Our New Bundle of Joy!

We've adopted again. 

We'd planned to do so after we had gotten some travel out of the way... We wanted to be "fully present" for our new addition... "when the time comes." 

We've got a little fluffy puppy... he is ADORABLE!!!!    We've given him the same name our daughter had chosen for the first teddybear she'd ever really named all by herself.

It is an adorable and cutesy name... he is an adorable and cutesy pup.  He is guessed to be a small mixed breed. 

He's estimated to be about 4 months old.  He can already "fetch" and "sit" on command.  Smart puppy!!!

I wonder if he's older.  The "pros" decided his age by his teeth... because he was abandoned with his (already adopted-out) sibling.

It's nice to have the happy pitter-patter of happy little feet around the house!

I'm a tad freaked... 'cause if this guy lives as old as our other small dog... (20) That would put me close to 70 when he could potentially "cross the rainbow bridge."  Yikes.  I have no problem with me being about half a century... no problem with that at all... No problem with the "snow on my roof" but the thought of how quickly the 20 years with our last sweet pup flew by... yikes!!!!!!

I have a feeling I  should buckle up!!!!  It's already been a heck of a ride!!!!  

Looking Forward

What a delight it is to have things to look forward to!!!!!

Hubby and I just returned from a month and a half of traveling, and the anticipation of the getaway was almost as delightful as the actual get away itself!

For our 29th anniversary we decided to cruise Canada's St Lawrence Seaway in search of fall colors.  We left our home in the land of balmy palm trees and sandy beaches and headed towards what we don't normally get to enjoy in the comforts of our own home.

The cruise was DELIGHTFUL!!!!    Our ship left Manhattan and we sailed north.... I got the biggest kick out of sitting on our boat deck and watching our ship's pool and curly yellow slide pass under the Varazanno bridge.  I was thrilled to watch as Lady Liberty wished us a bon-voyage. 

As we returned to the ship at the first port we visited, I noticed the ship's crew at the welcome center all using their electronic devices.... "Hmmm... free wi-fi?" I wondered. 

I put my phone into wi-fi mode and was pleased to see messages trickle in.  It was there that I got the next RAD punch in the gut.  Oh this really seems to be a life-long journey.  A concerned individual sent me the ultrasound our 3years estranged RAD had posted.  We're going to be grandparents.

I am the kind of person that is always happy to hear about babies.   Abounding joy was not my first reaction. 

I've heard "Baby-Daddy" has three other kids by other women.  This is his fourth... her first. 

I know people from my generation who have been "tied" to their child's "other parent" in much less than joyous scenarios. 

I know the heartache of raising children whose "first parents" were not there for them. 

I have no idea what this generation's multiple "baby-mommas/baby-daddies" is like.

Well... that's not true... my sister-in-law at 15 met a 40 year old man at the teenage hang out who had a very successful line "In my country you are considered a woman, not a child!"  It worked on about six different 13-16 year old girls who also carried his children.  (God knows how many never conceived!!!!)

I know my nephew is a very broken individual.  He grew up in a town full of his half-siblings.  We saw him go through the "where is my daddy, why does he hate me?" He's spent the first decade and a half of his adult life floating between jail and rehab.  His mother has always used men for all they could give her then thrown them to the curb.  My heart breaks for my nephews over the more than subliminal message that my sister-in-law keeps showing her sons of what men are good for.

Broken people... having broken people... having broken people... Hubby's sisters are all half-sisters... their bio dad died of cirrhosis of the liver mid 40's.  They each have their major issues. 

ugh... I was so much happier focusing on the positive... thinking about our beautiful trip, and all the loving family and friends we got to see!!!!  

We spent the full month after the cruise visiting family... so very wonderful!!!

Many of those we visited will be visiting our home very soon.... I not only have to unpack... I have to get ready for their arrival. 

I'm smiling again with anticipation!!!!   I think I'm going to make some countdown calendars for our various visitors arrival... 

God please help me to focus on the positive!!!!

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Thank God for Bedbugs

Bedbugs.

Thank God!

