three of our kids), is in the pink shirt.

Sadie and Benjamin were first in line to get painted by the clown.

Benjamin told the clown that he wanted to be "gold." What?  "Just gold." The clown, who had already made fun of Sadie Eloise's name (I know, right?), acted like he was a real weirdo. That's OK...we can deal with a cranky clown.

I'm pretty sure I know what happened. Our boy who likes shiny things and sequins probably thoroughly looked over the paint kit and decided that nothing looked more fun than that glittery pot of gold. He's no fool. He asks for what he wants, even though he marches entirely to the beat of his own drum. (I pray he never loses that innocence, but I also ache for what challenges that might bring in today's world.)

Oh, Bella. Sitting on a serape.

Oh, Oli. Playing with your lei.

So then the clown started her show. For being such a cranky pants, she was pretty darn funny.

And here are my kids. The only ones who get up and run toward the front when she asks for a volunteer. They are having so much fun they can't contain themselves. I really should teach them to sit down.

Poor Oli was sick and spent a lot of time lying on Papa. And while this was going on, Sadie had the urgent need to pee. In the middle of a huge crowd in a huger park, girlfriend just kicked off her panties, hiked up her dress, squatted and did her thang. Free Range Kiddos are big time awesome, even when they are embarrassing.

We'll end with The Papa and his sense of humor. Sitting on hot coals was all his idea.