Our Journey into Toddler Adoption....... part two

Do you have a little love to share?
Can you find it in your heart to care?
Do you have a little corner of love in your home
For a child who's been neglected and left all alone?
Do you have it to spare?
Can you find it somewhere?
Do you have a little love to share?

~ Lyrics from the Adoption Album Do You Have a Little love to Share by Joyce Saunders Lundberg

The words to this song speak of the "heart" of adoption........... "love"...........

And it is exactly that kind of love that led us to once again to journey into adopting another toddler!

It wasn't very hard for us to not do so! We saw a little 4 yr old's photo being listed on precious.org
A very sad and somber face looking so very sad that it pulled on my heartstrings in a major way!
I stared at that photo for days and wondered why so many litlte boys wait for a forever family!

I shared my heart with my husband, who also was puzzled as why so many boys wait all over the world to be adopted. I kept pondering that for days..... and could not get the photo of that little boy out of my heart and mind.
After a while it began to drive me nuts! Why couldn't I just forget this sad little face?

I took the matter in prayer before the Lord and asked HIM why?!
He laid in my heart the desire to bring home this little person.
What? How could I, I asked! At the time I was pregant with my sarah grace, and the twins we were adopting were due to come home any day from Guatemala! Now is NOT a good time, I told God!

None the less...... the feelings persisted and I continued to have this sad and somber little boy's face remain in my heart and mind.

Finally I decided I would email the agency that had the child listed on their waiting child listing. Surely, I thought to myself, it doesn't hurt to call and inquire, I mean who would work with us - me being pregant and waiting to bring home twin toddler boys! :)
Oh, how little I understood the workings of God!

I did email the agency and inquired about him. The response was that another family was comitted to him.
"Great" I thought! I am off the hook! :)
The problem was I still continued to think about this child to the point of distraction! Crazy, eh?

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore! I emailed the agency one more time and inquired again - the same response...... "he was going to be adopted by another family".

I seriously began to wonder what was wrong with me!!!!
My husband did too! :)

I pleaded with the Lord to please do one of two things --- either take this litttle boy out of my heart or pave the road ahead of us so we could have the chance to adopt him!!! I didn't really think the Lord would do that latter. :)

It was just a few days later that I received the phone call from this agency. They asked to speak to me and then proceeded to tell me that the oddest thing had happened. The family who had been so comitted to adopting this little guy, had decided they did not want to do so. Would I like to consider his placement?
I was thrown for a loop and barely had time to respond!

"Uhh....... well yes, except...... I need to tell you a little about our family".........I thought for sure they would NOT place this child with us seeing I was 8 mos pregant and already in process to adopt twin boys from Guatemala! Not only that, we did not have INS clearance for one more child and my homestudy was not approved for one more.
Surely they would say " I am sorry" ? Right? I couldn't have been more wrong!

The fact that I was pregant was not an issue to them -the agency had no rules against placing a child with a family that was expecting a child biologically and the fact that we were in process already for twins did not phase them either. I was stunned! I shared with them about the twins we were adopting and asked if we could use the same dossier since we were so close to being completed with their adoption. I was asked the name of the facilitator handling our case..........come to find out....... our agency used the same coordinator that this agency used and the same attorneys and faclitators! It ended up being that my facilitator and this little guy's faciltiator new each other and they didn't think it would be a problem for the dossier to be re-used. ( it was re-used for our samuel's case without any problem). Not only was this possible, but the agency personal I was speaking had met our twins when she had travelled to Guatemala for the agency for updates on the children!

Too many coincidences you say?

I told her I needed to talk to dru -- I didn't know what his reaction would be.
Dru was honestly suprised and very hesitant. Yes, he could see God was working something out..... but at the same time how could we double our family size from 4 to 8 children in one year????!!!
I know, I know, crazy!

