Second Best

My girls have been home for three years.

The first year the girls were home was probably the longest twelve months of my life. Seriously, there were no 'blink of an eye' moments tucked away in their transition home. Every day was long, a lot of them were hard, but we made it.

The last two years have gone by a lot quicker. You know, the sort of season where you look around and can't believe where the time has gone.

Maybe it's because I'm an older parent, but I am relishing every day with these ladies. I know that tomorrow they will be adults, and I usually remember to soak in the beauty of moments with them. Listening to my girls sing their hearts out is pure sunshine for my soul. Think Mary Poppins and Lets Go Fly A Kite sort of sunshine.

Most things for us have become very routine. We have settled into a cohesive family unit. I have a much deeper understanding of what it means to be a transracial family, and I am pressing into topics that having black children asks you to consider. I have found new friends and deep allies in the adoptive community.  

But there is one thing that I just haven't (and never want to) get used to.  

It's when people tell me I'm a great person for adopting, and tell my girls how lucky they are to be adopted. 

BUT here's the thing, I'm not a hero. No more than any other parent is a hero. Sure, my kids got here in a less than typical way, but it's not like I invented international adoption. I have great kids in my family that I get to love. When people make hero comments, I always wonder if they think my girls are difficult, and that I must be a martyr to parent them. Maybe people are trying to say, "Wow, that's cool", but then they should say, "Wow, that's cool". I wonder how my girls will process this message when they're older, that I was a saint to adopt them... just saying. I make an effort to stop this line of conversation and contradict the sentiment every time it is made. 

AND my girls aren't lucky. In fact, every kid who has been adopted has had some very unlucky moments in their life. 

In our family, we talk a lot about both/and. You can be happy you're somewhere, and still be missing another place. You can love your Mom, and still love your Manman (Haitian Momma). You can be happy you're in Canada, and miss Haiti. 

I can be so happy that my girls are in my family, and sad that they're not with their first family.

When we began our adoption, I read lots of articles about red flags and checks to ensure that your adoption wasn't corrupt, and I felt good that our process wasn't. (I'm still confident it wasn't.) For a long while I sat in the space where not corrupt = not broken. But they're not the same.

International adoption is a broken system. I can only speak firsthand about Haiti because it's the only country I have experience with, but it isn't hard to extrapolate that other developing countries are likely in the same spot.   

Here's the broken part, if families had more support they would be able to keep their children. But in Haiti, it is easier to put your children into an orphanage than to work for a secure future. I don't mean it's emotionally easier, these Moms are like other Moms who love their kids and would do anything for them. I mean that Moms are seeing their children starve and live with disease, and they feel they have to make a life and death decision.

And in Haiti it's easier to put your children into an orphanage than to find a job, housing, food. Educated, hard working mothers who love their children, can't support their family, and many feel they have no option but to leave their kids in an orphanage. These mothers look around them and can't find another way to keep their children safe and healthy.

Both/and. I can't imagine my family without them, and it would have been best if my girls could have stayed in their first family. We are second best.

I love them from the depths of my being, and it brings me such joy to have them in our family. They love us and have settled beautifully into our family. But affluence doesn't make a better parent, and whenever a child has a family member who loves them and is willing to raise them, they should have that opportunity.

So the question of my heart has been, what can I do about this? I think the first thing for me has to been to acknowledge that my beautiful girls are a part of my family because of brokenness, and that many children would be able to stay with their families if their family had resources. And then passionately look for ways to help women have resources, and hopefully change the story for other children in Haiti. (Globally there will always be more children who are orphans than will ever be adopted. I'm definitely not against international adoption, I just think it makes sense that adoption should be the solution in instances where a child doesn't have any family.)

Here's where my passionate search has brought me. With the end goal of family preservation, I make an effort to support microloans for women, and specifically I do that through the ministry of Kofael. I think microloans are a good way to make a responsible and tangible difference. A well run program will develop financial independence and the ability to care for oneself and ones family.

I want to engage as many people as I can in coming along side our Haitian sisters, and have them join me in making a direct investment in their life.

In just about every situation in life, I think we find it easier to be concerned, and to take action if we know the people involved. I love my Haitian sisters, and I want you to love them too. I am confident that if you see and understand these women, you'll want to come along side them. And each women who is given the opportunity to succeed through microloans will have the ability to care for her children.

