Real or Not Real

The problem is, I can't tell what's real anymore, and what's made up.

― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

I have always dealt with anxiety. Always. My very earliest memories are filled with the emotions of fear and anxiety. Anxiety may have been present in my life for as long as I can remember, but about two and a half years ago, it almost swallowed me whole.

I have always been what I would have described as avoidant of all things vomit. I'm one of those people who simply doesn't puke. Ever. I can remember every time. I remember throwing up in my grandmother's kitchen after eating popcorn one afternoon. I was five. I didn't eat popcorn again until I was 19 years old. See? Avoidant. On some level I knew that it was unlikely that popcorn made me ill, but why risk it? I simply avoided it. Avoidance became a part of my life. I avoided things that had "proven" to make me sick, and at some point, I began to avoid things that made other people ill too. I was probably about 12 years old when my mom shared that she avoided orange juice for a long time because she had been sick after drinking it. I had never had that experience, but suddenly OJ didn't seem worth the risk either. It wasn't until about a decade later that my mom shared the full story...a night of youthful exuberance and one too many Screwdrivers. 

I've never had a night of youthful or even not-so-youthful exuberance. I've never been drunk. Ever. When questioned about my lack of fun, flirty, and free-spirited beverages, I typically think of my choice to eliminate alcohol from my life as a means to eliminate the opportunity for alcoholism, as the family proclivity for such addiction is undeniable. And that is 100% true. But I think it's also true that if my dad had never been an alcoholic, I would still likely have been timid around alcohol. Where is this line between a good time and a hangover spent clutching the toilet? As I never knew where the imaginary line fell, I never felt the risk was worth it. 

I deflected opportunities from friends or family to ride roller coasters. I bypassed vacation options including cruise ships or fishing boats. Flying made me nervous simply due to the presence of vomit bags. I was avoidant of things that could potentially make me vomit, but was I phobic? I would have said no. And I was likely right, though my fear verged far closer than normal...but all of that ended in February 2016.

I remember almost every detail about the week in stark, graphic detail. I'll spare the details in case anyone reading struggles with that, but basically, I was preparing for Garrison's first birthday. The weekend prior he became ill. The first time he vomited, I questioned if he might be sick, but ended up assuming it was the transition from formula to whole milk in combo with his reflux. The second time, only a few hours later, I knew he was sick. I picked him up armed with my belief that, "I don't get sick." 36 hours later, I was learning the fallacy of that claim.

I survived my first stomach virus in a solid twenty years. I was admittedly weak and leery of all food, but I was functioning. I returned to work. I was sleeping. I was able to care for my son. Until suddenly, I wasn't. I woke up Wednesday morning, two full days after I had been ill and I had my first panic attack in five years. I was scared to death. We say that phrase a lot, obviously not meaning it literally. But I can tell you what is real and what is worse: being so scared, you think death might actually be better. I've been there a time or two.

Something was very, very wrong. I was terrified of getting sick again. My previously held notion that “God made dirt and dirt won’t hurt” went out the window as I became obsessed with washing and sanitizing everything. But I was so embarrassed. Why was this happening? Who was this person? I spiraled quickly. The next six months were a desperate attempt to keep my head above water. I had dealt with anxiety my entire life, but this was the first time I was face to face with a phobia and I. was. losing. 

Having experienced panic attacks years before, I knew that medication could help. I scrambled to find a doctor willing to prescribe my old antidepressant medication. It took several weeks, by which time I was already not sleeping, avoiding all food that I didn't prepare myself, only eating and drinking a limited number of "safe" foods and beverages, researching norovirus like I was receiving a PhD, washing my hands two and three times before touching food, and fighting an ever losing battle to hold and care for my son who suddenly became the equivalent of a nuclear bomb to me. It was bad. Really bad. I got a prescription for my medication along with a new one to add to the mix. I was suddenly the reluctant owner of a schedule IV controlled substance. 

I found a counselor and started therapy. I was fighting, but I was still losing. I dropped thirty pounds in a matter of weeks, which was startling to say the least. I wasn't sleeping, even with sleep aids. I was having nightmares and warding off panic attacks with every method I could find. I was dealing with an upset stomach (a common symptom of anxiety, which is SUPER awful when your anxiety is triggered by a rumbling stomach) almost daily and swallowing pepto bismol pills like they were the elixir of life. 

In August, I switched to another therapist, one with lots of fancy accreditations and experience. Kasey rolled into my life like a freight train. Well, actually, knowing what I know now, she breezed in with restraint as she slowly offered me tiny steps to crawl out of this pit. She saved the no-nonsense attitude until I was a bit more sane. That fall I received a diagnosis of emetephobia, or a fear of vomiting. The DSM-5 categorizes this in the specific phobia "other" category. Other simply meaning that it doesn't fall into one of the other four categories, animal (e.g. dogs, snakes, or spiders), natural environment (e.g., heights, storms, water), blood-injection-injury (e.g. fear of seeing blood, receiving a blood test or shot), and situational (e.g., airplanes, elevators, driving, enclosed places). The criteria are:

Unreasonable, Excessive Fear: The person exhibits excessive or unreasonable, persistent, and intense fear triggered by a specific object or situation.
Immediate Anxiety Response: The fear reaction must be out of proportion to the actual danger and appears almost instantaneously when presented with the object or situation.
Avoidance or Extreme Distress: The sufferer goes out of her way to avoid the object or situation, or endures it with extreme distress.
Life-Limiting: The phobia significantly impacts the sufferer’s school, work, or personal life.
Duration: The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is persistent, typically lasting for six months or more.
Not Caused by Another Disorder: The disturbance is not better explained by symptoms of another mental disorder.

