The Transforming Power of a Family

I wrote this last week, but decided to wait until after Sunday to publish it. Some of the people who read my blog go to our church, and I didn't want the whole thing to be a repeat for them.

As many of you know, November is National Adoption Month here in America, and many churches choose one Sunday in November to be Orphan Sunday or Adoption Sunday. They dedicate some portion of the service to celebrating the miracle of adoption and encouraging members to follow God's command to minister to the orphans in our world. Greg and I have been able to participate in several Adoption Sunday services this year in a very small way. This coming Sunday, November 17th, is the Sunday that our church has chosen, and Greg and I each get to give a brief talk as part of the service. As I have been rolling my talk around in my head, I came to realize that it would make a pretty good blog post, and decided to lay it out here while my thoughts are fresh.

Children who do not have families are delayed physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally. Without the family dynamic, they don't have the ability to experience so many of the things that we take for granted every day. These delays look different in each child. Some children may be nearly on target in some areas and very, very weak in others, while other children may be just slightly weak across the board. Children who come from institutions where they are given more attention and care are generally far less delayed than children who are badly neglected, but all institutionalized children are delayed to some degree. One of the most exciting things about being an adoptive parent is to watch the child transform as they become part of a family. This is a gradual process, and it is difficult for both children and parents. Sometimes, particularly with older children, it can be painfully slow. But it is also a beautiful process, and the transformation from an orphan into a beloved son or daughter is striking.

We were first a part of this miracle in 2010 when we adopted Mikaela from Ukraine. Mikaela has Down Syndrome and was significantly undernourished at the time of her adoption. She was 11 months old, but developmentally was more like a 3 month old baby. She couldn't sit up or crawl and didn't have any idea how to play. She spent most of her time lying on her back in her crib dangling something over her face for stimulation. When she couldn't find anything to dangle, she just waved her fingers or scratched herself.

Those were the only ways she knew to entertain herself. Because of her very young age, Mikaela's transformation was quick and smooth. She bonded with Greg and me quickly, much like a newborn baby does. She learned to nurse and that helped her to gain weight and grow stronger. After a few months, she learned to sit up, and then a little later, she learned to crawl. She began to laugh and play and talk. And finally with much work Mikaela learned to walk right around her third birthday. Now, after three years as part of a family, she is on target or advanced in every single area for a child of her age with Down Syndrome. We are so proud of her, and we love her so much.

Last year, God made it clear to us that He was calling us to adopt again, and this time He led us to Isabelle and Hallie. When we met them in China in August, Hallie was far more delayed physically and developmentally, but Isabelle was struggling more with emotional delays. She genuinely didn't seem to have any idea how to express affection for others. She played well with children and adults, but had no idea how to hug or kiss at all. She didn't even seem to know how to be held. When we held her in our laps, she sat with her body stiff and held away from us. Their transformation is just beginning, and we look forward to watching these girls blossom in their family. In my last update, I shared more details about the progress that they are making. We are encouraged, but they both still have a very long way to go.

One of the most beautiful and unexpected blessings with this adoption story has been watching Mikaela with her two new sisters. All four kids have done great and welcomed them, but there is something especially touching about watching Mikaela with them. I know that she can't have any conscious memories of her own adoption because she was so young, but she seems to have some clear idea that there is something that she has in common with Isabelle and Hallie that the rest of the family doesn't share. She is like a little ambassador. She is eager to share her toys and is almost obsessed with making sure they are never left out of any activity. She tries to explain things to them, she "reads" books to them, and loves to teach them new things. She taught Hallie how to blow her candles on her birthday last week.

