Growing Pains

April 1st -  Mei's Gotcha Day or our Forever Family Day - the day we became a family of four (we went straight from the train to meet her and were unable to change into nicer clothes for the grand affair...after all, we were arriving 3 days late) 

We have officially been Mei's parents for three months as of Tuesday and we are exhausted...which is why we have not been good at updating.  To the many people who have messaged, sent texts, called or inquired in some manner about how life is, we apologize for not being better at responding to every message in a timely manner...or at all.  How can we adequately answer a simple text of "How is everything?" in text form...and without making you regret your questioning?  Truthfully, we usually can't answer those questions with the perfect words.  I know you ask because you care...but true, honest answers don't always come out in a manner that parents of only biological children can understand.  So...since I have the space and can expound a little more here, I will do the best to paint you the picture of our current world.  And a warning: this may be more honest, real, visceral than some can handle.  If you don't like real, go read something from The Onion.  And please note we are not looking for pity from anyone nor do we want parental advice from anyone who has not walked this road.  If you are not a foster/adoption parent/social worker/counselor, then hold your advice to yourself because this type of parenting gig is totally different from parenting a biological child or a child adopted from infancy.

Minutes after meeting her...can you see the fear in her eyes?

So where do we begin?  How about with this: adopting this little nugget is literally the hardest thing either of us has ever done and this transition does not come easily.  All she has ever known is institutional living and she has never known the love of a family.  Children that spend time in foster care or orphanages are termed as "children from hard places" because their life has literally been hard due to trauma, loss, and institutionalization; and bringing them into one's home is not simple or easy.  The longer they spend in institutional care, the harder the transition can be.  And yes, we signed up for this and knew it would not be easy, however no one knows how difficult it will be as well as how the child will truly behave until the child is home.  One also does not know how they will react emotionally until they are in the midst of the storm.  Our emotions have peaked at the top of Mt Everest with some amazing emotional triumphs only to be followed with a plummeting journey into Death Valley…sometimes in the matter of an hour.  To say one cannot truly prepare for this emotional journey would be an understatement.  How does one truly prepare to love someone else’s child as their own child?  Sure, we loved her long before we ever met her, but this relationship is not natural and this love doesn’t always come as readily as loving a biological child.  This love takes work and it takes time and it takes being purposeful about building those strong forever bonds.  And sometimes when you pour out all that love, she in return rejects it out of fear and it hurts.  This relationship can be painful and there are days you just don’t know what to do…so in the words of many adoption experts, “you fake it till you make it.”  Some days, we are doing great and pushing forward and other days, I/we just want to crawl in a hole till the poop storm is over.  I obviously can’t do that so I grin and bear, sometimes I cry, sometimes I pound my fists into my pillow, sometimes I wallow in my self-pity, and sometimes I talk with others who I know will understand or who I feel will not judge.  There are many dark days and many dark thoughts that come with this adjustment (and we have done enough reading to know these thoughts, sadly, are normal to such a difficult adjustment) but there are few people you can share these thoughts and emotions with because most people will not understand.  And because of abandonment/attachment issues that plague every child adopted from a “hard place,” we have to be very careful about her exposure to others.  It is recommended that the adoptee has extremely limited contact with others for the first 3-6 months which means no visitors and no babysitters if avoidable.  It means other people cannot hold her or feed her or change her dirty diapers.  It means it is all on us until those secure bonds are fully formed because this time is confusing (she had a minimum of 15 nannies in her room every day and I’m sure there was plenty of turnover in her 28 months in an orphanage) and any setbacks we have now can affect her for the rest of her life.  And after those bonds are formed, we still have to be very careful and slowly expose her to others or we will be dealing with lifelong abandonment/attachment issues.  

      

So here is some of what we have walked through or are walking through: 

