It's Hard Sometimes

Parenting is not for the weak.  Adopting is not for the weak.  It is tough stuff.  It can fill you with emotions and reactions that you never thought you'd have. 

We are struggling a lot with Carlos.  He was adopted at ten and a half months old, so as an infant, but he struggles with issues that one would expect from a child who was adopted at a much older age.  Issues of abandonment, rejection, loss, identity, trust.  He struggles with very low self esteem, perfectionism, and deep anger.  We see this played out in numerous ways, none of them good or healthy. 

He has never fully attached to me, his mom.  I could see it in his eyes and through the way he responded to me during his first year or so home with us.  I struggled with feelings of rejection, sadness, anger, and guilt.  I was so afraid that he would never attach to me and that would then lead to him becoming a juvenile delinquint and it would be all my fault.  It felt heavy and scary and sad.  I wondered if somehow someone at the adoption agency had made a mistake.  Maybe there was something wrong with me and I wasn't fit to parent.  I didn't share my feelings with anyone besides Kevin and only a couple of close friends.  I was too embarressed and ashamed and didn't think most people would understand.  After all, we "chose" to become parents through adoption - I should be happy and joyful and grateful all the time, right? 

At about the year and a half point, there was a difference in the way Carlos looked at me and I called that "attachment."  Our relationship and time together felt better, more natural, and I thought we had a breakthrough and that everything would be okay now.  As time went on though, I knew in my gut that our relationship wasn't the same for either of us as it was for all the other parents and children that I knew.  We were just not as close or nearly as close as my friends were with their children.  No one could or would have pointed that out though.  It's wasn't obvious; it was in the subleties.  And I have always just pushed it away as no big deal, and that he is close to Kevin, his daddy, so that's good.  Every child favors one of their parents either a lot or a little bit over the other.  Carlos favors Kevin.  The three of us knew it and had talked about it and had just accepted it.  And life went on for nearly five years this way.  And then came Maria.

Things are different with her.  Maybe it's her personality.  Maybe it's because she's a girl.  Maybe it's because I'm a different person in many ways than I was when I became a mom the first time.  I don't know why, but our relationship is a lot different.  It feels and looks a lot different.  It feels good, right, healthy, "normal."  I don't even question whether we're attached or not.  It's not a question.  It just is.  We just are. 

So what does that mean for Carlos, and for Carlos and I?  I don't know.  He doesn't trust me.  He never has.  We've talked about this often.  He knows it.  I know it.  Kevin knows it.  If Carlos gets hurt and I'm the only one there to comfort him, he'll come to me if he's hurt badly enough.  But even then, my presence, my soothing, my cuddling, doesn't actually make him feel better.  It does for other kids when their parents do it to them.  I can see it happening.  It does for Maria when I soothe her.  It doesn't for Carlos.  He's stiff in my arms.  And if he's not hurt badly but definitely still hurt, he doesn't want me.  I'll go over to him and he'll push me away and just keep crying.  He doesn't want my comfort. 

Just before we went to Colombia and for the first couple of months that we were home, Carlos had rages.  Rages are bursts of anger that are deep and raw and long - unlike anything Kevin or I have ever seen before.  The first time it happened I honestly thought that Carlos was possessed by a demon.  It was so scary and I just prayed and prayed over him, begging God to heal him.  Once we were home from Colombia we started to see an attachment and family therapist.  We saw him from April through September.  By August Carlos was doing so much better than the first few months and by September all of us felt like there was no need to continue therapy.  Carlos had opened up a lot, learned a lot, and we as his parents felt so much more equipped to handle situations and issues that could and would come up again with him. 

But now here we are four months later and although Carlos does not rage any more, it is still really tough.  He is dealing with such strong and deep emotions surrounding the issues that I mentioned earlier.  We could go back to counseling.  That would probably help. We could take him out of school since many of his feelings of abandonment, rejection, and self-hatred arise out of things that happen at school.  That would help alleviate some of the pressure that he puts on himself.  But no matter what we decide about either of these two things, what Carlos desperately needs is for God to heal his broken heart and his wounded spirit.  We don't pray about that enough I'm realizing as I type this.  We ask God to help us parent him, to give us strength and wisdom, but we don't actually pray for Carlos' healing.  So if you think of it, will you please say a prayer for Carlos?  We need to cover this precious little boy in prayer!  And he and I need prayers of healing for our relationship too.  We need to be attached.  We just have to be in order for Carlos to be completely whole. 

So I write all of this because it's cathartic, as a plea for your prayer support, and because maybe there is another adoptive parent or family out there who is struggling too and needs to feel that they are not alone.  Although we feel alone in this sometimes, we know we are not.  And we are thankful for what we do have and for the people we have in our lives.  God is good all the time.