What's In an Age?

If you are the parent or perspective parent of an internationally adopted child, you probably know that the ages of children available for adoption are often a little, or a lot, fuzzy. Even in relinquishment cases, in a country like Ethiopia where they do not celebrate birthdays like we do in the US, and have a completely different calendar system, a birth date is often an estimate. If a child is abandoned in infancy, obviously the exact birth date is unknown, but there is a smaller window for error with a young infant. With older children the effects of malnutrition can make it more difficult to determine an accurate age until the child has been home in the US for a period of time.

Age has been a question mark for us from the beginning. First the orphanage that our boys spent a week at made their estimate. Then our agency’s doctor increased that estimate when they first came into care, and then again after they had been in care for a couple months and started walking and talking. Finally the birth family was interviewed and they gave an even older age. This is the age that is on their Ethiopian birth certificates.

When we were in Ethiopia, one of the boys spent some time in the hospital. The attending pediatrician thought that they were younger. Our pediatrician at home, and a pediatrician at the Yale International Adoption Clinic, also thought they were younger by about six months when they were evaluated in June. I was delighted to have six more months of their life back but we decided to wait a few months before making any decisions.

In August we returned to the Yale International Adoption Clinic to have a developmental evaluation done. The boys’ comprehension of English was improving rapidly but they were nowhere near where they are today. Still, they tested on target for the age on their birth certificates. The evaluation only tested their cognitive development, and physically they seemed much younger than their peers, so we wanted to move their birth date by at least a few months.

Then a month ago we started the re-adoption process and, low and behold, it turns out that it is not so easy to move a birth date. The judge wanted two letters from different doctors stating medical reasons for the change. They did a bone age test, and this too came back on target for the age on their Ethiopian birth certificates. So, no medical proof, no change of birth date.

Tomorrow we will complete the re-adoption of our sons. Their names will legally be changed to the names we have chosen for them and they will receive US Birth Certificates with the birth date specified by their first family in Ethiopia. Emotionally it hasn’t been exactly easy to give up those six months I thought I had regained, and physically they still seem delayed for their age (we are taking them to a pediatric physical therapist next), but after coming all the way round the mulberry bush on this one, I feel good about it.

My babies are three years and three months old, and they don't come any sweeter, smarter or more beautiful at any age!

Happiest Halloween

Last year on Halloween we had been waiting almost 11 months to see our children's faces. You can click on the Halloween label below to read my post from two years ago, and see how long we thought we would be waiting to become parents!

On most days I was still feeling fairly strong but all the Spidermen and fairy princesses got the better of me that day. Mark sat alone and uncomplaining on our front steps passing out candy, while I changed into my pj's and sulked off to bed to live vicariously through other people's blogs. This post in particular stood out, and inspired both hope and tears (although now that I look at the date on Julie's post, I can see that it was written a few days after Halloween, so I must have been in a multi-day, pj-wearing, sulk!)



This year Halloween started with two excited, smiling boys in skeleton jammies.

Before 9 AM, the adventures of Shark and Giraffe began!

Shark had a face to face encounter with his archnemesis, Clover the Cow...

...and he carefully chose his favorite food for dinner.

Giraffe helped pick out the fruits...

...and veggies, as Giraffes are inclined to do.

Then they went on a hayride and posed for the gratuitous pumpkin shot, but smiles were hard to come by due to a man in a cow costume that was causing some distress.

Scary cow-man was soon forgotten with the push of a ghost button!

After nap we attended a costume party with the neighbors, where there was a lot of running around and general excitement! Hard to get pictures of them in motion and we left before the group shot due to another grown-up in a scary monster costume. I felt no need to push them out of their newly achieved sense of security by forcing them to confront their fears, so we left when tears became the dominant theme.

Finally it was time for the long awaited trick-or-treating. Pictures do not accurately depict the abundant cuteness that ensued!

Finally it was time to survey the loot and choose the one allowed piece of candy. My boys are no dummies and choose the largest, stickiest piece of ooey-gooey goodness! We never give them candy so it was interesting to see the sugar take affect. It really DOES make them bounce off the walls!

