Tag Archives: Adoption

Storytelling Pt. 1

Last week I went to SoCal for a business trip and I took the opportunity to read a book, “Rockabye” by Rebecca Woolf. The story follows her through her unplanned pregnancy and the first few years of her son’s life. In the book she is so honest about the struggles of becoming a parent: the pressures of other people’s opinions, the exhausting guilt, the fear that you are no longer allowed to be yourself, the constant anxiety that you will make the wrong decision and fail your child, the simultaneous urge to run away balanced with a love so intense you think it will break you in two.

I read her book and I felt every single word.

Her book said so many things that were lying heavy on my heart. Things I was afraid to say aloud for fear that someone would agree, “You know you might not be the best Mom for him, we’re going to take him back and give him to a better Mom.”

Nobody can do that of course but it’s there always in the back of my mind, a fear that whispers at me constantly. When you spend so much time having to convince people that you’re a worthy parent with home studies, fingerprints and international background checks at some point you start to believe you deserved the abuse. That maybe you aren’t good parent material and that’s why you had to spend a year defending yourself. And when the going gets rough and you’re tearing your hair out that voice gets louder and louder. Last week the voice was overtaking me when I found her book. I couldn’t believe how brave she was to say the things she did. It was so comforting. Apparently I am not totally crazy. Or at least not alone in my crazy.

So then I wrote her an e-mail to tell her how much I appreciated her brutal honesty. It was the first time I’d ever written an author but I was just so grateful I couldn’t NOT write and say thank you… but here’s the thing. SHE WROTE ME BACK.

How awesome is that?

Not a bounce back form e-mail. A sincere, thanks for your note and I promise you will make it e-mail.

And that’s why I decided to be a little more honest and courageous on this blog, to share a little more about my real life. Her story reached me at a moment when I was feeling lost and needed her words. And I think that’s the beauty of writing, the opportunity to use your voice to give something beautiful to somebody else. Maybe it’s the birthday card with a personal note or the magical realism that gives everyone in a world a taste of your home country. Maybe it’s the information someone needs to balance their budget or the Jane Austen novel that gives you hope you’ll find your Mr. Darcy. And maybe sometimes, it’s just your story, honestly written, that reaches someone as they’re struggling and gives them the consolation of knowing they are not alone.

Lent – Update 2

So remember how I’m trying to do the no-yelling thing? Yeah… it’s been going… okay. Yelling has gone down substantially but my frustration level rose to a crisis level. A sort of dreading going home, trying to resist the urge to run away crisis level. It was really, incredibly unpleasant and a little scary for me for awhile. I honestly have never been so explosively angry in my life and it is a horrible feeling. Terrifying really. So there was a lot of hiding out/avoiding home.

Does this sound bad? It was, it was bad.

I don’t regret the no-yelling though because it kind of forced an emotional crisis that would’ve happened eventually. And perhaps this is a normal thing? I don’t know. I do know that one of my friends once told me that she wanted to “throw her daughter across the room”. And when I was like “Oh ha ha ha. Yeah it must be hard.” She said “No seriously, I want to throw her. I don’t. But I’m dead serious that I want to do it.” At the time I thought she was joking, that it was just the sleep deprivation. But now I can say that I know exactly where she was at. And it is a dark, dark place.

So I started calling in the experts, any social worker I could get my hands on for advice, the blogsphere of adoptive parents and books, books, books. Our social worker was awesome, she said “I know it’s hard. He’s mourning his losses and it’s so upsetting because there’s pretty much nothing you can do to help him.”

I assume that most parents when their child is upset, sad or hurts himself can pick that child up and comfort them because that child knew them for 9 months before he ever took his first breath. When I pick my child up he screams louder. Sometimes he goes ballistic over a small frustration as if the small trigger brought back a world of pain that he doesn’t know how to reconcile. Some of this is toddler stuff, some of it is adoption stuff. I’m not a social worker so I don’t know the difference, all I know is that it sucks.

It sucks a lot.