Thankfully, in 2013 with the publication of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, changes were made. In previous DSM editions, adults with specific phobias had to recognize that their fears are out of proportion to reality. Guys, I'll be honest, in the comfort of my counselor's office, on her nice, comfy, likely semi-clean couch (because you can never be 100% sure, even if you cleaned it yourself with a bottle of Clorox when you have this special phobia), I could identify that my fears were out of proportion with reality about 80% of the time. But when my brain was cycling the drain, ready to swallow me up and spit me out into the black hole, I couldn't tell you what was real and not real anymore. Everything and everyone became a threat. I could no longer trust my mind. I had to trust others around me to tell me the truth until I could see reality again.

In the beginning, I had to identify safety behaviors. Things that I was doing (or not doing) that made me feel safe (while actually exacerbating my anxiety and making me more fearful). Once the behavior was identified, I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 on how risky the behavior seemed, or how likely the worst case scenario in my mind was to happenening because of X behavior. I'll give you an example. I spent ages selecting cups, plates, and silverware to eat off of. Inspecting them. Rewashing them by hand. Even when they were from my own home, where no one was ill, and I knew they had been washed and sanitized in the dishwasher. The amount of perceived risk directly correlated to the amount of anxiety I experienced if I did the opposite of the behavior I wanted. So I might have identified selecting a glass out of the cabinet at random and drinking from it as a 7. My brain said that was a very bad idea...almost certainly bad things would happen and my anxiety would be really high because of it. The risk was just too high to do such a foolish thing. Who cares that I had done that for thirty years without anything bad happening? It was too risky now. And so I had to do that very thing over and over and over again. And every time I did, my anxiety spiked, but the return to baseline level came faster each time. And eventually my mind no longer saw that as a scary or threatening behavior. I had pages of safety behaviors to work through by repeating this same scenario over and over and over again for each one. Tedious and hard freaking work.

It's been two and a half years since all of this started. Two and a half years. Week after week of therapy, and praise God for a counselor who knows her stuff. I likely owe my life and my marriage to Kasey. She has patiently brought me back. I'm not back to "normal," but I am better. Some days are better than others, as with anything in life. My heart still accelerates when someone mentions the stomach bug. I still wash my hands before eating, even when it's inconvenient (Imagine the hundreds of times you go through a drive thru and eat in the car. Yeah, I don't do that.). I still struggle to eat sometimes, which also means that I struggle to maintain my weight through much of the year. I still wash my kids' hands before every meal and I still cringe when they put their hands or toys in their mouth. I still have a bottle of meds in my nightstand, because some nights, the black hole snags me before I see it coming. We've warded off one stomach bug since the original and it was H-A-R-D. Terrifying even. I crawled into Kasey's office considering running away to a deserted island and leaving Sam to deal with it all before she kicked me square in the pants and told me to go home and deal with my fear. Neither Sam nor I caught it, and so I continue to dodge bullets. Continue to worry about the next time and if we'll be so lucky while trying desperately to live my life. So yes, better, but I've still got work to do.

This fear pretty much derailed my life. It became the single lens by which everything was viewed, including growing my family. Two years ago, I couldn't really imagine adding another kid to our family, no matter how desperately I might want one. Kids are germ factories and their presence exponentially increases my risk. I made it 20 years without getting sick, but didn't even make it one year as a parent. The odds were just too high. Adopting Joel was hard. Coming to a place where I could realistically consider adding another kid to our family was so difficult. Coming to a place where Sam felt like I could handle it and he could handle me was hard because this wasn't just affecting me, not by a long shot. With a hell of a lot of work, I eventually got there. Ready to move forward. Second guessing myself all of the time, but ultimately unwilling to let fear control my family.

China was crazy hard. Like probably the hardest thing I've ever done. The flights. The hotels. The food. It all presented itself as HUGE risk factors. I was terrified of getting sick in China. Various China Adoption Facebook groups often seemed to be overflowing with posts and comments about getting sick in country. "Don't eat the street food" one would say. Another would swear it was the watermelon. Or the water. Or a specific restaurant. The feeds were filled with people sharing about kids puking in cars or on planes, as these kiddos have often never experienced travel and the sensations are hard to acclimate to. It seemed not only possible, but likely, maybe even unavoidable some days and I was so, so scared. I knew this child, this son, was worth it, worth every moment of fear and anxiety, but gosh it was hard preparing to go.

As we drew closer, it became more and more evident that we would likely travel in winter. Ughhhh. Winter used to be my favorite season. Give me a good scarf, some boots, a fire, hot chocolate, and a beautiful white snow and I was content. The happiest person alive. But as my research revealed that norovirus is also known as "the winter vomiting bug" and that cases go up significantly in the winter months, winter quickly became my least favorite season. Give me 100 degree days and endless sunshine all the days. I was wracked with guilt as I simultaneously prayed to get to my son as soon as possible, while hoping our timeline would end up in the spring. And then the phone call came. Travel approval was in. It was time to schedule flights. And don't you know, the day that I would board not one, but two planes, trapped for hours with my anxiety was the "anniversary" of when Garrison got sick two years ago. Kasey chuckled at that. No, not a sign of doom and gloom and imminent death, but just one more opportunity to shove anxiety further down and declare that I can do really hard things.

