It's all about perspective

“Gotcha Day”

It’s a phrase many of us have heard often in adoption circles.  The day The Hubers family adds a little sister is definitely one I want our family to celebrate with great joy. I used to not think twice of it, until someone recently pointed out to me that this concept of “Gotcha Day” describes the adoption experience mainly from one angle.  The adoptive family’s perspective.

From where Kevin and I are at right now, we envision meeting our child with lots of excitement and anticipation.  Our instinct will likely be to want to hug her, kiss her, stare at her, marvel at her, imagine her meeting her siblings, imagine her depending on us for help and imagine all the ways we will grow into a healthy family together in the future.

From our child’s perspective the experience will be drastically different.  Whether verbally, subconsciously or kinesthetically, her instinct will be “I don’t understand why I’m not in my familiar environment right now. Why are these strangers smiling when I am not happy?  I don’t understand why they are hugging me and taking me away? I don’t know them. They smell different, they sound different, I’ve never seen this room.  Where are all the other kids? What is going to happen next? When am I going to eat if I’m not in my usual place?”

So it seems while “Gotcha Day” is what we will experience as parents, one author suggests that from the child’s experience it might be more accurately described as “The Big Change”.  I am starting to embrace this description.  Change is hard.  It doesn’t mean it’s bad.  In fact, it’s often good.  As I believe this adoption will be for our child. But it’s still hard.

"Chosen” 

Another description I’ve heard. And again, this is the act done of the adoptive parents and other authorities involved.  Not the child’s experience. In cases with young children, the child being adopted has absolutely no choice in their world being turned upside down.  There is the potential that a child could perceive that something they did, what they looked like, how they acted is what made us love them. And if that characteristic goes away, then their chosen status in our family is jeopardized.  This is a big weight for a little one to carry. I have to wonder if being “chosen” is a lot to live up to.  Also, sometimes when I have heard this phrase used, it has come with an attachment of “most parents just get stuck with the child they’re born with, but we got to choose you”.  I believe these conversations are initiated with the best of intentions to communicate the worth and uniqueness of the child adopted.  My current thought is that a simple “God put us together as a family” fits for describing both birth AND adoption stories and honors them both.

“Loss”

It’s a bit daunting to “relive” the story of some children who came from some very sad beginning years.  And it’s hard to think of a happy day for us as a very stressful day for our child.  There appears to be strong evidence that anniversary reactions are real.  A child has an internal body clock that when the time of year comes around when something stressful happened, their body and actions could quite possibly be experiencing that stress all over again.  But if we ignore the loss of that day, that month, that first year, whether or not she is able to articulate her loss, we miss an opportunity to acknowledge this significant part of them.  Our child needs a coherent flow from that part of their life to this one, and loss is the bridge they will have to cross to get from one place to the other.  Hopefully, Kevin and I will be able to validate their loss in this adoption and help them navigate towards accepting it, healing from it and living with this as part of their story.

The author Patty Cogen suggests re-telling the adoption story from the child’s perspective.  She says parents often tell of how long they waited, all the paperwork they did, how they prepared the rooms, how excited the family was, etc.  These are all good things to share with our child.  At the same time, it's important for us to remember that telling the story from her perspective is important too.  Acknowledging the scariness, the unpredictability, the newness of everything, the grief she felt.  She suggests telling a child her adoption story from her perspective even if the child doesn’t speak English yet.  It’s just a good habit.  By making this a habit of talking with our child about the loss, it will be more natural to revisit throughout the years.  The concept of “don’t bring it up unless they do” can only take us so far. It’s my conviction that even if our child doesn’t talk about it, they need us to forge the way, giving them a voice to put words to some things they might not even know they need words for.   I know some friends who bring up the loss their child experienced in adoption every once in a while, especially on special days when they might be thinking about their past like Gotcha Day/The Big Change Day, Mothers Day, Fathers Day and Birthdays.  Often, the kids aren’t interested in talking about it at that time.  I think it’s so great those parents keep bringing it up periodically, so when their child IS ready, they’ll know they are in a safe place to do so.

I have many favorite quotes from Patty Cogen’s book “Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child”, but this one stuck out to me recently (pg. 82) …..

“Remembering loss with someone changes the memory.  From then on, the child (and you) will remember the loss as shared, not as experienced alone.  The experience of a shared loss is the healing balm of a relationship.”

