3 Months Home

Today marks 3 months since Afua joined our family. Eric and I talked about it today and it seems so much longer. Like she has always been here. It's funny how that happens, but she truly is such an important part of our family already.

Our medical appointments have slowed down, therapy visits are steady though. We are preparing for two surgeries and we anticipate the results to be wonderful.

Some new things that Afua can now do:

~ crawl across room

~ sit for 30 minutes if engaged in an activity

~ self feed teething crackers and bring spoon to mouth with help

~use a communication button to ask for "more" at mealtime

~ stand while holding hands for 15 seconds

~ crawl to her Daddy when he gets home for snuggles (her face lights up when he walks in the door)

Amazing little girl who has shown us to never give up hope.

World Cerebral Palsy Day

Today (10/2/2013) is World Cerebral Palsy day. Any previous year, I have thought about my former students who have CP and have inspired me in so many ways. This year, I am a mom to my newest daughter who has CP and in my 2+ months of parenting her, I have such a new found respect for any person with a disability and their parents, siblings and other loved ones. In honor of this day, I wanted to share a letter I wrote to my daughter.

Dear Afua,

I am so proud of you, my sweet daughter. You are the most determined, affectionate and loving little girl I have ever met. I don't know how you kept your will to fight all these years, but you never let your life circumstances dictate how you love others.

I know more than anyone, how hard you have worked for every single milestone. I celebrate that you can sit up independently, because I have watched you tumble so many times and get right back up. I smile and cheer as you crawl across the floor because I know how many times you tried and not an inch of movement occurred. Yet you tried and tried and tried. Baby girl, you try a hundred times with the optimism that the next time will be "it". How I wish this was the way I approached life, thank you for that lesson.

In our 2 months together, we have spent times in waiting rooms, Dr offices, testing rooms. You have been poked, moved around, sedated, restrained and imaged. Instead of crying or whining, you look to connect with each person, squint until you see their eyes and smile. You are trusting even when people in your past have not been trustworthy. I wish I was easy to forgive and forget.

You have taught me that words are not needed to communicate thoughts and feelings. We don't have a common language (yet), but we know each other so well. Sometimes words can get in the way of real communication and you have showed me a new way. 

Thank you for your love. You have changed us all and your story will be something amazing. Thank you for letting us be a part of it.

With love, Mommy

2 months home

Afua landed on US soil 2 months ago. It has been a joyous, heartbreaking, victorious, frustrating, amazing 2 months. We have celebrated so many milestones from small to big and we have been so incredibly busy.

Medically we are in a good place. Afua has an eye surgery and ENT surgery scheduled in the next month. These are minor procedures but due to her low muscle tone we have to stay overnight for the ENT surgery. She is eating enough calories, so the worry over a feeding tube is gone for now. She has gained 5 pounds in 2 months!

Some of Afua's new skills are:

~ if she wants more of something, she will say "oh" in attempt to say more. this is HUGE in her steps to communicate with us

~ she can now crawl 6 steps and rarely rolls anymore. she crawls and scoots upright most of the time

~ she recognizes members of her family vs. strangers

~ she is starting to play games with her siblings

~ she can stand with assistance for 10 seconds and pull up to her knees while holding on to something

~ she loves music and when someone helps her clap her hands

This week we will have Afua's IEP meeting and fit her for leg braces. I look forward to both appointments and what they bring. We are very proud of Afua and all that she has accomplished.

Marathon vs. Sprint

The fatigue is setting in. For almost 8 weeks we have been referred to more Dr.s than most of my other children have seen in a lifetime. Afua is bravely enduring the appointments, she experiences life with such gentle and joyous spirit that is only a reflection of the way she has survived life thus far.

There are days when we just need to retreat and cocoon (adoption term for staying home to establish a "home base" and family unit for a newly adopted child). I highly recommend cocooning, even in small doses for all adopted children. Kofi and Joy were 6 and 3, but we did not go anywhere for the first few weeks, and then we ventured out slowly. It helped anchor them into our family and we really needed to get to know each other. Afua doesn't have words to tell us how she is doing, so getting to know her is even more crucial. This mean days hanging out on the floor, having her crawl all over me and exploring some of her toys.

I have felt that as more and more medical interventions and appointments come up, that I need to slow down and have a long term view of this. Each week, I look at my calendar and think "next week will be better" but for 8 weeks that has not been the case. Not that any one week is bad, but it's always filled with driving to our Children's Hospital, waiting in various offices, saying the same things over and over again to various medical professionals and then more referrals.

Parenting a child with special needs is a marathon. And in order to avoid burn out, I am quickly realizing we need days that are not medical in any way. I need to set aside all that is to come (surgeries, therapies, procedures, appointments) and simply see her as my little girl.