Kasey would say that I'm significantly better. She would argue that the evidence is before me. I faced my fears and flew across the world. I spent 17 days in China living in hotel rooms I wasn't cleaning, eating food I wasn't preparing, traveling with people who were in fact sick. I did what I would have once sworn was impossible. And every day, I make conscious decisions to push the envelope. To make myself just a little bit uncomfortable. To acknowledge my fear and to choose the hard anyway. My therapist says "feelings don't matter." And no, I don't think she shares that with someone in the clutches of depression. It's the kick in the pants that I need over and over again to remind me that feeling anxious isn't wrong. It isn't my fault and it isn't even in my control. What is in my control are my actions. I can be afraid and brave at the exact some time.

Stop the Clock

In April 2011, I completed my final pack of birth control pills. I was ready and Sam had halfheartedly agreed that we could start trying for a baby (because his other option was likely that I'd start flushing the pills and stabbing holes in condoms...God bless the old me). He had just completed his first year of his three year doctoral program and we had celebrated our first anniversary. May 2011 would be our first month of possibility. You know how the story goes.

It's October 2018 now, a full seven and a half years later. The clock is stopping now. Have mercy, but there are a lot of weird, hard, mixed up feelings in this decision, but I'm sharing it because every other part of this journey has been open, honest, and vulnerable. It feels like this part probably should be too. I'm starting birth control again.

If you would have asked me even two years ago about birth control, I would have chuckled and offered some quip like "no need. I am my own birth control." And when you look at my track record, it seems all but certain. Even with IVF, I was given chances below 10%. So what are my chances of a regular, non-medicated cycle without timed intercourse? 1%? Less than 1%? The odds have always seemed so low. So very, very low.

I told myself years ago that I was done dictating my cycles. They could come or go as they wanted and I would just live life. If I had a 24 day cycle, so be it. If I had a 48 day cycle, I'd save some money on tampons. That was about my level of interest. And so with time, my dedication to even track my cycles fell to the wayside. I barely remember to even note when a cycle starts now.

I told God that I was done trying, asking, praying. I would just trust him. If he wanted a miracle, bring it. If he didn't, I was content with the miracles he has already allowed me to witness.

But things have changed. I no longer feel the same open arms feeling of surrender. Instead I feel an itchy, anxious fear that keeps me up at night and makes me second guess intimacy with my husband. And I don't want to live that way.

The reality is that our life is FULL with two kids...full in ways that are hard to explain. The boys are 16 months apart, basically as if I had gotten pregnant when Garrison was 6 months old. I know that as they grow up, the close proximity of their ages will likely be a blessing, but right now, we're in the thick of it. Two kids in full time daycare, medical bills out the wazoo, therapy appointments... it's just a lot.

And the truth is that I no longer want a biological child. That is CRAZY hard to admit as we have four embryos on ice in Florida right this very moment, but hiding behind my feelings won't change a thing. My kids have some hard, complex days ahead as they will begin to grasp and grapple with their adoption, their permanence in our family, their first families, and their relationship and role within our family. While I know a lot of blended families of biological and adopted children, it just doesn't feel like the right thing for our family at this moment. We will finish out our infertility treatments by seeing it through with the final four embryos from my IVF cycle in 2014, but after that, we're done. I have zero wish to ever crawl back on that crazy roller coaster. See you, bye.

Additionally, I think there's a solid chance that there is another kiddo for our family, but when I think about it, when I allow my heart to unwind and my mind to imagine, I feel deep within my soul that a future Greavu would join our family though international adoption, likely China. China changed some of their rules in the summer of 2017. One of the regulations now states that the youngest child in the home must be three years old (or older) before you can submit your dossier. We cross that line next June with Joel, and then the possibilities are wide open for us. But if I were to get pregnant, we'd be at least four years from bringing home another child from China. And I'll be honest, I'm not sure I could bribe Sam to go for four kids, and I'm not sure I'm the right mom for four. It feels like an either/or decision, and right now, my heart doesn't break for the possibility of a maybe baby with thick brown hair and green eyes, but it SHATTERS over the orphan on the other side of the world.

It felt reckless, even dangerous to have unprotected sex while we were in process with Joel. If we had gotten pregnant, we would have been obligated to report it to our agency, which would have very likely cost us our adoption of Joel. SCARY STUFF. My opinion might be different if the rules had never changed, if you could adopt while pregnant, or with infants in the home, but three years? Gosh, that's a long time. It feels like the nail in the coffin...and when those are the words that come to mind when I think about a surprise pregnancy, I know that my head and heart just aren't in it.

Am I 100% sure about this decision? Gosh no. Enneagram 6's rarely ever get the luxury of being 100% confident in any decision. We just learn to live and lean into the uncertainty. I turn 33 this month. The years are speeding by faster than ever. I'll receive the "advanced maternal age" tag in just two short years if I ever try to conceive again. I know that this decision may mean I'm eliminating my chances. And yes that's a little hard to wrap my mind around. Probably a little less hard knowing my chances are basically nill to start with though. It was going to take a miracle at 26. It'll still take a miracle at 35. I'm taking comfort in knowing that this isn't an irreversible procedure. It's a pill. I take it or I don't. If things change next month or six months from now, I can stop the pill and I'll be right back where I am...ridiculously infertile and unlikely to conceive.

But what about trusting God with our family? Didn't I say that? Gosh guys, I don't know. A lot of healing has happened over the last four years in my head and my heart and my relationship with God, but there's still a lot of doubt and fear when I think about God, particularly in relation to growing my family or fertility stuff. It's not good and it's not true and when the lies creep into my mind, I'm trying to push it back with the truth of who God is. But the reality is, sometimes I almost think it's more likely that God would heal my body, uterus, eggs, and whatever else is wrong in there now that I don't want a baby. Like I said, wonky, hard, messed up feelings still lurk at the bottom or it all. There's no magic wand to wave to unthink the lies you believe about yourself or God. I've been wrestling with a good bit of guilt about this decision, as if choosing to go on birth control means that I don't trust God. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't, but I've finally come to place of semi-peace about the decision. If I was a normal, fertile woman with working ovaries and junk, and we didn't want to get pregnant, we'd pursue this option. Just because it is so much less likely for us doesn't seem like a valid reason to role the dice over and over again if it's not the outcome we're hoping for.