This reminder to try to see the world from our adopted child’s perspective will hopefully be a blessing to her once we start parenting her.  In the meantime, I hope the reminder in general, to see things from a child’s perspective, is making us more of a blessing to Jude, Annie and Timothy even now.

Logistics, Timing, Story

I love sharing about our process with people when they ask.  I also sometimes don’t know what piece of the journey to share.  Especially when I have about 1-2 minutes to respond to “How is the adoption going?” So, even for those who don’t read this blog, it’s helpful for me to write it out, so I can focus in on what I most recently put down in written word and at least start there.  For those of you who ARE reading along, I can’t tell you what a blessing it is to hear you tell me you read our latest.   I don’t know what ‘love language’ it is, but it really does help us feel supported by you along the way.  So, thank you for reading J

Logistics…I think I told you in February we were “almost done with our home study”.  Well, in early March there was a hang up in Iowa where our social worker submitted a background check for Kevin, who lived there during college.  They held on to the request for a while before letting our worker know that they actually needed his Social Security Number also.  She turned around and re-submitted it, but then we were in the back of the line again.  We were done with everything else, but needed that sheet of paper letting all the world know that Kevin has no deep, dark, shady past lingering in Iowa from his college days.  I know you were all wondering.

Timing….We were waiting a few weeks when our social worker said she had called Iowa to check on it.  She learned they were processing background checks from March 4th and Kevin’s was re-submitted on March 6.  The kicker was she was leaving for vacation the next morning for 10 days.  She said if she got the paperwork today she could send us our home study that afternoon before she left for vacation.  If not, it would have to wait until she got back. Now, I had been mildly annoyed this piece was taking a while, but it wasn’t until I got this deadline that I felt strongly we really needed to pray about this.  I didn’t like the image of that fax sitting on her machine for 10 days when we could be moving forward with the process!

Story…. So, I think Jesus gave me a new image.  It was of Jesus sparing our child those 10 days in an orphanage.  That’s specifically what I wanted to pray for.  If we could get the check today, our child might be spared those 10 days in institutional care.  I asked a few friends to pray.  At home, Jude and Annie and I prayed a blessing over those Iowa workers that they would be joyful and efficient in their work this morning and that our worker would get the background check back that day.  At work Kevin prayed the same.  Not even a few hours later, our worker emailed saying “Got it!”  I don’t claim to know how prayer ‘works’. I know it’s not a formula, system or tool to manipulate a magician God or try to get what we want from Him.  That clinical approach undermines the relationship He desires to have with us.  All I really know is that He asks us to come to Him with our heart’s desires and to pray in the name of Jesus.  And I always stand on the truth that “Every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” James 1:17.  To me, to Kevin, to the kids, to our friends who prayed with us…this was a good and perfect gift.  And so we thanked Him for it.

Logistics…We submitted our Home Study on April 7, along with our application to the U.S.A. to ask permission to bring an orphan into the country.  The U.S. confirmed they received our application and will assign us a contact person within two weeks who will give us instructions on getting our fingerprinting done. 

Timing…. We will submit our fingerprints back to them and the US Immigration has 90 days to process our application.  Our social worker told us to expect that.  So, with that in mind, we’re looking at the beginning of July for when we take our next step.  That step is officially applying to China. 

Story…But then we were at the park tonight and I saw a Caucasian mom with a Chinese little girl.  We started chatting about a few other things and then I said “We’re actually in the process of adopting from China, there isn’t any chance this little one is from China?” She lit up and became very excited to tell their story.  Her daughter only joined their family a few months ago and it wasn’t long before we started swapping details.  It turns out the U.S. didn’t take 90 days to process their application.  They took 3 weeks.  What!? Here I had become all settled to just sit tight until July.  My mind had been wandering to summer camps the kids might do, a few trips we might take, should we try to plant a garden?  It was a bit of a wake-up call that we need to be ready for anything.

So, basically, if you ask us something, we will tell you what we think is going to happen.  But we really have no idea how all of this is going to work out.  I’m not at all used to living this way, but I am surprisingly at peace with it.  That actually reminds me of one of my favorite Scriptures. “You will keep in perfect peace, all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!"  Isaiah 26:3.  If you think to pray for one thing this week, please pray that our minds would be fixed on Him.  Not the logistics or the timing, but Him.  And I’m sure we’ll have more stories about logistics and timing, but it’s with our minds fixed on Jesus that we’ll have eyes to see and share the next chapter in the story He has for us.