What does it feel like? (Part 2)

As a prospective adoptive mother, I scoured blogs for "after the adoption" descriptions and photos.  How was the child doing months after coming "home."  Just as importantly, how was the rest of the family doing?  How was the mother "adjusting?"

Here is some of what it felt/feels like:

Our time in Kiev, after I held our daughter up to push the button on the outer gate of the orphanage and she came into our lives 24/7, was both magical and terribly difficult.

Finally we were the ones sharing dinner with her, wiping her tears, taking her on walks, reading her books, tucking her into bed at night, and kissing her sleep-filled eyes first thing in the morning.

Let me rephrase that... we were the ones hoping she would find something recognizable about the dinner we had prepared, the ones trying to explain to her through her tears that what she wanted was either impossible or a lousy idea, the ones carrying her on most of our walks to keep her from running into the street or just sitting down on the sidewalk because she was tired, the ones playing "close-the-book-on-your-parent's-hand-and-giggle-instead-of-showing-any-interest-in-reading" games over and over, the ones lying down with her until she fell asleep only to have a creaky bed sabotage us as we tried to sneak away, the ones awakening throughout the night to take her to the bathroom and then blearily meeting the day with her before dawn as she likes to rise early.

Most of the time it was easy to see and be grateful for the miracles God had wrought.

Except when it wasn't.

Our apartment had plenty of space but lacked plenty of playmates.  Just two parents, no matter how hard they try, are not as entertaining as one might hope.  Friends of ours remedied that by taking long walks with their newly adopted children.  Walks for us were exhausting (carrying 37 pounds up and down Kiev hills gets wearing after awhile.  Grocery shopping was an Olympic event!)

A bored child tends toward mischief.  Tired and overly-stretched parents tend toward exasperation-based, reactive parenting.  Neither bring peace.

Even worse was the nagging realization that we had prayed so long and hard for this little girl but were now spending an inordinate amount of our time wishing she would just go away for a bit so we could regroup and catch our breath!

Thankfully there were two of us.  One could call it quits for a bit and the other could be in charge.

I kept feeling like it would all get better when we got home, but our paperwork revamp from our son turning 18 was still stuck in processing, so timing was one big question mark.  That was probably the stress underpinning just about everything else.

After 6 days in Kiev we were finally able to go with our facilitator and buy as stroller.  (The part of the city we were in didn't have any, so we had to take a drive.)  Suddenly, with a stroller we could get out as much as our daughter wanted but not get exhausted in the process.  And she loved riding in the stroller!  Win-win.  What a relief!  After that we were all much happier.

And then the next day our oldest son's clearances were received in country, we received our daughter's Visa, and we headed home two days later.

And things were better once we arrived home, just like I thought.  Anatolia was enchanted with her siblings and the attention they poured out on her.  Ben and I were grateful for some additional hands and playmates.  And we were all reunited as a family.  Whew!

My parents stayed five more days and then we sent them on a much needed vacation to Nauvoo, Illinois, a living history site from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  They had wanted to go there for years.

Being home with Anatolia was far better than being with her in Kiev, but things still weren't easy.  I had read enough to know that they could have been hundreds of times worse, but that didn't change the fact that I was VERY stretched.  Intellectual knowledge doesn't always immediately translate into practical capability.   I found that I had a lot of growing up to do in areas of patience, endurance, and stamina.

If I were to show you one scene that epitomized our first few months home, it would be one of a game that Anatolia discovered shortly upon our arrival home.  We have a small pantry with a little bit of space between the shelves and the closed door.  If ever the door were open, Anatolia would laughingly pull someone toward the pantry, push them in, and close the door.  Then, according to the game, the person was to knock on the door until Anatolia opened it.  She would laugh and laugh and then say, "again!" and the game would begin all over.  It must have felt wondrously empowering!  Of course, we weren't really stuck in the dark pantry and could have opened the door at any time, but the game was important for her development, and so we stood there.  As I stood, over and over again in the dark pantry with my nose nearly touching the closed door, and awaited the whims of my daughter to open the door, I felt like this was the story of our lives.  So often it felt like her anxiety or willingness to try new things dictated which doors I could open for her, which experiences I could give her, and even the range of my own movement.   Her hyper-vigilance made her over-anxious and flighty.  I needed to exercise patience and show love.  But I also needed to make dinner and a host of other things that I couldn't do when stuck behind the closed door.

