Hard Questions, Truthful Answers

I apologize in advance for the length and serious tone to this blog entry. I am writing it more for myself I think, but hoping that it may help others too. Last week, Tony took dinner to a friend who has been fighting cancer for over a year now. He had the opportunity to chat with her for a bit when he dropped off the meal and she asked a question that has been running through my mind all week. A little background first, our friend and her oldest daughter watched Micah and Elise in the fall of 2006 when we attended foster care/adoption classes. Our adoption of Isaiah resulted from those classes so by watching our kids she played a part in helping this little boy find a home. She asked Tony several questions about how and why we chose to foster and what we were originally hoping to do when we started attending classes. After learning that the whole process was different than we had expected and our original thoughts did not include parenting a child with Isaiah’s degree of need, she asked if we felt like we were gipped by God with how this journey has played out.

As Tony told me about this and I thought about our friend who has had to struggle through a long list of awfulness as she fights cancer, I burst out in tears. Hard to feel gipped in light of her struggles and the beauty she has displayed in the midst of the battle. However, her honesty in asking the question made me realize that there are probably a lot of questions that those close to us are scared to ask. Something about staring death in the face and a beautiful genuineness that our friend has always possessed made her able to ask a difficult question. If you are afraid to ask, here are a few answers.

Do we feel gipped?
Hmmm, let’s get the hardest one out of the way right off the bat. I have had moments of darkness in the midst of very difficult days in which I felt tricked into this by God. We were told at the beginning that Isaiah had mild delays most likely due to neglect. He made rapid improvements in the first six months leading us to believe that might be true. After his progress leveled off we had already fallen in love with him and he was now a real part of our family rather than a write up about a potential foster child with special needs. If we had known everything that he would face when we received the first call we would not have thought we could handle this. There are still occasional really hard days when I cry out “Lord, you really think I can do this?” but those days have become rarer. There are days when I think, “Wow, life would be so much easier if we hadn’t accepted that call.” However, the promise of an easy life and the desire to seek out comfort are not consistent with anything I have come across in reading my bible. While I have always thought it would be much better if we could learn to become more like Jesus by simply reading a book or watching a tutorial, I know that the real road is through trial.

Do we worry about the future?
Most of the time I am way too busy getting through a day to have any time to worry about the future. Doctor’s appointments can bring up future worries, but the doctors so far keep refusing to put a cap on the progress Isaiah will make and they are thrilled with his progress. I can feel like he is in such a bad place, but as soon as I enter the cerebral palsy clinic and see the examples of how it can affect the body, I know Isaiah has some real advantages going for him. When I struggle to fall asleep at night is when these worries can creep in. For some reason, Sunday nights seem to be a prime time for worry as I look at the week ahead. If you think about it some Sunday, please feel free to pray for me. I have always appreciated the verse in Matthew 6:34. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I am living this right now in regard to Isaiah’s present and future.

Are we concerned with how this will affect our older kids?
Yes, that has been a consistent concern even from the beginning of considering fostering and adopting. I recently talked to a woman whose mom provided medical foster care for children with extreme needs throughout her childhood. I asked how her mom was able to do that and still provide for her biological children’s needs and whether she felt slighted in the process. She had some amazing words of wisdom including the fact that she thought I might be living in too much guilt. Her mom asked for enough strength to do everything she needed and went to bed confident that she had. She also mentioned that it is good for children to learn so practically how to care for others. Our goals for our children shouldn’t just be about providing all of their wants and needs, but showing them Christ and the road to be more like Christ-like. Micah and Elise have always been caring children, but adopting Isaiah has only grown their compassionate and caring hearts. We go out of our way to maintain as much normalcy as we can for them and that is certainly becoming easier as we get used to our new normal. I appreciate being able to work part time from home and that definitely helps me to be able to be a part of more activities with my big kids that wouldn’t be possible if I was trying to juggle everything while leaving home to work.

