Waiting

Only if you have been through it, or are going through it, can you understand this ridiculous, hard, emotional wait that is adoption.  The past 2 months (or so) have been extremely hard for me.  We thought we would have our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) about 50+ days ago.  Most people with our similar timeline did.  Expecting it nearly every day, praying for it constantly, got so exhausting.  For a while I thought that God had slowed us down so that we would end up traveling with the other families from Marietta that are adopting Bethel boys.  But then they passed us too!  I got so tired of hoping, tired of praying.

Then about a week or two ago, Charlie's Christmas package was returned to us. Unopened.  It made it all the way to China, they marked in un-deliverable as addressed and sent it back to the USA!  I paid $50 to mail it priority mail, sent it the first week of December and it came back to me the first week of April.  I was actually slightly amused.  We had heard that it never made it to him, so we were glad we got it back, but come on-- REALLY, China?!

I have done a good job the past few weeks of staying busy, cleaning out closets (we've only been in this house 9 months, why would they need it?), shopping for Charlie, cooking Chinese food and reading some amazing books about adoption and attachment.

     


When we did our Home Study to adopt Kate almost 8 years ago, we had some required training and read a couple of books, but it was all so abstract to us then.  We knew there might be some attachment issues and stuff, but then once she was home, things were crazy, but good.  She seemed fine.  She loved us and seemed happy.  Little did we know what we didn't know.

I cannot tell you how much we have learned from these books.  Children that come from hard places (abandonment, orphanage care, etc) have brains that are absolutely wired differently.  They can seem to be fine, but are often full of fear and insecurity.  We have realized that often when Kate misbehaves this is the root cause and when we discipline her harshly or yell at her (I have been known to yell on occasion) it is absolutely crushing to her and increases her fear, exacerbating the root cause of her misbehavior!  We are seriously pumped to be equipped to love her better and be prepared for creating a home that will feel safe and ever-loving to Charlie.

We attended an Empowered to Connect Simulcast this weekend and learned so much about this stuff.  If you are an adoptive or foster family, I would definitely encourage you to check it out!