(I'm currently in the early stages of planning to take a group of women to Haiti to learn about and support the Kofael microloan program. Want to come? Shoot me a message! This won't be your average week long mission trip. My goals are to let you experience the beauty and the struggle of Haiti. To have you support local economy by eating out and shopping, To learn about and support the Kofael ladies. I'm still working out the details, but if you're interested I'll keep you in the loop.)

I admit, it's kind of weird, the more I love my girls, the more I want to help keep other beautiful hearts just like theirs in the place designed for them.

And now, when people begin to tell my girls how lucky they are, I smile and say, "It's not bad for second best."

UPDATE: The Haitian Vacation with an Education trip happened in February 2018. It was a great trip! If you want to check it out you can see pics etc on Facebook on my page We Sem Haiti (See Your Sister Haiti) I'm planning on another trip in the next year!

We're doing good!

How're you doing?  It's a great question, but no one really has time to listen to an answer as long as I'd like to give.  What a shocker...me with a long answer.  The short answer is, we're doing really well.

I hope you're asking, 'What does 'really well' look like?'.  If you are, you're in luck, there's a long answer on the way.  (If you were okay with the short answer, click on the back button on the top left hand corner of the screen.)

The girls know that we are their family. They happily list all the members of the 'tout famille' many, many times a day. 

We have very few BIG blow ups, and when they do happen, we can get through them pretty quickly and move forward. 

The girls are happy to receive, and often initiate affection.  They can be down right mushy at times, and it's fantastic. 

We are learning more and more about each other every day, and it appears that we like each other :)

They seem to be wrapping their heads (and hearts) around the important things. Like I'll always love them, even if they are bad.  And I'll always come back.  I hear them repeating those messages to each other, and to me, and it makes my heart sing that those things are being nestled down in their hearts.

It brings me joy on a deep level to see my older kids work so hard at loving these girls.  They have exceeded any preconceived ideas I had about how they would interact with Addie and Melissa, and I had high standards.  Really, really awesome.  

Is it all sunshine and roses?  Of course not.  This is hard work, and there are moments I'm not sure we'll all get to the end of the day in one piece.  What's hard?  

Relying on pointing, and short sentences to talk to each other. Combine that with baby talk and there are a lot of occasions I'm guessing at what I'm being told.  It's not easy to support someone emotionally when you're not sure what they're saying.

Not knowing the right thing to do, and worrying that I'm screwing it all up.  

Figuring out what we'd call Addie. We thought her name was pronounced, and we called her, Nadia for the first 7 months after we were matched with her. Then we found out it wasn't Nadia, so we just kept her name and tried to 'Canadianize' the spelling to Naljee.  I didn't know it would drive me SO crazy to have people mispronounce it. I did figure out that I couldn't take if for the rest of her life.  So I started calling her the name that Melissa calls her, 'Addie', and hoped that she'd be ok with it. She is, and Addie's what we're sticking with. 

It's hard to get people to understand attachment dynamics. I feel like a jerk every time I ask someone to pay less attention, or not pick them up.  It's awkward every time. I'd like to make flyers to hand out, or a sign to post by my door or something, but that might be a little impersonal. If you would like more info on attachment, these blogs are awesome.  Our girls don't have the issues that this Mom describes, but reading about this Mom's struggles have encouraged me to take this attachment period really seriously.

Here it is in a nutshell. My girls have a limited amount of 'positive emotional dollars' to spend in a day. If they spend it on you, I don't get it. And they need to spend them on their family to give us time to knit together.  Interacting with other people is a lot of work for them, and chews up their currency for the day, and I get kick back when they are emotionally tired (see boneless child comment below).  I don't want to spend a lot of time working through meltdowns, I want to play and hug and sing and dance.  So in the most kind way I can manage it, I'm going to be selfish with their connections for now.  Attaching is the whole deal, we've got to give it he best we have, even if it we're stepping on toes.

They may not have big blow ups, but managing their behavior is still tiring. And I've done this 'kid in transition' thing alot.  I'm not going to tell you how they misbehave, (who would want their Mom to do that?) but lets just say I am no stranger to whining, boneless children and the constant questioning of 'who's in charge?'.  Yes, I know, all those things are regular kids things, but when you are just learning to like each other, those things can be tougher to navigate.

Staying home for this long is not easy. I am not a stay home kind of girl and this 'small world' stuff is hard for me.  It has been hard to step back from so many of the things that I have spent my life on.  It's also a little lonely.  But I can't fix the lonely with visits, so I'm in a catch 22.  I've never had so much time to visit people, and I've never been so restricted in who I can visit.  (Thank God for family who live close!) 

