We loved every minute of our children's childhood. While we loved watching these three daughters grow into loving, responsible adults, as they grew up, we did not feel ready to be finished with our family. Once more, we considered adoption, this time financially better able to consider it. We still wanted babies, but realized we would have to do an international adoption to get one. We became aware of the countless children in this country waiting for families, so made the decision to adopt an older sibling group waiting here.
We were pretty naive about what this meant. We expected that we would love these children, raise them like we had our other children, and teach them in the way that was right. We absolutely believed any child would respond to the family, love, support, and environment we could provide. Like I said, we were naive. This second family has brought many new challenges into our lives. We still hope for every child to have a home, but now we realize how hard this can be for the families who offer needy children a home.
The goal for this chapter of Noah's Park is to support in any way we can to other families who have or are considering adopting special needs children. We offer glimpses into some of the challenges we have faced and some pointers to information that might help. In early 1995, we brought home a sibling group of six. They were adorable, delightful children and I used to say that I could not believe that someone would just GIVE us 6 wonderful children. As time went on, I learned that these beautiful kids came with many strings attached, mostly in the form of past baggage which seriously hinders their ability to truly be part of family as we have known it in the past.
The three big girls (and two great sons-in-law) who remain even as adults central figures in our family. Each of them has, from day one, referred to the adopted kids as "our" kids; not "our" as in Mom's and Dad's, but "our" as in all of ours. They have played important roles as substitute parents for each of these adopted kids and provide incredible comfort and support to their sometimes discouraged parents.
"Can This Child be Saved" by Foster W. Cline, M.D. and Cathy Helding: This is a book that finally shows me that someone understands who we are and how we struggle to make a dream of building a family for kids who need one. . One enduring message from this book is that the dream we have to create a beautiful family of healthy kids through adoption may be an unrealistic dream for the kids we parent. To keep from killing ourselves with frustration, we need to be able to redefine success as saving a child from the streets or some more achievable goal.
"Adopting the Older Child" by Claudia L. Jewett: This book provides some useful insights. The problem with it is that it provides several case studies which are fictional accounts based on real stories. The advantage of being reality based fiction is that each story can be satisfactorily resolved within the pages of the book. In our reality based realities, this is often not the case. We, as parents, strive every day to teach, support, break down and rebuild these children with broken values and broken hearts and we may not know for many years, if ever, if we reach any of them.
"Older Child Adoption" by Grace Robinson: This one gives lots of examples and insights into the brokenness we encounter in our kids. And even to some extent the brokenness that experience causes us to find in ourselves. Parenting these kids is hard! Sometimes they bring out the worst in us because that is the reality they know and they strive to confirm their reality by putting us in the mold they expect. This is a must read for families thinking of adopting older children. You need to know what to expect. We didn't!