What a difference a year makes!

I hope you had a happy Halloween too. If not, keep the faith. Dreams do come true, and I hope yours comes true very, very soon.

Gratuitous Cuteness

Privacy ***Updated

When we were waiting for our referral, I devoured as much information as I could about raising an adopted child. I read books and blogs. I became friends with other adoptive moms. I attended seminars. But the one topic that never felt clear to me was the one about how much to tell, or not to tell, about our boys’ story.

Claudia’s post yesterday on this topic goes down as one of the top ten most helpful of all time. Go read it. I’ll wait.

We have been approached a lot since returning home with our boys. Sometimes the comments and questions are so lovely and full of appreciation that they make me teary (often those are from other adoptive moms). Most of the time the comments are well meaning and harmless…

“Where are they from?” (The easy question)

“Are they twins?” (Another easy one, unless I am in a bad mood and feel like saying, “duh”.)

“Are they brothers?” (This question is harmless but what you really want to ask is whether they have the same birth parents, and that’s kind of personal, isn’t it? Would you ever dream of approaching a non-adoptive mother to ask her if all her children have the same father? And then there is the duh factor again. Two boys with the same parents are always brothers, regardless of how they joined that family.)

Sometimes the questions we get are just bizarre. Like the woman at the grocery store who asked my very white husband and I if our very black children were full term. “Ummm…they were adopted so I don’t know the answer to that”.

I guess this is a pretty common "twin" question, but even if I had given birth to my boys, it feels like an inappropriate question to ask a complete stranger.

Unfortunately, sometimes the questions people ask are unwittingly rude.

There are the people who feel the need to ask about the status of my fertility, and share their own very sad and very personal stories, assuming incorrectly that this is what led us to adopt our sons.

And my all time favorite, the woman at the hotel pool this summer, who in spite of my explanation that their story is private and we aren’t sharing it, proceeded to ask me twice, in a loud whisper that everyone could hear, “but was it AAAAAIDS???”

Are you kidding me???

“What happened to their real parents” is a favorite, and for me the hardest to handle, especially when I know the person doing the asking. Claudia explains this so well. Deflecting a direct question like this feels incredibly awkward and rude. Not knowing what to say, many times I have said too much.

The boys have been right there for each and every one of these encounters. Because the questions are usually asked, at best, out of appreciation, and at worst, out of unthinking curiosity, they don't offend me. But someday soon the boys will understand just enough to feel an impact. And that is the issue.

If you have been following this blog, or if you know us, you will know that at a high level we have shared. I am an open person, and I have first hand experience with what it feels like to be adopted, so I was letting that perspective guide my thinking. I also have a great desire to never imply, directly or indirectly, that there is any shame to their story. What better way to avoid implied shame than openness? But what I failed to take into consideration is that my boys aren’t me, and they might not want people to know their personal history. Mark is like that. There have been times where he has gotten a little squirmy about the things I share on this blog. Privacy is different than secrecy. I get it. So from here on out, we will continue to talk openly with the boys about their past, but we will not be sharing the details of their history with others until they are old enough to decide for themselves what they wish to share.

***My dear husband just informed me that this post sounds a little harsh (see, squirmy!) and may be misinterpreted (thank you, Honey/Editor), so I want to clarify three things.

One, if you are someone who has already asked us about the boys' past, please do not worry and I hope I haven't offended you. My intention in posting this was to help other adoptive parents decide what is right for their family, and to make a modification to where I stand on this issue myself.

Two, I will continue sharing lots of stuff on this blog about the boys, just not the details of their past unless some day they ask me to do so.

Three, if you are an adoptive parent who has already shared or plans to share your children's past, I pass NO JUDGEMENT. It's hard enough to decide what's right for your family without having some one judge you for it, so you'll never get that from me. I also encourage you to leave your perspective in the comments. Those who are willing to share the most have been the most helpful to me, and I know that I can't be the only one who has struggled with this complex issue.

