Some truth: Three Months post-placement

There is a recent blog post that is quickly making the rounds of adoptive parents:
Jen Hatmaker: The Truth About Adoption One Year Later

Jen Hatmaker is a wonderful writer, and the words of this piece in particular resonate with many of my friends in the adoption community. Several of these friends are singing the praises of this post because it says out loud what some of us are afraid to admit is happening in our own homes. It is comforting to see that other families are also struggling, that our childrens' reactions and behaviors are not unique--especially when there are so many other adoption blogs that document a seemingly flawless transition to family life. That with time our family lives will return to something close to 'normal'.

It is a relief to read the post and identify which stage your child is currently in; are we still in "Spaz out?" Could we be in "Triage?" You nod your head in sweet agreement when you find the description that matches your reality.

And I get that, and I appreciate that.

But, as Ms. Hatmaker herself writes in the start of her post, the "One Year Later" timeframe is specific to HER family, and HER experience. For many children the truth about adoption one year out is that the challenges are *just* beginning. Some children, like my child, have irreversible brain trauma that may manifest in behaviors that *never* go away. Other children are so overwhelmed by stress that they can't self-regulate. For some families the first-year post-adoption is a whirlwind of doctors appointments; urgent medical needs masking the equally-urgent emotional needs beneath the surface.

So while seeing a list of stages with specific time-lines attached can provide relief for some families, for  others it can only lead to frustration and feelings of failure. What if at five months post-placement your family is nowhere *near* triage? What if your child's grief-fueled rages get stronger with each week that passes? How does the family with a child recently diagnosed with PTSD feel when they look at that post?

Of course this is all part of the bigger issue, right? Just as the "happily ever after" adoption blogs don't tell the one true story, nor do the posts like Ms. Hatmaker's--the ones that are supposed to speak to the rest of us. The truth is that there is no *one* true story. The truth is that the story shifts and changes for each child, for each family.

The truth is that while your your family may identify with Ms. Hatmaker's post today, tomorrow could bring you to your knees in unexpected ways.

****             ****

In our home we are barely able to speak to the truth about adoption *three months* out.

YH and I walk the big kids to school each morning. We wander back home together and do chores, or wait for our Early Childhood Intervention Specialist to come over, or go to tumbling class. Starting next week we will spend Tuesday and Thursday mornings in YH's preschool class.

In the afternoons we pick up the big kids and go to a park, or out for ice cream. We play until Sean comes home from teaching high-school math and we eat dinner together. YH takes a bath and then goes to bed while the big kids finish their homework or clean their rooms. The big kids are asleep by 8:30pm and Sean and I have some time to ourselves. We could  use this time to cleaup, or play cards, or make-out but mostly we sit on the couch and watch "Breaking Bad". It could be worse, we think. At least we're not meth dealers. It could be much worse.

And from the outside it all looks lovely--like a "happily ever after" post.

But inside the house, inside my heart, it is hard.

I love this child so much more than I ever thought I could at three months post-placement. Before we took custody I had prepared myself for the fact that we might need to "fake it until we make it". That we may need to demonstrate love to YH, without actually feeling love (this is not uncommon for families joined by adoption).

But from the beginning the love was there. I LOVE him. I do.

And he loves me back--at least a little. We are at the point now where I am his preferred care-giver. He does not reject Sean, but if he has the choice between the two of us he will choose me. He gives both of us hugs and kisses--sometimes without us asking. He follows directions for both of us--with the occasional two year old tantrum/protest.

When it is just the two of us he needs to be aware of my presence every minute. "Mom? Mom? Mommy?" I cannot be outside of his line of vision. If we are in the same room he needs to be touching me. Meals are consumed at the dining room table, sitting on my lap. If he is playing with his toys he will stop every few minutes and come over to me, needing a hug or a pat on the back. We hold hands when we are walking next to one another. YH will sometimes get out a sling or baby carrier and bring it to me, asking me to wear him while we walk around the neighborhood.

Sean and I try to make sure that we alternate which one of us puts YH down for bedtime and naptime. During the week this means that Sean usually covers the bedtime routine. He tells me that when he leads YH back to "his" room (in reality a part of the master suite) YH happily drinks his milk while Sean reads him his books, then he lies down and pulls his blanket up tight under his armpits. He smiles as Sean leaves the room, sometimes blowing him a good night kiss.

 When I put YH down for bed/naptime the routine is different. We read stories, yes, but YH insists that I climb into his toddler bed with him. I sing lullabies to him and he pats my face. We rub noses and whisper things to one another. Sometimes we just whisper words: "car" "truck" "bird" "airplane". Sometimes we whisper the names of all the people who love YH: "Miss A" "Sweet Bubs" "Daddy" "Appa" "Nuna" "Umma" "Halmoni"...and so on.

