The Day we Gotcha

The first time I saw you, you put your face to the sky, because that's how high I was to you. You grinned the most hopeful, don't-you-think-you-could-love-me smile.

We went to a really fun park. All the kids ran up a hill together, giggling with a ball. The sun was shining. It was like the Sound of Music. It felt like heaven. I swear there were rays of light all in our eyes from the sun rays in the sky. It felt like a movie scene. Mitch and I looked at each other in the moment. We both felt it. "THIS. THIS is what we were searching for. We found our kids."

Everything went perfectly and Big Sis started calling the boys "bruthuhs" but towards the end Little Sis had her first running episode. A glazed look came to her face, she paused, and ran straight for the road. A car was coming. Strange (I thought) for a kid her age. I later learned that some kids with Autism are "runners". Sometimes it happens when they have a sensory overload and in this case an emotional overload, too.

One of the first times you came into our house to visit, Little Sis, you were timid. Emmett showed you our pink unicorn. You warmed up to play and eventually jumped excitedly and soared thru the air. You overshot the unicorn and bonked your head on the tile.... You also wanted to swing. For like ever. I looked at Mitch. Should I keep pushing her on the swing? He grinned patronizingly, "Haha, are you going to be her mom or not? You get to swing her for AS LONG AS SHE WANTS!" It was forever. Like seriously forever that you wanted to swing--another sensory cue that I would later understand for Little Sis.

We pushed you in a stroller and went to the hot dog stand as a family. You got a shake.

Big Sis was like the perfect little child. Followed every rule. Didn't cry. Later I would understand that was an attachment issue. She was in shock with this life change and the real hell didn't manifest itself until a few months later which I have found out was fortunate that the awakening and her breakdown came so soon. Many adoptive families experience that up to years later, but we were able to start therapies sooner than most.

The first night you stayed with us, you couldn't sleep Little Sis. You kept running around. You were scared and crying. You were confused, sad, and angry. You cried so much that finally in the middle of the night I took you for a ride because nothing would help you calm down. Not singing. Not a movie. Not holding you. You were a solid, bright, and "old" kid it seemed but you were acting like an 18 month old baby, but worse. Much worse.  We drove to help you calm down but you were screaming. You wanted your other mom. You wanted your other bed. Where were they? Why weren't they with you? You were hurt, scared, and mad. I felt it all with you. I cried with you. I tried to soothe you. Nothing worked. I finally turned to look at you during a red light. Desperately and emphatically I was trying to explain, but you couldn't hear me until I yelled it as loud as you were wailing:  "I'M ANGRY ABOUT ALL OF THIS, TOO! THAT'S WHY I'M HERE! I'M GOING TO DO WHATEVER IT TAKES; I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU BECAUSE I LOVE YOU! NONE OF THIS SHOULD HAVE EVER HAPPENED TO YOU! I AM MAD ABOUT ALL OF THIS, TOO!!!"

You listened enough that something changed in your face, but you were still crying. I drove longer and you finally calmed down with the vibration of the car seat. I dreaded the moment you'd be jostled enough to wake up and realize again that you were in yet again another home. How could you trust any adult in your life ever again? They all let you down. 

You woke up when I took you inside. I fell asleep before you did as I held you because with the emotional and physical exhaustion I simply could not manage to stay awake. It was the middle of the night and I left the front door open, the car door, and your big brother was still inside. God woke up your dad. Literally. I had tried calling him on the way home during the screaming fits. Nothing woke him up. He was beyond tired too and in shock. It was God who woke up your dad. Big brother got carried in. The door got locked. 

The next day your voice was gone. You had cried so much in anguish over what you knew was happening to your life. "Mine mouth broke," you whispered raspily.

The first legal day we "got" you, I met your relatives. Your case was in part joined with your brothers. We had small talk. I sat in the court room. Birth mom was in heaven, and birth dad abandoned. I looked over and saw your young teenage brothers resolutely sitting there. They heard everything I heard the judge say, and I watched them take it ALL like men. Little men. Too young to be these fierce kind of men. They had lived the hell that lead up to this moment, so they were not showing emotion. Maybe they were numb to it by now. I was the only one crying. I had previously served as an alternate juror on a lengthy murder trial. The months of jury service and the weight of that experience was the worst I had seen in court UNTIL those 20 minutes when your birth parents rights were severed and when your brothers who were kids themselves had to be men. NOTHING else I'd been through compared to the intense sadness, and horrific emotion that came into my heart and soul the day my children were legally free for adoption.