My favorite Mikaela story happened just about a month after we returned home from China. I had taken the three little girls out somewhere by myself and had just returned home. I unbuckled Mikaela and helped her jump down out of the van onto the sidewalk that leads up to our house. She took off at a happy trot, eager to go inside and see the other half of the family. Next I unbuckled Isabelle and set her down on the sidewalk. She started up the path with her slow awkward steps, holding her hands out in front of herself in case she fell. I then turned around to get Hallie. By the time I got her unbuckled and out of the van, Mikaela had noticed how much Isabelle was struggling and had turned back to help her. I looked just in time to see her take Isabelle's hand and say, " 'mon Bibel. 'mon." Slowly and patiently, Mikeala helped Isabelle all the way up the sidewalk to our back door. I stood there holding Hallie and watching the other girls with tears in my eyes. Mikaela was once so weak and helpless and broken that she couldn't do anything for herself. Nothing. And now, by the grace of God through the love of her family, she is so strong, and healthy and full of love that is is able to reach out to her two new sisters and bring them into the family as well. If that isn't a picture of the miracle of adoption, I don't know what is.

An Update on the Girls (But no pictures this time :-( ).

Isabelle and Hallie continue to blossom in our home, and it is now hard to remember what life was like without them. Hallie, especially, seems happier than she has ever been before. She is showing affection toward her brothers and sisters more and more readily, and seems to love each of the members of her family now. She is making both vowel and consonant speech sounds now, and even tries to say a few words. She will even initiate games of peek-a-boo or pat-a-cake with me or the other children. It has been wonderful to watch her grow and learn. Her feeding training is going slowly, but we are continuing to see progress with that as well. She will sit and watch me eat, and pretend to crunch and chew when I do, but she isn't interested in having any of my food in her mouth. She is willing (and sometimes even eager) to suck on pizza crust, crackers, or cucumbers now, but she doesn't try to bite it. We are so pleased with all the progress she is making, and we are having so much fun working with her and watching her.

Isabelle continues to do very well too, and she is a sweet and obedient child, but we both feel like she is a little bit uncertain about how she fits into our family. She doesn't seem as confident as Hallie in her interaction with us. She seems to hesitate a lot more before initiating play or affection with us, and she constantly looks back at us to see if we are approving of her. Many times each day, she asks us hopefully, "Good girl? Good girl?" No matter how many times we tell her that she is a good girl and that we love her very much, she seems to worry that she is not pleasing us. We feel bad for her, but we know that the only way to help her through this is to continue affirming our love for her, and that eventually she will be confident and secure with us all. It has been a little bit challenging to figure out how to treat her sometimes, because in some ways, she is so grown up, and in others, she is still quite a baby. We are struggling to find ways to let her be a big girl helper, because she seems to derive a lot of pride from helping, while still nurturing her as a baby. We have started giving her a little bottle of milk each night before bed, and she loves that. She curls up in my lap, and it is some of the best time we have together each day. It is the only time that she relaxes fully in my arms and snuggles with trying too hard. It feels so good to hold her when she isn't worried about trying to cuddle the "right" way.

All in all, they are both doing great, and we are so thankful for both of them.

Four Weeks at Home

How is it possible that we've already been home for four weeks? It seems, in some ways, like we just stepped off the plane a few days ago—the memories of the trip home are still so fresh in our minds—and yet our time in China seems like it belongs in another time-stream altogether. We were there for three weeks and were able to set up something of a normal life in each city we were in, but now that feels like a lifetime ago, even though it hasn't even been two months since we left! I think that part of the reason for this sense of disorientation is due to the fact that God had us jump back into our regular life with both feet almost as soon as our feet landed back in Cincinnati. The first week home was pretty restful, but the past three have gone at a nearly break-neck pace. That has made us feel like we never left, and in some ways, that has been good for us and for our kids. We've seen with them (and, indeed, with us) that the more routines we can maintain in daily life, the better everyone does. Day-to-day life isn't always predictable or consistent, but there are a few weekly rituals that we do that help to keep us somewhat grounded (e.g., church on Sunday mornings, pizza and TV all together for dinner on Friday). Most of those weekly mainstays are back to where they were before we left, and that feels inexpressibly good.

