Bind Us Together

When I was in medical school, I hated my surgery rotations with a passion. Standing still in a sterile field in the operating room for hours on end was just too much for my  ADD-self to handle. But, I remember how much I loved the end of each surgery, when medical students got to do more than just stand there and hold the retractor- we got to help "close up."  Layer by layer, the patient's body would be stitched back together from the inside out. Every layer required a different type of suture material and a different kind of stitch. 

This slow and careful sewing back together of a newly healed body is what I think about when I read verses like:

 "God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds," Psalm 147:3

Or 

 "He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted," Isaiah 61:1

 I love this image of God as the healer of our broken hearts. It is intimate and organic and in it we see God as the Great Surgeon, the Mighty Healer, who knows our inner most wounds and WANTS TO HEAL THEM.  

He stitches us back together from the inside out and is not satisfied until His Spirit has healed the deepest, darkest places of our soul. The places we are afraid to acknowledge and don't want anyone else to see. Those are the deep hurts God is waiting to heal. Only then, once the shame, rejection, hurt, and pain have been opened up and taken out, can God begin to stitch us back together and heal our brokenness. 

 There is deliberateness and there is gentleness in this picture of God who wants to be the healer of our hearts. 

The promise that God is a healer of all our brokenness is an ancient one that is woven into the very fabric of our faith. This is the promise that I am claiming for myself but also for my son.  

I also know that there would be no hope for any of us, no promise to believe in, if it weren't for the beautiful, mysterious thing called grace. Grace that goes before us, always there, whether we see it or not. 

Grace was there, though not yet seen, in every event that led us to becoming Carter's parents. Grace was there with Carter when no one else was there with him.  Grace was there for all the moments we were not. Grace is even waiting for us on that hard, hard day a few years from now when we will have to start answering his questions about how he came to be Carter and who he was before that. 

       (Our first day together, exhausted from crying, keeping his bunny as a barrier between us.)

It is Grace that will bring healing to his heart. Layer by layer. Stitch by stitch.  

My job and Justin's job is to love and parent with our feet planted firmly in that promise.  To believe for Carter until he can believe for himself that because of grace, love will heal his wounded heart. 

While we are still rejoicing that Carter had a foster grandmother to love and dote on him, we are trying to learn how to get him to UN-learn some things. (Like don't yank your brother's hair when he makes you mad.) It is not as simple as saying, "He obviously was spoiled, so just stop spoiling him."  Before he was given so much love from his Nai Nai, we believe he was in a different foster home where he was not cared for nearly as well. Before that, he spent his first year in an orphanage. Before that, he was a baby who was abandoned by his birth mother at an age when he surely already knew his mother's face, voice, and smile. 

These are the layers we will be trying to unravel as we build our own bonds with Carter.  These are the layers that only time, love, and grace can heal. 

The one big word, the thing most people worry about when it comes to raising an adopted child is attachment. I have come to think of attachment as an invisible cord connecting us to Carter and Carter to us. 

It must be woven tighter and stronger....

day by day....

bit by bit.....

I say all this so that you will know that while we are bringing home a twenty-two month old toddler, Carter's attachment age is that of a newborn.  When he cries, we will respond.  Until we have signs that Carter's attachment is forming well, we will be the only ones caring for him. So, please don't be offended if we don't hand him over to you to hold and if we seem a little over protective when we are out and about.  He needs to know that we are his forever family and not just a group of new caregivers who are waiting to pass him over to the next group that comes along.  We may even look like we are "spoiling" him but there are reasons behind every "yes" and every "no" we decide to give.

We don't need your advice (unless we ask for it) but we do need your prayers,  your encouragement, and a whole lot of grace. 

From Sea to Shining Sea

        Wearing our Stars and Stripes 

Today we traveled to the US Consulate for Carter's visa appointment. We weren't allowed to take any cell phones or cameras inside the building so we don't have pictures from the actual event, but this was a big day for us! Once we pick up Carter's visa and fly home, he will be granted U.S. citizenship as soon as he lands on American soil. It really hit me, as we walked past the long line of those non-U.S. citizens wanting visas to enter the our country just how fortunate we are and how much we take our own citizenship for granted. Carter waved and smiled at everyone waiting for hours in the hot sun as if he knew that he was getting to cut in line big time. What made this day even more special was that a friend of my mother's and our new friend, Meg Katsumi, who works at the consulate was there to meet Carter. As a special treat, she was allowed to administer our oath and take Justin's fingerprints.  I did not expect to be emotional at all today, but this melted my heart. I believe that God is most often present in our lives in the hands, feet, and faces of others who love as God loves. Today, Meg was just that- a very special reminder of God's presence even in the most unexpected of places. Someone who has been praying for us and with us all this time was there for this final step in our journey. I still can't get over the beauty of it all.  