I feel like we are rounding the corner, that we're almost out of this super-sheltered phase.  I'm not sure what moving forward will look like, but my confidence in my ability to see when it's too much for the girls is growing.  I've begun to figure out what's normal and what's out of the ordinary for them.

I can't tell you how grateful I am for the people who have faithfully checked in with us and asked us how we are doing.  We're doing good :)

What I Think Coming Home Will Look Like

In just a few short weeks, we will be bringing our girls home forever.  To be honest I can't wrap my head around it entirely.  To wait and hope so long for something, and then have it happen.  I'm so thankful that we are one of the families that 'made it through', one of the families that get to bring our girls home.  It feels like so many families don't.  

We have been busy preparing for our girls to come home.  This week is proof that the nesting instinct isn't entirely biological.  I feel like we're ready.

We've been learning Creole.  We've been reading books about adoption and transitions.  And we've been thinking a lot about how we can do this next step well.  There are lots of really good recommendations from experts and people who have adopted, and I wanted to let you in on the ones we hope to follow.

"We will make every effort to keep in mind that our girls may not feel 'lucky' to be adopted.  Not much about their life up to this point has been 'lucky'. The truth is the girls are "orphans, and that is a trauma that occurred early in life and affects them on an emotional level very deeply.  It doesn't "FEEL" like a blessing to be an orphan.  It doesn't "feel" like a blessing to leave every familiar sight, smell, sound, and person and come to a new place, especially when you may not understand what is happening."  So even though we are ecstatic, they may not be.  It might take some time for them to warm up to this whole 'adoption' idea.  We'll try not to put expectations on them based on what we feel their gratefulness should be.  

We need to work really hard at helping our girls figure out that we are their family.  That we'll provide for them.  That they live with us forever.  That they can trust our love.  And that means we'll have to keep their world really small for a while.  Some kids jet right through this stage, and other kids take a while.  There isn't any way to know how our girls will cope, but they'll let us know when they're ready to have their circle grow.  

That means we won't be having a 'welcome home' party.  There will be a lot of stressful events (like catching up on dentistry and going to the doctors) that we can't control, but there are some we can.  Even though a 'welcome home' party would feel really good for us, it would likely be confusing and overwhelming for them. 

Normally, it would be great to have a welcoming party at the airport, but we won't be landing in Toronto until midnight, and there's a good chance we'll all be on our last leg.  We'll be zooming through that airport as if our pants were on fire, and getting home as quick as we can.  If you want to come to the airport, we'll be happy to give you a hug and let you get a peek at the girls, but it will be very brief.

It might look like we've disappeared for a while, but we'll be here. Doing the day in and day out that it takes to knit a family together.  "Please check in on us and ask us how we are doing.  It can be a very hard and isolating time for families. Please call; leave messages; send notes.  If we don't get back to you, pray for us.  It is probably because we are still in survival mode.  In that time, we are told we need to be reminded by friends that though we are isolated, we are not forgotten."

So for those of you who have prayed and prayed with us, thank you.  For those of you who have faithfully asked how our adoption was going, thank you.  For those of you who have helped us financially, thank you. It has surprised me (despite all the warnings) how taxing this has been.  How long, how much waiting, and how much stress this involves.  But we are almost through.  Just about.  Now the real work begins.

I feel like we are just exiting our winter in this journey, and as we head into our spring we have to take the time to create rich, fertile soil that will let roots go down deep.  

I'll do my best to post updates here, but if my fellow adoptive Mom's are any indication, I may not get to it.  It's more likely I'll be posting a few quick pictures on facebook.  

I can't wait for you to meet my girls.  So you can see the sparkle in their eyes and join me in my heart song of gratefulness that we get to be a part of their lives.  We'll introduce them to you slowly, trust me, it will be worth the wait.



I recently saw a great blog from another Mom who has adopted from Haiti.  She must have read my mind because she has very nicely captured how I'm feeling.  Her original blog is here http://confessionsofasupermomwannabe.blogspot.ca/2013/08/what-to-expect-at-homecoming-from-us.html   
I've tried not to plagiarize too much, and all quotations are from her blog.  

The best news EVER!

We might have our girls home by April!

Yes, you read that right!  April, just a few weeks from now, our girls at home!

Since September we've had plans to travel down and help at an orphanage (not the orphanage where our girls live) from March 7 - 14. William is 16 this year, so it's his turn for a Haiti trip. Because we met the girls in December, we were allowed to go and visit them. So we added on a short visit with them from March 14 - 19th.

