It’s been 16 months since we became a family of 6 through kinship foster care. What an intense time it has been.
During this time, I have wanted to blog here more than I have. My partner and I see education as one of our core values and part of our family mission. And so, I long to leverage this platform to inspire and educate my friends, whether it be faith-based approaches to adoption, infertility, putting values into practice, mental health, medical marriages or women in leadership. I feel invigorated by sharing and hopefully propelling others in healthy and meaningful directions.
As a leader, I've come to find that authenticity was the value I hold most dear. Authenticity is being true to yourself, not false or copied but genuine and real. Within the confines of the patient safety movement this is the most essential ingredient to effective teams and quality work.
To me, authenticity means speaking the truth. I call myself a walking confessional at work, this is part of my style, my persona and I believe it to be an effective tool and thought leaders across industries agree (Amy Edmondson's The Fearless Organization is an inspiring text on this subject). Being real on the job, telling true stories, being forthcoming with my failings were my hallmark. This pattern of behavior inspired others to be authentic too, which breaks down the walls of silence which make healthcare, and so much of our lives, so dangerous. If we had a significant error that led to harm or death, I'd be careful not to let the PR team "pretty it up" too much. By telling the truth and owning our mistakes, more truth could come out, allowing us to get to true root causes and real solutions. I knew the power of this habit and saw the results it could produce everyday.
Authenticity is is a key value I strive to practice in my personal life too. It's the one thing I really dislike about social media, so much of it seems fake, copied, unreal. Yeah, I want to look pretty in any picture I post online, but I also want to look like myself; round cheekbones, weedy garden and all.
In a recent blog, I mentioned how humbling trauma-informed parenting feels. That's the truth. It's getting it right a lot of the time and also getting it wrong much more often than we care to admit. It’s knowing that those times when you don't get it right, you might be retraumatizing a kid who's already been through too much. My words and actions. It's exhausting and sometimes it’s rewarding, but not always.
I'd like to be brave and authentically share bits of such details with you regularly. Because then, I believe, my friends will know that this is what adoption looks like in our family, and that I'm a safe place to share if you’re struggling too. I'm a student of Brene Brown and believe all that vulnerability is the key to intimate and real relationships.
That’s why I began this blog some ten years ago, after all. My therapist encouraged the idea, and sharing the dark web of emotions I suffered during my miscarriages brought healing for me and connection with so many of you. It’s been a great gift. I’ve similarly been inspired by others who share their triumphs of overcoming of challenges. We learn from one another, develop community and thrive in our belonging.
Through all this I’ve become a bit of a spokesperson for adoption, and I embrace this identity.
As this blog continues and my life transitions from infertility to a mother of four complicated boys, I wonder, how can I share our new stories? These stories are dominated by the kids and also some dark emotions. Healing and learning could transpire through that as well. But, perhaps my sons don’t want to be the poster children for adoption? Maybe they don’t want to be a spokesperson for mental health. My choices now have to respect and prepare for that possibility later.
There’s great tension here, it's hard to strike the right balance. Unable to find the right words, I opted to not write a Christmas letter this past year.
If I only write about times where trauma or sacrifice are on display, it may seem complaining, ungrateful, unfaithful, or even worse, like I'm looking for praise. On the other hand, sharing solely the good times feels inauthentic; in it's least harmful forms it's an unreal and slanted view of our lives, and in it's worst, it's exclusionary and makes others feel less than. In both of these ways, social media can tempt us into over sharing, for promotion of our own authorship or follower-count. I want to steer clear from all that.
I also worry if I go into detail about the non-preferred behaviors my kids are displaying, or tell you how often these challenges occur, I worry that I'm objectifying my children. The internet is forever. And these kids are human beings who deserve dignity and respect. So, how do I balance their dignity with my authenticity?
I think this is a major challenge facing society today. How do you become an advocate for those who are undervalued or judged in our society without objectifying them and stripping them of their privacy?
This is particularly important with children and with adopted children. Theirs is not my story to tell; it's one of the first things you learn in adoption education courses. One day, they'll be teenagers or adults and they'll want to be the author of their own story. Adopted people deserve to share their family history and story in the ways they feel comfortable, just like the rest of us. While I do tell friends and family in confidential conversation about our struggles, I don’t want to “tell” everyone through the internet. I'd hate to use this platform to journal our struggles and triumphs in parenting special children now, for the potential educational value of sharing, at the expense of my children's resentment later. It's just not right.
On the other hand, if I stay silent about the mental health challenges we have in our household, we miss opportunities for connection, belonging, support and for inclusion of others with similar struggles into our community. Silence perpetuates the stigma. Silence keeps us alone.
So, this is my attempt to share an honest and useful selection of stories that bring good educational value without much risk of objectifying or embarrassing my children, or glorifying myself.
So, what have these past 16 months been like? Well, this has been the hardest year of our lives, didn’t seem like the best Christmas letter intro, but it’s the truth. It’s the only thing I’ve known with 100% clarity some months.
Its been chaotic and challenging. They're busy, entertaining, mischievous and exhausting. All of us are wading through our own unique waters of trauma, sacrifice and conditional and unconditional love each day.
During the past 16 months, our tightly knit family became stretched into a new and unfamiliar form.