But we did get to talk things out with our social worker and she gave us some helpful advice: Pick him up as much as you can. Take him swinging with you. Do any activity you can get him to do in your lap. Treat him like you would treat an infant, physically and cognitively he is almost two but the trauma of the adoption gives him a much younger emotional age. Baby him as much as you can… We had stopped picking him up every time he asked because frankly he’s already really heavy to carry around for extended periods of time. This was a huge mistake and we paid the price. So now I basically carry him around all day long. Soon my left arm will be strong enough for me to enter it in Guinness book of records. This one simple change however has made a huge difference. HUGE. He’s calmer, happier and more able to handle everything. And when he is calmer, happier and more able to handle things, so am I.

I’m not telling this story because it’s fun to share my bad moments. Just seeing all of my mistakes printed out in black and white makes me cringe. I’m telling this story because I want to be real, about everything. Elian has brought me unimaginable joy but his arrival has also exposed terrifyingly dark parts of myself. I didn’t have the preparation I needed to help him or the experience of knowing what to do and I am indebted to all the parents (adoptive or otherwise) who freely shared their struggles in books and on the web. People like to say that “love is enough” but love is fickle and people are imperfect. Love is not always enough. We come with dings and scratches and faulty steering.

Sometimes we need help.

Sometimes your love won’t be enough. Sometimes you’ll need help. And that’s why I’m telling my story.

The Gift

Thank you for all of your encouraging words regarding my ING app. I will let you all know how it turns out in a few weeks or so. In other blogging news I’ve been flapping my yap over at Raising Colombian Kids all this week. Yesterday I talked about “Things to do before Leaving Bogotá” and today I’m talking about navigating the airport. Yes, strangely I was able to write a whole looooong blog post about El Dorado Intl. Airport. I’ve been there THAT many times. You can check both of those posts out here.

Tomorrow for my swan song as a guest blogger I’ll be talking about something really special. Something that we did in Colombia that up until now I haven’t really been able to put into words. I find that sometimes it is very easy for me to convey a story about mundane, everyday life and very difficult for me to convey something that is very important to me. And this event impacted me so strongly that I fear even talking about it because words don’t do it justice.

The special event was meeting Elian’s foster family. We had onces with his foster parents a few hours before we left and meeting them was an experience that was only second to meeting Elian.

Many of you know how hard it was waiting three months to go get Elian. At night I would lay awake staring at the spot where his crib would be imagining where he was in Bogotá. I would pray every night that he was safe and sound with a loving family. I would imagine his foster mother tucking him in and kissing him goodnight. I thought about him every single night for three months. Praying that he had a good family was the only thing that kept me sane during that time.

After meeting his foster family I can tell you that those prayers were answered far before I dared to breathe life into those words. Elian’s foster parents are more wonderful than I could’ve imagined. I owe them my little boys health and happiness and when I feel impatient or frustrated with him I remember their faces. I remember how they loved him for a year and half knowing they would have eventually have to give him up. I remember that the reason he is healthy and happy was because they showered him with the best they had. I remember how big their hearts are to have done that for us and for him and I take a deep breath, calm down and re-commit myself to being a worthy recipient of their beautiful gift.

The Signature

Remember when I alluded to last minute drama regarding our ability to secure Elian’s visa in time to leave Bogotá together? Yeah, that was a fun time. And now I’m going to tell you all about it…

While we were in Colombia things went unnaturally well. We got Sentencia 8 business days after we requested it which is CRAZY amazing. We even got his birth certificate the same day we got Sentencia thanks to our lawyer’s savvy connections.This gave us 5 days to get his visa. It only takes two. We were more than golden! We were home free! I couldn’t eat anything but saltines but I was over the moon. We were on our way home! And then we weren’t.

What we needed was just one thing. A document from Colombian social welfare that says and I quote “These people adopted this child.” Never mind the birth certificate with our names or the Court Decree saying the same things. The stupid Hague convention requires this document.

But no big deal? Colombian Social Services is on it! They always turn around things super fast. We ‘ll get the doc and then we go to the Embassy and the next day visa. Bada-bing. Bada-boom! Easy Peasy. Except this is us, so of course something went wrong. Actually many things went wrong. Shall I tell you about them?

Monday: We leave the document to be signed.

Tuesday: The computer breaks down. No big deal. They’ll do it the next day.