I want to say, too, that we wouldn't have survived this past month without our church. A few days before we returned home, a close friend of ours came over to the house with a couple of Kristie's sisters to clean our house and get things ready for us. But she didn't stop there. She cut our grass and then decorated our front and back porches with paper streamers and balloons, which brought both of us to tears when we saw them. Then, our church—small but growing church plant though it is—has blessed us with three meals a week for the past four weeks, and with all of the things that we have had going on, there is no way that we can properly thank everyone for this. We still have some meals in our refrigerator and freezer, which will carry us through this coming week. This has been unbelievable, and we are deeply grateful for their care, support, and friendship all throughout our adoption journey.

As for the girls, what can I say? Every time we think that we have them nailed down in some area, they surprise us. We might have mentioned this before but based on our time with them in China, we would have sworn that Isabelle would be a whirlwind that we'd struggle to keep up with, and that Hallie would be pretty calm and docile, if for no other reason than her immobility. Oh, how wrong we were! Isabelle's mobility has continued to progress nicely. She's walking more of the time, but she is very, very calm, sweet, and laid back. Kristie mentioned in her last blog post that Isabelle wants to be a big girl, and we've seen more of that from her, as evidenced by her ever-growing interest in having her hair fixed like Mommy, Mikaela, and Gabriela, and she has even asked Kristie for make-up on at least one occasion. Surprisingly, she has turned out to be a girly-girl. And she continues to surprise us in other areas, too. During our time in China, we began to suspect that she might not actually have Down Syndrome, but maybe some other syndrome. She didn't have the classic signs of Down Syndrome—her muscle tone is quite good for a girl who spent four years in an orphanage, her tongue control is nearly perfect, her enunciation is very good, and she is an incredibly quick learner—but there were some apparent physical abnormalities that we thought might possibly indicate another syndrome altogether. It got to the point where we were almost convinced that she didn't have Down Syndrome, but her chromosomal test conducted by the children's hospital here indicates that she most definitely has Down Syndrome. This surprised both of us, but apparently Isabelle is just a high-functioning kid with DS, and it'll be interesting to see what she will be able to do in her life. Based on discussions with therapists, Mikaela seems to be very high-functioning, but it's possible that Isabelle's ceiling is even higher than her sister's. We can't wait to see how they're going to challenge, encourage, and push each other over the years. Isabelle has already grown very comfortable in our family. In fact, she and Hallie both slid in almost without notice. If God hadn't made their transition as smooth as He did, I don't know how we would have gotten through the past four weeks. Both girls have bonded well with us and their attachments continue to deepen, and their sense of belonging here in our family with their brothers and sisters is quite strong. We thank and praise Him for that incredible blessing.

Hallie has also surprised us, as she bears almost no resemblance to the lethargic, frail baby that we met just seven weeks ago today. In that time, she has gone from sleeping 18-20 hours a day, being emotionally withdrawn, apparently having no idea how to play with any toys, being completely immobile, and being able to take only one 8-oz. bottle (packed as full of grains and nutrients as we could get it) in the course of a day, to an effervescent girl who sleeps like a normal three-year-old, laughs and giggles and coos readily, plays with a number of toys and initiates play with others, scoots and crawls all over the house with lightning speed, and takes four nutrient-packed bottles each day. She loves to disassemble things and to empty bins of toys from various parts of the house, preferably right after the rooms have been picked up. She is such a funny, charming girl, and it's a joy to see her true personality shining through. Her determination will serve her well as she'll have to work hard to close some of the developmental gaps that she has, but it also means that she can be a bit of a stubborn stinker. We've seen that from her at times, and we know that as hard as that can be, it shows that there's a good trait at root; it's just a matter of praying for her and trying our best to help her direct that trait—determination—to a good use. We're just happy to see how much progress she has made in such a short time.

