Parenting After Adoption

Now that Lucas has been a member of our family for two and a half years, we receive a lot of inquiries regarding his adjustment and growth.

In many ways, he is doing great. His height and weight are well within the normal range for a boy his age, he is active in baseball and soccer, and he is improving academically by leaps and bounds. His English is nearly fluent for a child of his age. He states that he is truly happy here and has no regrets regarding his move from Haiti to America. (more…)

Though annoyed, I am usually tolerant of articles that use inappropriate references to adoption because the authors usually seem well-meaning albeit ignorant, but the adoption articles on this lawyer website are just plain negative. I learned of them here.

When I went to read them for myself, I was shocked and saddened by the author’s choice of words and apparent attitude regarding adoption, moving me point out the negative attitude these articles exemplify, especially given they are on a website representing attorneys involved in adoption. (more…)

Let me set the record straight . . .

I am not a saint!

As soon as people learn that Lucas was born in another country or that we adopted him at 5 years old or that we are adopting again in Haiti, more often than not, they launch into a spiel about my husband and I being saints and how fortunate our children are that we adopted them. (more…)

Lucas has a younger sister by birth, whom I will call Lucy. Due to circumstances beyond our control–and believe me, we tried–they were referred to different families in different countries. As soon as we learned about Lucy, we requested contact with her adoptive family, which they happily accepted

Lucy went to her new home four and a half months before Lucas arrived here. Her mother kept us up-to-date with letters and photos. She even told me once that Lucy often asked about me. Once Lucas was home, I began sharing updates as well, and I assumed everything was going well. (more…)

I am often asked the following questions so here are my answers regarding my family’s experience:

As an American, why did you adopt a child in Haiti? Why not the U.S.? Children here need homes, too.

Simply put, why not? There are children all over the world who need families. For my family, Haiti is where we were led. We were not even planning to adopt at the time we adopted Lucas. Circumstances placed us in a the right place at the right time to learn about Lucas and feel a strong desire that moved us into action. We returned to Haiti because we did not want Lucas to be the only Haitian-born child in our family. (more…)

Haiti Trip #1

My first trip to Haiti where I experienced a lot of firsts. My first airport in a developing country, my first visit to a developing country, my first visit to an orphanage, meeting Lucas for the first time, and leaving a child behind for the first time.

• Traveling to Haiti
• The Airport Experience
• Arrival Home
• Visiting Lucas

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On Wednesay evening there was a tragic accident at the home of Steven and Mary Beth Chapman. Their youngest daughter, Maria Sue, was hit by a car in their driveway and died hours later as a result of her injuries. Reports say it was one of her brothers who did not see her as he was backing out of their driveway

Maria Sue had celebrated her 5th birthday less than two weeks before her death. She is the youngest of six children in the Chapman family. Steven is a well-known award-winning Christian music artist. He and Mary Beth adopted Marie Sue and two of her sisters in China. After their first adoption, they founded Shaohanna’s Hope to provide grants to help offset the costs of adoption fees for families (more…)

As we brought all our luggage to the vehicles and checked out of the hotel, Rhett and Claudia became serious and pressed close to me. I could tell they were fearful I was leaving them again. I wished with all my heart that it wasn’t going play out that way, but it was out of my control. They were going back to the orphanage and I would get on that plane alone.

On the drive to the orphanage, they sat with me in the van quietly observing the people and scenery we passed. If we saw a motorcycle, Rhett pointed it out, but not with his usual enthusiasm. When we pulled into the alley way that led to the front gate of the orphanage, Rhett began to cry and Claudia’s body became stiff against mine. Claudia quickly exited the van and walked up the steps into the building without even a backward glance to see if I was behind her. Rhett sobbed and held onto my hand. (more…)

We, the parents, were sitting at a table in the hotel restaurant when our children arrived. Rhett and Claudia recognized me immediately. Rhett’s eyes lit up and a big smile spread across his face as he hurried toward me. Claudia, however, was cautious. She obviously recognized me and raised her hands for me to pick her up when I approached her, but she appeared be nervous and shy.

My concerns about Claudia’s reaction were soon alleviated when she began smiling and laughing with the hour. We sat in the restaurant for a couple of hours eating and getting reacquainted then we went to our hotel room. Once there, both children opened up further and we enjoyed playing and singing together until meeting up with our group for the next meal. (more…)

In November 2007, we had reached the point in our adoption process where I was required to travel to in order to sign some paperwork for the U.S. government. It does sound a bit odd that I had to travel to Haiti for U.S. paperwork, but that is how it worked at that time for file the I-600 form when adopting in Haiti if we wanted United States Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS) in Port-au-Prince to do the field investigation while we were waiting in the Ministry of Interior (MOI) for passport approval.

Given the torturous parting in May 2006–note the number of months between trip #3 and trip #4–I was feeling quite torn about whether to meet with my children or not. The entire trip was only four days, with only 48 hours in Haiti at the hotel. (more…)

One topic that comes up among all members of the triad is who is the “real mother” for the child(ren) in question. Is she the woman who gave the child life? Is the woman who is there day to day to care for the child more real than the one who is not? Does a woman without contact with her child have a right to call herself his mother? Who is the real mom?

Everyone has their opinion. I have my opinion, and, yes, I’m going to share it with you. (more…)

Parenting in general requires that we communicate effectively with our children. Parenting children affected by adoption requires even more. Not just for the children who were adopted but also for the children in your family who were born into your family.

Through a chain of circumstances, Lucas lost members of his family, leading his mother to place him in the orphanage so that he could be adopted. My children did not give that much thought until Lucas arrived. His arrival and grief brought their own fears to the surface. What if they lost their family? (more…)

Lucas was given an assignment last year in school that required him to decorate a half-sheet of poster board with something about his life. Photos, drawings, writing, stickers, etc. were acceptable. It just had to be about him. I explained the assignment then left him to ponder what he wanted to put on his poster.

Because we adopted out of birth order, Lucas has a brother in the same grade. His brother was completing the same assignment. (more…)

This weekend my family will celebrate Haiti’s Flag Day, which is an important holiday in Haiti. On Friday, I will send all of my children to school with mini Haitian flags and a brief history of Haiti’s flag to read to their class. Lucas will wear his My Two Countries t-shirt. On Saturday, we will meet with local group of Haitian people and adoptive families to celebrate at a local park. On Sunday, we will honor the actual day of the holiday by eating traditional Haitian food for dinner.

For Chinese New Year, we were thrilled to have my sister and niece visit. We celebrated by going to the most authentic Mandarin restaurant available with them and our extended family. My sister shared with us about my niece’s language and culture. Months later, all of my children still talk about the experience. They were only vaguely aware of China until my niece joined our family. Now they take as much interest in her culture as they do their siblings’ Haitian culture. (more…)

When my husband and I prepared for adding to our family through older child adoption, we did our homework by talking honestly with other families, who had experienced a wide variety of scenarios, as well as reading, reading, and reading. Just as we did when preparing for the birth of our first child.

As with our daughter’s birth, our son’s homecoming was not quite as we had envisioned. Though we certainly knew better than to expect sunshine and roses, we were not fully prepared for the raging rawness of our son’s grief. And though it was spelled out plainly in the books and we were certain we understood, the reality of living with a child experiencing attachment difficulties and fear was a whole new experience. (more…)