Why I think we've done well in adoption (otherwise known as tooting my own horn)

Before you read this, you need to know two very important things.

#1. I'm not really tooting my own horn- I'm tooting God's horn. Every good thing we have is from God. While in this post I will talk about our successes, I wouldn't be able to talk about them at all if it weren't for God, His grace and His abundant blessings on us. In this case His blessing on us has come in the form of an easy road in adoption.

#2. If you or someone you know has had a rough road with adoption, no one has done anything wrong. And conversely, it's not that we've neccessarily done anything right it's just the way it is. As I've reflected on this past year, I've seen some things that I think have contributed to our success and as you will see most of it is just circumstance- nothing we planned for, worked for or deserved.

Carrying on... if you've read this blog for any length of time you know that we adopted kids before we had any biological kids. Now having had a biological child I understand that attachment with a newborn baby (especially your own) is easy and wonderful. Birthing a child you carried for nine months is an amazing experience. Bringing that baby home is lovely. Watching him grow is incredible. Getting to know him is the most beautiful thing. Holding him close and smelling his head is euphoric. However, because I had never experienced this kind of attachment with a newborn, I didn't have the expectation that bonding and attaching with adopted children would be the same. So going into adoption I was already at an advantage because my expectations were realistic. So, why were my expectations realistic? Well, I did something that maybe not everyone who is adopting does- I gathered all the information and education I could about what we might experience with adopted kids. I think that people who have had biological children expect that bringing home an adopted child will be as easy and lovely as it was with their own beautiful baby- and it's not- at all! I read every book I could get my hand on about adoption. I attended conferences. I met with people who had adopted. All so I could figure out what to expect. I expected that bringing home Vaughn and Eloise would be hard on our family. I expected that we would have to work for attachment. I expected that we would encounter issues, both cultural and adoptive, with our children. I didn't expect these lovely quiet moments of snuggling- like after you've fed your newborn baby and you are the only two awake and the house is quiet and you could just die of a heart bursting full of love. I didn't expect that because I never had that before and everything I read indicated that there would be no experiences like that. I was prepared for the hard work of attachment. So when our kids came home we began to work for that attachment and I was ready for that work. Ready to fight for it. Ready to do weird things like hand- feed a 6 year old. Ready to hug a stiff- as-a-board kid who'd rather die than hug you. I was ready for those things because my expectations were realistic. I expected to work. [Let me just tell you that there are 8 million other things in my life where I have had totally unrealistic expectations and this may be one of the first times where my expectations were fair and therefore the situation didn't suck because reality didn't meet my expectation.]

Another advantage I had is that I spent 5 years working with International students, most of them African. I read about cultural differences and asked questions of my students about why they do things a certain way- all so I could learn about their culture. So when my kids spend 6 hours at the lunch table just chatting, I understand that in Africa meals are the social gathering time and none is in a hurry to get anywhere. I don't know everything about African culture, but I knew enough to know that we would encounter obstacles that were based on cultural differences- not child development or adoption.

Also contributing to our success is that our kids were not in an orphanage for a long time at all. Orphanage life is hard and the research indicates that for every month a child is institutionalized, you need 3-6 months at home to undo the damage. Our kids had a family that loved them, so they already understood family life and they didn't have years of orphanage life to undo. So again, we had an advantage that has nothing to do with us. Only God.

Finally-prayer, which C.H Spurgeon says can never be in excess. I can't tell you how many people prayed for us- possibly to the point of excess. My good friend, Quinetta, still prays for me every day and I truly feel it. Three of my former students told me the other day of a time when we were on a retreat and they woke up at 4 AM and were praying for us to bring our children home and for us  to have children. Even our children's birth mom told me that she had prayed for us to have biological children! How many more stories like this? I can't even begin to know.... The prayers that went up for us were not in vain. Also, if by chance anyone is still praying for us to have children, I implore you to stop- that prayer has been answered and answered and answered. Amen.

These five things- not having biological children first, educating ourselves on adoption, working cross-culturally, our kids not being institutionalized for years and prayer- have all worked together to make our road smooth. Again, God has done all of this. And again, if your road has been hard, I'm truly sorry. I know that God is still good in the hardship and I know that if your kids are home with you, this is where they belong so I pray for strength for you in that hardship. If the adopted children you dream about are not yet home with you, I can only tell you three things you should really must do: adjust your expectations, educate yourself on adoption, and beg your friends to pray for you. I can't say that it will be easy, but at least you'll be armed and ready.

Answered prayer

Answered prayer

Answered prayer