Three Months Home with our Boys

Well folks, we are officially at the "I think we've got this" phase of this adoption journey. We are getting used to the numbers, communicating pretty well and feeling like we're in a little bit of a groove.

We took this picture on Sadie's 18th birthday a couple of weeks ago. It's so awesome having all of our kids under one roof right now! It won't last long. Landon is moving into student housing May 1 and Sadie will be off to college in August. I'm trying to enjoy it all as much as I can and to let go of the little worries and negative emotions that keep me from doing so. So much abundance under this roof!

Liam is experiencing many of the perils of typical two-dom, like getting splashed in the face with smoothie while trying to throw the cup up into the sink. Hee hee.

(I happened to have my phone in my hand when this happened and I got a photo right away. So sad.)

But he also seems way more reactive than normal right now. He FREAKS out about things all day long and has gone back to wanting me to hold him more and gets mad when others pick him up. I have two ideas as to what is causing this. 

One is that I started doing rhythmic movement/reflex integration work with him and his brain is just adjusting to the new neural pathways. 

My other thought is that this is the point in time (3-4 months in) when his caregivers in the past have been switched on him. I wonder if he's just nervous that I'm going to leave him. 

It's obvious that whatever is causing all this is subconscious. It's like a switch is gets flipped and he suddenly yells and cries...over little things, all day.  It's exhausting.  Hopefully it's temporary.

In between all of that, he continues to melt us with his cuteness, though. He's just so stinking cute. 

Big brother, Louie is generally a much happier boy, who has calmed down considerably! It has helped us all to bond with him more. His anxious energy kind of had us on edge, which prevented us from seeing him for the amazing kid that he is! And he is truly amazing and has such a happy spirit.

In school, he has already learned the whole alphabet and counting to 100, as well as adding single digits. He is a really fast learner.  I'm impressed with his handwriting. He can write out words that are spelled out for him, and can write his first and last name, too. When you consider that he knew nothing but Chinese characters...and at a kindergarten level, 3 months ago, that's pretty amazing. 

I'm really excited to see how quickly he catches up. He is very detail-oriented and very competitive. Those two traits can make things difficult at times, but in this case, work at his advantage. I'm planning to hire a tutor this summer to get him more caught up while the rest of the kids are out of school. I'm actually looking to hire someone to teach him, Anya and Hazel in a private summer school of sorts. If  you know of anyone local who would be interested in doing this, please let me know!  

We still have our challenges with the Louster, though. He still is really overly-anxious about some things, particularly about everything that Eli gets to do (or not do) and everything in between.  Eli gets annoyed often by his little shadow, who has to do everything he does. 

For example, when we were leaving the park in St. George, Eli asked me to take a picture of him in the dinosaur egg.

Louie immediately insisted on doing the same thing, before Eli was even out of the way.

"MOMMY-UH...Take a picture of ME!!!

Other examples: 

Coming home from school, if Eli shows me anything in his backpack, Louie immediately starts yelling over the top of him. "MOM, MOM, MOM, look what I have!" 

Same with drawings or lego creations or anything that they have both done.

I learned that this is a normal behavior with kids who are not yet securely attached. They need to feel *as validated* as everyone else around their age, or more so, in order to feel safe. I can see why it's happening, but it feels like he's trying to run over Eli.  That's hard. It is slowly getting better as we work with him. We have to stop him and and ask him to wait until we are done talking, then give him lots of attention when it's his turn. 

I'm learning a lot about child psychology these days, I tell you. Attachment with older adopted kids can require lots of hard work.  It's also a natural instinct as parents to be protective, so when Eli wants to have some *space* and Louie is crying and hollering at the top of us lungs because he wants to be with him, it pushes our protective parent buttons and causes us to get all upset, which only makes things worse. Jeremy is much more calm in these situations than I am, so if he's home, I let him handle things. 

We have come a long way this past month with our bonding process though. I have been spending lots of time with Louie at appointments in Salt Lake City, and I've made it a point to sit down with him and do things like stretches and movement activities every day. It really pays off.

A couple of weeks ago, we had our first medical appointment to address his muscle spasticity.   We met with an orthopedic surgeon at Shriner's Hospital. At this appointment he had an x-ray taken, then we talked with the doctor about her recommendations for helping him walk more easily.

She recommended that we go to the Movement Analysis Lab in the hospital, and to have some custom orthotics made for him. One for his right foot to keep it from turning in when he walks, and one for his left calf, to wear at night and stretch that calf muscle while he sleeps. So we made an appointment and came back a week later.

The day of that appointment, there was a snow storm which caused traffic problems. Louie got car sick on the way from all the stop-and-go traffic and looking down at the iPad. He threw up all over his clothes. The poor kid had to sit in his vomit for a good 30 minutes while I navigated through the traffic in Salt Lake. We finally made it to Shriners about 40 minutes late, stinky and wet, but they had some shorts and a tank top to loan us when we got there, and they were still able to fit us into their schedule, so it all turned out A-OK. (Very glad that Liam was home with a babysitter. That would have been super hard with him.)

The physical therapists examined his legs, then stuck  a bunch of little balls all over his legs so that that a computer could analyse his gait. He cooperated for most of the 90-minute appointment, but didn't like having to walk back and forth and back and forth on the pathway, so we had to keep encouraging him. He was very glad when we were done!

All the balls create lines on the computer, and the computer tells the doctors what is happening with his muscles and bones. Pretty cool, state-of-the-art technology. We are so lucky to live near a Shriners!

