Beautifully Broken

All adoption starts from a place of trauma. A place of loss. Of grief. Sadness.

A few years ago I read something along those lines but did not fully understand it. In truth, I may never fully grasp this.

Before adopting our children I talked to my friends who are adoptees from multiple different countries. I read books. I scoured blogs and websites. And all the information and stories were different. Just as no two biologically related children are exactly the same, no two adoption stories are the same.

Our first adoption was as smooth as possible. Our second quite rocky.

But trauma and grief and loss are tricky things. A child who does not have any cognitive memory of their abandonment and multiple moves feels those things deep inside of them.

Recently one of of biological children had surgery. Ironically, this brought up some fear of abandonment in Ruthie. She was very anxious days before the surgery and was terrible the day of the surgery. When I got home with her sister she was very needy and upset. After taking her to my room to calm her down later that evening I held her and rocked her and rubbed her back.

And she said, “I was afraid you weren't coming back.”

Broken. So terribly broken. She was abandoned as an infant, placed in an orphanage, moved to a care home, fostered by an amazing family, and finally adopted. Five breaks in the first two years of her life.

While most of the moves she made were for her to receive better care and eventually a forever family, they are still breaks in connections her little brain was forming.

Many of you have been following along and praying for Ruthie as she spent time in the hospital a couple of weeks ago.

Her illness came upon her suddenly, what we later learned was a case of Salmonella brought on from eating chicken at KFC. Some of you may remember that Ruthie has a genetic blood condition. Her specific condition is quite rare and has a long name: Alpha Thalassemia Hemoglobin H Disease, Constant Spring. This affects her red blood cells and leads to a chronically low hemoglobin. Her normal hemoglobin is between 7.9-8.1, whereas a “healthy” child has a hemoglobin of about 12 or 13.

When people get sick it is normal for their hemoglobin to drop. For a child like Ruthie, her hemoglobin doesn't have far to go before she is too sick to recover on her own and would need a blood transfusion.

This is what happened when she got Salmonella. She was very dehydrated within three days of first getting ill (Friday she was sick for the first time and Sunday we were in the ER). Her hemoglobin was 6, but she was so dehydrated the doctor thought it was probably closer to 5.5. This meant that she would need fluid, plus a blood transfusion, plus another bag of fluids. She was admitted to the hospital Sunday and we came home Tuesday morning.

Although Ruth knows she has this condition, she did not previously grasp what it meant when we talked about if she gets sick she may need a blood transfusion.

Her time in the hospital was traumatic. She was very, very scared. Ruth is a strong little girl and to see her so out of sorts was terrible. The first night in the hospital I had to sleep in the little crib-bed with her because she was afraid even if I was just in the chair on the other side of her bed. The second night I could sleep in the chair, but she would wake up crying and yelling, “Mama! Where are you???”

It broke my heart. Since coming home we've had a large emotional set back for Ruth. She was napping in her own bed but has since needed me to lay with her until she falls asleep. When she wakes up from her nap she is full of fear, crying, and wanting to know where mama went as I have other demands and cannot nap with her for 2.5 hours everyday.

It was during this time that we were hit with the unfairness and the brokenness of adoption. I'm reminded that brokenness is not God's first plan for families. God's first plan was for a husband and wife to hold fast to one another (Genesis 2:24), then to have children (Genesis 9:7). There are stories in the Bible of adoption (Moses) and the pain that is often associated with this way of building a family.

But God is so good. He loves Ruth. He loves people. And God began writing the redemption story before man and sin even entered the world. Praise God that He is in the business of making beauty from ashes (read Joseph's story as just one example).

Today, for the first time in weeks, Ruth took a nap in her own bed. We trust that God will continue to work on Ruth's heart and mind. We trust that she will lose her fear of abandonment and be able to come to the realization that she is forever loved, cherished, and wanted.

It is my prayer that all of my girls will cling to these words from Isaiah 43:1; “Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; You are mine.”