Normal {Touching Grace}

Six months ago, we made the painful decision that Princess would undero a double Mastoidectomy.

She had suffered ear infections her entire life. She was also rapidly losing hearing.

It is not a pretty surgery. Or recovery. Six hours under the knife and almost a year for a full recovery.

There are no guarantees that hearing will be restored. In fact, it could be worse. Much worse. The main goal was to eliminate the infection near her brain with the hope of restoring some hearing.

She failed her first hearing test.

Then another.

Then another.

Last month, she had her ears completely scraped out--also traumatic--and cleaned.

Then she had another hearing test, which she failed.

She wasn't even close to the normal range.

The surgeon said it could be a million things--she wasn't really interested in the test, her ears were still swollen, or maybe, she need hearing aides.

Today we went for her fourth test. We knew if she failed this one, she'd need a hearing aid.

I watched her go into the booth. And I could hear the sounds and I watched her throw the ball in response to each ping.

The audiologist was almost giddy as she graphed her results.

"She can hear it! She can hear it! She can hear it!" She exclaimed as the pings got softer and softer.

So in the end, the Princess has completely normal hearing in her right ear. She can hear whispers and the wind blowing in the trees. Her left ear isn't as good. She is slightly below normal, which means she could not hear whispers.

But, the brain compensates for it. Isn't that amazing how God made our bodies?

As we drove home, I knew once again her little life had been touched by grace.

She has been given the gift of hearing.

And what a glorious gift it is.

60 Things I Wish Strangers Knew about Adoption

1. Yes, she is my daughter.
2. Luck had nothing to do with her adoption.
3. How much did she cost? Nothing. You can't buy a baby.
4. But if you want to know how much adoption costs--google it.
5. If you want to know how to finance an adoption, I'll talk to you.
6. No, I do not know her biological history.
7. Yes, we knew she had special needs when we chose her.
8. No, we were not paid to adopt her.
9. Yes, I do realize there are a ton of kids right here in the United States that need homes...there's also kids in Russia, Ukraine, Ethiopia, and a host of other countries. When will you be adopting or becoming a foster parent?
10.  When she runs up and hugs you, she is not just a really cute, affectionate child. She has an attachment disorder, please don't hug her.
11. Your bio kid may be able to throw a world-class tantrum, but my daughter has one for totally different reasons--mostly because she is scared we will leave her--so please, please don't compare the two.
12. No, we are not infertile.
13. No, we did not adopt just to get that cute little girl we can dress in tutu's.
14. Yes, it is hard. Sometimes very, very hard. Especially the attachment stuff.
15. Yes, we have help. Professional help.
16. Yes, it costs a lot of money.
17. To see her grow and blossom makes it totally worth it.
18. She may want to go back to her birth country one day.
19. I want to go with her.
20. We will play for her college.
21. She is our daughter!
22. I know her nose is crooked.
23. That is part of her cleft.
24. And, yes, it will be repaired when she is done growing.
25. Of course, she knows she has cleft. We have mirrors.
26. She can hear you when you ask. And you're embarrassing yourself.
27. She is under our insurance--because she's our daughter!
28. No, I do not wish I'd given birth to her.
29. She is fearfully and wonderfully made.
30.  I wouldn't change a thing about her.
31. That goes for her cleft, too.
32. I'd agree that a lot of kids would thrive with their birth families even if that means being raised by grandma and grandpa or an aunt and uncle.
33. Unfortunately because of government policies and poverty, a lot of people don't have that choice. So they are forced to make choices most of us can't even imagine.
34. Even so, I believe this is Plan A for her life.
35. I also believe adoption is redemption in a fallen world.
36. Yes, she calls me Mommy.
37. No, it wasn't hard.
38. No, it wasn't love at first sight.
39. But I didn't fall madly in love with the two babies I birthed either.
40. Yes, it was scary to board a flight to China to meet my new daughter.
41. But so was going to the hospital to give birth.
42. Yes, I think about her birthmother.
43. I wish we knew who she was.
44. I wish we could tell her that the little girl she gave the gift of life to is loved, adored, and thriving.
45. She calls our parents grandma and grandpa--just like the other grandchildren. You know, because she's our daughter and part of the family.
46. No, she does not speak Chinese.
47. Maybe someday she will take a class and learn it. But language is not biologically ingrained.
48. I don't know if she has biological siblings.
49. You're right she doesn't look a thing like her two older brothers.
50. Just because we adopted does not make us saints.
51. I did not have to beg my husband to adopt. He was always on board.
52. From the first piece of paper to holding her in our arms, the entire process took 18 months.
53. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
54. For her.
55. Do my kids have different dads? Well, yes, as a matter of fact they do.
56. But they have the same daddy.
57. Yes, she does rule the roost.
58. Probably because she's the only girl.
59. Yes, she wears her tiara everywhere.
60. She is a real princess.