It was a good run. 7.5 years of not hearing the ding of my phone to remind me to stop and swallow a pill. I'll miss that. And I'm not looking forward to regular cycles. Ughhhh. Far too often. But I am looking forward to a little peace and the opportunity it brings for the future.

China: Part III

We arrived in Guangzhou on Friday, March 2. The flight from Kunming was borderline hellacious. Joel was terrified...understandably so. To him, these crazy people who he just met four days before were abducting him and putting him in a giant metal tube that went up in the air and did scary, shaky things. He cried and screamed for a large portion of the flight. It was definitely a loooooong flight for being our shortest of the six.

As we were leaving Kunming, I was pretty overwhelmed with emotion. We were taking our boy away from the only city he had ever known. Granted, Gaungzhou is still in China, but I knew that these cities were likely very, very different. Even the language was likely different as Mandarin is the primary spoken language in Yunnan (the province where Joel was born and lived), but in Guangdong, the majority of people speak Cantonese. It hit me just how little choice our little guy had in all of this. Everyone around him was making these choices, hopefully with his best interest in mind, but he was slowly but surely, one day and one flight at a time leaving everything he knew and understood.

We arrived in Guangzhou and exited the plane to a wall of humidity. I live in Georgia, so I'm no stranger to heat and humidity, but whoa. This was unreal. It was the first time I understood what people from dryer climates experience in Georgia...the change was dramatic. I instantly felt hot and heavy. Good thing I had 23 pounds strapped to me and we had four backpacks and four suitcases to carry through the airport. We met our guide, Simon, who graciously took our overabundance of luggage in stride and helped us load into a van for a ride to our hotel. I was DESPERATE to get out of that van and into the hotel and just be done for the day, but thanks to the traffic of Guangzhou, it was a fairly long ride.

We walked into our hotel to jaw-dropping beauty, and a smell I'll never forget. The smells in China are something I can't quite describe. For someone with a very sensitive nose, it was kind of an overwhelming experience. Having experienced less desirable smells on many occasions thus far, I totally understand why our hotel was pumping in the perfumed air, but WOW. I wish I could provide you all with a scratch and sniff sampling.

The lobby of our hotel.

On Saturday morning, Joel had to go in for a medical appointment. It is a required step to receive a visa and be cleared to leave the country and travel to the US. It was a really rough day. I'm not sure if what we witnessed was from medical trauma or if he was simply terrified, but the visit with the doctor was excruciating. Joel had experienced a series of really rough days at this point...first the visit back to the orphanage, then the travel day, and finally a visit to the doctor. We finished the morning off with a visit to have Joel's visa issued. His photo from the visit sums up his feelings on the last few days.

On Sunday, we went to visit the Ancestral Temple of the Chen Family. It was a really interesting place, but unfortunately both kiddos were not in the mood to chill and quietly explore art. Within the Hall there are several places to shop for traditional Chinese items such as chops, silk fans, and scrolls. We purchased some items to give to Joel over the next few years and enjoyed looking at all the beautiful artwork and the incredible craftsmanship. After that we went to to a local market to shop for pearls and jade. I purchased a beautiful jade bangle...80% because I loved it and 20% because I was afraid they'd have to saw my hand off if I asked them to take it off.

Ancestral Temple of the Chen Family

Market where we could buy pearls and jade

On Monday, the group went to the Safari Park, but we decided to opt out. It is supposedly amazing, but it makes for a really long day and we felt that the boys were wiped out physically and emotionally. We decided to hang around the hotel and explore another shopping opportunity to get a few more items to give to Joel over the next few years. Our hotel had an incredible garden within it and the boys loved it! It had hills for the them to roll down, ponds of koi for them to watch, and lots of grassy spaces for them to throw and kick balls. We spent lots and lots and lots of time there. It sort of became my sanctuary. It was a way to get fresh air and sunshine without worrying about the boys or needing to hold them the whole time.

On Tuesday, Sam, Joel, and I went to the US Consulate to complete the last bit of paperwork. Two days later we'd be able to leave China with our son if everything was approved. It was a stressful morning in that there was a good bit of waiting and security measures, but Joel did far better there than at the medical appointment. We were thankful to complete all of the necessary steps and leave without any complications. The clock was officially ticking. Joel's visa was the last thing we needed before we could go home.

Outside the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China

View of Guangzhou from the Pearl River Cruise

Pearl River Cruise entertainment

First sword fight. 

On Wednesday, the group traveled to Shamian Island. This place is filled with a lot of history for the China adoption community because until 2013 the US Consulate was on the island. As every adoptive family is required to go to the Consulate, many families stayed on the island. The hotels and statues and even restaurants have become places for families to seek out and snap some photos. Shamian Island has definitely catered to the adoptive families over the years by becoming a shopping destination for all kinds of gifts and souvenirs. Even though the US Consulate is no longer there and the families aren't required to visit the island, most do in order to shop and walk the famous streets that they've heard so much about.

Joel's feelings on Shamian Island and the bus ride there were NOT joyful.
My face pretty much sums up these last few days in country. Fix it, Jesus.

