Recently a woman in the US adopted a 7 year old boy from Russia, then apparently became overwhelmed by the child's emotional and psychological needs and proceeded to send the boy, alone, via a one-way ticket, back to Moscow, where a driver hired over the internet picked him up and delivered him unannounced to the Ministry of Education with a note explaining the American woman no longer wanted to parent him. In response to the fallout and backlash due to this unfortunate story The Joint Council on International Children's Services has asked people to blog about their own adoption experiences today. I would also like to share a link to their page of resources to help strengthen and preserve families.
They are also asking people to sign a letter to President Medvedev and President Obama: The letter asks both Presidents to ensure that inter-country adoption continues uninterrupted and to aggressively investigate and prosecute anyone involved in the abuse of children. Click here to sign the letter.
This blog began 5 years ago as a record of the adoption process we went through when Kai joined our family. Back then I wrote about the steps we went through and our adoption journey to China. This blogging pattern repeated when we adopted Shen. Back then I used to write from time to time about bigger adoption issues, but then that phase of our life ended. Our family was complete, and while the issue of adoption continues to be a part of our lives, the "process" of it no longer dominates our thoughts and this blog has moved on to being more of just a fun scrapbook of our daily family life. If you were to click back through the entries for the last year or so you might think our life consisted of nothing but holidays and outings to parks. Today I would like to write a bit more seriously about adoption, and while I consider both Kai and Shen's adoptions to be happy and successful, there are serious issues we have faced that we were not necessarily expecting.
Our decision to adopt did not come about quickly or easily and the impact it has had on our family has been profound. I tell a version of our family's adoption story fairly often, and I usually give it a pretty light, and somewhat funny spin. For example: we were already parenting two boys and were drawn to adopting from China because we wanted a girl. Yet somehow we ended up with two more boys! Funny, right? :-)
But truthfully, it's not a funny story. I don't like to play up the situation our youngest two sons were in before they joined our family because I dread the "You are so wonderful for you've done", or "you saved them" comments. Because I know I can never give back to these two boys a fraction of what they have given me, but I do know that we have altered their life paths in ways that are nearly incomprehensible. I want to share a bit more of their story here then I'm usually comfortable putting out there, but I think this is important.
Kai was 33 months old when we met him. He weighed 19 pounds (that's below the 1% mark on the WHO charts). He was hosting a stew of intestinal parasites. He had a silver dollar sized scar on his scalp where hair still does not grow. He had oral-sensory issues which prevented him from eating anything but soft gruel-like foods. His developmental delays were profound and somewhat frightening. And we had no idea about any of these issues before we adopted him. His club hand, the special need we were aware of before the adoption, quickly fell off the radar of issues we needed to address with him. Still, I know we are amazingly lucky with how easily he fit into our family and how loving he is with us. In spite of all the unknown issues we were faced with, things went so well we decided to adopt again.
Shen was 44 months old when we adopted him. Again, his known special need, the absence of a right hand from birth, became the least of the issues we were faced with when he joined our family. I will never forget the first night he was with us in the hotel room in Xi'an and Tina ran a bath for him and Kai. After she had undressed him and put him in the water she called me into the bathroom. Her voice was quite serious, and I quickly saw why. Spanning the area between his shoulder blades on his upper back was the most horrifying burn scar I have ever seen on a child so young. It was as large as my adult hand and fiery red at the edges where he could reach to scratch. We still have no idea where, when or how he sustained the injury that resulted in this scar. We do know that he had been moved from the orphanage to foster-care and back again, and that he had moved between floors and caregivers at the orphanage several months before we adopted him, resulting in 4 different sets of primary caregivers in less than that many years. Shen came to us pretty healthy, but with emotional scars nearly as profound as the physical one he bears on his back.
I like to think that Tina and I are really great parents. We've raised two boys to young adulthood, Tina has a degree in early-childhood education and has been a teacher for over twenty years. We took our adoption agency's educational requirements seriously, and continue to pursue information regarding adoption issues from as many sources as we can find. Still, we find ourselves struggling from time to time trying to figure all of this out. We have had discussions with our social worker, we have used a counselor. There are great resources out there for people willing to take advantage of them.
I don't mean to sound all doom and gloom here. Most of the time our family life is pretty sweet, but there is more going on than what I regularly share here on this blog. Raising two young boys with both physical and developmental special needs in an inter-racial family definitely has it's challenges, but the rewards are pretty amazing too. If you are considering adopting a child, please think carefully about what this means. We publicly swore a solemn oath to never abuse or abandon Kai and Shen. I consider my attachment and responsibility to them no different than that to our two older sons. If you are going through difficult times with a child in your family please seek help. You are not alone.
And now I'd like to share a couple of my favorite videos...
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