The Nitty Gritty

All about it -for those of you who have asked about the nitty gritty details.

I know folks worry about adopting for various reasons. I know worrying about whether you could love a kid that wasn’t “your own” is one. I know that worrying about thinking afterwards that you had made a huge mistake is one. I was not worried about either of those (not until after the fact anyway). BUT I was worried about recognizing him when we went in the orphanage! We had been sent almost a dozen pictures from June when we accepted his referral to November when we were getting ready to go get him. I was afraid it would be like a test. Like we would walk in and all the workers would be looking to see if I could pick him out of the crowd. And if I didn’t they would deem us not a good match and me a horrible mother. I was also worried that I would reach out to hold him and he would scream in terror and lean back towards his caregiver.

Neither happened! I did recognize him right away and he is so chilled he’d probably let anybody hold him – even me.

I was aware that the handoff would be difficult for Ajay’s caretaker and that I would need to give her time to say goodbye. It was in fact difficult for her and I did move slowly. And I didn’t mind. At that point I knew we were about to have a lifetime ahead of us and that I was thankful for the care she had given him during his first 11 months.

Something I was not expecting – Spencer had the video camera rolling when I finally got to pick Ajay up. He had been asleep and was super droggy. His eyes were puffy and his head was wobbly. I realized that Ajay was not holding his head up good at all, especially for an 11 month old. I said on the camera, oh gosh, what is wrong with him?!? He can’t even hold his head up! That will be good footage for him to look at when he gets older! My thought was that we should ask about this before walking out the door of the orphanage. But Spencer had the dang camera rolling so I had no choice but to ask right then. Oops! So much going on. No problem. Spencer dubbed music over that part of the video.

After we left the orphanage and during our whole time in India things went pretty well. We had a few eating, sleeping, and pooping “issues” but that was to be expected. Oh but that is all babies do, eh? Eat, sleep and poop. So I guess we had issues in ALL areas. But we didn’t really realize it at the time. We were out and about a lot and he got carried in the Baby Bjorn a lot. Probably a good thing to have him so close and snug to us so much of the time. It was hard to tell exactly how life would really be once we got home and got into the real swing of things with a real schedule. Oh and other kids to deal with, meals to cook, school to teach and a house to clean. We had been giving him one on one attention 24 hours a day.




The Feeding Issues:

Looking back on the brief time we were in the orphanage I now remember seeing some of the kids getting fed. Some sat in the caregivers lap, some stood in their bed and the caregivers walked by and fed them a few bites randomly. Looking back on it, I remember one kid getting fed in the caregivers lap but then that caregiver had to get up and help another kid. So, the first kid got put back in the bed. Played. Waited. I am assuming finished the meal some time later.


That might explain some of the feeding problems we were having. One, he ate so slowly! Two, he packed food in his mouth, saving it for later. One time we discovered he had a piece of bread in his mouth an hour after he had supposedly finished eating! We had given it to him on the plane to Agra. Got off the plane, got our luggage, ridden a taxi to the hotel, checked into the hotel and then once in the hotel room we discovered it. He also didn’t drink well from the bottle we brought. Half of it ran out his mouth and down his chin. I am guessing this problem may have just been that we used a different kind of bottle and a nipple with a different flow than he was used to.


He is great with the bottle now and has even gotten used to the high chair. I am pretty sure he had never sat in one before. He had just been fed in the Ahya’s lap. He had been accustomed to yelling or grunting anytime he wanted another bite. He knows the sign language now for “more” and “all finished”. He is still very very stubborn about what foods he will and will not eat. And he still likes to eat very slowly and save some of it in his cheeks for later. You know it is almost impossible to make a kid swallow! He also has a tendency to just push food right back out with his tongue if he doesn’t like it. So we still have a few food issues to work through. I guess what is important for right now is that he is still quite the chubalub. He is definitely not loosing weight because of our new eating rules.


The Sleeping Issues:

Ajay had had a bed partner since 1 month old. So, we figured sleeping alone would not go over so well. We did not take a Pack & Play with us to India so we didn’t even have the chance to find out until after we got back home how he was going to do with that. He slept pretty good in bed with us in the hotels and slept all the way through the night, which was a huge blessing. Since we were doing a lot of sight seeing, he slept a lot in the Baby Bjorn. However, we still figured out pretty quickly that he was accustomed to taking six 30-minute naps throughout the day. We waited until we got back home to try to fix this problem. We are now at a 1 ½ hour nap in the morning and two one hour naps in the afternoon. The goal is to combine those two afternoon naps and get to one longer afternoon nap but we are not quite there yet. Again, you can hardly make a baby go to sleep if they don’t want to! He is doing much better about getting himself to sleep and is fine to be alone in his bed. For the first 3 weeks he was very panicky every time we put him in there. And as soon as he woke up and realized he was alone he had a very panicky cry. Understandable. He can now wake up in the mornings and from naps and play for 30 minutes or so in his bed by himself. We’ve come a long ways in two months!