The Red Couch is a famous sofa in the White Swan hotel in Shamian Island
where many adoptive families stayed when the US Consulate was in Guangzhou.
It became so popular that most adoptive families make a trip to the hotel for this
photo opportunity alone. Joel's feelings about this special moment were indicative
of our last days in China. All heads turn toward the screaming kid in the corner.

Thursday was a free day as many of the families were making plans to leave. This was one of the hardest days for me. We ended up with flights out on Friday, so Thursday was literally just a day of waiting. We received Joel's passport back with his visa inside at about 11:00 a.m. The following hours were pretty slow and long as I was becoming more and more desperate to get home. If I had it all to do over (or when making recommendations to other families), I'd suggest leaving the first day/night that you can or scheduling some kind of activity for the day. It was a day that I could have really used something to do to make the day go by just a bit faster.

On Friday, we were up bright and early to take a van to Hong Kong. Most families leave China via the Guangzhou or Hong Kong airport and we found cheaper tickets out of Hong Kong. I would have preferred leaving via Guangzhou (because Hong Kong is a three hour drive and an additional trip through customs), but it was neat to see the area as we drove in. It's definitely a part of China that I would want to return to if/when we make it back one day.

All of our feelings as we boarded the plane for Hong Kong to
Seattle. God have mercy.

American Citizen...poor buddy was so sick with a gross
respiratory infection and lingering pink eye. I look rough and I look
far better than I felt waiting for the last flight home.

After a bit of a wait in the Hong Kong airport, we finally boarded the plane back to the US. This was quite possibly the longest day of my life. Thanks to the magic that is the rotation of the earth and time zones, we left on Friday, March 9, at 11:45 a.m. and flew for 12 hours only to land in Seattle on Friday, March 9, at 7:59 a.m. What the actual F? By the time we got to Seattle I was DONE. And apparently so were the boys because our wait there in the airport and the final flight home were EPIC nightmares. God bless each and every passenger on that plane. We finally landed in Atlanta after flight delays and maintenance issues on Friday, March 9, at about 9 p.m. And we were home. Our journey to China and back again was over, but the real journey was just beginning and life as we knew it was forever changed by the gift of our son.

The Title I'll Never Hold

All too often people who adopt are referred to as  rescuers, or someone might say, "It was so amazing how your family rescued her." It happens a lot. And I get it. You see someone doing something good, or hard, or someone you admire and you want to compliment them, encourage them, let them know that you recognize the work that they are doing. But let me be clear, I will not accept the title of "rescuer." I will forever fight the appellation for two reasons.

Firstly, if you talk to adult adoptees, you'll hear this over and over again. Hearing that their parents rescued them or saved them does not encourage an adopted child to feel loved, safe, secure, accepted, self-confident...it's just not a positive word association for most adoptees. It is imperative to me, as an adoptive mother to two boys, that I listen well to the words and stories of adult adoptees and that we value their words and stories. The words of an adoptee trump those of adoptive parents. Admittedly, when I'm feeling swallowed up by behaviors that can be associated with trauma, I want the encouragement and experience of other adoptive parents, but for the most part, we work hard to seek out the voices of those who experienced the same things that our boys have...those are the voices who should have the microphone. When they say that they don't like feeling like they are the "good works" of their parents, it's our job to listen up. When they say that they feel bad about themselves when they overhear comments about "rescuing" or "being saved," it's our job to stop and turn the volume up. Their voices, stories, opinions, and feelings matter.

It's hard to know what words to use. It's hard to see the need and ask for people to step into the need and address it without adding glowing monikers or flowery words. I feel that weight and burden myself. I want to express the depth of the need and shine a light on these children. I want people to understand the circumstances that these children are in. I want to motivate people to act. All too often there is a part of me that wants to shout, "Run, save him! Save him from a life without a family. From a life with little to no medical care after the age of 14 or 16. From a life of solitude. From a life on the streets. From a childhood in an institutional home for adults." The statistics are real and startling and I do believe that we should act. But if we're running to save someone, we're just one small step away from becoming saviors and I don't know a single adoptive parent who wears a cape. I certainly didn't. I showed up at that hospital in Jacksonville completely inadequate for the journey I was so eager to take. We definitely didn't disembark from that plane in China with super powers. We did not swoop in to save or rescue our sons. We stepped into their lives. We did not storm in with magical forces or weapons. We walked into their stories. And yes, that choice changed their circumstances, hopefully for the better, but it matters how we define the act of adoption and all that proceeds it and all that comes after it. Words have power, and it matters how we tell these stories and how we shine a light on the need.

The second reason I'll never accept the title of rescuer is this: we're the ones who are being rescued. For sure. 100%. Without a doubt. Of this, I am certain. It is our sons who are rescuing Sam and I. Friends, it is so easy to settle into our American lives (and even easier to settle into our white American lives) and become completely numb to the world around us. Sam and I like comfort like everyone else, believe me. Despite infertility and the setbacks that caused to growing our family (and our finances), I can see now how we were pursuing the easiest life we could find in those early years of our marriage. Nothing too risky (because I don't like the unknown). Nothing too difficult (because no one likes hard things). Nothing too wild (because predicable is comforting). We were on track to live "wisely" and make decisions based on our own well being. Decisions that made sense financially. Decisions that made sense for our timeline. Decisions that made sense for our future goals.