Your dad and I decided that we would not let you into our home as a placement unless we had decided to keep you beforehand. If we could help it, we weren't going to do that to a kid. We wanted to be in it NO MATTER WHAT. Of course nothing is final for anyone until the adoption happens… So we couldn't promise you completely that you would never have to go anywhere else until it was legally done.  That window of time was trying because no offense you are the hardest children we've ever had the pleasure of raising. But it's because you've been through the hardest things. Only one week after you moved in, I started to crumble. 

 I called your dad and voiced the terrible things inside of me: "I can't do this. Is it too late to turn back now?" He said, "Yes it's too late. We CAN do this and we ARE doing this. We're doing this TOGETHER."

We were here for you no matter what.

Once that choice was really made and tested, God reminded me:

Little Sis was the angel who told you in a dream what her name would be before you could have kids. You lost 3 babies and thought you'd never have one, but you had a dream and you were told her name and here she was--bearing the same name from your dream.

Then God reminded me. When you were pregnant with your third boy and you knew without a doubt you were having a girl, that was the same month birth mom was pregnant with Big Sis.

A lot of miracles and a lot of struggles brought our lives together so that you could be my child and I could be your parent. Your dad had steady faith along the path of uncertainty that led us to you and he held us all up through our doubts and dark days.

Now it's been one year since we legally "gotcha".

That day was magical….Just like the day at the special park. Adoption Day actually changed our household. The judge let Big Sis hold the gavel and say "This case is this dismissed."  Something connected and it changed you. You both started doing things you wouldn't do before--simple things like being more obedient. You acted more calm. Something settled in your heart and soul and ours too. You were finally ours. You could believe our promise that you were going to stay.

Things didn't get completely better like everyone believes adoption can  magically do. Most of our days have still been dark as we continue this uphill journey together.

But I am learning a lot from you. I am learning how to love the people that did this to you. I'm learning to accept you for your whole story and not wish it had never happened. I am learning how to be grateful for the hard things that happened because without the hard things that happened I wouldn't actually have you.

But it still hurts because no one should ever have to go through what you did. 

Somehow God has blessed (or cursed) me to feel what you are feeling so that I can understand you. Somehow God has blessed (or cursed) my path with painful awareness in my own struggles to show me many ways that I actually relate to you. Somehow God has shown me how to understand and relate to the people that you still love because they are a part of you. I have developed secondary PTSD and secondary trauma in the process of helping you work through your primary trauma and PTSD. The journey for wholeness is happening slowly, and also in magnificently personally eye opening ways, but we really are getting better. We're getting better together.

I think I really can say now that I wouldn't change the story. You don't ever have to say that, tho. Every day I see your hearts' deepest struggles to accept us as your parents and to accept what's happened to you. I want you to know that I will love you no matter what and that everything you feel is okay. I don't have to be jealous of you or who you love or what you wish for. I don't have to be jealous that your heart actually belonged to somebody else before it belonged to me. But I do know you were my child before you came to me and that we have a very special spiritual connection that's shared only between us and it transcends whose womb or home you were in before you were able to be called mine. 

Savage Garden's song comes to my mind: "I knew I loved you before I met you. I think I dreamed you into life." When people say dreams really can come true, you are my proof. 

Every birthday, holiday, and life event for you includes extreme emotions of joy and pain at the same time. No reason in the world is good enough to cause a child that much pain. But you live with this and that’s just what you do. 

You have taught me so much about what it means to be human. What it means to feel. What it means to overcome. What it means to fight. Every day you fight the way your brain was wired. Wired for fear, for abandonment, and for loss. You’re strong and independent. You’re teaching me how to be independent, too. Some days you might be the death of me but simultaneously you’ve given me new life, too.

We want to throw a party and talk about the miracles, love, and blessings that brought our lives together, but that brings all the bad back too. So our gift to you is to let it be like you’re a kid who doesn’t have to worry about deep past hurts. We're not really going to talk about Gotcha Day even tho it's really special.

We’re at the splash pad with you and you’re dumping water on me. The little boy at the table next to us is giggling because you’re rambunctious and funny. You’re impulsively smearing sunscreen all over your arms and rubbing it in like crazy because that’s what you do. It looks like I have to teach you girls to not be wet before applying sunscreen.

Normalcy. Simplicity. A plain and regular day. That’s our gift to you today.

I could never adequately explain to you how much your dad, your brothers, and I love you.

Happy “Gotcha Day” to our dreams come true.