From cautious and hesitant, to terrified, to seemingly relaxed and happy--all in about 45-minutes' time.
Then, a matter of days later, our brood of kids looked like this:
And we were all happy--thrilled that our journey to Isabel had finally come to its fruition, thrilled to be home after the long adoption trip, thrilled to begin a new journey of grafting in a new family member and establishing 3 new sibling-relationship-dynamics.
As grueling and long as the adoption process can be, and as emotionally and physically taxing as the adoption trip itself can seem (especially when you leave the other kids home), I knew at this moment in time that our harder work was still to come.
The true journey for Isabel to grow genuinely comfortable, relaxed, and at home in our family, naturally, is an ongoing process. One that refines each of us uniquely. One that requires grace and patience and flexibility and stamina. The end result is beauty; like many things in life worth doing, however, the process is not always easy or fun.
I recently read a blog post by a blogger that has a way of capturing the truth of life and emotions with humor and great writing. You can read her post here. I cannot come close to capturing the truth of adoption with the degree of humor and insight that Jen has done. But I can completely relate to the different "stages" that an adoptive family goes through in that first year. And I am happy to tell you about our family and how things are going six months later...
It is amazing to me that we have been a family of 6 for 6 months already.
The first half of Isabel's six months with us was primarily spent at my side, helping me around the house, playing with me while the others were at school and work, running errands with me, and simply soaking up one-on-one mama time. The afternoons were my easiest time of day because, once the girls got home from school, Isabel was completely engulfed in their world of play and fun and I was freed to do housework and cook dinner.
Then came summer. Which, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you know has been quite full with vacations, camps, trips, medical visits, and summer fun. This has been 3 months for Isabel to spend with her siblings and friends in the neighborhood, get comfortable in a pool, play outside a lot, and spend time with extended family. She did well with a week of Vacation Bible School at church (in the same group as Lilly) and did some semi-private swimming lessons (again, with Lilly) at our neighborhood pool. Summer is more chaotic with less routine, and Isabel has had to learn to cope with lack of structure...not easy for her as she prefers the predictable. Our many road trips have taught her about the permanence of our home--we always come back to it when we've been away--and the older kids' overnight camps have taught her about the permanence of our family.
Through all of these months, we have been catching Isabel up on her immunizations and seeing a developmental pediatrician to assess her global developmental delays and determine what might be the cause of them. Her doctor is quite thorough and ran a battery of genetic tests (all normal) and ordered an MRI of her brain (which she underwent yesterday with no sedation--what a trooper) to see if there are any clues. If the MRI is normal, then we have to assume her delays stem from environmental/nurture factors and proceed from there. Otherwise, aside from being emotionally immature and physically uncoordinated, she is physically healthy and behaviorally pretty normal, for which we are thankful.
I also spent time in the spring working with the school system to get an IEP in place so that when she starts kindergarten in less than two weeks there is already a plan in place and her teachers will already know of her needs and delays. Isabel has been talking about school excitedly since the spring--watching Lilly get onto and off of the bus each day and do her homework made her excited to do the same--and she is still looking forward to kindergarten this fall. I am eager to see how she does with the separation initially, and with the adjustment to classroom routines and a completely English-speaking environment. We have school supplies, a back pack, and new shoes...so in that regard, we're ready.
Isabel's English is coming along...especially her receptive English (understanding what is said to her). In fact, tonight as we headed out for our family date night in the car, it dawned on Tom and me that she actually gets Tom's jokes sometimes now (and, like her siblings, rolls her eyes at them!) Her expressive English (what she can say) is a not quite as developed, but she can carry on a pretty good conversation and tell some stories in Chinglish. Today, she carried on an imaginary conversation with her friend, Yuan Yuan (the 12 year old whose family adopted her and was part of our travel group when we adopted Bella), on her toy cell phone, most of which was in English ("hello? what? What you say? Why? Where' your mama?") I'm sure that being in a school setting with only English being spoken will help with the expressive language...can't wait to see.
Isabel's early years are, and always will be, a mystery to us: Abandonment in a rural village of Henan Province at around the age of 3, for unknown reasons. Developmental delays identified upon abandonment. Living for the next 2+ years in an orphanage, with an intervening short stint of evenings and weekends with a "foster family." On her first "birthday" in our family (the date they assigned as her estimated birthday when she was brought to the orphanage), I found myself musing on her early years, wondering who had carried her, given birth to her, and held her those early days and months. Wondering what could possibly motivate a mother (or, perhaps, a father, or aunt or uncle or grandparent) to abandon their little girl at the age of 2 or 3? Any number of scenarios cross my mind, and I'm sure there are many more scenarios that would never even occur to me, coming from a foreign culture and background; but we'll never know for sure. So I am learning to become comfortable with the mystery and preparing myself to have to try to explain this mystery to her someday when she is curious.
Because of the mystery of her past, however, we face more unknowns in her future. I am certain that the road to her maturation and development will not be quick nor easy.
But--here's the joy--the privilege of loving her, watching her gain skills, teaching her many new things, giving her opportunities to develop and mature...that privilege is ours. Her family.
So here's to the next 6 months, and the next, and the next...may they continue to bring joy even amidst the growing pains, and may we each have eyes to see the long view.