I'll close this now, as it's midnight and I'd like to get some sleep before the morning. Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks, and I hope to post more in the coming weeks.

Hallie having fun at home

Isabelle coloring at our celebration dinner

Watching Beauty and the Beast

Gabriela's 4th birthday party

First week home

Well I can't believe it, but we have been home a full week tonight. Things really are going very well over all, and the girls have slipped into life here. Isabelle loves the attention, and even Hallie seems to enjoy having so many other children around. She is developing a very special relationship with Josiah, and he can usually make her smile faster than anyone else. We were told that Hallie could crawl, but we didn't see it the whole time we were in China. We were beginning to wonder if they had been mistaken, but since we got home, she has been crawling all over the place. She is more and more curious about the world around her, and suddenly loves to make messes. Yesterday, she crawled out to the laundry room, pulled all the shoes off the shoe rack, and scattered them all over the place. She seemed very proud of herself when she had finished. Fortunately, Mikaela and Matthias cleaned them all up again (more or less). She still won't eat any solid food at all, but she is taking more by bottle. When we first met her, we could usually only get her to take one bottle to a bottle and a half each day, because the concoction we put in her bottle was so much more filling than what she was used to. She now often takes four bottles a day. She feels heavier and more solid than she did, and we noticed that her 18mo. pants actually stay up on her now. We were very concerned that she had a thyroid condition like Mikaela because she was so lethargic her first few days, but the doctor ran a blood test on her on Thursday, and her thyroid is normal. I think we were just seeing the effects of her undernourishment. She has a lot more energy now, and is developing a playful side. It has been so much fun to watch her blossom.

The changes with Isabelle have been far less dramatic, but she is doing great too. She is more independent than she was before, and really wants to be a big girl. This morning, she fed herself her whole pancake with her fork. I don't think she has ever done that before. One of her biggest problems is that she is so tiny she has a hard time reaching things. Even though she turned four in June, she is much smaller than Matthias, who is two and a half. She has learned to climb the stairs by herself, but she is afraid to come back down, because her little legs have a hard time reaching, and she feels unstable. She still cries when she takes her bath, but most of the time, she is a very happy girl.

We got the results of their parasite checks back this week, and neither girl has any parasites. That was a huge answer to prayer. Now they can bathe with the other girls, and we don't have to wear gloves when we change their diapers. It also means that they can start wearing cloth diapers.

On Thursday evening, we went out for our celebration dinner. Everyone had a great time, and Isabelle decided that she loves Italian food. All of the kids behaved really well. Getting them all six in and out of buildings is a challenge, but we have developed a system that seems to work. I carry Hallie and hold Mikaela's hand, while Gabriela holds Mikaela's other hand and carries Hallie's diaper bag. Greg does exactly the same thing with Isabelle, Matthias, and Josiah. We are slow, but we do get where we need to be. I'm sure we must be an amusing sight, though. :-)

I'm attaching a few pictures from our celebration dinner. From the pictures, you might think that Greg was feeding Isabelle, Hallie, and Matthias, but I promise I had Hallie until the very end of the meal. I just handed her to Greg right before taking the picture.

U.S. Consulate: Finished!

This morning we had our appointment at the U.S. Consulate here in Guangzhou, and everything went very smoothly. Now, all we're waiting for is for our guide to pick up the papers and our girls' visas, which he'll be able to do tomorrow afternoon. That means that tomorrow will be another free day for us, giving us a chance to finish up our shopping and rest up before Friday night's flight back to the States.

We also had a FaceTime chat with our kids this evening, and they continue to do really well. We are all eager to be together in the same place, and even more so after watching Isabelle & Hallie with them tonight. Isabelle tried to dominate the conversation, not surprisingly, and we have very reason to think that she's going to slide right on with them. Hallie's adjustment will probably take a little more time, but it will happen.

Since the girls had gotten dressed up a little bit for this morning's appointment, we took them outside for a quick photo shoot, and we got some of the best pictures of them together yet.