So, right now, we are waiting for an appointment with the physical medicine doctor at Primary Childrens. He'll use the info from this study, as well as his examination of Louie, to help come up with a treatment plan. Most likely, this will involve Botox injections in his tight muscles every 6 months for a few years. The Botox will help relax those super tight calf and hamstring muscles so that he can straighten his legs more when he walks. Then after he goes through most of his growing, they will do tendon release surgery. The doctor at Shriners said this surgery doesn't do the job if they grow much afterward, so we need to wait. Hopefully, the Botox, the orthotics and physical therapy will help him walk and balance more easily. We started PT at the Primary Children's rehab in Riverton last week. Our insurance covers 20 visits per year, so we are going every other week to stretch it out. At school, he also gets PT twice a week, as well as OT and soon a speech therapist will start working with him to help him swallow more efficiently. He tends to drool a lot.

When we were at Shriners, I texted the picture above to Jeremy. He replied and told me that it made him get all choked up, just thinking about how he's here, getting all this help from so many people. Of course, that made me tear up as well.

It really is beautiful when you stop and think about it.  His life in China would have been very dismal after leaving the orphanage at 18.  He is "abled" enough that he probably would have been left to fend for himself. People with physical differences in China, let alone orphans, are not considered for employment. They end up on the streets, begging for a living. Thinking about our Louie out on the streets makes me want to cry. He has SO MUCH to offer! Here, he will not only get help with his walking, but will learn of his divine worth as a son of God! How amazing is that? He is also a member of a family who LOVES him and will grow to love him more an more in the coming years. He will be given every opportunity that can possibly be given to him. He will receive a great education, and even get to keep his language. The sky is the limit! This, my friends, is why I advocate for orphaned children. They ALL deserve a chance at life and the love of a family. Every single one of them.

I'm not saying it's all sunshine and roses around here. Adopting kids from hard places tests you to the core. For the first while you wonder what on earth you've done to your life.

I was telling my friends at a Down syndrome moms retreat recently about how I had to go on antidepressants for a while after adopting Hazel because it was so hard.

One of them asked me, "I'm not sure how to say this politely...but why did do it again, if it took so much out of you?" (Or something to that affect.)

My quick answer was that it doesn't stay super hard like that forever. It's a little like having babies. You forget how hard it is a few years later.

Thinking about it, though...that's only part of the answer. There's a lot more to it.

The Lord has been teaching us along the way, preparing our family for these boys.

When the time was right, He sent those familiar nudges to me via the Holy Spirit.

"There are more for you. And you can do it. Right now it seems impossible, but I'll help you."

Months later, when we finally got the courage to start looking, we saw little Dang Sheng (Liam) on our adoption agency's waiting child list and the spirit spoke to us again.

"This is him."

About a month later, those whisperings came again.

"There's another. And you need to bring him home at the same time."
(The peace sign and his shirt were a sign that it was all good.)

My goodness gracious, that was a hard decision. We knew that adding two at once was going to rock our world. We prayed, fasted, went to the temple. Then we prayed some more. The opposition was fierce. There were a couple of times when we almost backed out of bringing Louie home.

But every time we went there with our minds, our hearts couldn't do it. There was just too much at stake for this little boy, and we had had very real spiritual experiences about him.

We had seen the transformation in our girls since joining us. We had seen them come to life as they learned how to give and receive love. We remembered where they came from. The hollow look in the eyes of all those children. The rows and rows of beds. The haunting quiet of the hallways. The clinging children, wrapped around our legs.

How do you say "no" to the Lord when he asks you to help another little one out of that situation? It's a hard thing to do when you have been where they are, and you have a good job, a good marriage, great kids, and room in your home. A very hard thing.

So that's the rest of the answer. That's why we did it again.  I felt like I needed to type that all out because my partial answer to my friends needed to be finished. But not for my friends...for me. I need reminding of the "why."

Like I said in my last couple of posts, it's loud and super chaotic with 4 kids who are all at the same 2-3 year old emotional level right now. The competition around here is fierce and we feel like we're going to go crazy on weekends and holidays when there's no school. You should have seen our first attempt at a road trip Presidents Day weekend. We went to St. George for a few days. Whoa! Stress

This was on the way there at a stop in Cedar City. Do I look stressed? The fun had only begun. Haha!

They sure are cute though, aren't they? Honestly, each of them individually isn't too hard...it's the combination of all of them that's killing us. It's like having quadruplets.

But it's also beautiful and miraculous. Isn't it true that the things that are the most difficult in life are the things that teach us the most about ourselves and about God? They are the things that we thank him for the most in retrospect.

Such is the miracle of adoption. I can't imagine where I'd be without this experience. These little humans are worth it all.

So there's the update on our life with the boys. I've hardly mentioned the rest of the clan. They are all doing great right now. I feel like we are being carried through this time in our lives. Jeremy is in great demand as a bishop and he somehow is thriving. I do have my "moments" when he's gone, but we get through them and it's just working out. We can't help but to think that his calling is the very blessing that we needed right now. It's hard to explain why, but it just is. I think one thing is that it requires us to step things up, so to speak, which in turn makes us stronger. Also, there's power in service. Blessings flow like you wouldn't believe! We feel our ward members' prayers and many of them tell us how much they appreciate us. That really helps. We have such incredible people around us. We are so blessed.

OK time for bed! Thanks for reading. Love you all.

--Heather