Are we worried about how this will affect our marriage?
The stereotype is that marriages fall apart with the introduction of a special needs child. The couple spends all of their time caring for their children and no time together. It does become very difficult to go out because it is harder to find someone who can handle the extra needs of a kiddo like Isaiah. We certainly aren’t calling young babysitters any more, but honestly with the tight finances we have always had we weren’t exactly a jet-setting couple before he arrived.
While I know that growing apart can occur, I can truly testify that I love and respect my husband more now than I did three years ago, and believe me, I really loved him a lot then. We have had the opportunity to see each other at work caring and loving. We have taken every chance to be honest about our struggles and some of that honesty is hard. We approach some of this differently with my tendency being toward research and worry while Tony’s tendency is to always think everything will be fine. Honestly, both of those tendencies have been good at times in this journey. I married an amazing man who continues to amaze.

How can people help us in this journey?
The thing that I have been most surprised by is how much difficulty most adults have in figuring out how to relate to a child with special needs. Isaiah chooses most of the time to do his own thing which is typically to keep in motion at all times. His body doesn’t process sensory input correctly and so he is always seeking more sensation. When he is being restricted from crawling or walking, he gets pretty grumpy though this is beginning to improve. When you talk to him, he is beginning to understand a lot more now, but he can’t communicate back clearly and it makes for an awkward exchange. I’ve been surprised by how many adults would rather avoid this exchange altogether, but if I’m honest I can easily remember times when I felt the same way with other people’s kiddos prior to having Isaiah. One thing I have learned though is that awkwardness won’t kill you so just enter in. There is a man in our house church named Mark who consistently greets Isaiah enthusiastically. Sometimes Isaiah acknowledges him, sometimes he doesn’t, but this never stops Mark from talking to him. It’s really quite simple and Mark is one of my new favorite people!

Another new favorite is a friend named Shelly who has been our church nursery advocate. We attend the most amazing church full of loving, sacrificial people, but it has been hard at times to find people willing to hang out with Isaiah during church. I gave up after having a few too many people tell me “no.” Shelly kept pushing us to keep asking others to help and Tony kept reminding me to give others more grace and freedom to say “no.” In her advocacy, Shelly went so far as to approach one of the pastors when his small group was doing nursery and tell him that certainly somebody could hang out with our busy boy. A little advocacy from a friend goes a long way in helping you feel like you aren’t in this journey alone.

An old favorite person (and I’m not making a crack about her impending birthday) is my long time friend and social worker, Arie. I feel like I have benefited from free counseling in the past three years as Arie has asked the hard questions and told me that I am not crazy, unloving or sinful for doing the same. I can’t even count the number of times she has said “I think that it is very normal that some of this experience feels so very hard.”

What has been the best thing about this experience so far?
OK, so that’s not a hard question to ask someone but I wanted to share. I have to say that in all of the trials and hard days, God has led us through. I definitely have days when I completely despair. In fact, I lay down and cried and screamed in my hallway one morning recently when nobody was home. I told Elise later that day that Mommy had thrown a tantrum when nobody was home. She asked me “What is the point of a tantrum if nobody sees it?” Very perceptive little seven year old! My tantrum was for God and I am thankful that He allows us to tantrum and that He is there to pick us up. Last week, I had all 3 kids home with no plans and Wednesday was especially trying. I was frustrated and feeling like Isaiah’s needs were trumping everyone else’s, but then on Thursday God gave us a fabulous day at Grant’s Farm together.

God is being faithful to lead us in a new way and in deeper ways than we would have gone if not for this journey. He is also leading our extended family to love and care for this little guy and be changed by it too. God has given Isaiah a special love for our extended family members. Isaiah gives special attention to his grandparents and attempts to say family names. It’s not easy to learn to love a child who took awhile to show love back, who can’t communicate, who is always on the move and who so drastically changed the dynamic of our family life, but through God’s grace our families are learning and personally I think we are all better for it.