I decided I would let dru make the decision -- I prayed hard and told God that if he wanted us to adopt this little guy, He would have to work on my dh's heart. I left it at that and didn't talk about it again with dru.
2 or 3 days later dru comes to me - without any prompting from me- and shares how he has felt the Lord work on his heart and that he felt we needed to adopt this little 4 yr old boy. He was still concerned and didn't know "how we would do it"....... but he had the faith that the Lord would see us thru! ( and see us thru He did!!)

That little boy came home 8 months later.
We named him Samuel Gerson ( pronounced 'hair-son').
He came into our life one November day....... a sweet and quiet little person...... you could hardly notice he was in the room! The difference between the twins and him was night and day!!! God had sent us a calming influence to our home and boy did we need that after 8 months of having the twins home!!

When things became apparently challenging with the twin's adjustment -- we began to pray in earnest that samuel's adjustment would be easier....... we knew we didn't have it in us to go thru a rough time again.
God knew and in HIS goodness -- samuel adjusted quiet naturally into our growing family.

He was 4 yrs and 10 months we he arrived home.
He had been living in a small hogar ( group home) in Guatemala City.
I think he was fed very well as he had no food issues when he came home. I expected the typical food hoarding that is seen with children who have not been fed well or consistently. There was none of that, and quite frankly he preferred junk food to anything! It took him a while to like soups, or salads, or anything healthy per say.
He smiles about it now as he really does like all foods pretty much.

I do remember he did hoard toys a lot those first months.
I laugh about it now......... I had explained to the children that this would most likely be an issue we would see with samuel since he had been without much stimulus in his life..... and toys were minimal.
But we all laugh now as our memories of samuel's first night home and how he would run around the rec room and pick up one toy after another and then run to his bed upstairs and put them on the bed!
By the time he was read for bed - his entire bed was filled with toys!!!! :)
We can laugh at that now....... but at times it was frustrating to try to explain to him that there was no need to hide toys under his bed or in his drawer............ it took a good year for him to comprehend this ......... and now 4 yrs later he really has no issues with this at all.

From the start he was a very sweet and good natrued little guy. Very gentle with the baby and younger sibs.
He was very quiet and at times withdrawn......... dissasociating from time to time....... I had to watch him and try to get him to open up and talk about his feelings. He grieved for months........ and would cry at night before bed.
I knew this was hard for him, but I was at peace knowing that he was showing signs of grief -- which showed us that he had feelings and had attached and would in time attach again.
Durring those first months at home, I would set aside a quiet moment each night before bed to rock him and hold him and talk to him. Young children, even at this age , have a hard time sharing or expressing their feelings..........
so I would try to speak for him.........saying things like..... "samuel are you sad tonight?" ... "Do you miss your friends at the hogar"? ........... I think it helped for me to verbalize what he was feeling inside.

Aside from the grief - there was other issues related to insecurities and trust building.
He still is a people pleaser....... samuel will try very hard to make others happy. Although this makes him a very easy person to get along with -- I do worry about him putting aside his own feelings in order to please others.
He worked very hard at "fittting in" those first months and by the time he had been home 2 months was completely fluent in English! It was amazing - and sad -- as I had hoped he would retain some spanish. I spoke to him only in Spanish - but samuel really wanted to fit in with his siblings and before long was amazing us with his competence in English!

We did deal and still sometimes deal with his struggles to tell the truth. He has come a long way on this!
But in the beginning, he had a hard time telling the truth and understanding how important it was to do so.
I believe the underlying fear was that he wanted to please and was insecure in his attachment and didn't want to dissapoint us. He has really done a great job in overcoming this! It was very hard for him to do - but he is almost always truthful with us now. That was diffcult for us to go thru as his parents as none of our other children had bouts with lying, although I am told by other parents that this is even common with bio children as well.

Another issue that is fairly common with children who are adopted later in life is night time bed wetting.
Simply put - it's a matter again of insecurities surfacing up. We realized this after a while, and again he has made huge strides in this area and really has come a long way! We are so proud of him!
This was another issue that was hard to deal and simply very exhausting to have to wash the soiled linens.
We had him start washing all his own clothes and linens when he has done this as a natural consequence and this has helped as well. As samuel's attachment has strengthened the night time bed wetting has all but dissapeared.
We do notice it does resurface when he is unduly stressed about something.