YH pulls my arm across his body. He wants the weight of it on his stomach as he tries to fall asleep. When I kiss his cheek and say "Sweet Dreams" in advance of leaving, he cries. He pats the mattress over and over. "Stay. Please. Stay."

I give in and stay for five more minutes. I am in desperate need of some time to myself; time when NO ONE is touching me. But I stay--how can I leave?

By the end of the day I am fried. The sensory overload of having somebody touch you all day long is intense. I am an extrovert and yet despite this I am still depleted by meeting this child's needs all day long, every day.

I do not feel like myself--ever. My skin feels like it doesn't fit quite right. I bristle and chafe every time someone other than YH touches me. His little hand grounds me at the same time that it saps me dry. I feel like my only purpose is to lift him up.

I go to a boxing class, or a hip-hop dance class, at my gym three or four times/week. It sounds like a lot of time when I type it out like that, but those hour-long blocks of time are often the only chance I get to start to reclaim my body as my own. My mind as my own, my heart as my own.

Parenting YH is a lot like parenting an infant. I remember feeling similarly depleted when my big kids were three months old--and in terms of tenure in our family, YH *is* only an infant. He has the physical prowess of a toddler, but the dependent heart and soul of a baby. We need to prove to him that we are worthy of his love and trust, just as you do with an infant. When an infant cries you pick him up--and I do the same with my 30-month old "newborn".

The challenge is that lifting a 10lb newborn takes a fraction of the energy that it takes to "lift up" a 31lb newborn. I should have been in training for this months and months ago.

There is more. There are self-soothing behaviors that YH exhibits that worry me. I know they are behaviors that he exhibited when living with his foster family too, but that doesn't make my heart stop clenching when I see them resurface. I know they are driven by anxiety. I know they are an external expression of the turmoil in his wee heart. I know they help him cope.

But man, I wish I could take them away.

(I can't. I know this too.)

All I can do is softly clasp his hands, stroke his cheek and say "Please be gentle with my YH." All I can do is try to provide alternate stimuli for him: deep pressure back rubs, stroking his arms, rubbing his scalp--all in hopes that his reliance on these behaviors will lessen each day.

I watch and wait. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I take stock of my arsenal each night and prepare to fight for him anew each morning.

The worst, the best.

One day last week the worst thing ever happened.
YH came up to me distraught. In his hand was THE microphone--the one with his foster mother's recorded message on it. He held the microphone out to me, saying and signing "Help. Please. Help. Please." over and over.

I took the toy and pressed the "play" button.

Nothing.

No words. No Umma's voice delivering her message to YH.

Just a tinny "click" followed by sickening silence.

YH stood before me with tears in his eyes.
"Help. Please. Help. Please."
His little hands smacked together harder and harder each time he signed "help".

I pulled him into my lap and told him there was nothing I could do. Umma's voice was gone. Someone had accidently deleted it; no way to know who.
I'm sorry baby. I miss her too. Should we look at some pictures of her? I'm so sorry baby.

Then I burst into tears as he said "No. No. No." over and over.

****               ****

We've been a family for three months now.
THREE MONTHS.

We are riding the waves of grief and transition as they come--for all of us.

The big kids are grieving the way our lives were before YH joined us. Back when we could be more spontaneous, stay out at the pool later, eat at any restaurant. When it was easy to buckle themselves into their booster seats (no cumbersome car seat smushed in between in the backseat of the Honda Fit). When our days weren't carved into tiny windows of time between meals and nap.

YH is grieving his former life too--his foster family, his first home, all that was familiar. His grief shows up in many ways. Fussiness. Tantrums. Frustration. Constant eating. Crying. Needing lots of physical contact.

Along with the grief there is joy. My Sweet Bubs has found his groove as a big brother--and YH *loves* him so much. YH calls out his name and follows in his footsteps. He repeats every word Sweet Bubs teaches him and copies everything he does.

Miss A also loves to teach YH new things and she claps loudly at his every accomplishment.

YH has started calling us "Mommy" and "Daddy". He draws out "mommy" into at least eight syllables, rising and falling like a song.

That part is bitter-sweet. We miss being called "Umma" and "Appa", but we are happy that he knows he is loved by a Mommy, a Daddy, an Umma and an Appa. (And his first mother).

At three months home we've found a normal, but I don't think it is the normal. I imagine it could take years to get to that point. I do know that I love my little family. I love the work we're doing, and the way we can laugh our way through the uncertain parts.

****                   ****

The day after the worst thing ever happened, I received an email from YH's foster mother. I try to send her a written update (translated into Korean) on YH's growth and development every other week. I know she is worried about some of his special needs, and I want to be sure she knows that we are doing everything we can to help him rise up.

