Sunday, November 4, 2012

Best Laid Plans...

It's been a long while since I've written anything.  Therefore it feels crazy jumping from my last post to what I'm about to share now...

Ya, so, we are adopting a Russian...!  Some of you reading this may already know the big news.  Others of you may be thinking, "Wait. Wasn't this lady just writing about her bad postpartum experience and now she is adopting an orphan?"  I know.  If I were looking in on someone else I'd likely be thinking the same.  But if you saw this kid...if you looked into his eyes, you'd get it.  Let's go back to 4 short months ago...

My kiddos after setting up Edik's sleeping area.
Our church participated in a program called "Journeys of Joy" through Friends of Russian Orphans(www.fororphans.org) where a group of Russian orphans along with an orphanage staff member and translator come and stay in the U.S. for 16 days.  Host families volunteer to take care of these children during their stay and help them get the feeling of what family life can be like - if only for 2 weeks.  We had a "mini" home study and went to some training classes to know how to deal with these kids and how to communicate with them as they knew no English.  We chose to be a host family with the idea that this would be a great experience for our children and a way to make an impact on a young child's life.  The children come with very little clothing or supplies, so we gathered these items as we waited for our little guy to arrive. 

You may wonder how a family gets paired with a certain child.  I wonder too.  We were asked to write our gender age and preference, and we chose a girl with an age range of 10-11 so our daughter could have the experience of having a sister.  When we got our e-mail revealing our child it read, "We are pleased to introduce you to your host child Eduard, age 6."  I was thinking, "I ORDERED A GIRL!"  I seriously has to be reasoned with as to why we may have been paired with a boy and why that made sense in our family.  Looking back it was all part of a much bigger plan that we truly had no control over.

Eduard - Age 6

The Russian children slept at our church and were with us from 8am when we met them for breakfast until around 8:30pm when we returned them to the bunkhouse.  We set up Eduard's bed and waited anxiously for his arrival.  To describe the morning we finally got to meet him is difficult.  It was certainly very emotional, as we had known this boy from his picture and in our hearts for months, but he had only seen us from the picture we laid on his bed.  He was visibly nervous, but we found quickly that he handles emotions with humor.  He made silly faces and did funny things to make this strange situation easier.  Eduard (Edik for short - said like Eric) is extremely physical and loves to climb.  That's pretty much what he did on our church's playground; that and try to get squirrels.  We grew comfortable enough to head out on our own with him and that began our 16 days of realizing our family had been missing something.

I'll be honest.  At first we had no plans to adopt.  Even once we met Edik, I still wasn't sure.  I had my two kids who are amazing.  I had a marriage that with some work had gotten to a place of happiness and peace.  I wasn't really sure I wanted to disrupt that.  My husband on the other hand apparently knew upon seeing his picture that we would adopt him!  In fact we had many "discussions" our first week having Edik here because everyday he would ask me, "So, what do you think?  Should we adopt him?"  This wasn't something I wanted to be pressured on, and I needed to come to the answer on my own.   People in our lives felt very free to tell us what they thought our decision should be one way or the other.  Even once we had decided to adopt it is amazing to me how many people were hung up on the fact that Edik was Russian and not American.  I always respond to those questions with the answer that we  weren't planning to adopt and this is where we were led.  Honestly though, I would never question someones choice to adopt from overseas.  Who am I?

We had the opportunity to have Edik with us for 3 full days and nights before the children returned to Russia.  We packed up and headed north to my in-laws home in the Michigan woods.  We swam, walked in woods, and enjoyed time with family.  The last day of being up north I asked Edik if he was excited to return to Russia.  He slowly shook his head no.  Then I asked him if he liked being with us and he said loudly with his hands in the air, "Da!"  So, there was my sign.  The day Edik left was sad and awful. He was part of our family and we had to say goodbye. He was quiet. Not himself.
I had no idea what to say.  We couldn't say a word referencing adoption, and we couldn't cry.  We were under strict orders from the orphanage director not to cry because if we did the children would cry too.  I had to send my daughter to the bathroom to gather herself before Edik saw her.  Watching the children leave us was difficult.  Not knowing when, if ever, we'd see them again.  My husband was supposed to return to work, but couldn't muster the will.  We decided to go have breakfast as a family.  During that breakfast we made a decision that changed our lives.  We went around the table and rated from 1-10, with 10 being the best how we each thought our two weeks with Edik had been.  We all acknowledged that it wasn't always easy, but no one gave it lower than a 9.  Then we each said whether we thought we should adopt Edik and it was a unanimous YES!  That single word propelled us into something we ever expected...

No comments:

Post a Comment