Your child can't be your only black friend

(this blog title started out as a half-joke and as I was discussing it with a friend, I decided to leave it....for better or worse)

I wrote a post a while back about Living as a multicultural family and documented our experiences thus far. I still feel the same way as I did when I wrote that post and we continue to find opportunities to immerse ourselves into all our children's world. But as I have thought about issues of multiracial families and spoken with other (more experienced) adoptive parents, my black friends, my adoptee friends, I came to this conclusion:

Your child cannot be your only black (or Asian or biracial or....) friend.

From very young, children begin to notice skin color and race. It may begin the same way the notice blue eyes and brown eyes, but soon it turns into something else. The book I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla is an interesting read for anyone who wants to understand how children form racial identities. No child should feel like they are always the only one with their skin color, the only one with white parents, the only one who is adopted. It's a lonely place to be even in the most loving families.

As adoptive parents, we make the choice to adopt and we need to immerse ourselves into our children's culture. Anything less is not acceptable, IMHO. We can't say that we live in a white town or we don't know any minorities or we attend a white church. We chose the neighborhoods, we chose the schools, we chose the churches. That is not a valid excuse. Children long to belong, they don't want to be the odd one out, they need mentors. I say this because I struggle with these issues too, not because I have it all figured out.

If you are thinking about adoption or you are still in the process, this is a perfect time to make sure your life is multicultural and multiracial. Consider your daily activities and how would your adopted child feel living in your world. How many people would they see that are people of color? Are there any adult or teen adoptees in your life that can give you a glimpse into your child's future? Can you plug into a community of people that would provide mentoring or a situation where you are the minority? This could be cultural or racial. This is the time to make connections.

Also consider any barriers you have personally to having friends of different races. Sometimes we have to confront our own feelings of racism (yes, even parent who adopt minority children can be racist...) or superiority. This link contains an explanation of white privilege and how that can impact our parenting or prevent us from acknowledging racism. (I haven't investigated that website for any other content, but the description is good) 

While our family has found mentors for our children and frequently visit with adoptive families, I know I can always do more. So I give this challenge to others as much as myself: how can we as adoptive parents immerse ourselves into our children's world and not expect our children just to join in ours?

Your child can't be your only black friend.

Cerebral Palsy

One of the first things we knew about Afua was that she has Cerebral Palsy. We were not troubled by the diagnosis and we knew that she was perfect just as she was. But once we took her to our first neurologist (I say first because we now have two that follow her) he was not sure if there was another type of neurological disorder going on. We had and MRI and we waited for the results.

Turns out, she does have CP. She had lack of oxygen to her brain either during birth or in utero which caused a part of her brain to be affected. We are following up with neurologist #2 to understand the extent of her injury better. So in some ways I was thankful to know what is going on, but a part of me was so sad that day.

I cried for my little girl and I cried for all that she has been through. I can't understand the magnitude of the rejection and loss she has felt during her first years. I cried for a culture that we love so much that doesn't love our daughter with a disability. I have spent enough time in Ghana to know how people with disabilities are viewed and how limited their opportunities are.

Many therapists that have evaluated her have given us such promise for her mobility and improvement in general. We are starting from the beginning, teaching her the most basic things we would teach our 6-9 month old babies. It's exciting to see her respond to the techniques and all the medical things that are available to her. Right now, sky is the limit and we get to witness her healing as we find more answers.

You have your hands full...and other things I don't want to hear

We had 3 blissful days cocooning at home. Afua was done with appointments, over stimulating environments and being poked at by various people. And so was I. We needed a few days off knowing that Friday was our MRI that she needed to be sedated for.

During those quiet days at home, I saw huge progress in our attachment, in her physical abilities and in the way she communicated with us. I got to know Afua better as we moved through the day together. She was all over her siblings, engaged in their playing and scooting around to keep up with them. Precious!

Friday, we got up early, before anyone else was up. We went through admissions and into radiology. As we spoke with various people (admissions, nurses, doctor, child life specialist) the question come out inevitably. Because of our skin colors not matching, people know we are related due to adoption or foster care. I tell our story briefly and it leads to more questions. How many other children do you have at home? Do you have any of you "own" children? Really, you have 5 children? Did you know she had a disability when you adopted her? Wow, how do you do it? And then....you MUST have your hands full. I can barely keep up with my (1,2,3) children. When this starts, I smile and take a deep breath....

Yes, our life is busy, but I think life is always busy. We fill our life with busy things no matter how many children we have. I was busy with 2 children, it was just a different kind of busy. Having 5 children is not crazy or impossible. It's sometimes loud, sometimes stretching all of us, but most of the time it's just a lot of love. And is it really a bad thing to have "full hands"?

Dear medical professionals, random deli counter acquaintances, soccer moms and anyone else that we encounter as we venture out: adoption is a fairly intentional way to add to our family. There is no "oops" adoption, it is pretty much all consuming work emotionally, physically, financially to have a child join our family. So please see it as a blessing as we do :)

Love, Me