This email was the first response we received from her. She said she was glad YH was doing well and receiving the medical attention he needs. She said it has been hard for her family to be in their apartment without YH. That she was very sad and missed him very much. She thanked me for sending emails and lots of pictures of YH in our home. She asked after the health of my mother, and sent her love to the big kids.

Then she said she was sending three videos to YH--would we show them to him? Three videos: a video message from each member of the family, each telling YH he was loved.

I cried when I watched them (I cry a lot these days).

As soon as YH woke up from his nap, I sat him in front of the laptop and pressed "play".
There was Umma--her face, her hands, her  voice.

And YH's face LIT up. The hole left by the deleted microphone was filled. He laughed and waved at the screen. He kissed his foster family's faces. He turned to me and yelled out "Mommy!" in delight when his Appa appeared on the screen.

And I cried again, but this time it was happy tears. What a gift--and what perfect timing.

It was the best thing ever.

                              (Please forgive my high pitched squeal--it couldn't be helped)

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

We are less than 48 hours away from the big kids leaving town for three weeks. They are headed on vacation with my parents, to an idyllic island off the Atlantic coast, while the rest of us stay at home.

This splitting of the family seemed like a brilliant idea--back before we traveled, back when I was so sure I knew the *right* things to do when became a family of five. You see we typically travel thousands of miles to this island every summer. It is a place where the kids can run through the woods for hours. A place where they spend entire mornings building fairy houses from moss and rocks and shells. We have a whole fairy village nestled at the trunks of trees near our house there, carefully constructed over the last two summers.

My parents go to the island for several months over the summer--it is the only way they can stomach living in Texas for the rest of the year. Sean's family has a home on the adjoining plot of land and it is all so ridiculously Robert McCloskey-esque that I can't read "A Time of Wonder" or "One Morning in Maine" without my eyes tearing up.

Over the past year we completely changed our professional lives, in part to maximize the amount of time we can spend on-island. Now that Sean is on a teacher's schedule we hope to spend at least a month there each year--every year.

Except not this year.

Before we traveled I thought that if the big kids got to go on-island with my parents for a few weeks it would give YH intensive time with Sean and I. I thought he would be resentful of having the big kids share the attention, and this way the kids would get their summer voyage and we would get to work on attachment.

It looks so perfect spelled out like that, doesn't it?

What I didn't account for was the utter joy that the three kids find in one another--even the middle child. What I didn't account for was the way YH runs out of our bedroom each morning yelling out his sister's name. When he find her he wraps her in a hug and they both tumble to the ground giggling. What I didn't account for was how intently YH listens to his siblings, and mimics their speech and patterns of play.

And now I'm feeling like his little heart will be broken AGAIN when he wakes up on Thursday and the big kids are nowhere to be found. Now I'm feeling like I really messed this up.

I know that in the grand scheme of things it could be traumatic to move to a new home base this early in our attachment dance. I know that routine, and keeping YH's world small, is SO important right now. But the idea of cocooning as a family on a small island--of spending every day outdoors and wrapping my youngest in cozy sweaters at night--is so appealing right now.

I can imagine the big kids introducing YH to all the island sights: swimming at the quarry, searching for shells at low-tide at the Carrying Place, tromping through the woods to get to Fine Sand Beach and splashing in the tide pools that dapple the rocks surrounding the beach.

I can see us spotting bald eagles from the deck as they swoop over Ghost Hollow. I can see early dinners and even earlier bedtimes. Somehow every night on the island ends with everyone in an exhausted heap--sometimes hours before sunset.

So I am spending this week mourning what could have been. Trying to take comfort in the "right on paper" aspects of the split, and preparing to say good-bye to my wonderful eldest children. I have never been away from either of them for this long--and it hurts my heart to think of the silence that they will leave behind.

We will get through it. They will have a WONDERFUL time. We will talk over skype each night, and we will be able to show YH that the big kids will come back.

People we love can leave and come back. We can love them while they're gone, and love them even more when they get back.

One month

One month ago we met YH for the first time.

Is that possible? Hasn't he always been a part of our lives?

Hasn't our house always had a layer of toys covering every surface?
Hasn't our grocery bill always been this high? (The boy can eat.)
Haven't I always felt his heavy weight in my arms first thing in the morning? Had his warm cheek pressed against my neck as I walk to the kitchen?

Hasn't he always been there to delight us with a nose honk/fist bump/high five?
Hasn't he always rushed the fence when a neighbor walks by, in order to call out "TRALALA" in greeting?

Didn't we always automatically open the sun roof when starting the car, because we know he loves it so?
Didn't we always call the dog "Roooo-tie" because that's the way YH says her name?

In some ways our family routine has quite naturally expanded to include our newest member. We for sure love this little guy--each and every one of us. Even the newly-middle child, who yesterday asked me, "Mom, wouldn't you agree that YH is sometimes annoying?"