- 4 months of honeymoon period
- 4 months of escalating and unraveling
- 2 months of reengineering
- 6 months of steady progress leading us to now
On a micro level, it’s important to note that all six of us have gone through escalation, impulsivity, and reengineering; I’m not just talking about one or two of us. This may have occurred when we were the targets of another individual’s anger, or as we each grieved our collective and individual losses.
Most months we average about 15 hours of therapy and adoption visits per month. We have several therapists and social workers engaging with us each week and month, helping with formal diagnoses and oft-changing behavioral challenges.
This has been sacrificial and forces us to put our pride aside. While we feel like we embarked on this journey eyes wide open, it nevertheless has asked more of us than we expected. We’re completely committed, but that’s not to say they’ve been easy. It’s a lot of silent dues-paying now, with the hopes of big payoffs in terms of children’s character development later.
In the purely logistical sense, these frequent appointments mean skipping play dates (my kids all-time favorite thing) or cutting them short and coming in early, for therapy visits, every week. It means everyone we know well knows we’re in therapy and seeing at least one therapist every week; which is honestly a little humbling for me. (I wasn’t exactly embarrassed to need therapists, but let’s just say that the move to feeling proud we’re getting the help we need has taken some time and effort.)
These frequent appointments also mean having a team of professionals advising us on our responses to certain behaviors, asking questions that get us curious about our own tendencies and inclinations, and suggesting that we work on our co-parenting style.
This takes a weird combination of grit and absolute desperation for God’s help in everyday moments. It’s also a weird combination of tiring and joyful. I often use the work rich to describe this time. What a year. I’m often at a loss for words.
The biggest lesson I think I’ve learned through all this has been to slow down, to fill our days less close to brim full, to allow enough time for the children to transition successfully between events. This is counter to my and my husbands natural inclinations. Perhaps I should have mentioned that my second-favorite value is efficiency. I really value, admire and seek speed.
And if I’m being honest, the pace I like to keep and was in the habit of keeping when I was working full time before, it’s a bit selfish. It was for my glory, the glory of “having it all.” Juggling so many priorities, being efficient with my time, was a survival skill. When my nanny was working, I had to laser focus on myself and my agenda, so that everything could get done before dinner. I didn’t mind the aggressive pace and the focus helped me accomplish my goals, so it was actually rather comfortable for me. But when I had to readjust to much more time with the kids, running their daily schedule and focusing entirely on executing my goals for them, I quickly learned that my old habits didn’t serve us too well.
A popular quote the team has shared with us which really help transform our thinking is
He’s not giving me a hard time,
he’s having a hard time.
This new mentality is hard to sustain, but it upends our selfish perspective and keeps the trauma-informed approach at the forefront. Full agendas with efficient transitions - that modus operandi doesn’t work for families with special children. We certainly aren’t seeking perfection but we can’t even come close to happy or successful when we rush. Action packed days just don’t work; they’re a recipe for disappointment for this team. At first, I resisted the change, but eventually (after enough failures) I realized there is so much more joy and peace in a relaxed pace. And guess what?! I don’t have to choose busy, it’s a popular choice that I can and do reject.
Our family-based therapists were at the house during their weekly visit and we had finished an ecomap activity. The boys had moved on to target practice with nerf guns and no one was taking turns in good order. This ended with some swings between a few boys requiring separation by me. Everyone was frustrated. In the past, this sort of incident might’ve continued to escalate, and creating chaos and tension that would have lasted 30-60 minutes. But on this day, several minutes later, one boy came out of the office with this letter:
This note almost brought us all to tears. It was one of the first gestures of genuine kindness and remorse for hurting someone he… cares about.
Darn. Whew.
Thank you, God. Thank you!!
This one nice note turned out to be the first in a series of small acts of kindness that are forging new bonds. It’s taken 16 months, but a few times in the last 1 month, the youngest two have talked about how the boys are “becoming friends.” They occasionally give each other real compliments and genuine apologies.
The canyon between long loved brotherhood and newly forced brotherhood is less wide. Our family team is really bonding. All this progress also has us ready to “graduate” from family therapy soon (which will lighten up our committed hours per week significantly).
Without a doubt, we’ve got a lot to be thankful for. The hard work and intentionality has transformed each of us individually and as a whole.
If I’m stepping fully into my authenticity, here, I think I hesitated to write here because of my uncertainty and doubts. We’ve had faith throughout this past year, but it’s still been a dark season, and that has made it hard to authentically share, especially in an uplifting way. Now that the chaos has stabilized, I think I’m able to see more light, which makes sharing on the broader platform easier.
As peaceful moments are becoming more regular, I’m more excited to share what we’ve learned, and we’re all embracing this new family a little more tightly. We’re getting comfortable and settling in. Like in any community or brotherhood, there will always be tough moments and bad days. But as we enter this next stage where the adoption becomes final, I think we’ve all got a lot of hope for tomorrow.
I’ll leave you with these words from Jordan St. Cyr, in Weary Traveler, which have encouraged me recently.
Beat down from the storms that you have weathered
Feels like this road just might go on forever
Carry on
But every day this world just keeps on takin'
Your tired heart is on the edge of breaking
Carry on
Weary traveler, restless soul
You were never meant to walk this road alone
It'll all be worth it so just hold on
Weary traveler, you won't be weary long
No, you won't be weary long