They were the final inspiration that brought a friend's RAD son home from the very dangerous situation he had been living in. 

I had seen his mother's comment that Thank God her son who had been estranged for over a year had returned. 

I privately messaged her letting her know I was happy for her... but angry and doing my best to deal with my anger before the sun went down. 

Years ago our families attended the same little church. 

When her adopted son was very small, she and her family moved thousands of miles away.  Facebook helped us keep in touch. 

Many of the "good christians" who were our former pewmates who continue to be SO VERY HORRIBLE to our family during  and since our RAD's meltdown... were all "liking" and "commenting" about how wonderful it was my friend's son had returned home. 

It turned my stomach... and I was angry!

My gracious friend called me from THOUSANDS of miles away... and talked with me, and encouraged me. 

Together we prayed.  Together we were grateful for "whatever it takes" that would turn our kids hearts home toward the parents who love them. 

Together we thanked God for bedbugs, because bedbugs are what brought her son back home.

Naturally there is still a long way to go... but meanwhile together... we remain grateful... for bedbugs.

Our Daughter's First Sign of Attachment

The first time I ever saw our new daughter express genuine concern for our family, my heart was overwhelmed. 

Up until that day, most of the time our daughter walked around like a robot, and hugged like an ironing board, but as soon the social worker's car pulled up the driveway, our newest daughter would snuggle up to Daddy in a way that was far too "mature" and far to inappropriate for a little girl.  She'd giggle in in an saccharin sweet voice "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh Daddy.... tee hee hee!  You're soooooo funny!" while running her little fingers along his hair neck and shoulders. 

She'd stay in that spot until the social worker's car left the driveway.   Then she'd blankly-robotically go back to her room... and resumed her "ignoring" us behavior. 

I read it as "PLEASE SOCIAL WORKER DON'T MOVE ME AGAIN!"  

And I immediately notified the social worker that we ONLY saw that behavior when her car was in our driveway... we let her know it disappeared as quickly as it came. 

I think I've written about this before here... not sure if I ever posted it. 

The memories of who our kids were when we first met them, who they became as part of our family, who they became at the "age appropriate season of detachment as young adults" haunt me. 

Some memories haunt me more than others. 

The "attachment sign" memory is one that I don't mind popping up from time to time.  It continues to give me much hope.

Before we had a cellphone... hubby was stuck on the side of the highway with minor car trouble he felt he could fix if he could get his tools.  A good Samaritan stopped and loaned a phone for him to call me to come with tools. 

I piled the kids in the mommymobile (read minivan) and off we went. 

We had to pass hubby on the highway, exit, turn around and reenter to get to him on the other side. 

We spotted him.  Stuck on the other side. 

Our newest daughter began SOBBING.  She hated that he was stranded... and that cars were driving by... and that we had to drive by too. 

My heart breaks each time I remember the depths of her grieving her new daddy's lot. 

Those feelings were raw.  And REAL.  And CARING. 

This child who for as long as we'd known her SEEMED so indifferent to us all... really cared for him... for us.

I miss my caring daughter.  I believe she is out there... but the triggers of becoming a young adult... surrounded by "friends" tickling her ears about her "rights" as a young adult and "friends" my age who delight in poisoning her mind against us... because then she "needs" them.

Our daughter is out there wandering the junkyard of life out there in robot land... Officer RAD... big and tough... and ready to "take on the world."

She's heavily armored... She's been injured most by the "friends" trying to help her.  She's using everything she's got to protect the little girl we love... and miss.

Foster Care in the News

Huffington Post has a nifty article on traumatized foster kids overcoming great odds as a adolescents...

Cool article, I hoped to make an annonymous comment... not possible.  so I'll link the article here and the comment I intended to leave (but wouldn't have been able to even if I did register... because as usual, my comment is longer than 250 characters.)

Finding Hope After Trauma by Gary Stangler 

As an adoptive parent of a "special needs sibling group" adopted out of our state's foster system in 1994, I'm very grateful our adoptive children's adoption social worker had the foresight to "guarantee" psychiatric care until age 18 for all three!!!  I can't express how desperately psychiatric intervention for the three was needed "after 18!"