In other ways each day is a challenge.

It is a challenge to pay enough attention to the "big" kids (who are really not-so-big-after-all) when my littlest needs constant supervision.
It is a challenge to make time for my husband when our schedules are pulling us in opposite directions.

It is a challenge to feel like myself when there is someone small who needs every piece of me (inside and out) every minute that he is awake.

If I'm being honest, this third child--my 30lb "newborn"--is the first one who has brought me to my knees to this degree.

It's not that *loving* him is hard--that part is sooo easy.
 What's hard is giving up personal space, emotional space, time to think, time to shower, time to wash my clothes, time to exercise, time to read, time to be spontaneous.

I know that before long I will start to feel like myself again.
But for right now I am a little bit lost. I am drowning a bit in this little boy, and his needs.

There are times when it seems like he is adjusting so well to our family, that I almost think "Maybe he is at a good place with his grief. Maybe we got through the first wave."

Then there are times when little things happen--tiny tremors--and I can see that we are just at the base of the swell of his grief.

Like when we were all enjoying a shaved ice at a picnic table, and a white van pulled into the parking lot and started to turn around right in front of us.

YH's eyes grew wide.
He dropped his spoon and scrambled--literally scrambled--across the table into my arms.
He grabbed my shirt with both fists and started to moan, head turned away from the parking lot.

It was a white van.
Just like the white van that took us from ESWS to the hotel on the day we took custody.
A white van that took him from the people he loved.

Or like the day when he fell and scraped his knee and a tiny spot of blood appeared.
And he couldn't bear it. Couldn't stand to look at it, couldn't let anyone touch it.
He just needed to sit in my lap and sob--heavy, wrenching sobs--for over an hour.
(This is a child who regularly crashes into things, climbs tall objects and acquires the bumps and bruises of boyhood with zest; nothing phases him--except a scraped knee)

The grief is there.
The loss is there.

But also: The joy is there. The love is there.

We're family. No doubt about it.

Up in the air.

Over the course of our first night together YH slept reasonably well--but as morning drew near he began to thrash. First his legs kicked, then his arms flailed, then his head whipped from side to side. His not-quite-awake little body rolled, and punched, and tried everything it could to make us (his new reality) retreat.

Eventually his mind caught up with his limbs and he opened his eyes.

Hello.
Hello small child.
Hello small child I have known for less than 76 hours.
Hello small child.
Hello.

He was eager to get out of bed. To run and explore and eat. To do anything but think about what was going on.

We had several hours to kill before we headed to the airport, so we ate breakfast and headed out to the closest palace to wander.

YH didn't want to be carried. He struggled in the ergo. He wanted to run, without holding anyone's hand. We didn't approve this plan. He screamed. Heads turned. We scooped him up quickly and walked. He struggled and then fell asleep in Sean's arms. People stared openly at our family. It was uncomfortable. I worried that passers-by were judging us, and we were falling short.

We entered the palace and I took YH from Sean so that he could go procure drinks and a snack for everyone. The big kids played hopscotch on the ancient paving stones as I sat on a nearby bench with YH on my lap. He woke up, and leaned into my chest. I stroked his back as he watched Miss A and Sweet Bubs laugh and chase one another.

On the bench next to me sat a young Korean woman in her late 20's with her companion--an older Korean woman. They stared at us. I smiled at them and looked away, resolute in my desire to escape any harsh glances.

The younger woman got up from her seat and came over to us. She said, with an American accent, "Your children are beautiful. All three of them."

I nearly wept at her kindness. She will never know how much that meant to me.


***                  ***

Our flight was scheduled to leave Incheon airport at 9:30pm. We opted to leave the hotel at 3pm and take a taxi-van to the airport. We would run the kids ragged in the airport in hopes that they would all sleep on the first, longest leg of the journey home to Texas.

Luckily our departure gate was very close to one of the indoor playground at Incheon. YH ran and played for four hours straight. Four hours.

At this point it was clear that as long as his body was moving, his wounded heart would be ok. If he allowed himself to sit still for more than a minute a look of pain would settle on his features. He would literally shake it off and jump up to run off somewhere.

I watched him and worried about what this would mean for the arduous flights ahead.

***                 ***

On the first flight--Incheon to LAX--YH had a seat between Sean and I in a middle row. My mom and the big kids were in their own row, just to the left of us. After an initial resistance to the seat belt YH settled down in a nest of blankets and tiny airplane pillows. Against all odds the plan worked and he fell asleep. He slept off and on for the majority of the 11 hour flight. It was supremely uncomfortable for Sean and I--as our arms were trapped by his heavy snoring body--but magnificent to behold.