While in China, things were fairly easy.  Other than her having some traumatic experiences with the required medical, we did not have a ton of negative emotion from Mei.  This is probably for several reasons: 1) She was in shock 2) She was sick 3) she spent over two years in an institution and was accustomed to her emotional needs (good and bad) being neglected and 4) she was exhausted from the sickness, trauma, sensory overload, and shock.  Her state of shock in China is not uncommon and children all react with a flight, fright, or shock response to such a dramatic change.  Her coping mechanism was to shut down and to just go through the motions.  She wouldn't attempt to feed herself, she wouldn't talk, she wouldn't play, she wouldn't scoot, crawl or walk, and she would hold in her urine for as long as humanly possible.  She just did not want to thrive.  But she also comes from an environment where the "failure to thrive" is a common write-up on developmental updates.  She's spent over two years in an environment where failure to thrive is normal because there is little to no love and nurturing.  So here we were in China with this little girl who wasn't unhappy, but just wasn't truly happy.  We had an almost two-and-a-half year old that was just existing.  In a lot of ways, this state of shock made it easy for us because she wasn’t fighting us; she just allowed us to meet her needs.  But what else made it easy was we had normal-to-her food at our fingertips and could feed her congee or a plethora of noodle dishes or dim sum.  In our course of time with her in China, she began to let her fear go and show us her true self.  We would be busy in the hotel room and have our backs to her and one would catch her scooting towards the toys or playing with something on the floor.  She began to show us that there truly was life in her body and we began to see true joy in her eyes and through her smile.  But this took time, and nurturing, and consistency. 

  

April 11th - Finally back in the states and headed to her new home

Fast forward less than two weeks and we are firmly placing our feet back on U.S. soil.  We were BEYOND ready to be out of a hotel room and in our own house, but the real transition had yet to start.  Here we were all bleary eyed and dog-tired from travel and our little jewel is now in a whole new world (or at least half-way around the world from the home she knew).  The real and true transition had finally begun.  Screams of sheer terror emerged from her as soon as we walked through the door of our home.  Why, because she saw our cat.  A cat!!!  This sweet child had never played outside, much less seen a cat.  This new world was terrifying for her and it still is.  We had four pets (now only three as of several weeks ago) and she still screams at all of them...yet none of them touch her.  We are still trying to figure out what food she will and won't eat.  Her nanny from the orphanage told us she was not a picky eater, and she ate just about any and everything we gave her while in China (yes, even American food).  In fact, she seemed to love this new adventure of trying so many new foods and flavors as her diet at the orphanage was pretty boring.  Now, some days are complete mysteries as to what she will eat.  She loves eggs, mashed potatoes, and bananas.  We know that for sure!  She loathes oatmeal and anything seasoned with taco seasoning, but it seems like everything else is gray matter.  One day, she will love bread and the next day, she wants nothing to do with it.  One day, she will eat all the carrots on her plate; several days later, she will spit them out and try to hide them.  What gives?  Our window to her world is still so small and having only three months with her tells us so little about who she really is.

And did anyone catch that she is two?  People ask us all the time about our baby, but she is NOT a baby.  Yes, she was very small for her age (size of a 12 month old) when we picked her up, but that does not make her a baby.  She turned two-and-a-half at the end of May and she is definitely sowing those terrible two oats.  This child is full of attitude and spunk and temper-tantrums and the word NO.  (In fact, she is currently yelling “no” at Jess as he tells her to eat her food.)  Yes, we took on a child from a “hard place” at the most difficult age there is.  What were we smoking when we received her referral?  ;-)

In our time home, we have seen some of her personality emerge.  Jess and I joked that she was going to think her name was stinker because she can be ornery and her mischievous actions cause us to call her a stinker.  And we have noticed that sometimes she thrives on the negative attention she receives from her bad behavior.  Sometimes she will seek it out!  She would go around the house slamming toys on the table and floors.  She would attempt (and sometimes follow through) to hit us (usually Jess).  Now, she just hits...no attempts.  She usually only hits Jess and Courtlyn, but sometimes she will hit me.  She would only scoot, crawl, or walk assisted when we were around, however one night while she and Courty were in Mei's room playing, we saw (on the monitor) her walking around her room UNASSISTED like it was no big deal.  Any time we tried to get her to walk unassisted; she would "fall down" or cling to us for support.  Even her main nanny at the orphanage said she couldn't walk unassisted.  What kid competing for the attention of an adult with 35 other kids would want to walk when they are able to get picked up and taken where they need to go because they "can't" walk?  After seeing her walking around her room, I decided she was going to finally walk as she has to begin catching up and hitting some of these major milestones.  She was NOT happy with me that day, but I didn't really care.  She would get down on the floor to try to scoot and I would pick her up and guide her from behind, but not assist.  She fought it so hard at times that day, but I was persistent.  Why?  Because if she didn't begin to truly do it on her own soon, she will have to begin physical therapy and they will not be easy on her.  I figured it was better for me to be tough on her and have the pushing come from someone who loves her than from a total stranger.  So, for an entire day, I pushed her to do more and she pushed to do less.  That day, I won the battles and the war!  The following day, she woke up in a different spirit and only wanted to walk and did not look for me to guide her at all.  Major victory!  She is now truckin' all over the house, getting more confident on her legs daily.  We still have our days where she falls a lot, but she is getting better.  After all, she’s only been walking for two months. 

