We are a family of four . . . for now . . . I am not making any announcements.  We do not have anything in the works, but if you have read the posts this week about adoption you know that our plans are not always what God’s plans are, so we remain open.  We don’t have a current home study or plans to get one, but our hearts are in a position to remain open to what God has for us.

For now, however, we are a family of four and like any family we have our ups and downs; we have our good days and bad days.  Thankfully we have not had hard days like we experienced the first three months of bringing our youngest home.  I have gone through some really hard things in my life, but the days have never been darker than those first three months.  None of us were sleeping well.  Food issues were abundant.  Bodies were bruised by bite marks and large emotions filled every space of our home.

We were warned, we were aware of trauma, we had been to trainings and we had asked people to pray.  We were taking a child from the only home he had known, to a new home, in a foreign country in the middle of a cold spring when he was used to tropical temperatures.  Even though we brought him home with some familiar items to offer comfort, trying to find comfort in familiar things in an unfamiliar place can feel like trying to find Waldo on the page where they are all Waldos.  It’s hard to do. He wouldn’t even let Kevin touch him for the first month.  It was just me.  All me.  It was a conscious decision.  He needed to know that we were mom and dad.  He needed to trust that we were going to take care of him.  It’s called nesting or cocooning, but every fiber in my being wanted someone else to do it.

Not only was the place unfamiliar, but his little heart was grieving.  He was incredibly loved in his home.  Even though he lived there with 34 other children they make every effort to make sure the children are well cared for and loved.  He went from having people around constantly to just being with me.  I was going through my own grieving process and trying to figure things out.  We were quite the pair.

Every day felt like it would never end.  I was so thankful for what God had done to bring him home, but I was angry that it had to be this difficult.  I had put all my efforts into the fight to bring him home and I had nothing left to offer when he finally made it.  I was broken.  He was scared.  I would sit on the rocker in his room and just sob while singing, “I need You, oh I need You, every hour I need You, my one defense, my righteousness, Oh God how I need You,” over him and to myself.   I just sang it over and over, day after day, until it wasn’t so hard anymore.

It was a very lonely time even though we were not alone.  There were very few people we felt understood what we were feeling even though we had hundreds of people praying for us.  Slowly things improved.  Trust was built.  Sleep became more regular.  Night time feedings stopped.  Food issues are still being worked through, but are a little better than when he first came home.  We would hit milestones and look back.  We could see that things were getting better.  We watched him take ownership of his surroundings  He was beginning to understand that this was his new home.

He asks all the time about life before coming home.  He loves to hear his story and every time I tell it I am in awe of his resilience.  He is a brave little boy.  I am so thankful I get to be his mom.  He is joy personified and does not know a stranger.  His smile is large and his heart is tender.  I pray he will always be proud of his story and will own the brokenness as well as the beauty.  There is not one part of me that wants to go back to those first few months, but I can rejoice that we survived!