The Pooping Issues:

Ajay didn’t poop for the first 6 days we had him! The orphanage had sent me away with food for him so we know this was not a change of diet problem. It was a change of EVERYTHING else problem. His poor little system was just stressed to the max! Day 5 and Day 6 were very difficult. His tummy was so tight and he was in so much pain. Then, I fed him dates and papaya to make him poop. He did. We also found out that he is allergic to papaya. Oops!


Home:

So that was in India. That was his first two weeks with us. It went well. We were getting to know each other. Now lets go home and throw three other kids into the equation. I was afraid he would be overwhelmed. They were going to be all up in his face all the time. I was sure of it. And they were. But, he liked it!


Now lets try to force a schedule. I’ll get back into home schooling, cooking, and cleaning house. And when I homeschool, he will do what? Exactly. NOW the “Oh gosh we’ve made a big mistake” sets in. Now I feel like I am neglecting my three kids in order to take care of the one. AND he is not eating good. Every meal is a fight. He is not sleeping good. It takes 30 minutes of rocking him just so that he sleeps a mere thirty minutes. And while I am doing this rocking, who is homeschooling the others? And while he sleeps 30 minutes I am homeschooling but with this dread that he is about to wake up! So. We ditched school for a week. Ok. Maybe it was two. We decided we would tackle the nap problem instead. We had to because when he didn’t get enough sleep he was very cranky. So now we have a kid that isn’t eating good, isn’t sleeping good, wakes up cranky, keeps me from spending time with my other three kids. The “Oh gosh we’ve made a big mistake” is turning into “I like my other kids. I am not sure I like this one.” And a little bit of “I want my old life back. The one that ran so smoothly” is setting in. And honestly, the way I dealt with the “life is hard and we’ve made a huge mistake” problem was just to realize that this was just a season, that there was no turning back anyway and that those kinds of thoughts were detrimental not helpful. Yes, it was hard but it would get better. And even though it was hard it did not mean that we had made a mistake. It just meant adjusting from three kids to four kids was going to take some time. I probably made the mistake of wanting everything to run smoothly (like it had with three) right away. Something that added to what felt like chaos was the fact that we hadn’t seen our kids in two weeks and they had a new brother. They were excited for us to be home and excited to see him. There was just a lot going on. And expecting “normal” right away was not realistic.

Oh and it was the holidays. Doesn’t life just go all crazy during Thanksgiving and Christmas anyway?

On top of that, my Mom was visiting. I felt like I needed to host her well but was stretched too thin to really do it. In the end, it probably wasn’t her best trip to C. And this stressed me out as well.

So, a few weeks after she left and the dust was starting to settle, I went to a hospital here in town for an EKG. Yep. I was having heart flutters. Dang it. I had totally stressed myself out.

I needed to deal with the fact that this season was hard but it would pass. I felt like I didn’t instinctually and unconditionally love Ajay the way I had my biological kids or even the way Spencer seemed to love Ajay right away day 1 in India. I needed to realize that I could love him even if life with him wasn’t so pleasant right now - even if he didn’t offer a ton of happy, enjoyable times and fought with me over every bite of avocado. Why didn’t he know how good they were for him? I also needed to realize that it wasn’t his “adoptiveness” that was taking time away from the other three kids. It was his “fourth kidness”. If I were honest I would admit that every new additional kid had brought with it feelings of neglecting the others. That’s just how it is until everyone adjusts and finds a new rhythm.

So, that is where we are. We are still finding our new rhythm. Problem is I think we are darn close to finding it but because the C government just gave Ajay a 90 day visa we are about to have to return to the States. We will be there 6 months or so finalizing his adoption and getting him a US passport. Pray that we would get into a good rhythm there. I know there will be a day when we function with four as naturally as we functioned with three. I don’t know if throwing America into that mix will help that day come quicker or not!

Did I say I loved India? I feel like I should say that. I recently read an adoption book where the author was pretty down on his kids birth culture. I can understand that some. Not all cultures are that enjoyable. However, I do believe that all cultures are created by God and display his creativity and you ought to be able to find something delightful in all cultures. So, just for the record – I love India! Maybe God will let us live there some day!

And for any of you feelers who are worried that I don’t love Ajay, I do. It took some time and it didn’t just happen the minute I saw him. But I do. And for any of you reading this that haven’t had kids you should know that this sometimes happens with biological children as well. When we took Eben home from the hospital I felt like we had this new stranger living in our house with us. When we found out I was pregnant with Nya I felt like we were ditching on Eben. When Canaan was born I felt like I could never possibly love another daughter as much as I loved Nya. And then when we brought home Ajay I resented the fact that Canaan wouldn’t be the baby anymore. Maybe it is because I like my life and I don’t like for it to change and I get a little defensive like I want to protect it so it takes me a while to warm up to each new addition that causes change. But the past has proven that change is good. We do make it through it. And we even tend to like the end results.


Veronica