But there's a danger in that, friends. It's a rip tide you'll never see coming. In this comfortable, easy life we can operate almost entirely without faith. That's next to impossible when you step out on the journey of adoption. When adopting, you find that you need God in ways you could never have imagined. J. R. R. Tolkein wrote, “It's a dangerous business...going out your door. You step onto the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” True. There is risk in stepping out of our pursuit of easy and comfortable lives and stepping in to the lives of those who are marginalfized, ignored, abondoned, or forgotten. You truly have no idea where you might be swept off to. The adoption journey is a journey into the unknown, even if you've done it before. But there is also the sweet, sweet journey into deeper faith when we choose to enter into the hard. But to experience it, we've got to open the door and decide to step out of our own comfortable lives.

For us, adoption was that invitation. Adoption was the thing that propelled us into the hard and it keeps us there. It keeps us dependent on the Lord because it wasn't a one time act. In the same way that a wedding is an act and a marriage is a lifetime of choices, the finalization of an adoption is an act, but this life, oh how it is filled with choices. I love these words from Heather Avis, a fellow infertility sister and adoptive mama in her book The Lucky Few, "What I did not know then is that ease and normalcy and niceness are not as important to Jesus as obedience, perseverance, and sacrifice. I didn't know that easy and normal and nice would do little to build my character or make me a better and more complete human being. Somewhere off the rose-petal path where easy and normal and nice bloom, true beauty lives in the muck. But only the lucky few of us who step off the path will find it. My luck  began when God picked me up off the comfortable path I had paved for myself and drop-kicked me into the mud."

Slowly, ever so infinitesimally, God is refining me through and in the midst of the hard. It is I who am being rescued. Rescued from myself. So no, I'm no savior, no rescuer. I'm an average, middle-class white American whose life circumstances led me to a place where I could choose to open my eyes and see that there is so much more to the world than what my eyes would have me to believe. I am the one being rescued from a life of normal and nice and given a life of dependency...and boy is that scary. But that's where our faith grows, my friends.

A New Normal

Today marks nine weeks home. I don’t really know what to say about these weeks. They have been incredibly hard, hard in ways I was prepared for, and I’m thankful for that. So, so thankful. But still so, so hard.

My greatest regret from my first adoption of Garrison three years ago was my lack of preparation. No one talked to us about attachment, or lack there of. No one said anything about caring for a premie. No one spoke a word about any of the things I was facing. Everyone spoke as if unicorns and rainbows had taken up residence in my home and heart. Oh God, how I wanted that to bet true, but the truth is that those first 6ish weeks with Garrison were indescribably hard. Add on to that the layers of guilt and self doubt from my years of infertility and I was spiraling down a dark hole fast. I didn’t know how to explain it to anyone and all everyone could see was that I finally had my baby, and everyone (myself included) assumed I’d be blissfully happy without a complaint in the world.

When we decided to adopt again, and internationally this time, I knew I needed preparation. I had an agency in mind that several close friends had used, but I decided to dig deeper and hunt for the best fit. I asked lots of people and called lots of agencies. We eventually landed with Lifeline in part because I was desperate for education and post-adoption support (I also believe in their ministry, they have a good reputation in the adoption community, and I love how willing the China Program Director is to answer all of my calls). I assumed at the very least that this adoption would be very different, but likely harder and I wanted to be ready.

We did buckets and buckets and hours and hours of training. Read books on adoption, attachment, Trust Based Relational Intervention, and China. We took courses on Communication, Attachment Styles, and a four-part TBRI workshop. Lifeline requires a two day training for all families adopting internationally called Crossings, which we attended in November. If it was offered, I signed up. If it was recommended, I read it. I so deeply wanted to be ready, both for our son and my family, but also for myself.

Ready. I don’t know if you’re ever truly ready. Maybe the mamas who are true veterans, there and back again half a dozen times. For me, this was all still so very new.

I arrived home DESPERATELY thankful to be in the USA, and to feel the comforts of home. Many people long to explore the world...I am not one of those people. I wish I was. I wish I had a pinky toe worth of adventure in me, but vacation sounds like the beach in Florida or the mountains of Colorado. An adventure sounds like Hawaii or Europe. China was next level for me and my heart hungered for home.

But suddenly home didn’t really feel like home. There was an extra person and despite spending the last two weeks with him in country, i think we all suddenly became very aware just how much we were still strangers to one another. His cry was foreign to me. My voice was not soothing to him. We all arrived home to obvious jet lag (13 hour time difference, flying east to west is a b$:%# in ways I can’t explain) but also illness. Sam had a double ear infection. Joel had a cold and infections in both eyes. I had caught the cold that Sam had for a week in China the day before we left. The first four days home were unreal. I still can’t believe we survived. I assume the details will eventually fade and we will have some form of amnesia about the whole event...otherwise, no one would ever return to China a second, third, fourth time.

We saw glimpses of grief from Joel in China. Lack of appetite. Tantrums. Arriving home opened the flood gates. Our solid sleeper suddenly couldn’t sleep longer than 90 minutes without waking and transferring him out of our arms was akin to placing live bombs in a crib. He grieved so deeply at night, and it manifested in fits of crying so loud I thought he’d wake the neighbors. He was simultaneously desperate for us to hold him and furious that we were touching him. Nights were long and yet never, ever long enough. He seemed ravenous for food, but refused to eat all of the things he had eaten in China. He attacked crackers like it was the last food on earth, shoving them in his mouth while crying, yet completely without the ability to chew them. If I tried to slow him down, he interpreted it as me denying him food, which sent him even further over the edge.

