On Loss & Hard Things

Adoption is beautiful and wonderful, a picture of hope in a broken world. But it starts with loss. The adopted child, even if he or she is adopted at birth, loses their birth mother and birth family. If the child lives in an orphanage, they lose their relationships with their caretakers there and the other children they've been living with. If adopted internationally, the child loses their birth country and birth culture. Our Brenna will experience all of these losses when we adopt her.

Imagine a young toddler that you know, 1 or 2 years old. She is living in an orphanage, but she's never known any different so she's cool with it. She has a predictable routine and she has attached to her caregivers. The orphanage is "home." And then one day, a strange man and woman show up and take her away from the orphanage. They look different and smell different and feel different than the nannies she is used to. They speak in a language that she's never heard before. They dress in clothes that feel strange and they feed her strange foods. They introduce her to other children, all bigger than her, and they try to play with her. After a few hours or a few days of this, she starts to miss her nannies and her crib and her friends. She doesn't understand who these new people are and why they aren't taking her back to her orphanage. How do you think she feels? Scared, anxious, confused, lonely.

That is adoption from a young child's perspective. Brenna is at a difficult age because she is too young to understand and intellectualize the concept of adoption and that a family is coming for her, but she is old enough to have some long-term memory and she will definitely realize that something very strange is going on and she will miss the only life she has known.

I am trying to have realistic expectations of what meeting Brenna and being in China with her will really be like. I am trying not to romanticize it. But it's hard! It's easier to picture her smiling and leaning into my arms and laying her head down on my chest, snuggling into me, smiling and content; wearing her in the kinderpack, walking down the streets of China with a bounce in my step and the sun shining down on us; playing on the floor with her siblings; laughing at her Daddy's silly faces and tickles.  But she might cry, scream, kick, bite... have you ever seen a 2 year old tantrum? It ain't pretty. She might not sleep. She might not eat well. She might try to crawl/run away for us. She might prefer a stranger's arms to mine (because a young child may think the stranger will take her back to the orphanage). She might absolutely lose it when we put her on an airplane and tighten her seat belt.

I really have no idea how it will go. I am hoping and praying for the best while preparing myself for the worst. The advice I've heard from other adoptive Mamas is to just get through China and get her home. China will be hard. It will all be really, really hard. But also worth it. Brenna is worth it.

Because I Want To

Our adoption of Brenna is moving along and we are on track to bring her home in about 2 months! It is exciting and terrifying at the same time :) Life has gotten in the way of blogging, but I really want to take some time to get my thoughts recorded in these last weeks before we go to China to get Brenna. My goal is to blog at least once a week between now and then. You are welcome to hold me accountable to that!

As Pat and I have been working on applying for grants and fundraisers, one question I’ve been asked to answer frequently is to explain why are we adopting or what has led us to pursue adoption. There are many possible answers to this question, but tonight I am choosing to write my simple answer. Why am I adopting Brenna? Because I want to.

When I was in middle school, a family from our church brought home a baby girl from China. This was my first time seeing international adoption, and the first time I realized that people adopted for reasons other than infertility, as this family already had 5 biological children. It impacted me significantly and I decided then that I wanted a baby girl from China. Fast forward to 2013 when Pat and I were starting the adoption process and I quickly learned that I couldn’t have that little girl from China, because you have to be 30 to adopt from China and I was only 26. If you’ve read the story on this blog you know that we had planned to adopt from Ethiopia, but that didn’t happen. I won’t retell all of that now, but I will say that I struggled briefly with the idea of a Chinese daughter after picturing myself with an Ethiopian daughter for 4 years. And then the Lord reminded me that a little girl from China was my very first wish years and years ago. I had honestly forgotten! Knowing that He planned this for me all along is a sweet reminder of His faithfulness and His goodness to me.

I want to adopt Brenna. I just do. In our pre-adoption training class, I remember the social worker saying that the most successful families adopt for selfish reasons. As a Christian, it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that statement, because I seek to serve others with my life, not to live for my self. Adopting a special-needs child is going to require me to sacrifice a lot, I know that; the cool thing is that I WANT to do that! I’m not doing it out of a sense of obligation or duty. I’m not doing it because I want people to think I’m a really good person. I want to because I love Brenna...because I want to adopt a little girl from China and she is my girl.

When things get really hard and I’m overwhelmed and exhausted and confused, I hope that I can remember this and find joy in it. Brenna did not grow in my womb, but she grew in my heart. I was an 11 year old girl who dreamed of a baby girl from China and now 20 years later I am about to have that dream come true.