Parenting a Traumatized Child {Understanding Her Past}

My first baby was well planned.

I ate well.

Took vitamins.

Even got extra sleep.

And then when he was finally born, I spent hours holding him, singing to him, reading to him, just being with him. He attached within days, maybe even hours.

We'd page the doctor if he so much as sneezed. OK we were nervous, over-protective, slightly crazy, first-time parents.

But my daughter, on the other hand, spent her first two years in an orphanage.

In a crib. Alone.

She was born with Tetrology of Fallot and cleft lip and palate. And no one called the doctor when she was sick. Actually she was very near death. And, still, no doctor was paged. 

Her heart wasn't repaired until she was well over two years old.

Her cleft wasn't repaired until she was nearly three.

Simply unheard of for slightly crazed, overprotective parents.

But this is the reality of so many adopted kiddos.

So is it any wonder, that they crave attention. But they don't know how to get it? That they can't attach to their mother and father?

Last week at our Theraplay therapy session, my hubby had an Ah-ha moment. Our therapist said that many adopted kids rely on their cuteness to get attention--to become favorites. They smile and hug anyone. My hubby, remembered looking at files that said certain kids were "nanny favorites" in the orphanage.  And the nannies always loved to give them extra attention.

Our daughter was not one of those.

She was just another very sick, actually dying, kid locked away in an orphanage fighting for her life.

I've known all of this since we first got her referral. But there is a difference between knowing and understanding. Because understanding means that I don't get frustrated and stressed when she has her fifth tantrum of the day, for what seems like no reason.

or

When she clings to me in fear, from something I don't understand.

or

When she asks me a hundred times a day if I love her.

or

If she asks me again if I will leave her. 

Instead of frustration and stress, understanding means I have compassion because I know her brain has always been in flight or fight mode. She has fought for her very survival. And there are times, when she's still not sure if we will always be there, always feed her, always love her.

We know that we will never leave her. And that we will love her forever--no matter how she behaves, or what she does, or even how cute she is or tries to act. 

But we have to teach her.

And that takes time and work.

And we've only just begun.

But I have faith that she will be emotionally healed. And she will truly let herself experience the love of a family. And one day, she will realize her place here with us is permanent.

Come back again. I'd love to hear how you are dealing with the past trauma in your child's life. 

Why We Are Not Adopting Again

Three years ago, my husband and I stood in front of the orphanage in Beijing, China, and promised we'd be back. We knew it was full of children who were dying, who went to bed hungry every night, and cried for someone, anyone to love them.

We'd always wanted four. It seemed logical: two boys and two girls. Everyone would have a best-friend for life. And the Princess would know the bond of a sister from her birth country.

It sounded beautiful. And we honestly thought that was where God was leading us. He had given us Evie. He had shown us over and over that Evie was our daughter. We had prayed for months, "Bring her home. Bring her home. Bring her home."

And then we landed in Chicago. And discovered the Princess' undisclosed special need-- developmental delays. Not only did she have tetrology of fallot and cleft lip and palate, but she could hardly sit, stand, walk, talk, chew, turn the pages of a book. She was completely and utterly shutdown.

We saw hints of this in China. But we assumed she would wake up and start acting like a two year old. But she never did.

So my new life--the one with only 3 three kids--consisted of juggling them so we could go to PT, OT, developmental therapy, and speech multiple times a week. Plus, all her other doctor visits.

I was exhausted. And that fourth child seemed further and further away. And the guilt of ignoring my two homegrown kids weighed heavily on me.

As time passed, I got into the rhythm of my new normal. And now three years later, things seem almost under control.

But, still, we won't be adopting again.

The Princess needs too much. She is too traumatized, too emotionally fragile, too needy. The honest, bitter truth is another special needs adoption would take too much of my time away from her. There is only so much of me to go around.

We've prayed about this. We've agonized about this. Because we know there are kids who need parents who love them. We know there are kids going to bed tonight with empty bellies, who are cold, alone, and afraid. We know, because that was Evie three short years ago. She was starving--not only for nourishment, but for human touch.

We aren't done with adoption. We just aren't adopting.

So now we are praying, "Use us. Use us. Use us."

And I wonder, how God will use us to care for the orphaned.

When the Hurt and The Healer Collide

"She needs a mastoidectomy," the doctor told me.

"What?" I said, holding my trembling girl.

"Her mastoid bones need to come out or she'll eventually be deaf."

Deaf? Mastoid bones?

What?

She had struggled with infection, after infection, after infection. Some were so bad, I could smell them and fluid would ooze out. We tried everything. Drops. Oral antibiotics. Nothing worked.

