20 Things We Want You To Know Before We Bring Our Kids Home

1.  Adoption is beautiful, it is a great way to grow a family.
Please do not assume that adoption is only for those who struggle with fertility, or that it is only to adopt a newborn or healthy infant. There is a great wide world full of orphans, both healthy and with special needs, both infants and older children...they are waiting.

2. Adoption is Messy.
It is a long, messy, and often heartbreaking journey. There is grief and loss in every adoption. Loss of birth parents, loss due to years spent in an orphanage, grief caused by leaving the only home they have ever known.... Our kids were both given up at birth because they were born with disabilities. They suffered a loss that day. They were then put into the system and sent to live in orphanages. Another loss, a major setback in life. And soon we will come and take them out of their orphanages and it will be a glorious day for us, but we are also taking them from the only place they have ever known. The conditions they lived in won't matter, they will grieve the loss of the place they knew as normal. And we will grieve. We will grieve for their loss and for the should have and could have beens had they not been abandoned at birth. We will grieve when it hits us that they would rather be there than well cared for here, because who wouldn't take that personally? We will grieve the damage done by being institutionalized for years and years. We ask that you don't lose sight of the fact that while we are overjoyed with the blessings we have been given, that there will be grief and loss as well.

3. Celebrate them!
When someone gives birth, the baby is celebrated.  Please celebrate our children. They have never been celebrated and they too are worthy.

4. Please don't treat them as less.
A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into our adoption. In many ways it was a much more exhausting, painful, and both emotionally and physically draining process. We worked hard to bring them into our lives, just as we did our biological children, please treat them as such.

5. Adoption is expensive.
Please do not ask how much our children "cost" or why we would pay that much to adopt. Please don't tell us what else we could have or should have done with that amount of money. 

Ask yourself this: How much is your child's life worth? If you went into their bedroom in the morning and they weren't there, how much would you pay to get them back? Would it be worth $50,000? $500,000, $1,000,000? Consider those numbers, is there any number that you wouldn't pay to bring your child home? 

$35,000 to adopt two. To pay a social worker to come into our home and deem us suitable to parent and meet their specific needs; To pay a placing agency who would facilitate our adoption on the US side of things; To the department of homeland security, to seek approval to bring home two children from another country and make them US citizens; To our agency and attorney in our children's country who has more things to do to get us from Point A to Point B than I could ever recognize; Airfare, Passports, Visas... No one is getting rich from our adoption, we did not go hand $35,000 to someone in some back alley in return for a child. We paid for services, the services required by the International Hague Convention to ensure things are done legitimately.  Please keep your feelings about the financial burden  of adoption to yourself!

6. We want to see you at the airport when we fly home.
We will have been out of country for 2 weeks and we will be missing our friends and family. We will be missing American food. We will be exhausted and very possibly stressed beyond belief following 15 hours of flying with two terrified children who have no concept of what's going on. We want to see you. You will be the light at the end of that 15 hour long tunnel. Catch us as we are ready to collapse, congratulate us, celebrate our kids as they become US Citizens (which happens as soon as our plane lands on US soil). We want you there, all of you, it would truly mean the world to us!
It is a great opportunity for you to meet our newest additions and I really can't guarantee how soon after that day that you will see us, it could be quite awhile.

7. Ask questions!
It takes a lot to offend us. Please, if you have a question, just ask us. We love talking about our adoption, our children, and our family and we are open and willing to answer any well intended question!

8. Don't put us on a Pedestal.
We are not adopting to save. We are not adopting because we're their only chance. We're not rescuing. We're growing our family the way that in this stage in our life, is the best fit for our family . There is nothing extraordinary about what we are doing. 
You cannot imagine how many times we hear, "I could never do that" or "I could never do what you do". We are on no crusade to convince you to do what we do or live like we live, but to but those that use the word never, it's a word that puts a lot of limitations on your abilities. I'm no Super Woman, nor am I Super Mom...if I can do it, you can too [if you want].

9. In it for the long haul.
We have a long journey ahead of us. We will be buried in medical appointments for months following their homecoming. And there will be institutional behaviors, sensory issues, over stimulation, feeding issues, physical obstacles/restrictions, emotional damage, developmental delays, defiance, attachment issues, speech or lack there of, anxiety, trauma, and the list goes on....There are sooo many things that we will be up against and it won't get better overnight, or the next week, month, or even year. 
We have years of institutionalization that we are up against and healing is not easy and it will be a life long process. They may never leave home, they may never attach to us, they may have some really foul behaviors...know that we love them and it is not their fault they were given an unfair start in life that led them to have these issues. *See #2, Adoption is MESSY* We ask that you be there. Don't tell us "Well, you chose this life" because yes, we did and do, but some times we are going to be exhausted and feel very alone and/or inadequate, and those days we just need to know someone is there.

