We met her when she was 5 and 3/4, a sweet but extremely frightened (perhaps traumatized is a better word) little girl, who spent the first 45 minutes in our presence wailing and screaming loudly, protesting the scary and monumental life change that was being thrust upon her.
(Every single family in our adoption travel group who attempted to get video footage of their family's sweet gotcha' day will forever get to hear Bella's loud wails when they remember this day with us. Our hearts are indelibly etched with each of the other families that underwent their adoption alongside us for both of our adoptions.)
This is our first "family" photo with Bella--after her crying had subsided and been replaced with her heart-melting smile that brightened the entire remainder of our time in China completing her adoption.
The only time during the rest of the trip--other than when we first met her and when we were boarding the plane back to the States--that she showed any signs of fear or sadness was when we went back to visit her orphanage, where she had spent roughly 2 years (relinquished to the orphanage around the age of 3). She was able, however, to walk right up to her little bed in the sea of beds in the sleeping room to show us where she had slept.
Sometime during this past year, Bella passed the point at which she has now been a part of our family for longer than the period of time before she was in our family. This marker came much earlier for Lilly, since she was much younger coming home. For kids who come home at a later age, it takes that much longer for them to make emotional and/or developmental gains where there are delays from neglect or trauma.
These days, sometimes the fact that she suffered early childhood trauma seems like a distant memory. She has come such a long way since the earlier days and months after she came (and once she was comfortable at home and felt safe showing the full range of her emotions) when daily we faced emotional outbursts and meltdowns and "emotional seizures" as we came to call them.
And yet, six years later, there are still days when it is abundantly evident that her trauma still impacts her ability to process, to think rationally, and to regulate her emotions. Her learning at school is slow. There is definitely progress, and it's exciting. And she is SUCH a hard worker. But the days when she is on the emotional edge, ready to fall off of the emotional cliff at any moment, those are harder days. They keep me on my toes in the realm of mothering. They can kick my butt. And make me feel like a miserable parent. And make me feel helpless, hopeless, and frustrated. I have to fight hard not to have my own emotional seizure sometimes.
So six years later, I continue to lean on the Lord. Press into His sustaining and all-sufficient grace to love well, to not grow weary, to speak with kindness, to offer a calm presence. I continue to pray for daily wisdom--wisdom we all need no matter how many kids or where they come from!--and seek to walk by the Spirit.
I'm grateful for Tom, who is calm, wise, loving, and thoughtful.
I am grateful for Bella's older siblings who have also grown in grace and love through our adoptions.
And I am grateful for this girl. Her perseverance, determination, and heart inspire me daily. May I always have eyes to see how hard she tries and how deeply she loves.
How appropriate that the artwork that she brought home from school yesterday was a depiction of Bella's "Move to Virginia." (That's a quaint way to encapsulate it.) The top row depicts Bella and friends at the orphanage, the middle row depicts Bella with Tom and me as we are boarding the airplane home from China, and the bottom picture is our family of 6 (and she sweetly included both Tad--our golden retriever who died a few years ago but who was here to welcome her home from China--and Duke, our golden retriever now.)
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