      After dinner with Meg

We have one more day here and then we begin our long journey home!

        Silly faces and sweet kisses 

Too cute not to share- Carter put on Justin's shoes and then decided to use the shoe laces as handles so he could walk and keep the shoes on.  I'm beginning to think this boy is a genius. 

      He loves his new backpack from Meg! He patted his back as soon as he saw it to tell me to put it on him. 

Pearls, Pizza, and Pandas

Yesterday was a busy but fun day. We started the morning with Carter's medical exam. We are not traveling with a group which is fairly unusual for our agency but has been a mixed blessing for us. It can be a little lonely to not have a lot of other adopting families to share your journey, BUT everything takes a lot less time. For example, this medical clinic is usually packed with families, but when we got there yesterday morning we were the only ones waiting!  Since Carter is usually on the move, not having to wait long at all of the official places we've had to visit is truly a good thing. 

    Empty waiting room = Playground for Carter

His exam was fast and easy, which it should be considering that he seems perfectly healthy. He was fine with the first doctor until she reached around to listen to his lungs and he thought she was trying to pick him up.  Then he was just mad. None of my kids have ever liked going to the doctor (irony) so he is just showing us one more way that he fits right in. 

The second doctor did an ENT exam very briefly. Carter loves to take small toys or pens and point them at our mouths and say, "Aaahh..." Justin says he should be a dentist when he grows up because he has so much fun telling everyone to open up and even does it himself. We thought this would be great at his exam, but nope. He clamped down as soon as the doctor went towards his mouth. I think he knew the difference between his game and this scary doctor with a mask trying to mess with him. 

In the afternoon, Mom, Camdyn, and I went to the pearl market with our guide. It was so much fun to look at all the strands of pearls. We bought a few gifts and I got a pearl necklace to save for Carter's future wife. (It seems crazy to think of something so far in the future, but I wanted something from his birth country to give her should that day ever come.)

      Camdyn picked out and paid for her own pearl bracelets.

Last night we went on a cruise on the Pearl River. The boat has the option of doing a dinner cruise but our guide suggested we order Papa Johns pizza and have a pizza party on board instead. Based on what other families said, the food served on the cruise is not great, so ten points to our guide for that. 

     Justin is impressed with the world's 2nd tallest building.

Carter has probably never been on a boat before and clearly had never seen anything like the sights we saw last night. He kept saying, "Boat! Mama! Bo-boat!" Every time another boat passed and "Mama! Li-li!" for all the lights. Over and over and over. He loved the motion and the noise.  If I did not seem just as excited as him, ( It is hard to maintain total excitement for two hours) he would grab my cheeks, look right in my face and say, "Mama! Mama! Boat! Boat!"  

He is picking up new English words every day and in just a week he can say about 10 words. I know that means he will soon stop speaking Chinese and that makes me a little sad. But, he is a boy who wants to communicate and is much happier when he feels like we understand what he wants so I expect his speech to continue to move along pretty quickly. 

This morning we went to the Guangzhou Zoo. We did not stay long because it was hot and humid and in spite of coating ourselves in bug spray, the mosquitos were eating us alive. It was fun while it lasted and Carter seemed to enjoy it most of all. He loved seeing the animals!

    Mama, lets go down there with the bears...

     Don't let this smile fool you- Charlie was ready to go after 15 minutes in the heat!

   Sitting is optional

    He is showing another little girl the monkey

Cheeseburgers and Paradise

Yesterday we flew from Carter's home town to Guangzhou for the second week of our trip. Guangzhou is in the southern part of China very close to Hong Kong. The US Consulate is here which is where we need to go to complete the final steps needed for Carter's visa. Our travel day just happened to coincide with the day Carter decided to introduce us to his high pitched "I'm very unhappy!" Squeal.  You aren't taking me outside right now...squeal.  I want to run around the crowded airport....squeal. You won't give me an entire hardboiled egg so I can throw it across the five star hotel lobby....squeal.  I was imagining an entire flight of those squeals but, miracle of miracles, Carter fell asleep just before the plane took off and slept the entire two hour flight. 

    Total relief when he fell asleep. 

He would have made it until we got off the plane, but just as we were about to disembark we were all told we had to get back in our seats. We sat there while three police officers boarded the plane and came all the way to the back where we were sitting (I'm sure everyone on board thought they were coming for us, the only Americans on board) and detained a woman who was sitting just behind us. We have no idea who she was or why she was on the government's "wanted" list but off she went and we were finally allowed to leave. 