Numbers help me process things, maybe these will help you too... 

*It is said that for every 3 months in an orphanage, a child loses 1 month developmentally.
If this equation is accurate, E would be 16 months developmentally (this seems very accurate based on my week in country with him) and M would be about 3 1/2 years old (which is physically very accurate, but cogntively she is at least another year behind that)

*It is also said that the appropriate time to stay home and cocoon/focus on attachment is 1 month for every year spent in an orphanage. This would mean 4-10.5 months of very strong emphasis on only mommy and daddy meet their needs...I cannot tell you whether this will be an accurate timeframe or not for us, every child is so different, but know that it really could take 10+ months before we can let you into their personal bubble enough to allow them to bond with you as extended family members.

10. They are all our real children.
The opposite of real is fake, none of our children are fake. They are all really ours, and our names are/will be on all of their birth certificates to prove it. Please do not introduce them as my adopted children either. Yes they are adopted and we are very open about this and are willing to talk about it with anyone, but it does not define who they are. Adoption is how they came into our lives, their disability is something they have, M and E are who they are and who they are is what you should focus on.

11. Do not think poorly of our children's birth parents.
We do not know their motives behind choosing not to parent, we can only assume it was because of the disabilities our children were born with. They live in a country where there is a lot of stigma and not much available to individuals with special needs. It is nearly impossible to find child care, let alone therapies, schooling, and acceptance. It is often (not always) the case that children are given up because the parents know they cannot provide the level of care required to meet the child's needs...This is selfless not selfish.

12. We will disappear sometimes.
M and E are use to staying in one room all day, every day. Showing them the world is going to be a process, a very overwhelming process if not done slowly. When they come home, we will only be taking them out for medical appointments and back home, that may very possibly be the most we get out of the house for awhile. We also will not be able to welcome many guests into our home during this time because M and E are both use to having revolving caregivers and they need to learn that in this new life, mommy and daddy are who they should depend on to be fed, changed, bathed, clothed, and cuddled.....not just any adult that they cross paths with; That we are the constant in their lives and that home is our safe place.

13. Please don't be offended when we don't come to you for help.
When you have a baby and baby is fussy, you often turn to other 'Been there, Done that' friends and family. The same is true with adoption; Please do not be offended that when we are struggling, we don't come to you for advice. We will be calling upon our friends who have adopted children with special needs and are fully in tuned to the attachment and bonding piece that is an added component you wouldn't be factoring in, in any everyday  parenting scenario of a biological child.

14. Don't Forget Us
We know how much we are going to miss out on, especially in regards to family gatherings and festivities. It's going to feel awful every time we have to decline a seasonal tradition we enjoy, but please still invite us. We are going to feel isolated for awhile while we focus on bonding at home, even if we have to decline over and over again, please don't forget about us. And when you see or hear that we are struggling, call and leave us a voicemail, text us, email, message us on facebook...just to say hi, or to say something stupid to make us laugh, or to tell us you're still there...it may be the only real contact we have with the world for awhile, it will make it a little less isolating!

15. When we do come out of "hibernation," don't be offended by the need for physical boundaries.
We want you to meet and spend time with our kids, but it will be different than with our other four. When you meet M and E, please do not hold them, hug them, kiss them, or feed them. Expect appropriate physical boundaries(as opposed to indiscriminate affection) and redirect them to us if needed, they can not crawl up into your (as a stranger they don't yet know) lap. If they express interest in food or something to drink, please tell them to go find their mommy or daddy. High fives are what we are asking you to offer M and E in lieu of a more intimate affection at least until we feel confident that they are showing preference to us as their parents, over other random adults.

16. Our kids need to learn how to cope.
This new life will be overwhelming, brothers and sisters will be overwhelming; a mom and dad wanting to hug, kiss and love them will be overwhelming; being clean, warm, and well fed...that may overwhelm them too. When we start to show them the world, when we commit to attend things, please understand that they may only be able to tolerate a couple minutes and we may need to excuse ourselves from the gathering. Sharing them with our family is something that we are super excited to do, but M & E may not be so fond of this sensory overload. There was very little stimulation where they came from, their rooms were quiet, This is all very new to them, please have patience as we work toward helping them learn to cope, and hopefully learn enjoy larger more stimulating gatherings. 
When you see us off to the side or in another room with them, please feel free to approach us individually, it will be a far better introduction/interaction for them than if everyone approaches when we walk into a room.