Because Samuel had been malnourished for years - his motor skills were delayed. When we brought him home at almost 5 yrs old he had very little fine motor control. We realized that this was due to neglect and worked right away to do some simple things to help him. Since we homeschool our children - he didn't have to rush into a group setting as he would have had to do in school. He was able to work at his own pace and work he did! I have never seen a more determined child to learn to write! He had a really hard time grasping the pencil and using it to write, but he would work at it over and over again until he mastered it! I will never forget the first Valentine's he was here for. We had a V-day party to go to and all the kids were busy at home making homemade valetines.
Samuel's took twice as long to make - but they were done beautifully! I remember watching him at th kitchen table sitting there painstainkingly working on signing his name to each individual valentine card!
Today , he has beautiful and clear penmanship for a child his age.
I am glad he was able to work at his own pace and gain mastery at home.
Today I can joyfully say he has no educational delays at all. He is at grade level and doing well in all his subjects.
Although penmanship is his best! :)

Because of Samuel's easy going personality - he got along great with the children!
He fell in between 2 bio daughters and the 3 of them get along great!
He is especially close to his sibling , rebekah who is just 8 mos younger than he.
I did notice that the first year he was very much seeking approval and attention from us as his parents. At times he would sulk if we would pay attention to another child. I believe he did this because he was afraid there would not be enough to go around. He never really had issues with going to complete strangers or having any indiscriminate attachment. Thank goodness! I did notice that my 2 older children did have some adjustments to get thru with samuel. Because he came with his own personality traits already set in place....... there were things that would irritate the older children from time to time...... but we made it clear to them that they had to put themselves in Samuel's spot and learn to love him , just the way he is. It really helped my older children learn to love. They became less selfish and more altruistice and more compassionte. I saw growth in them. It was good!
I do believe that if parents are considering adopting a child older than an infant they do need to consider the fact that the child wil come with their own personality already. There may be some times where they may do things that irratate or bother. This is normal. It's also normal to expect time to pass before you feel those real loving feelings towards a child who is older at placement. It took time for me - as his mother - to really feel "bonded" in a true sense. Yes, I loved him because he was a child , but I had to give myself time to really deeply love him as my own.
That does not always come naturally when adopting a toddler or older child and sometimes parents are caught off guard with their feelings and may feel some measure of guilt. Please rest assured that this is normal!
It takes time to get to know our newly adopted children, and those feelings of love will come with time.

Samuel fortunately came with a desire to bond right off the bat. He did not have any problems with wanting to attach to us. Unlike our twins, he was ready and really looking to form an attachment. He saught us out and wanted to be close to us as much as we let him. There were times where I needed a break from this - as I sensed te insecurity within him, and it overwhelmed me at times. But with time, and as his attachment formed , he would spend less time following me around the house and more time playing and engaging with the children.

Because samuel was a bit older , we decided early on in our adoption process to visit him.
We spent a day with him, while we were in Guatemala to finalize our twin's adoption.
We felt a real peace when we met with him, and realized he was one special little person!

Samuel continues to be a real delight. He is so easy going and so kind and considerate. He is really the easiest of all my children to parent! He continues to be very kind and gentle to all people he comes into contact with.
He is especially loving to babies and young children. He continues to be a quiet soul who preferes to stand back instead of lead out and he truly is blessing in our home!

In all ways his adjustement and issues have been much less severe then our expierence with the twins. We believe this is due to the fact that he spent the first 4 yrs in the care of his bio mother and I believe that made a significant difference. Nurture in those first years really does make a huge difference!

It's hard to believe what our lives would be like without samuel in it............. from the first time I saw that sad little face on that photo listing...... I was touched......... it was love that touched me........ a love for this child...... a desire to share that love with one more.........we found in our hearts a love to share.................

Posted by Gloria at August 24, 2006 02:39 AM | TrackBack