When he would wake up he would fuss and mess around with all the knobs and headphones and buttons he could reach. He would loudly protest any restrictions to these activities.

I mention this because that behavior was in character with the YH we had come to know; and it was in stark contrast to his behavior on the second flight, from LAX to Austin.

***                ***

By the time we were ready to board our flight in LAX we were all hungry, tired and cranky. We were dirty and smelly. Our hair stuck up in weird tufts. We hated to be around one another but we were glued to one another in collective misery.

(Ain't travel grand!)

Little did we know that the 7pm Friday night flight from Los Angeles to Austin is in fact a giant happy hour in the clouds. A giant happy hour at the grossest bar you can imagine--and not gross in a fun dive-bar kind of way. No-- it was gross in the "Hey, is that the cast of the Real World over there?" kind of way.

A man and woman in the row in front of me began flirting with one another before take off. They downed several drinks in quick succession and their pre-coital banter grew ever louder. Her hair flipping was violent.

Across the aisle and behind Sean and Sweet Bubs sat a group of dudes who appeared to emulate the cast of "Entourage". They hooted and hollered and lived large over the duration of the flight.

My mom sat with Miss A several rows ahead of us. Their heads were barely visible in the sea of well coiffed youngsters discussing which bar in the warehouse district was the best.

And in the middle of all the boisterous, sexual energy-fueled, power hungry partying sat me and YH. Tired and wrinkled. Bags under my eyes and a travel-zit emerging on my jawline. Ignoring the seeping warmth on my lap from the leak in YH's diaper. Feeling the frenzied beat of YH's little mouse heart against my collarbone.

YH had shut down.

As soon as English became the only language being spoken around us he shut down.
He refused to sit in his own seat.
He was not leaving my lap.

His fists clenched my shirt with superhuman strength. He buried his face in my neck and refused any offer of food or drink. He scrunched up his eyes and hummed to himself until he fell asleep.
He did not move or shift position for the entire three and half hour long flight.

The woman in the window seat of our row said, "Wow--he's a great traveler! I hardly knew he was there."

A great traveler. Hardly knew he was there. How wonderful.

No.

Not great, not wonderful.

Sad. Scared. Blocking it all out.

I have never not enjoyed a child's silence on a long flight--but this time, YH's motionless form broke my heart anew.

I said a prayer to the nameless deity in my head: "Let him get through this. Let him come out of this. Let him get through this."

***                   ***

And then we were home.
And he got through it.
And he came out of it.

And each day is better than the one before.

The microphone.

On his first night in our care my son listened to the voice of his foster mother, filtered through the plastic innards of a toy microphone, over and over.
More than ten times.

I sat across the room and watched him.

Watched his little face scrunch up, and then relax when her voice came on.
Watched him lean forward, straining towards the words of comfort.
Watched his mouth mutter "Ne, ne" in response to her message.
Watched him stare intensely at the microphone when the message ended, and then shake his head once or twice before hitting "play" again.

Repeat.
Repeat.

And in my head I thought "This is grief. You are watching your son's heart shatter and mend itself."
It was the most horrifying thing I have ever seen.

It was not outright screaming in anger, it was not sobbing with bereavement, it was not shutting down entirely to avoid feeling anything. These were the expressions of grief I expected, the ones I was watching for.

No, this was a different kind of expression of grief. A trying to make sense of it all kind of grief. A retreating into the comfort of a recognizable voice, willing her to materialize kind of grief. It was my son trying to be strong and good (as his foster mother's message instructed him to behave) while his world rebuilt itself around him.

 When he was through with the microphone, YH lay it on the ground and picked up a new toy. He came over to the kitchen, where I sat numb at the table, and asked for a cracker.

(He hasn't touched the microphone since.)

That night Sean and I were like first time parents all over again. Mrs. S had spelled out YH's night-time routine for us, and we did the best we could with her instructions--but it was obvious we did it WRONG.

She said he drinks a bottle of milk or water at bedtime.

We heated up a packet of formula the agency had given us, got the little tyke in his pj's and headed into the bedroom. We put YH in the middle of the bed--one of us on either side. We handed him the bottle and stared at him expectantly. In my imagining of his nightly routine this was the part where he would drink his bottle as he lay down. He would become drowsy and I would rub his back until he fell asleep, just as Mrs. S said we should do.

He took the bottle and looked at us like we were fools.
NO. NO. NO.

He sat bolt upright and drank the bottle then handed it to us when it was finished. He lay on his stomach in the middle of the bed, firmly closed his eyes and waited for a hand to stroke his back.

He was asleep in a few minutes.

I lay by his side staring at this tiny stranger sleeping next to me. It was weird. The adoption books tell you that you may feel like you are babysitting someone else's child for the first few days. Instead I felt an enormous amount of responsibility for YH; for protecting his already fragile heart, for doing what I could to balance out the losses he had suffered.