Happy Friday

Surviving and Thriving

It’s 5 PM and I am already sitting at our dining room table, thanks to a work-from-home day. I am encircled by a large and impressive IKEA wooden train track, and two happy boys are drawing on either side of me.

Taye’s drawing is a controlled, multi-colored composition. Each color is drawn in a different style, and each style represents a different object. The long orange zigzag is a slide. The small green swirl is a swing, as is the purple line, connected at either end by solid ovals. The yellow and pink circles are circles. He tells me this with a look that says, “Momma, you should know that!”.

Dash’s drawing started with small, faint circles, then exploded into a mono-chromatic swirl that engulfed the page. He says it’s, “Mommy, Daddy, Dash, Taye, Portsie, Lucy, Duncan, America.”

This is still a favorite topic.

I love how their drawings reflect their personalities, and the things that are on their minds. I love that my job allows me to work from home sometimes so that I don't have to miss this stuff.

I have been back at work for almost six weeks now. The first couple weeks were pretty hard emotionally for all of us but here we are, six weeks later, and I can honestly say that not only are we going to survive this change, but in spite of it we continue to grow happier and happier as a family. I attribute this to five things;

1) my amazing husband who has become an incredible stay-at-home dad

2) the fact that nothing could possibly be as tiring or as challenging as our first month home, so this pales in comparison

3) the fact that activity at work has been ramping up slowly, which means I have been able to work from home two or three days a week

4) my incredibly smart, beautiful, sweet sons who once again have adjusted amazingly well and

5) the fact that Mark has carried 100% of the house cleaning burden, leaving me to spend 100% of my non-work time with the boys. Did I mention that my husband is amazing?

Not sure how I got so lucky, but I am :-)

Wordless Wednesday

Books

When we first got home, the boys had little interest in books other than as objects of destruction. They would throw them. They would tear out pages and rip off peek-a-boo flaps, but they would not let me read them.

Some time in July, after daily attempts at "reading" that usually ended in frustration, they discovered this book. It was a turning point and a life line. We read it over and over and over again. We recited it in lines to pass the time and we quoted our favorite parts to get  through scary doctor's visits. It turned bed time from a festival of tears into an enjoyable activity. In many ways I think it bridged the communication gap we were all struggling to get over.

These days our floors and tables and beds are littered with books. We read in the morning before going downstairs for breakfast, before naptime on days when I work from home and, of course, before bed at night. I read to them and they read to me and to each other. Scratch and sniff and peek-a-boo flap books, once without a chance of survival, have become the new favorites. Each week I comb through stacks, previously set aside because they were too advanced, only to find that there are very few books left in those stacks. We read this book for the first time last week. Am I the only one who has a hard time getting through that one without holding back tears?

When I imagined being a parent, reading was one of the things I imagined most, and it is such joy to have arrived at this place. Santa needs some recommendations...what books do your kids love?

September in Pictures




Making Friends

 


Forts Are Cool -- No Doggies Allowed




Tickle Time With Daddy

 


New Favorite Word = "Mine!"

 


Juke Box Heros




New Phase = Climbing

 


Porter is pretty cool afterall...look, Mommy, nose!







Turning Three









We're going to need a bigger garage for this band!

 


New Greatest Desire = A Big Kid Bike (this one is the neighbor's)

 


This one is the neighbor's too. We have nice neighbors!



It was a good month :-)



One Year Ago

One year ago today, a strong and beautiful woman made a difficult and loving decision.





After surviving the circumstances that led to that decision, at an age when most kids have trouble being left with a babysitter for a couple hours, our sons embarked on a year of momentous change.

They said goodbye to homes and caregivers not once, not twice, but three times.
They learned words in not one, not two, but three languages.





Through it all they remained bright, shining, warm, loving, smart, beautiful and sweet.

I have never known anyone braver or more resilient.

And they have shown me a love I never knew before, for which I am thankful every day.

I cannot imagine life without them, and especially on days like today, it breaks my heart knowing that she has to.