A Day of Shopping & Good Food

Today was another quiet, relaxed, slow day for us, and it was really enjoyable. We slept in just a little bit this morning, and in fact, we were afraid that we would end up getting downstairs too late to get the complimentary breakfast. Thankfully, we got there about half an hour before they started closing everything up, so we had a nice, calm breakfast to start the day. Then we ventured out to explore some of the shops on the island here. The first place that we stopped by sold a bunch of traditional Chinese outfits in kids' sizes. This is one of the things that we'd been hoping to get for our kids, and we found an outfit for each kid without having to dig for long, although I did have to run back to the room quickly because I'd forgotten to get money out of the safe before we left. But, we now have an outfit for each kid, as well as a few of the gifts that we want to get here. Oh, and this place is apparently a very popular spot for people to have engagement and wedding photos taken. I lost count of how many photo-ops we nearly disrupted on our walk today. At one point, I think we saw four couples having their pictures done, each with a dedicated crew. Crazy!

We stayed out for a little over an hour, walking around most of the island, and then we came back to the room for a quick lunch before putting the girls down for naps. I know that I say this pretty much every day, but it's unreal just how much they're growing. Isabelle's bond with Kristie has really progressed ever since our flight over here from Guiyang (that's one of the blessings from having endured such a long, crazy night just to get here), and Hallie continues to open up. Her eyes twinkle more with each passing day, and her smiles and laughs came more freely today than they ever have before. She's still freer with them for Kristie than for me, but we're getting there. We're still working on teaching Isabelle patience when it comes to food, but we are making progress. I really think that the poor girl must to some extent have been competing for food at the orphanage, and that's why she's so eager to take every bite of food in site. She really has no idea how to decide for herself when she's full, so that's something that we have to teach her over time. It took Mikaela a little while to learn how to recognize when she got full and then stop eating, but she did eventually attain that skill, and I'm sure that Isabelle will, too. Hallie didn't eat as much today as she has recently—only about 2.5 bottles total all day—so we're really glad that we've been able to put some extra nutrients and calories into her bottles for her. It's taken some creativity, but we've settled on a pretty good recipe: one scoop of the powdered milk given to us by her orphanage nanny, two scoops of formula, two or three spoonfuls of baby cereal, and half of a fruit snack pouch, all mixed with either water or a drink that we discovered here that's similar to the Propel flavored water back in the States. So, not at all a typical baby bottle, and pretty clearly more than she's used to getting. And even though she didn't take as much today as we would have liked to have seen, she still had a little bit of a puppy tummy when we tucked her into bed tonight. That's encouraging, but we definitely want her to continue eating well, and eventually eat with a spoon.

Only a few minutes after we put the girls down for their naps, Michael stopped by to let us know that he'd gotten the results back from the girls' medical exams. Thankfully, everything is good and we're clear to proceed with our Embassy appointment on Wednesday morning and then, hopefully, our plane ride on Friday evening. He also checked on us to see how we're doing and asked if we wanted to do anything tomorrow. I think he feels like he needs to make sure that we're not feeling lost or anything, and it relieved him to hear that we've been having a lot of fun exploring the island and getting to know the place a little bit. We'd like to spend some time with him, but he has an awful lot going on, and it's better for our girls to stay with just us when we leave the room. That's especially the case for Hallie, though Isabelle seems to be doing some emotional processing this week. We think that in the last 48 hours she might have come to the realization that she's not going to see anyone from her orphanage again. That would explain her increased fussiness and near panic at times when she thinks that we might be about to leave her behind somewhere. I think that she'll come through this just fine, though, and it's a good thing for her to deal with this now to the extent that she can.