We’ve been cocooning since we came home. Cocooning is a term used in the adoption community to describe a season of intensive care, in which the parents meet all of their new child’s needs. Interactions with people outside of the immediate family and the environments to which the child is exposed are very limited. When a family cocoons, they keep their new son or daughter’s world small, simple, and predictable. For us, that has looked like staying home 99% of the time. Joel has gone with me each day to drop Garrison off at daycare, but then the two of us return home. We’ve slowly started to open up his environment just a bit by eating out at some quick restaurants, visiting the park at low attendance times, and running errands to the grocery store. In the beginning, I wore him in an ergo anytime we ventured out. Now, he can ride in a cart or sit in a high chair, but he occasionally still needs a hug or kiss to settle down, other times, he just wants me to hold him. While it’s easy to look at him and think he’s almost two, he should be better capable to handle these situations, research says that it is far better to allow him to revert as far back to infancy as he wants. If he wants me to hold him in Target rather than ride in the cart, then that’s what we do.

Slowly, the tantrums have dwindled. The nights have held more sleeping than screaming. He’s trusting (sometimes) that there will be more food next time. He and Garrison are starting to play a bit more than they fight. When I think rationally about how much has changed in these nine weeks, I’m amazed. I couldn’t change the same amount about myself in nine weeks (just ask my therapist). But most of the time, my rational brain is foggy and I’m tired of the hard. While I know that the Lord calls us into the hard, and that the hard things in life are the ones that refine us, when I’m in the fire, I’m quick to think I have been refined enough.

I return to work after one more week, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t grateful. Add that to the column of things I feel guilty about. I am simply not good at being a stay at home mom. You know the phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder?” Well that absence is critical for me, for my mental health, for my ability to parent the way I want to. Feeling guilty about it doesn’t change it...these nine weeks have been a marathon battle of keeping my head in the game and my mind free from the tangled web of thoughts that can spin out of control. I’m praying that Joel can and will transition to daycare smoothly, and that the changes won’t set us back in terms of attachment.

I have to remind myself a half dozen times a day that our old normal is gone but that the present is not our new normal. This is a transition period, a hard one, but not a forever one. Six months from now, life will look and feel so very, very different. And while I long for our lives to feel normal again, I’m trying to remind myself just how quickly things change. Someday these photos and videos of Joel in these early days will be precious memories as time will have softened the details and we will have forgotten so much.

The days are long, but the years are short. Garrison is closer to kindergarten than he is to his birth, so while I may hunger for a bit for the comfort of normal, I know that these days are golden in their own way.

Fight Like Hell, Then Stand in the Gap

I remember years ago praying that a birth mom would terminate her parental rights. It seemed normal then. It was what was best, and so obviously within God's will. What a weird, complicated prayer. And so difficult to unpack years later after so much time spent within the adoption world.

In some ways, it feels like you can either be for adoption or for orphan prevention, but not both. If you’re for adoption, then you must want kids to be available to be adopted, right? And if you’re for orphan prevention, then you must not like adoption, right? I’ll admit that there can be some murky, gray areas in all of this, but ultimately no, nothing is further from the truth. Adoption and orphan prevention are two different sides of the same coin. We must fight like hell to hell to preserve first families, and when that is no longer an option, we must be ready to stand in the gap.

Orphan prevention is a huge, complex topic because there are so many different reasons children become orphans. War. Famine. Disease. Natural disasters like the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010. There are certainly other issues. Things like poverty. High medical costs. Social stigmas. National laws. And then there’s the really, really gross underbelly that no one wants to talk about: financial gain. Those are just a few of the reasons, there are dozens of others, and every story is unique and different. So how on earth do you prevent children from becoming orphans?

The truth of the matter is that we never will. This world is broken. There will always be war like the one we see playing out in Syria, creating new orphans each and every day as parents and grandparents and sisters and brothers are killed simply because of geographical location. There will always be natural disasters, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, and hurricanes that will rip families apart and leave children without a family. And there will always be evil in this world that seeks to destroy families. But, and that’s a big but, we must still fight with everything we’ve got to preserve first families when we can. While we will never end the creation of more orphans, for that one child it will make all the difference.

The first battle in orphan prevention is one that must take place in our hearts. It’s the lie that we’ve been telling ourselves for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. It’s the one that says whiter, richer, more educated, etc. is better. I know, you’re probably thinking “what on earth does that have to do with orphan prevention?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told how lucky my boys are to have Sam and I. Do you want to know where that thought pattern begins? It begins by thinking that Garrison is better off with us because we can provide more for him than his first family could. That we can give him a better future. That he will have more (more toys, more clothes, more vacations, more opportunities) because he lives with us. It begins by thinking that Joel is better off in America than in China. That he will have more wealth, education, etc. because he lives here. Those things may be true. The boys likely will have more because of the home they live in, but that is a HIGH price to pay for the loss of their first family, and for Joel the loss of his first culture and country. We must lay down the idea that the children of Uganda are better off in America because we can give them more. We must set to flame any thought that says the children of Costa Rica need Americans to save them. Is a forever family better than an orphanage or a life in the foster care system? Yes. But when we have the opportunity to have children safely adopted in their own country, we should celebrate that...even if that means they will be raised by people who are poorer, less educated (and certainly less white) that the options available in the US.

What these vulnerable children need is forever homes that can provide for their needs, and the hope is that the forever is with their first family. Supporting orphan prevention looks different in every country, culture, and region. It looks like systems in place to help families provide the medical care their children need, because the truth is that every day families are faced with the choice to abandon their child in hopes that they will be found and given the medical care they so desperately need or to bring them home and watch their child die. It looks like opportunities for jobs and childcare for women because statistically we know that women will use far more of each dollar they earn on their family than men. It looks like rehabilitation options because around the world, but certainly in our own back yard, alcohol and drug addiction is a very real reason that children are abandoned each and every day. The needs are so great. There is no one band aid for this problem. And we know it’s a fight we will lose. Orphans will always exist in this world. So what do we do?