I went home and googled mastoidectomy. It was a six hour surgery. And the surgeon would literally drill her mastoid bones out of her skull. All of this in a last attempt to get the infection the was slowly going from her ears and creeping towards her brain. But there were some serious risks.

Complete deafness.

Facial paralysis.

Death.

I took the Princess for a second and third opinion. They all looked at her CT and said the same thing. Mastodectomy. Or the infection would slowly steal her hearing.

I got on my knees and pleaded for my little girl. How could she need this, too? How? She had already suffered so much, endured more than any other person I knew, and yet now she could be facing deafness.

So on April 9, we took her back to the hospital, and once again handed her over to the surgeon. Six hours later we were back by her side.

She was confused, agitated, and downright mad. Her ears had been literally cut away from her head and stitched back together, her ear canal was widened, she was once again assaulted with a scalpel.

We were told to expect her to be out of school for an entire month. But one week post surgery, she was doing so well her ENT allowed her to go back to school.

God has this funny way of reminding me of his faithfulness. Yes, she had to endure another surgery. But he gave us a surgeon, who happened to just have completed years of research on Asian ears. But beyond that, her hearing will never be perfect, but she is healing and she has functional hearing.

My girl's physical healing has stumped even the best surgeons. Her heart looks like it was done by the best surgeons in the US. Her palate is now beautiful. Her ears now work.

I love the song when the Hurt and the Healer Collide by Mercy Me. It just reminds me that when I allow God to take over her life. When I give her to him completely, he will always, always answer. Maybe not the answer I wanted. Because, let's face it, I would have waved my magic wand and taken away all the infection without surgery.

But faith does not work that way. God has bigger plans. Better plans. And he continues to collide with my girl. And continues to remind me that he will not leave her.

Holding On

"I wonder how bad she was," my dad asked, as he watched Princess cram another noodle into her mouth. "I'm sure she didn't have much longer to live."

I'd never actually thought about how close Princess must have been to death. But I'd never seen a baby with heart condition struggle to hold on to life. My dad had.

He was with me when I went into cardiac arrest. I was born with Transposition of the Great Veins and had open-heart surgery when I was 6 weeks old. It was my first and last surgery.

Princess was born with Tetralogy of Fallot. While not as complicated as Transposition, it can still be fatal if it's not surgically corrected. In the United States it's corrected shortly after birth. Evie lived with it for two years. She probably turned blue and had a hard time breathing. Combine that with her cleft lip and palate, her poor weight gain, and life in an orphanage, it's a miracle that she survived.

I will always wonder who held her when she had a Tet spell? Who got her knees up to her chest so the blood would start flowing again? Who decided this child with two significant special needs, should get life-saving surgery to correct her heart in hopes that a family would adopt her?

Someone was with her in those early fragile days. Someone had to love her. Without love and human contact, it's not unusual for sick babies to give up.

Princess fought. But she couldn't have done it alone. What angel did God place in that orphanage to care for her until we got there? I wonder if she's still there tending to the sickest, to the least of these? Is she helping other babies hold on for just a little bit longer until they can finally come home.

I Am Her Real Mother

"Is she your daughter?" a girl asked me at church. She wrinkled her forehead and studied Princess' crooked nose and jagged scar on her lip.

"Yes." I told her, offering no explanation.

"But," the girl continued still scanning Princess' face, "she doesn't look like you."

"What's different?" I pressed.

She was silent for a moment, then said, "I don't know, but something is different."

There's no denying it. She is different. But different doesn't have to be bad. Or scary. Or wrong. From the day we met her, we loved her because of her differences.

A lot of people have opinions about adoption. I've been asked how much we paid for our daughter. If you're truly interested in adoption, I'll tell you the fees you pay for services--not for the child. Most people won't adopt, so I politely ask them how much they paid for their car or house. I've been ask if the government paid us to take in an orphan. People ask why her "real" mom didn't want her. Some wonder why we didn't adopt domestically or foster. After all there are needy children in the United States. I'd never argue with that. My answer is simple: A kid is a kid. They all need homes. So why not the United States, Russia, or Ethiopia. My daughter happened to be in China.

These questions aren't new and they won't ever go away. People in China were just as curious. Our guide told us that most Chinese citizens don't know adoption is an option. The government doesn't tell them there are hundreds of thousands of children waiting for families. We carried around a card that said in Chinese: We are from USA. We are adopting Ling Chen. We love her and Chinese culture.

Most people either hugged us or gave us a thumb's up. We heard "lucky baby" over and over again. Luck had nothing to do with it.

I believe God meant for her to be part of our family from the beginning of time. It is his perfect plan for an imperfect world.

So, yes, I am her real mother. And if you saw us together, there's no denying it.