17. Know their needs.
Before you meet them, we want you to know their needs and things to be mindful of. Attachment is very important to us, they need to learn that we are their primary caregivers and are the one solid constant in their lives, please respect the boundaries we have laid out. Know that they have never had to form an attachment in their lives, they have always had rotating caregivers who are paid to meet their needs, learning to attach is not going to be easy and we really need you to respect those boundaries, as 'overprotective' as they may seem. Know that their disabilities don't define them or change the way you should interact with them. It is important to know that they are both developmentally under 2 years old, and in many ways, under 18 months old, this is important to know because when you look at them, M specifically, she is the size of our almost 5 year old, but she cannot have, play with, and/or do a lot of the things our other girls her size are doing. M & E are both on a pureed diet only, I mention this because offering them solids may be a choking hazard. Both children are completely non verbal but we will be working on using sign language with them, please do not confuse their lack of verbal skills with lack of understanding, they both watch people and read emotions and tone of voice well.

Please take the time to ask and get to know them as individuals and know that they are two very different little kids, with needs that affect them in different ways. M is more physically capable than cognitively at this point, and E is more cognitively able than he is physically.

M loves beanie babies and webkins type stuffed animals. She loves anything with lights and music that is simple to activate. She enjoys toys that rattle and/or vibrate as well.

E loves OBalls, OBall Cars and Trucks, OBall Rattles, and anything similar. His CP affects one of his fists significantly, and the Oballs are easy for him to get a good grip on. He loves all things cars, trucks, planes, and balls...typical boy!

18. The Attachment and Bonding that I keep mentioning, it's a big deal.
The most common hesitation that we receive from people not willing to embrace our adoption is that M & E have special needs. I can promise you, adoption in and of itself comes with far more wounds and scars than their disabilities do, the scars of orphanage life can be debilitating. Attachment and Bonding....to someone not in the adoption world, it is hard to grasp just how hard, scary, and long of a road this battle may be to climb and that this will be what affects our family the most. *I beg you, get to know the journey we are on, read this blog series about attachment here*

19. Our other kids are not suffering.
Please keep any opinions you may have to yourself about how unfair you feel it is to our children that we have chosen to adopt two special needs children. Our oldest happens to think it's the best thing in the world and he is very proud to tell his friends, teachers, and really anyone who will listen, about getting a new brother and sister soon. Our girls cannot wait for them to be home, and well C, he likes to talk about M & E but I don't think he grasps what's going on fully. We have surrounded our children by other adoptive families and special needs children, they are aware, they know what makes kids with M & E's disabilities unique and special; they also know the things that M & E will struggle with and may need some extra help learning. They know we may miss out on some activities this winter while we work on getting their new brother and sister healthy and adjusted to family life. We have worked hard to teach them how to love unconditionally, to embrace differences, to know it will take time to help M and E get to the point that they can join in activities.....So I ask that you not say that our adoption is a burden on our other children, because they don't view them as a burden, but rather a blessing and they are very proud that they are apart of M & E's story.Please do not take that feeling away from them by talking about how you feel that it is "unfair" or a "burden" to them.

The greatest thing in life that we can teach our children is love and acceptance. Adoption is teaching them not only to love in new ways and to accept, but to genuinely embrace differences and it's an invaluable ability to have, the ability to do those three things. They are blessed, all of us are.

20. They are an inspiration.
If you take the time to get to know their story and know what their previous lives were, you will see past the extreme oddities that are institutional behaviors...like M's very strange noises and flapping hands or E's need to rock side to side and grind his teeth. We hope you will get to know them enough to know their story and why they do what they do.
Empty walls, silent cribs, speed feeds, minimal adult interaction...silence, for years and years...it takes it's toll, and it did not break them, they continue to fight. I wouldn't wish that life on anyone and having been to their orphanages, I know that I wouldn't want to survive, I'd want to be put out of my misery. They are stronger than I am, I would have given up. Don't look at them and see disability, burden, or brokenness; Look at them and see two kids who are stronger than I could ever be, see two kids who have been through more in their lives than we will ever go through. Let them touch your hearts the way they have touched ours. 

Thank you all for taking the time to read this post and please, if you have questions, do not hesitate to just come right out and ask them! The smoothest transition for them will be one with friends and family who have all the answers needed to fully grasp our childrens needs and how to best interact with them.

#ComingHomeSoon

This blog post was inspired by 20 Things I wish I Had Known Before Adopting and 10 Things Adoptive Parents Wish Their Friends and Family Understood