I didn't sleep much; nervous about him waking up, nervous about the plane ride the next day, nervous about coming home to our pets.

I watched his back rise and fall. I watched his limbs twitch and heard him moan a few times. I scooted closer and smelled the top of his head. I breathed in his baby breath and cautiously, ever so slowly, stroked his fist with my index finger.

I think I fell in love with him over the course of that sleepless night.

My beautiful boy.

And then, there he was.

After our second meeting at ESWS we had one full day with the big kids before we were scheduled to take custody of YH. We decided we would spend that day doing exactly what the big kids wanted--sort of a last hurrah before it all got real. Really, really real.

Which is how we ended up spending a very long, expensive and surreal day at Lotte World, a GIANT amusement park inside a mall.

The above happened at Lotte World, and it was probably the most normal thing that happened all day. Here's a view of the whole place, for you to scrutinize and say to yourself "Wait...what is that?" The answer is: I have no idea what THAT is. But my kids loved it.

So, we returned home very poor and very tired. Some of us fell asleep on the subway. Not naming names.

And after we tucked the snoozy littles into their beds, Sean and I looked at each other and thought, "WHAT.THE.WHAT." One more sleep until we take custody of YH! One more!

And that one more sleep was hard to come by. Nerves. Worries. Anticipation. All of it.

The next morning my mom watched the kids for a few hours so that Sean and I could make a run to Lotte Mart to buy food items that we thought YH might enjoy.

Rice. Gim (dried seaweed laver). Tiny little yogurt drinks in impossibly wee bottles. Shrimp chips. Small buns in a bag.

(And a packet of Tim-Tams for me. Because, hello! Tim-tams!!!)

And we got frustrated and sweaty and snippy with one another.
"I don't *know* where we should get a coffee from--just pick someplace!!!!"
"Ugh--*this* place? No, no it's fine."

(Both of the above were me. I'm awesome.)

We made it back to the hotel with enough time to unpack our purchases, shower, and put on clean clothes to wear to ESWS. Nana came back to the room to watch the big kids again, and Sean and I set out.

With each footfall my mood changed.

I am so excited!
This is horrible, what are we doing????
I can't wait to hold him!
Ugh, I feel sooooo guilty.
I am so sooooo excited!
That poor little boy's heart is going to break.

And so on.

Until yet again, we were in front of the building where our lives would change. Where the S family's life would change. Where YH's life would change.

We walked in and immediately saw Mrs. S. She was smiling and waving at us all while trying to round up YH, who was running like mad around the offices on the first floor. He came over to us and we hugged him and Mrs. S, and then she introduced us to her daughter--a university student who loves YH very much. I hugged her too and told her how happy we were to meet her.

We gave Mrs. S flowers that we had purchased on the way over. We knew she wasn't taking a new foster baby home with her that day and we wanted her arms to be filled with beauty on the sad return trip to her now empty apartment.

She showed us a little backpack she had filled with YH's favorite toys, his hanbok (lovingly packed away in special wrappings), and a photo album filled with pictures from his life with them. And a wand, loaded with thousands more images and videos.

That's when I first started to cry.

As we talked YH moved easily among us. He smiled at Sean and I and would lean against us. We brought a small Pororo football with us and he delighted in throwing that around the waiting area.

Slowly, the room filled with the three other adoptive families taking custody of their children that day.

Across from me a Korean business man in a three piece suit held a little girl in a super-frilly dress with bows carefully arranged in her shiny black hair. He wept into her shoulder as she looked around the room at all the commotion.

Next to him stood a foster family with a little boy. The foster mother held her charge one last time, while the high-school aged foster sister stood by her side--tears streaming down her face, shoulders hunched.

Our social worker came over to tell us that a staff member would say a prayer over all the children and families, and then we would leave--a van was waiting for us out back.

"Now??? This is happening now?"

Yes, now.

By chance, YH leaned over from Mrs. S' arms in the middle of the prayer. He reached out to me and I took him in my grasp just before the staff member said "Amen".

Mrs. Shin leaned in and said, "Go. Out the back. Go now."

And I turned to Mrs. S and her daughter with a bewildered look on my face. Surely, I should say something. Surely, our parting wouldn't be this abrasive.

Mrs. S was crying. She was worried YH would have a hard time falling asleep that night. She pressed a box of his favorite cookies into our hands.

We tried to express our gratitude to her one more time. We were hurried towards the exit of the building.

YH didn't look back.

And then, there we were in the parking lot. The driver loaded the three of us into his van. YH perched on my lap, oblivious. I nervously fed a steady stream of cookies into his mouth. He moved into Sean's lap and looked out the window at the city.