The chaos of my world

As far as sleep goes, while in China, all we had to do was set her in our lap and she would doze off to sleep.  We would move her to her crib and all was well.  She only cried out in the night after her terrible day at the medical clinic.  That night was a long night, but she was usually a good sleeper.  Then we got here and night terrors and hyperventilating really started.  Couple the night terrors and hyperventilating with extreme exhaustion and jet lag and no one is happy.  Night after night, she would cry out for no apparent reason....multiple times over.  Sometimes, she was easy to calm down and get back to sleep and other times, she would just be inconsolable.  As far as where we are with sleep now, we are all over the roadmap.  We have our good days (nights) and our bad.  Life with her is truly like a box of chocolates...you NEVER know what you are gonna get.  One night, we can rock her to sleep and she is down and out in about five to ten minutes and the next night, you can do the same exact thing as the night before and it takes two hours to get her to sleep.  Some nights, she wakes every hour and cries inconsolable cries and the next night, she sleeps the whole way through the night.  Here lately, she has been waking each morning in tears, but we never know when she is going to wake so one can't be at the ready to ward off those unnecessary tears.  Nap time has been horrific the last several weeks.  We can spend hours upon hours trying to get her to nap, but fear and defiance keeps her awake and fighting.  I can find a method that works for several days, then one day, she is on to us and she wants nothing to do with that method.  There are days she wants me to hold her for the duration of her nap, but it always seems those episodes fall on days when I have to get stuff done by a specific time and can’t sit in a chair for two hours…holding and rocking…so she cries for hours until she wears herself down.  And any change in her normal routine will cause regression and disruption in sleep.  But we truly have much to be thankful for in the sleep department.  She has her rough nights and days, but at this point, we can usually get her to sleep through the night and I think I have found a successful way to get her to nap.  Many adoptive families do not have the sleeping as “easy” as we have it so I will always find the silver lining and be thankful to the Big Man upstairs for our little victories.

Day 2 with our nugget

FEAR!!!  Oh my goodness, we never know what will be the next fear added to the ever-expanding list. Here is our current fear list and if it has been overcome or is still ongoing:

Cats - ongoing but getting better (and we have two)

Dogs - ongoing (and we have two...strike that, one)

Grass - overcome (hopefully for good)

Trees – ongoing but getting better

Bugs - ongoing but we never know which are going to bother her and which won't

Ceiling fans – ongoing but getting better (and we have five and have to use them...see medical)

The floor? – overcome (we hope)

Her shadow - ongoing

Ceilings everywhere - ongoing

Kid chairs - overcome...we think

Loss of control - ongoing...probably for the rest of her life

Falling asleep - ongoing until we are well attached and there are no serious changes

Dolls – all depends on the day

Sprinklers - ongoing

Splash pads - ongoing

Bodies of water – possibly overcome

Sand – possibly overcome

Gravel - ongoing

Lab coats & just about anything medical – definitely ongoing

Fear of abandonment – ongoing and probably for a long, long time if not indefinitely

Vacuum cleaner – ongoing

Hunger – ongoing and probably for a very long time

Potty training seats - *sigh* ongoing

Mei unwilling to touch the sand or water, luckily I got a picture before the screams and tears

Some of her fears are very common with children who come from hard places (loss of control, fear of sleeping, fear of being abandoned...), but many of her fears are very hard for us to understand and comprehend.  We can understand that a child who has never been outside and seen grass would be apprehensive to put their feet in it.  We can understand how seeing your first animal at almost two and a half years of age could be scary.  What we can't understand is after being home for over a month and a half, why is she suddenly afraid of the floor she walks on daily?  Why is she suddenly afraid of the ceiling fans which have been a fixture of this home since before she moved in?  Why is she suddenly afraid of her own shadow?  Where did these fears manifest from and what does it take to help her overcome them...because there are days I am exhausted just from dealing with fear.