After their naps, we walked over to Lucy's, a little bar and grill that serves a wide variety of foods. We had passed it while on our walk this morning, but I'd misremembered where it was, so instead of it taking us less than ten minutes to get there, I led us in a roundabout route that took about twenty minutes. It was worth it, though. We all enjoyed our dinners, including Isabelle, who devoured a grilled cheese sandwich, a healthy portion of French fries, and even a little bit of Kristie's dinner. At the table next to us was a couple who had just adopted a two-year-old boy from one of the central Chinese provinces. They're originally from England, though they've been living in Colorado for the past three years. They brought their five-year-old daughter, Charlotte, with them, and we had a great time talking with them after finishing our meal. It's a weird—but in a good way—to see so many other Caucasians on this leg of the trip, especially after having stood out so starkly in Guiyang.

Hallie playing with her drum at Lucy's.

Isabelle enjoying her grilled cheese sandwich.

Tomorrow should be another quiet day of shopping and walking for us, and then we'll have to get everyone to bed early because we have to be ready to leave our hotel at 7:30 Wednesday morning in order to get to our Embassy appointment on time. That will be a challenge, but after that we should be able to rest up until time to pack and head for home on Friday. This week of relaxation has been good for us, and we're grateful that God has given us this time as a family. And, we're obviously really looking forward to spending next week at home with all six of our kids. We can't wait!

~ Greg

First Full Day in Guangzhou

It's been a few days since we've been able to post any updates, so we're playing catch-up here tonight. Bear with us, as these three posts will be lengthy when put together, but I hope that this will bring everyone up to speed and show why we haven't been able to post anything since Wednesday. We've been trying to keep up with our personal journal entries, so that has made it a bit easier for the blog entries. As always, thanks for the prayers!

I don't count yesterday (Saturday) as a full day here because we didn't arrive until 2:00 in the morning. Today, we took a very slow, easy morning. We didn't even get down to the breakfast buffet until a little after 9:30. Then we spent some time unpacking our suitcases and setting the room up for the week ahead. Everything feels much better now that our belongings have been organized and are readily accessible. That makes a much bigger difference than it seems like it should.

Once we were done arranging the room, we walked across the bridge and found the supermarket, which is located in a shopping mall, just like in Jinan. I still have never seen this anywhere else or even heard of it before, but there is something nice about it. We found most of what we wanted there, including fruit snack pouches, which was really important for us. Hallie takes them in her bottle and Isabelle loves them, but we had only a few left of the pouches that we had brought with us. We then went to Pizza Hut for lunch, and I think that Isabelle could get used to that place. She loves pizza, and I think that she'd eat as much as I do if we'd let her. (We think that this might be an indication that she has a parasite, but we obviously can't tell. It could also just be a survival tactic that she learned in the orphanage. Given that the nannies have to feed a lot of kids at once, the only ones who get enough to eat are those who eat quickly. Isabelle is only now starting to trust us to feed her, but we have a long way to go with her still. She gets very impatient if she gets hungry or starts to eat and then has to wait for more food. It's like she thinks that if she doesn't get something right away, she's not going to be allowed to eat. Either way, we feel bad for her and are working on teaching her to be patient and trust us.)

We had another good dinner of instant noodles tonight, and both girls are doing so, so well. Hallie took three full bottles today for the third day in a row, and her smiles came more frequently today than they've ever come before. Isabelle continues to amuse us, and she is really starting to bond well with Kristie. We're enjoying our stay here, and I have to say that it is nice to have a Starbucks that's only a three-minute walk from the front of the hotel. You can't beat that! But, we are missing our kids terribly, and we know that they're missing us and having a harder and harder time back home. They're still doing well, but the strain is getting to everyone. What I want most right now is to get on that plane and get back home to them so that we can all be under the same roof again. We haven't all been under the same roof since we started Isabelle's adoption a year and a half ago, and it will be a relief once we are all together for the first time. We're going to do another video chat with them on Wednesday, and then we'll be home on Saturday. The end of this week can't come soon enough.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures since getting to Guangzhou. We'll take more over the next few days, we promise!)

~ Greg