The differences between Guangzhou and Zhengzhou are like night and day. In Zhengzhou the air is so thick with pollution that you can't even see the tops of tall buildings on most days. There are very few places to eat near the hotel and while we were there the temperatures reached over 100 degrees. We stayed close to the hotel except when we needed to go out for official adoption related things. There was a nice park near our hotel but heat+pollution+two of us being sick for a few days made the week seem very long and very stressful.  I think we ate pizza from the hotel restaurant at least five times. The streets are very crowded and the sidewalks are full of motorbikes and scooters all whizzing by at no less than 50 m.p.h, which makes walking anywhere feel like a death defying act, especially when you are walking with 3 kids in tow. Compared to Zhengzhou, Guangzhou feels like paradise. We have a Starbucks at our hotel. Heaven. And a McDonalds right next door. I have never been so happy to see a cheeseburger. Even after a week on a boat on the Amazon, McDonalds never seemed more glorious.  I really am not one of those Americans who travels abroad and only wants to see/eat American things, but traveling with young kids is a whole different ball game. And let's not forget my husband whose non-adventuresome eating habits are virtually legendary. 

Last night we ventured out to a park near our hotel. Just walking in clean, green space felt refreshing and wonderful. Carter loves being outside and loves trees and flowers. He just talked and sang to himself the entire time. I am the only one allowed to push his stroller which makes me smile because Charlie used to be the same way when he was little. 

Today we went to visit an ancient Buddhist temple built around 1400 years ago. We also visited the old Chen Family Ancestry home which is now a museum of Chinese folk art. It was hot and Carter slept through most of it. We did get to see a well known artist who makes amazing paintings with his hands.   

     Carter was unimpressed with the massive Buddhas at the temple.

     Camdyn got a fan with her name written in Chinese characters

    Outside the Chen House. Camdyn has her fan and Charlie got a Chinese flute. 

    Cuddling with big sister. 

Hard Places

A common phrase in the adoption world is that our children come from "hard places."  I think this is a good way to describe in two small words the huge divide that exists between the early months of children we parent from birth and children we don't begin to parent until months or even years after they are born. We can imagine and maybe even see these places with our eyes, but we never truly know all the loneliness, fear, and sorrow they experienced. Today we were able to visit some of our son's "hard places" and see for ourselves the orphanage where Carter spent the first year of his life.  We also went to his finding spot and it was all I could do not to fall apart right then and there. We aren't sharing with anyone but Carter exactly where this spot was, but it was important for me to be in that space with him for just a moment and try to imagine the pain and heartache his birth mother must have felt when she left him.  It was not an easy morning for any of us. Camdyn said it very well, "I felt so much sadness and we were only there for an hour. I can't imagine what it would feel like if that were my home."  

           At the entrance of the orphanage....

 Carter was at the Zhengzhou Civil Welfare Institute in the Lily Orphan Care Center, which is really just a few rooms inside the CWI that are sponsored by our adoption agency, CCAI. We visited these rooms and the Show Hope rooms but did not see many other parts of the orphanage. The Show Hope rooms are sponsored by Stephen Curtis Chapman and his wife's orphan care organization. I made it a special point to request we see those rooms because a friend I have met through Facebook is in the proccess of adopting two babies from those rooms. Interstingly, my friend lives in Memphis and these two little ones with special needs are also future LeBonheur patients!  Their caregivers where very pleased when I told them that I knew the doctors who would be taking care of them in America and that they were going to be in great hands when they got their medical care -in addition to their amazing family who just can't wait to bring them home. 

     Some of the babies in the LOCC. The baby on the left was full of smiles, it was precious!

I know that what we saw was the "nice" side of the orphanage because we were seeing rooms that are sponsored by non-profit groups that are able to provide more staff, more supplies, and more one on one care. Those babies were smiling and laughing and clean and instead of being left alone in their cribs, they were playing on a play mat on the floor. I know without having to see it with my eyes that this is not the case for babies in other rooms and on other floors. How Carter was picked to be one of the babies who was assigned there and not another regular room, I will never know.  It is very clear that the babies in these rooms are loved and cared for greatly. We brought photos and updates from some families who have adopted other children from the LOCC and it was amazing to see the joy on the nanny's faces as they looked at pictures of little ones that they had loved.  As soon as we walked in, they recognized him and began to talk to him. He was decidedly not happy to see them, though, and buried his face in my chest. Our guide, Rita, said because he is very bonded with us, he seemed afraid that we were going to leave him behind. He kept saying (in Chinese), "Mama, let's go! Let's go, mama!"  It wasn't until we left the building and went outside that he started smiling again but was still very fussy the entire van ride back to the hotel. Once we got out of the van he started giggling and immediately was back to his playful, affectionate self. 