Medical -  Meiying received her first general medical evaluation a week and a half after arriving stateside.  Her pediatrician is also an adoptive mom to a boy from Russia so she understands a lot of the things we are going through as well as knows what to look for medically like giardia.  Dr. B spent a lot of time with us and gave her a thorough exam making sure to document every scar (she has way more than she should have for a two year old), birthmark, and medical concern.  I voiced my concern about Meiying's struggle to control her body temperature as she is always hot (that’s why we have to use our ceiling fans).  Because of that, Dr. B added thyroid to the list of blood work to be done.  She also had blood work drawn to test the titers in her body to see if her Chinese immunizations were good enough, as they often will “water them down” there.  If they are not strong enough, then she will have to start her immunizations over.  Because of Mei's cleft lip and hand surgeries, she had to spend 17 successive days in the hospital without a loving parent or guardian to hold her hand and calm her fears.  Because of this, time at the doctor's office is super traumatic for her...even just taking her temperature will leave her screaming.   So before all of that blood work was ordered, she was already leery of her time there.  Once they got down to business with the blood draw, she was so tense and so worked up that they couldn't get blood to flow.  After the first failed attempt, the two nurses called in a different nurse who used a special light to hunt down a vein in Mei's hand.  Again, she was so tense that no blood would flow.  And yes, both times they hit the vein.  You could see the blood crawling its way out, but it wasn't flowing.  With the second stick, the blood began pooling inside Mei's hand so the nurse pulled the needle and literally scooped the blood as it dripped from her hand.  She did not get enough blood to run all the tests ordered, but ended up with enough to do most.  And to follow that up, Mei received four shots (ones not administered in China) right after.  She was beat up!  

Her poor hand days later

Another traumatic medical experience added to the list!  The results from her thyroid came back measuring a 9.5.  Normal is 4.6 or below and medical attention is given at a 10.  She's only 0.5 away.  The doctor said she wanted to retest at the next appointment hoping it would begin to normalize itself now that she is in a stable home environment.   We returned to the pediatricians on the 17th of June and Mei pretty much cried the whole way through the appointment due to the past experience.  But because of the last experience, Dr. B informed the nurses of her traumatic blood draws and they called for the expert blood drawing miracle worker, AMANDA (ß I cannot forget this name!).  She definitely knows her stuff and she got all the blood work and three shots administered in a matter of less than five minutes as opposed to the feeble attempt at the previous appointment that took at least twenty terrifying and traumatic minutes.  She took her time to find the best vein, then wrapped Mei in a sheet like a burrito, (this limits Mei’s movements, helps to calm her, and keeps them from needing five people to hold her down); then had an incredibly amazing stick and she was able to get enough blood to cover a battery of tests.  We are still waiting for the results of some of the tests, but we did learn that she will not have to repeat Hep B shots and her thyroid numbers are beginning to come down.  Wahoo!!!  Two days later, we returned to Arkansas Children’s Hospital to see an audiologist and an eye doctor.  Thankfully, her hearing is fine, (children with cleft issues often have ear/hearing issues) but she will potentially need glasses in the next few years.  As far as her cleft palate and hand, we have been referred to the specialists and are just waiting for an appointment.  Currently, her pediatrician is super happy with her progress (walking, talking, signing, growing) so we will not have to start any therapy yet.  And if any of you care, Mei has put on several pounds since we picked her up, but she has also grown at least two inches.  She is finally showing up on the growth chart for a child her age so Dr. B was super, super happy and actually got chill bumps when she saw that.

At Arkansas Children's Hospital waiting to see the doctor

Now we just need to work on her learning more words, enunciating those words, (many of which are nearly impossible because of her cleft palate) working on her communicating with us better (she likes to slam her hand and point or just cry or yell no…which we don’t allow) and working with her to control her behavior and get rid of some of her fears.  Ugh, I need a nap just thinking about it.  We have a very long road to travel with Meiying, but I have faith knowing she will continue to advance and our bonds will continue to grow and this scion will become a very well attached grafting where no storm winds can severe the bonds.  We just have to keep looking up for guidance and walking forward…or in the words of Dory, “Just keep swimming.”  But that isn't always easy to remember when you feel like you are drowning.  Just keep swimming!  Just KEEP swimming!!!  JUST KEEP SWIMMING!!!

Oh these two!  They love each other...most of the time.  ;-)

The day we went to the U.S. Consulate in China 

Mei being her silly self with a firefighters hat on