Our journey into toddler adoption..... part one......

We have been blessed with 5 beautiful children from Guatemala.

Each one is a treasure!

4 of them came home as toddlers...................

I would like to share some of our expierences in adopting toddlers. Often times I run into a prospective adoptive family who is considering a toddler to adopt.......... I think it's critical for these families to really think deeply about the risks involved and to equip themselves as best as possible for the challenges ahead.........

Since we have had various expirences with toddler adoptions - I would like to share this part of our story with you.... part one.....

Our first expierence with adopting toddlers was our twins.
Ammon and Aaron were 13 months old when we accepted their referral.
They were tiny, only weighing 10 lbs each. They could not sit, grasp, stand or crawl.
They had suffered severe neglect. They were malnourised and left for hours alone to fend
for themselves. Their food consisted of one or 2 bottles a day - 8 oz of water with 2 oz of milk........ not enough to keep them growing and healthy.

Our attorney found them in this condition. He inquired of the birth grandmother why they were not fed more?
Her response was that the milk would run out quickly if they were given more and there was not enough money to buy more milk. Their plight was serious. They were suffering.

No doubt adoption was a viable and wise choice for the birth family. I thank God they did place the boys when they did. I don't think they would have made it to their 2nd birthdays in this situation.

When we received our first update of the boys after referral - we could hardly believe the transformation that had taken place! The boys looked like different children! 2 months of good nutrition, love and stimulus had brought huge changes for the boys! Within months they were not only crawling - but walking and climbing!

Our adoption took 7 months to complete. We picked up the boys when they were 21 months old.
The attorney brought them to us the day before our embassy appt.
It became very apparent to us that we had many challenges ahead to deal with. Because of the severe neglect the boys had endured they had developed some habits to help pacify themselves - head banging, rocking back and forth to comfort themselves, like children that come from austere orphanages . Bed time was a difficult time.
They would rock very hard from side to side to get themselves to sleep. They would not allow us to hold them or to comfort them. They would scream if we tried to comfort them.

Attachment did not come naturally or easily. They resisted contact, touch or holding.
They would scream and hit us if we tried to comfort them.

We realized that we had a huge challenge ahead of us and if we were going to help these boys...... we would need some help! So, we began to pray and seek God's help first! We asked God to help us have the patience and that unconditional love to really help our boys. We prayed that the twins would heal - that their hearts would start to heal of the neglect. We also began to seek for support and help from professionals who had expierence in working with children who had expierenced abuse and neglect.

Our fantastic social worker was able to get us an appt with Deborah Gray, ( author of Attaching in Adoption) a very expierenced and higly respected attachment therapist.
We liked Deborah from the start! She was not only highly expierenced, but was so kind and gentle and very much comitted to helping. She helped explain what was going on in the twin's heart and head...... she taught us skills to help us parent them. It was a tought time for us, a time of learning to parent children who had emotional special needs. Their neglect had really effected their brains and how it works. It affected them more than we realized.

Thru this time - we kept praying. We kept pouring out our hearts to God - pleading for grace and mercy to help our hurting boys. We started to see progress........... slowly but surely..... it took months, but we were able to see the boys allow us to hold them. They began to express love and hugs, and kisses. They began to let us comfort them.......... they began the journey to trust........ you see all they had known from adult caregivers is hurt and abandonment. They had to learn to trust and to love. It was hard. Very hard.

Working thru the twin's issues was very tiring..... it took a LOT out of us emotionally, and physically.
The twins would have mulitple night terrors....... they would rage for hours in the evening and then wake up various times in the night and rage. Usually dru would get up with them in the middle of the night. He had greater physical strength, so he seemed to handle them better at night when they would thrash and hit and show all their hurt and anger and anxiety.

Durring the day when dru was at work , I would have times when I would sit and try to rock the boys. We started bottle feeding them - even thought they were 21 months old. It helped them to stimulate the part of their brain that had been neglected and also helped develop feelings of attachment between me and them.
At first the boys screamed thru their holding times. They would rage and try to hit me and bite me, etc.
They were like scared little animals - frightened, nervous, unsure and definately untrusting!

But we kept praying, kept meeting with deborah and kept working at things...........

Slowly, slowly with time, lots of time., lots of prayer and lots of love.......... the boys began to heal.................

They began to sleep more peacefully................. they began to rage less and love more.............
I'll never forget when they first said "mom"......... they had been home for a good 6 months...... it was a magical and wonderful moment ......... a moment I will never forget....... I cried and cried............. that's all I could do!

Another milestone was when they chose to stay close to mom and dad instead of running off with complete strangers! That was a sign to us that they were beginning to attach! Yeah! Progress! Progress!

It has been a long journey to healing for my boys.......... they had expierenced a lot of hurt before being placed with us........ they had to learn to trust, to love to attach............ it did not come easily...... it did not come instantly....... there was a lot of anger, a lot of sadness........ a lot of pain.............

I remember one particually difficult time when I was rocking Aaron - who had been really raging and screaming. I looked into his eyes deeply and I just told him " I know you are mad......... I know you think I am going to leave you like everyone else has done....... I know you are afraid to love to trust again." I found myself crying and feeling to an extent the feelings he had been feeling........ I was mad - I was upset - I was hurting -- hurting because my son had to go thru so much before he could come home! I was mad that he didn't get his needs met, that he was abandoned............ I could feel his pain........ and I knew at that moment he could feel that I understood........... he stopped crying and just dazed into my eyes.......... my son knew I felt the pain he was going htru.. simply because I LOVED him!

4.5 yrs later -- our twin boys are a miracle to behold! They are happy, heallthy, loving boys! They are very loving to their daddy and me. They love their younger sibs and shower naomi with lots of kisses and hugs!
It has been a journey..............a journey of love in many ways.............

Dru and I learned so much from these expierences! We learned what to love unconditionally is...... to love a child who does not love you back is not easy......... and our sons taught us that........ they taught us that love does overcome all odds........... and that thru God's grace and mercy true, and complete healing are possible!

Looking at ammon & aaron now ........ all I can say is that it's nothing short of a complete miracle!

Gloria

ps. pleas check back for "part 2" of our journey into toddler adoption! In part two I will share our expierences in adopting our son, samuel, who came home at age 4 yrs and 10 months. :)

Posted by Gloria at August 16, 2006 05:00 PM | TrackBack