I'm not normally a fan of putting a video game in the hands of a child and calling them a "child" until they are 30, however ...in the case of mentally ill individuals (especially in the case of our "special needs sibling adoption group")  I 100% see the benefits of extending psychiatric care past 18 for "attachment disordered" adoptees!!!!!

"Over-18" is where our adoptees have had THE MOST difficulty! 

They have accomplished much... they still have so very far to go!  I remain hopeful!

The age-appropriate season of "detachment" as young-adults to begin to embark on their "adult lives" reawakened the abandonment issues and RAD behaviors in our adopted children that were troubling to see in young children, and horrifying to see as they became young adults.   

Our "overcame-so-much" Honor-Rolled college student who completed most of her AA degree as a dually enrolled high school student went for one semester out-of-state to college... then dropped out and returned home a completely different person!!!

The Reactive Attachment Disorder we believed she was healed of, was back in ways we never imagined possible.

Her adoption benefit of unlimited psychiatric care had "run out."  Our daughter was eligible for care through our family insurance plan as long as she remained a full-time student... but she had quit school.  We offered to pay for her psychiatric care but she refused.  She continued to spiral downward under the unethical "counsel" of an overzealous student of psychology, who encouraged her to call her "mom."  That lady who bought our daughter's affections with expensive gifts she could not afford (like a car) became "mom" to our 21 year old daughter.  Three years later in the eyes of our adopted daughter that "RAD typically triangulated" woman is still "mom" and I am not. 

I have since learned this behavior of early-traumatized adoptees adopting gullible new families when they are young adults phenomenon is quite common behavior for Attachment Disordered individuals who were adopted out of orphanages or the foster system.

We learned, in our neck of the woods anyway,  parental rights regarding psychiatric issues expire before a child reaches 18. 

... Our simultaneously spiraling-downward (unofficially diagnosed "inhibited form" RAD) at 2-months-to-18-year-old son was supposedly getting the psychiatric "help" we so very strongly encouraged him to participate in, but we as parents had no right, according to his counselor, to information on his progress or lack-thereof... "It's not like medical records... the laws are different... I'm not allowed..."  

Like his "officially diagnosed RAD" older sister, our son chose his own set of "new parents" as is common for legally-adult adoptees with  attachment disorders to do.   

As painful as it is to experience this rejection from children we have poured the very best of everything we have into... their "coping mechanism" kind of makes sense.    It is familiar to them... their "roots" have been pulverized.  I don't fully understand their behavior because my life's experiences are so drastically different than theirs.  My family has always been my family.  They joined my family.  They have been grafted in... they have access to my roots, but my roots have not always been their roots.  Their roots have never been my roots. 

They have experienced traumas I would never wish on anyone.  They are coping as best as they know how.

Our adopted children had lived separately as foster children were only "placed together, 'as a sibling group' for adoption" when their bio-mom was required to terminate her parental rights for issues of abuse/neglect/abandonment. 

The oldest I was told lived 8 years with one foster family...

The middle I was told had an estimated 17 different families...

The youngest was removed from bio-mom's "care" shortly after birth and bounced between 5 or six homes that I'm aware of before coming home to ours. 

The three children (placed with us at ages 2.5, 6, and 13) had come to us at an "interim" foster placement after a "failed special-needs-sibling-group adoptive placement."  They EACH had experienced numerous psychological (and other) traumas before ever being placed in our family. 

According to our children's social worker, this beautiful, symptomatically RAD initially-charming child never lasted more than 90 days in any one foster or adoptive placement. 

The social worker wanted "this" adoptive placement to work out.  We did too! 

I'm grateful to see the overcoming the impacts of difficult beginnings related to foster adoption story in the news. 

I'm eager for the world-at-large to learn about Reactive Attachment Disorder and how to best support the mental health of individuals who have experienced trauma during the most important years of brain development.  

I too have tremendous hope for our children who had overcome so much before we ever knew who they were, who have accomplished so much as young adults, and who STILL have a lonnnnng way to go!!!!