We open up our hearts and our wallets to look around and see who is on the front lines providing care in the areas needed in the ways that first families need it. Who is providing food, medical care, education, jobs, rehabilitation options, to the families in need in order to help keep families together? It's using our standing within our communities, our state, and our country to draw attention to the needs of vulnerable children in our own back yards and across the world. It' shining a light on the plight of the orphan and saying that we will no longer slap a band-aid on this problem. We will no longer pretend that adoption is the answer to the orphan crisis.

When we’ve done everything we can to preserve the first family, we stand in the gap, arms wide open to support adoption. I truly believe more people are capable of adopting than do, but I also totally understand that not everyone desires to adopt or feels called to do so. And that’s okay. Yes, we need more adoptive families, we absolutely do. Current numbers indicate that 153 million children worldwide have lost either one parent (single orphan) or both parents (double orphan), but "one of the greatest weaknesses in these global orphan estimates is that they include only orphans that are currently living in homes. They do not count the estimated 2 to 8+ million children living in institutions. Nor do current estimates include the vast number of children who are living on the streets, exploited for labor, victims of trafficking, or participating in armed groups. Thus, global orphan statistics significantly underestimate the number of orphans worldwide and fail to account for many children that are among the most vulnerable and most in need of a family" (cafo.org). With numbers like that, it's unarguable the we need adoptive parents, but we also need more people to financially support adoption. We also need more counselors and teachers who are versed and educated in trauma to support these children and families once they come home. We need lawmakers and politicians who care deeply about the plight of the orphan. We need advocates for the thousands of children worldwide who are currently living without a forever family. 

We may not all be capable or called to adopt, but we can all do something. We can all believe in and fight for orphan prevention while simultaneously supporting and believing in adoption. I encourage us all to look around our own communities and find the families, organizations, and ministries in need of a hand or a piece of our hearts. Without a doubt there is a family that you could come alongside, and organization that you could support, or a ministry you could join in their efforts to care for vulnerable children through orphan prevention and adoption.

China: Part II

Well, he’s here! It’s been several long, hard days for all of us, but we are officially a family of four. 

Meet Joel Guang Hua Greavu. 

He is the sweetest little love and we can already tell he’s going to fit right into our family. We haven’t seen a ton of his personality yet, but the ayis (caretakers) at his children’s welfare institute described him as mischievous and playful. I imagine several months from now he and Garrison will be adding gray hairs to my head each day. 

We arrived in Kunming, the provincial city of Yunnan on Sunday, February 25. In China, you typically meet your child in the provincial city (capital) of the province that the child is from. For us, those were the same thing as Joel was found in Kunming and taken to the local orphanage. It was absolutely surreal flying into the city knowing that this was the same city our boy was in, to know we were just miles away from him. 

On Monday, we were expecting to travel to the Civil Affairs office with another family that is here to meet their daughter, but instead we learned that they would bring the babies to our hotel rooms. Such an incredibly long wait that afternoon, but then he was here and in our arms!

The first day was all about trying to help him stay calm and avoid too much fear. We held him, attempted to play with him, fed him. Understandably, he was pretty overwhelmed. We weren’t getting a ton of emotion from him. That evening we got some of our first smiles as Garrison brought a panda he had made at Build-a-Bear for him. They enjoyed tossing it around for a bit before bedtime and it was a great way to end the day. 

The following 24 hours after you meet your child are known as the harmonious period in China. During this time, families can go through a procedure to disrupt the adoption before finalizing. After that period, the family completes paperwork to finalize the adoption in China. On Tuesday, we rode to the Civil Affairs office and completed our adoption of Joel and filed for his passport. 

It takes several days to get the passport in Yunnan, so we have had several days to spend here. On Wednesday, we visited the Yunnan Nationalities Village. It’s basically a large outdoor space with separate areas for various ethnic minorities in China. It was so interesting! If I hadn’t had two tired, cranky boys in tow, I could have spent the entire day there. The space was gorgeous and it was so neat to see the various styles of architecture and cultural dress for the various ethnic minority groups of China. 

Thursday was the hardest day by far. We returned with Joel to the orphanage and drove with our guide to see and document Joel’s finding spot. It was such a comfort to see how well cared for Joel was at the orphanage, but also soooooo hard to see how much he loved his ayis and how much they loved him. Everyone was a puddle of tears. It was a very difficult morning for me to see and know that this was likely the last time he’d ever see the people who cared for him for nineteen months of his life. I can’t really fathom how hard and confusing it was for him to see these two worlds merge. He struggled a lot more on Thursday. Lots and lots of crying. Lots of fear and grief manifesting in different ways. It was an incredibly exhausting day for all of us. I’m so thankful we got the opportunity to go, visit, and document the orphanage, but it was not an easy trip. 

Today, we leave Kunming for Guangzhou. This is the city where the US Consulate is and all adopting families end up here to complete the paperwork to leave China with their adopted son/daughter. The child leaves a citizen of China, but when the plane touches down on US soil he/she becomes a citizen of the United States. 

Guangzhou is the final leg of this journey. We arrive on Friday and leave the following Friday, so there is still quite a bit of this journey ahead of us. I’ll be honest and say I’m ready to be home. I’m not a great traveler even in the US, but China is next level. I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to be here and to soak in as much culture and make as many memories as possible, but I’m also simultaneously really ready to be home. I’m praying that the coming week will be full of opportunities to bond as a family and for Joel to begin to attach with us. Also praying Garrison will make it home without losing his ever-loving mind. : ) Let’s be real; gaining a little brother who can walk and talk and steal your mama over night is HARD!