              Carter got close and quiet.

     I think this Nanny almost cried when I showed her new photos of a little girl they say she loved like a daughter.  Her joy made Justin and I cry. 

Carter is amazing us every day with what he knows and how fast he learns. He can already say a handful of English words and is also learning some signs and gestures to get his point across. As in, he will point to his baseball hat, say "Mama" and then pat his head when he wants to wear his hat- which he loves to do whenever big brother is also wearing his baseball cap. 

Most of the time he is just in constant motion with a constant stream of Chinese toddler speak. Everything he does he thinks is hysterical and he looks at us to make sure we thinks it is hysterical, too. Today has been the first day where he has started to really try to play and be silly with my mom. We learned that in his foster home, he was mostly cared for (i.e. spoiled) by his foster grandmother whom he called "Nai Nai". So, we think that Nanny was just too close in age and name to the woman he has most been grieving for him to open up to her until now. But, you can tell that he has already figured out that Nanny might possibly be more fun than Mama and Baba. 

It's Friday and this is the first time he has let Nanny hold him. (Food may have been involved.)

It's time for me to "testify"...

Yesterday was a busy day filled with official adoption "stuff". We had to return to the Civil Affairs office to have the adoption finalized. The first 24 hours we had him we were just his temporary guardians. Adopting parents have 24 hours with their child to decide if they are willing to proceed with everything. It sounds strange, but once in a blue moon parents do return their child, often because the child's needs were different or much greater than they expected. I cannot imagine how painful it must be to make that decision. In the adoption community this is called "disruption" and though it is rare, I think it is the one thing every parent fears deep in their heart of hearts. Justin and I had actually had conversations about "what if" scenarios but it was almost too horrible of a topic for us to imagine or discuss. For quite some time I have had a deep, deep belief that every step of our journey has been ordained by God. That may sound like overly spiritual mumbo-jumbo to some and to a lot of people who know me, they know that I don't throw around God-talk lightly. But, for reasons I may someday share, I distinctly and very clearly believed that God was bringing Carter into our family for a reason. He was meant for us and we were meant for him. Most of those reasons we won't ever fully realize, but I know they are there. 

So, on Gotcha Day I was decidedly not nervous and the only way for me to describe it is to say that I felt deep, deep peace. True, unwavering, peace. The kind that "surpasses all understanding."  No butterflies. No jittery stomach. Just calm. When we saw Carter for the first time, I knew.  He was ours. His screaming, angry, bossy self, yelling commands at us in Chinese only settled reassurances deep into my heart. The truth is, when we found is file, he had several delays. At 8 months we wasn't sitting up on his own, and the update we got at 14 months said he was crawling but not yet walking or standing. His weights were so far below the growth curve it was appalling. At 14 months he only weighed 14 pounds and when we got an update 3 months later he was only up to 16 pounds. The developmental specialist at Johns Hopkins who reviewed his file said she thought he had hypotonia and "global developmental delays" but that she also thought he would catch up eventually if he was given time and nurture. When Justin and I decided to pursue him, it was a true leap of faith. And for seven months we had to learn to walk in that faith. His file said he was "deaf" and even though we had hearing tests that showed he could at least hear out his left (good) ear, at the time of the testing he had mild to moderate hearing loss in that ear and profound hearing loss out of his right ear. We imagined all of the worst case scenarios and tried to prepare as best as we could. We did not get many updates while we were waiting for him and were sent no new pictures after October. It was painful for me to see other waiting mamas receive new photos and even new videos while we had nothing but our imaginations, trying to guess what he looked like over the months while we waited. Fear and uncertainty would sometimes send me into a panic. The only thing I could do was pray. "Lord, please help him to be with a foster mother who loves him."  "Help him to stay healthy."  "Give him enough to eat today, God."  "It's cold in Zhengzhou, please help him to be warm."