I held my breath, waiting for the screaming to begin at each new transition. Now, when we get out of the van and go into the hotel. It will happen now.

Ok, now. Now when we get into the elevator.

Now, now when we enter our hotel room.

The screaming didn't come. The screaming was put aside in favor of exploring every nook and cranny of our hotel room. Of playing with every toy, and chasing after Miss A and Sweet Bubs.
The screaming didn't come.

As night fell our son began to realize the permanency of the situation. This was no play date. He dug through the tiny backpack that Mrs. S had sent. He searched until he found a toy microphone, something we had sent in a care package months earlier. It plays music but it also has a feature where you can record your voice and play it back.

YH took his orange plastic microphone into a corner and hit "play". Mrs. S' voice, made tinny by the device, came to life.

"YeHoon-ah?"

As soon as he heard her voice he leaned in closer, a serious and sad look on his face.
He listened so carefully to her words, muttering "Ne" (yes) to himself, and to the disembodied voice of his foster mother.

He listened once all the way through. He didn't take his eyes of the microphone.

He hit play again.

And again.
And again.

Coming together, coming apart

Underneath the tidal waves of excitement that I feel is a strong current of sorrow at the thought of all that YH is about to endure. As I shop for last minute toddler items, Mrs. S is putting his things away. As I look forward to bonding with YH, Mrs. S is slowly detaching from him.

For the second time in his short life my son will lose everything he knows and all the people who love him. First it was the familiar rhythm of his mother's heartbeat, the smell of her skin and hair, the warmth of her touch. Now it will be the loss of a foster mother who dotes on his every move, a foster father who takes him exploring in the park, a foster brother who makes him laugh with games and tickles, and a foster sister who holds his hand in restaurants. He will lose his routine, his language, his favorite foods, the sights and smells of his city.

It is horrifying and heartbreaking to think of my sweet little boy trying to process all that is about to befall him.

When YH joins our family he will be grieving these losses. He may rage. He may withdraw. He may seem to adapt immediately, and then melt down six weeks later. He may not sleep. Ever. He may refuse food. He may reject me/Sean/both of us. He may "shop around" for other caregivers in group settings. He may bite, scream and hit. He may weep inconsolably.

In order to support our son during this difficult transition we will be keeping our world small during our first weeks as a family. We will be cocooning at home. We will be declining invitations to big gatherings, we will eschew unnecessary trips to the market/target/etc.

We will not allow other people to hold YH, or feed him, or get him drinks/toys/snacks. This is not because we don't want our friends and family to LOVE him; it is because we want YH to learn that we are his parents. We will fulfill his needs and we are the ones he should trust to take care of him.

We are so thankful that we have such a fantastic community. Our friends and family are amazingly supportive--and we wouldn't be able to do this without them. We very much want to celebrate YH with all of our loved ones, but that will not happen during the first few weeks/months that he is with us.

 Instead we hope we can rely on our friends and family to offer playdates for Miss A and Sweet Bubs, meals for the whole family, sympathetic ears to listen to our growing pains, and a hug when we need it.

As frustrating as our wait has been, it pales in comparison to what YH and Mrs. S are about to experience.

Update: Our awesomely dumb acquisition

Ruthie in the wildflowers

You may remember that just about a month ago our family made the awesomely dumb decision to acquire Miss Ruthie Millicent, canine wondergirl. You may be asking yourself "Hey--I wonder how that is going?"--unless you are my friend on faceplace, in which case you are asking yourself "Another picture of that dog???? This lady needs to get a life."

The answer to the first question is: it is going (mostly) well.  I think we have finally reached a place where having Miss Ruthie in our lives feels like part of our normal. Certainly during our first few days together I had many a moment of panic: wondering if we had made a terrible mistake, wondering if the cat would ever forgive me, wondering if we could handle the needs of a young energetic dog AND two-soon-to-be-three kids.

Part of my panic came down to Ruthie being under 2 years old. She's a big goofy teenage dog--with lots of love and energy to spare. For the last FOREVER Sean and I have had old crotchety dogs. Even Archie (the three legged beagle) came to us as a late-middle-aged fellow, and now he is firmly entrenched in the pursuits of old-mandom (namely: eating, sleeping, eating, barking, sleeping). Whereas our-pups-now-passed were essentially furry paperweights, Ruthie is a whirligig. She can't be expected to spend all day napping with an occasional pee break.

And so we walk her four to five times a day. Some walks are short and business oriented, others are long and leisurely. As a result the whole family is out enjoying the neighborhood more. Ruthie is by far the least leash reactive dog we've ever owned. Her normal pace is a "loose leash" walk, and when she spots another pup she wags her tail and waits for the chance to pleasantly greet a potential new friend. This applies to dogs of all sizes: she has shown equal enthusiasm and deference to a 170lb mastiff and a 13 pound chihuahua.

