I think it is fair to say that when we started our adoption journey back in 2006, we entered the adoption world with a massive amount of naivete. Hey, we requested "as young as possible, and as healthy as possible," what on earth could be tough about that?! Babies are babies, right? It didn't take us long post-adoption to realize that we were in a whole new challenging world of adoptive parenting.
I vaguely remember having a bit of pre-adoptive training required for our homestudy. The things that stuck out were to foster attachment with your newly adopted child by engaging in eye contact and skin-to-skin contact. Also, I recall a course that mentioned why your adoptive child might be fearful of noises like the doorbell or vacuum cleaner, because they had never experienced these sounds in the orphanage. That is about all of the knowledge that soaked into my mind. We knew nothing about sensory processing issues, learning difficulties, sleeping problems, food challenges, attachment disorder, effects of adoption on bio children, the disillusionment of an adoption process gone badly, etc. In essence, we knew nothing.
When real life hit with our adopted children, it was like being blindsided with a two-by-four across the forehead. We had utterly exhausting sleep issues, but knew of no place to turn for support or encouragement. We felt like we could not even mention our struggles to our extended family or friends, because we didn't want to sound like we were complaining after we finally got our baby home after a huge struggle in the adoption process. It seemed that the only testimonies we could find from other adoptive families were rose colored. So we put our smiles on in public and suffered in silence.
Ever since then, I have wanted to find a way to support and encourage other families who might be going through similar struggles, as well as provide some necessary insight for waiting families. The challenge that always popped up was, how do we share adoption related challenges without compromising our child's or our family's privacy? I just recently had the idea to start a blog that would use the anonymous testimony of various adoptive and foster families to give insight into the real struggles of parenting children from hard places, as well as, provide the encouragement and hope for healing. So let's get real, and have some hope.
This is what I would like it to look like...
1) The blog entry will be provided anonymously by an adoptive or foster family. It will contain no identifying information, so real names will not be used. To maintain continuity, we will utilize the following acronyms... DH - dear husband, DW - dear wife, AD#1 - adopted daughter number 1, BS#2 - biological son number 2, etc.
2) Each blog entry will contain two key elements, (1) a REAL challenge that the family has faced with parenting their child(ren) from hard places, and (2) HOPE providing encouragement, support, and/or testimony of healing through connection and love. In essence, it will be a time of sharing the hard stuff, while having a positive, hopeful outlook. It does not mean that the issue has been overcome, or conquered. The important part is sharing the journey.
3) It is my desire to have enough contributors to the blog to post twice monthly. So, if you or someone you know would like to share your real and hopeful experience, to encourage others, please email me at jewelmcroberts@yahoo.com.
Many blessings,
Jewel
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