What I have realized in the last twenty-four hours is that all of our prayers were being met and then some. We didn't receive any photos because his foster home was not close to the orphanage. From the picture that we now have, it is clear that he was being loved and nurtured far beyond what we could have ever hoped for. He now weighs a whopping 23 pounds! My baby with hypotonia and global delays is running around, climbing over everything and is nothing less than a fireball of little boy energy. He clearly hears well, talks to us constantly in Chinese, and as already learned the word "more" which he uses frequently whenever food is involved. He has been taught how to use a fork and spoon and drinks straight out of a glass (which I discovered after he refused all bottles and sippy cups). The boy even know how to work a touch screen and demands that we let him have our phones whenever we take them out. I was prepared for an underweight baby who mostly took formula and very soft foods, but he literally saw a pizza box, reached in, grabbed himself a piece and devoured it. He even fought Charlie over the last piece of pizza in the box 

We have so much work ahead of us. He will still have moments of insecurity and sadness and last night when he realized it was time for bed and we weren't taking him back to his home, he unleashed a wave of total grief and sorrow. The only thing I could do was hold him and cry. But he has already started reaching to me for comfort, has given me some slobbery kisses, and is not happy at all when Charlie climbs into my lap, which is what I would call an attachment miracle. 

I say all of this because this is my testimony and one that I know I am supposed to share. Adoption is not for everyone and is no where near being a solution to what some have called a global "orphan crisis."  But for me, this adoption has been a journey deeper into the heart of God than I ever knew I could go. It has forced me to let go of so much of my own pretenses and false understandings of what it means to be what we post-Evangelicals like to call a "Jesus follower." Never in my life have I been so certain that I was being obedient to my Savior and yet so afraid of what was waiting on the other shore. I have been forced to live by faith, day by day.  I been sent down to my knees because the only thing I could do was pray and then pray some more. I have dug deeper into the Word than I ever went in all those years of seminary and discovered that Scripture really and truly still speaks Truth and Wisdom and opens the eyes of our hearts to tiny glimpses of God's own self. I even left my respectable, downtown traditional church for a church that has all those things I used to roll my eyes at (think spotlights, fog machines, video productions, and loud music) because I realized that you can take the girl out of the Pentecostal church, but you can't take the Pentecost out of the girl and what this girl's soul needed was not more hymns and liturgy but a chance every week to stand in worship with other people, lifting my hands to God, laying everything down. I needed to publicly bare my soul, and let God's grace rush in again and again. All of that only happened because we took a chance and followed the path we believed we were meant to journey down together as a family. What I know now is that following God does not guarantee a life free of fear, nor does it mean you will not have to make terrifying, scary decisions. Following God is not a promise that life will be easy or without sorrow. I tremble when I think just how easily we could have found our boy in a much different state. But what overwhelms me more than anything is the realization that fear almost kept me from this beautiful boy who was worth every agonizing, heartbreaking second of our wait, and then some. And that, I believe, is true, amazing, grace. 

First Day of Forever

There were not many other families waiting when we arrived so we stalked the front door waiting for the first glimpse of him...

He was not happy to see us.  This picture says it all...

They say that a child who grieves strongly in the beginning is a good thing. They are attached to someone and they know you are not that person. That is what I kept telling myself over and over as he cried and cried. This is pain that will be redeemed. Unlike in the US, foster parents are very rarely allowed or able to adopt the children they care for. Carter's orphanage is very large and often children are sent to live with foster families around one year of age. Eventually, most of the children who are not adopted will be moved back to the orphanage once they are a little older. Knowing this makes it a little easier to see so much sadness in this boy I love, but only a little. I am certain, too, that his grief is matched even more so by the woman who has clearly loved him. We can see from photos we received and the food and treats she sent that he was her joy. We also know that she tried her best to prepare him for what lied ahead. The photo albums we sent show signs that he has spent countless hours looking at his new family. When we pulled them out he got very calm and started flipping through the pages as if they were his most favorite books and he pointed at each one of us in every photo. We are not yet the people in the photos to him but maybe his toddler brain will start to make connections soon. 

I love this photo. It captures all of our emotions in one picture...

His orphanage gave us a photo album of pictures of him since he was a baby. It is a treasure!

Inspite of his anger, he very clearly told us he wanted to go outside (which we figured out with the help of a Chinese translator). If we went inside, he screamed louder and pointed back to the door saying, "Over there! Over there!"

We sent him this bunny in a care package and it has a recording of us telling him in Chinese, "Baba loves you! Mama loves you! Sister loves you! Brother loves you!" His foster mother sent it with him and he would not let it go. Every so often he would rub it against his cheek and stop crying for just a few seconds. Right now he is even sleeping in my arms with his head resting on the bunny. He loves to squeeze it and hear us talk and will look at us as if he is starting to figure out that we match the bunny voices.  Then he starts crying again.  Between the lollipop, the bunny, the sweat, snot, and tears, we were all on big sticky mess before it was time to go. 

It took less than five minutes in the hotel for a game of catch to start...

And of course playing catch brought us the first smile...

He loves his Baba and doesn't want him out of his site...

FaceTime with Papa....

Big sister introducing him to Instagram...

Being silly with his sister...