She explored a lot of cause and effect, almost like a toddler asking the constant question, "What will you do if I...?"  But as a 5 year old, she wasn't bounded by many of the toddler limitations of size and strength.   Let your imagination run free a bit, and you will see what it was like.

New experiences made her frightened and she would freeze up emotionally and begin to wail and not want to be calmed by even the regular things.  Most of the time she seemed impulsively outgoing and then irrationally fearful.

All day long she would insist, "я сама," which basically means that she wanted to do it on her own.  However, she generally wanted to do alone the things that weren't practical for her to do and wanted help with the things she clearly could do independently.  I imagine this is pretty common behavior for a child who suddenly has two hovering parents, but it placed us in a "pick your battles" position 24/7 and the meltdowns when we chose to put on our own socks, for example, or slice the cheese with the sharp knife instead of letting her do it, were a struggle.

Her second most common phrase was "иди ко мне" (eedee cum-nya) which means, "Come to me!"  She wanted me at her side at all times, to see and experience everything with her.   I felt like I couldn't think my own thoughts or do anything independent of her for myself or anyone else.  Even when others were around to help, she would seek me out.  I needed to take lots of deep breaths and remember that it wouldn't be this way forever.  I was very grateful that she hadn't rejected me as her mother figure and kept reminding myself that all of the close contact was exactly what we needed for bonding.

We had one unexpected language glitch:  In Kiev, from the time she awoke until the time she went to sleep, if ever there was a lull in the activity, she would say "я хочу домой!"( ya casoo [note: she didn't pronounce the ch sound correctly] da-moi) which means, "I want to go home."  Except that isn't what it meant to her.  She didn't want to go back to Odessa or to the orphanage.  She just misunderstood the phrase from the get-go and thought that when they told her at the orphanage that she was "going home" that it meant she was going out, in a car, somewhere new.  So all day long she kept telling us that she wanted to go home.  We would go out on adventures when we could, but it wasn't always possible.  Once we got back to our home in the US, we began saying "домой--go home" whenever we were driving home and "outside" whenever we went somewhere.  It took about a month to realign her understanding of "домой."

We have already been to numerous doctor appointments and about a month ago she underwent surgery to have a medical issue resolved.  As I held her post-op, I thought, "This time, little one, unlike all of your other surgeries, you have a loving mother here with you.  You are not alone!"  We still have more appointments on the horizon, but prognosis is good.  We are working hard to get various measures in place that will help her to succeed when she begins kindergarten next year.  (We delayed her start so she could learn English and acclimate and grow a bit more.)  The whole process  of helping her to get on the road to success is a bit overwhelming at times, but our loving Father in Heaven is helping all along the way.

Adopting Anatolia and working to learn to parent her has become a new refiner's fire for me.  It is a glorious thing, how the Lord has brought us to her, because she needed us.  But He also brought her to us, because we needed her.  She is teaching us how much we need our Savior, and together we are all growing in His mercy and grace to become more like Him.

I love to hear her pray and to see her point out pictures of Christ as we look through books.  After our  family Christmas Eve nativity, she wandered through the house singing about "the baby Jesus and Christmas."

I love to see her give love to her brothers and sister and light up when they play with her.  She has an incredible amount of love for everyone she meets, and I know that she will change lives with her joyous, loving soul.

I love to see her quick mind absorbing new concepts and then remembering them days and even weeks later.  She loves to play, and if there is anyway to turn something into a game, she will find it!

She is remarkably resilient and pretty incredible.  I hope I can be as well.

I am excited to see us all grow in this new adventure together!