In fact, if we spent all our time together walking around the neighborhood life with Ruthie would be idyllic.

But we do spend a good bit of time indoors. And that is where we have some more work to do.

Miss Ruthie's back story is that she was brought in as a stray--and it shows. In her first days with us she had no idea what to do with a dog biscuit, but would eagerly snatch any scrap of paper with food residue on it. It took about two weeks for her to become more food motivated. Now she loves her training treats.

Her response to dog toys was similar--they were completely foreign to her and she had little interest (no matter how exciting I tried to make them seem). But slippers? And chair legs? And raised garden beds? ALL DELICIOUS. NOM NOM NOM. It took a lot of redirection and training diligence to get her to learn to love the kong instead of slobbering all over my boots. She still is freaked out by frisbees and only yesterday did I convince her that sticks can be fun to crunch on.

In all of her attempts to nom on verboten items it has become clear that this dog has no idea of her breed. She comes from a bone-crushing pedigree (as an aside: my mom would be happy to email you articles about Ruthie's potential to rip all of our throats out!) and is all muscle and yet manages to barely nibble the object of her desire. She mouths them and gums them and gives them delicate nibbles (the way a mom dog would nibble her pups)--but does not destroy or damage them. The beagle can eat through a door in a matter of minutes (he actually did this once at our former doggy daycare center), but Ruthie can barely pulverize a milkbone.

We are now at the point where we leave her uncrated in the house for brief periods when we are out. This works well, and the biggest casualty to date has been a tipped over rocking chair that she stood on to to look out a window. Oh, and a soggy doormat that she nommed on. When we are gone and the dogs are uncrated the cat is put in her safe zone in the back of the house. The critters are separated by a door in the interest of everyone's safety.

Ruthie has come a long way in learning to live with our cat. At first she didn't acknowledge the cat. Then she went through a period of barking at the cat. So in an effort to desensitize her to kitty, we started "jackpotting" her. It worked like this: Ruthie was on a lead in the house while kitty roamed free. Whenever the cat got near her I would make her sit and started giving her a steady stream of treats until kitty left the space. We repeated this for a few days and eventually Ruthie learned that sitting quietly when kitty was around earned her rewards. Now everyone can roam free when Sean or I are there to supervise.

We have started attending an obedience class with Ruthie and hope that we can help her reach her doggy potential.

Challenges left to overcome: jumping on people and an aversion to getting in the back of the car.

Overall I'm very happy she's in our lives. We're not so dumb after all.

Those are mighty big shoes to fill.

                                              Sean and Miss A when she was just a wee thing
                                                              Photo by Damon Leo

Today is my last day working outside of the home. Starting next week I will be the fulltime caregiver for our family. This is a huge change for me (I've worked outside of the home fulltime for the last 10 years) and I'm not sure how I'm going to manage the transition. I'd like to think it will be a seamless transfer of responsibilities with me readily replacing staff meetings with trips to the grocery store.
In all likelihood there will be tears and frustration. It is possible I will fall into a Pinterest hole and never emerge.

You see, I have mighty big shoes to fill. Men's size 12 in fact. My husband (tall-dark-handsome-quiet) was our family's fulltime caregiver for the last seven years. Our babies were born in quick succession and we found ourselves with two nubbins under the age of two years old. My job required a lot of travel (go ahead ask me about ANY Best Western Hotel between Vermont and Claremont, CA! I can tell you allll about it) and Sean had reached a point in his teaching career where he was ready to focus on raising his own kids.

And so he did. He put on a sling and toted those babies all around town. He did the housework, paid the bills, fed the kids, fed the dogs, buried the dogs when they passed away, took the kids to doctors appointments and served as facilities coordinator for our sweet little co-op nursery school. He spent many a day as the only dad on the playground/only dad at the playdate. He grew very skilled at cultivating friendships with other parents. He lost whole days to elaborate lego games with Sweet Bubs, or getting Miss A to cheerleading events. And he did it all so well.

If you know my husband you would be hard-pressed to think of a time when he lost his cool. Dude is unflappable, even in the face of life's great annoyances. His bottomless well of patience is part of what makes him such an excellent parent and teacher (and hockey goalie--but that's another post). He is kind. He will do anything at any time to help a friend, no questions asked. He is loyal and funny and imaginative and a good listener and he hugs those babies so hard they never want to leave his arms.

If you know me you probably wouldn't use the words "patient" or "unflappable" to describe my demeanor. You'd probably use terms from the other end of the temperment spectrum. Terms like "Leo", "sailormouth", "stompy"...

The point is: I am going to work really really hard in order to be 1/5th the fulltime caregiver that Sean was. He set the standard high and I want to make him proud.