Wednesday: The ONLY person internationally authorized to sign the paper QUITS HER JOB over some policy disagreement and LEAVES social services. We are now officially screwed. Elian and I simultaneously throw tantrums at a Bogotá Shopping Mall.

Wednesday Night: My stomach ailment mysteriously returns. I ponder what it will be like to spend a week in Bogotá by myself with Elian and then take a 13 hour flight home with him. I think the cold sweat is a bad sign.

Thursday Morning: Nauseous and depressed I return to my all saltines diet while I wait to find out what’s going to happen. I know if we don’t have that document by 11 the embassy won’t let us in and we’ll have no chance of getting the visa until next week. I look and my baby boy and pep talk myself. This is a blessing, a special time to spend together… but I don’t believe it. I know it would’ve been horrible.

Thursday Morning: Our facilitator calls and says “Get thee to Social Services we are going to track down the head of the dept and get her to sign.” I was like, what? The head of “Social Services” is kind of the equivalent of trying to track down a member of Obama’s cabinet. Not easy. When we arrived they said “Oh she’ll be here any minute, she’s at Casa Narino. Yeah, Casa Narino is the Colombian white house. Okay then. ”At least she’s not actually with the president!” they add trying to cheer me up.

Thursday Morning 10:30: Our facilitator starts visibly getting nervous. Not a good sign as she is a cool cucumber. She looks at me and makes a decision “We are going to the embassy with Elian. We will beg the embassy to start processing the visa with the promise that the document is coming. Arnold is going to stay here and get the signature.” People at social services are fluttering around in a tizzy about our situation. Alright then, off we go. I’m officially scared. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen our facilitator walk quickly.

Thursday Morning: 10:55: We get into the embassy with 5 minutes to spare. There are big weird gates that open and close. They make a sound very similar to Lostzilla. We’re there for a few hours. They provisionally accept our application. I try not to throw myself against the service window and faux hug the consul. My appetite begins to return.

1:30 -No sign of Arnold. I’m wondering where the hell he is because cell phones are not allowed in the Embassy. Nor are ipods. Nor are cameras(thus this all text post) It makes the hours you spend there freezing outside like cattle all the more entertaining.

2:00 – We return to Social Services after promising to bring back the document later that afternoon. We arrive to find Arnold in a hysterical fury. Social Services neglected to put my name on the document. And Ms. Cabinet Member has gone into another meeting while the document is being re-written correctly. Arnold has spent the last four hours wandering the hallways with the plan of launching himself on her if she accidentally steps in to the hall. All of social services is eyeing him suspiciously.

3:00 pm -Arnold tells me he is going to throw Elian at Ms. Cabinet Member and grovel at her feet if he sees her. I plan my “begging for mercy” speech to use at the Embassy. And then our last minute miracle occurs and they FINALLY appear with the document. I try not to scream with joy. I am hysterical but not lacking in dignity!

3:30 pm – We turn in the document and finally eat for the first time today.

FRIDAY -We pick up Elian’s visa 8 hours before our flight is scheduled to leave. I’m not ashamed to say that I wept there in the Embassy when they handed it to me. And when I mean I wept, I don’t mean a little, I mean A LOT. I may have imagined it but Bogotá suddenly seems to me the most beautiful it’s ever been. Pristine clear skies. I feel like Amelie after she gives the box back to Dominique Brodetau. Everything is WONDERFUL!

And that my friends is how spend our last two days in Bogota.

Scenic Sunday

Sacramento, you’ve never been more beautiful than the day we arrived home as a family of four.

Sacramento Capital Park

Prayers Answered=Homeward Bound

We had a very exhausting and stressful day yesterday securing a signature we needed to get Elian’s visa but I’m not going to dwell on that because we got it and we’re going home. TOGETHER! Praise be to the Lord. Hopefully when we get home I’ll have enough energy to blog about that ordeal. We finally got his visa today with a mere 8 hours to spare before our departure back home. And although I’ve been ready to leave for awhile I’m also sad to leave behind Bogota, our friends here and the wild and wonderful journey we’ve had together starting our family. But I know someday we’ll be back and the next time I wander these streets this beautiful city will take me on a sentimental journey remembering our first days together as a family.

We love you Bogota. Thank you for giving us our beautiful son.