Then we got a most MOST exciting call!  MOST EXCITING! The girls creche director thinks that their paperwork will be done by early April.

Yahoo! And time to get some serious work done. Bumping up our girls expected home day is a welcome surprise, but we were surprised. That's code for not ready!

So this week we've been happily painting their bedroom, buying some key clothing items, and smiling. A lot of smiling.

If I can work out the details I'm going to stay in Haiti with the girls until they can come home. I'd rather not do another big hard goodbye. I'm taking a maternity leave so, I'll just start it and stay with the girls there until they can come home.

Things to pray for?

We need a travel visa from the Canadian Embassy.

There is still some Haitian paperwork that needs to be done.

Pray that the early April home date really happens.

Pray that communication between the creche and ourselves would be quick over the next few days. I'd like to have as many details as possible worked out before we leave on March 7th.

I'd like to be given permission to stay at a friends house with the girls from March 19 until we bring the girls home. It would be much less chaotic than the creche, and I think it would be a great transition before we come home. It would also be much cheaper, and I'd love to save the guest house fees at the creche.

Pray that all the details work out nicely. That we can find a cheap flight for Steve to get back to Haiti, that there's room on a flight home for us (there are only 2 flights a week that go directly from Haiti to Canada, they shouldn't be full, but still, worth praying for).

Pray for the girls. This is one of the biggest things that will happen to them. They are leaving everything they are familiar with, to travel to a strange place, with people they barely know. I'm not wearing rose colored glasses about what this could look like, but I want their little hearts to be wrapped in love, peace and joy. I want them to feel safe and cared for. I want them to be okay.

I've got my rejoicing face ready to go. I can see the light at the end of this three year tunnel. We are so close.

Citizenship papers sent in!

We sent in citizenship papers to the Canadian Embassy in Haiti for the girls on Friday.

We've been waiting for their passport photos since the first week in January, and this was the week :)

Cutest thing EVER?  Little kids passport photos.  I'm especially partial to this set :)

Some eye candy for you!

Lovely 'stern' passport photos!

It's a small thing, but this process seems to be a series of small things.  There are about five offices our papers still need to travel through, and our citizenship papers travelling through the Canadian Embassy in Haiti is one of them.

Pray for the Richardson's paperwork to keep moving!! 

I Forgot

There are so many emotions and thoughts to juggle when you are growing your family through international adoption. Big highs and big lows. Everything all at once and months of nothing.

And for a long time we were waiting. We were matched with the girls in May, and then we heard almost nothing for six months. I had pictures, and monthly updates with weights and small milestones, but I wasn't aware of any movement in our adoption. (we hoped the papers were moving through offices, but until the papers exit the IBESR you don't know what is happening.)

While I was waiting I did a lot of wondering and worrying. Here's a smidge of what was floating through my brain: I wonder what the girls are like. I wonder what it will be like to have little kids again. Can I do little kids again? Am I too old for this? How are we going to pay for all this? I wonder when we'll get to meet them. Will I know how to raise black children? I wonder if they'll like us. Is our adoption ethical?

Lots of wondering.  Lots of worrying.

But in the middle of all that wondering I forgot something. I forgot the girls were waiting for a family to adopt them.

Saying grace before dinner.

One of my earliest motivators to adopt internationally was because I knew the planet is full of little people who are being raised with out a family. Orphans. And even if they are raised in a great orphanage, it's still an orphanage.

Always lots of kids to occupy laps.

But then I got busy adopting and I forgot. I was worrying about so many things that I forgot the big thing. That these two girls in my pictures, need a family. That the very same adoption that is a source of joy for me means that they have had a lot of sadness and loss in their life.

There are so many ugly things that can happen in an international adoption. There can be corruption, child trafficking, bribes and extortion.  I got stuck worrying that I might unintentionally be a part of that ugly problem. Most of the online buzz about international adoption is bad press. And there's good reason for it.  All the things that can go wrong, do go wrong.

Often.

I've seen corruption, heard first hand stories of children who have been trafficked, met many children who shouldn't be in an orphanage, have knowledge of bribes and understand how extortion proliferates in these situations.  And I've only been paying attention to international adoption issues for a few years.

(My love for Kofael (www.kofael.org) has grown out of this deep concern about unethical adoptions. There are thousands of children in Haiti who could move home tomorrow if we would could find a way to support their families. If you want to make a big difference, look at this organization, their slogan, "Creating options, not orphans" sums it up nicely).

But, all the horrible things that happen in international adoptions doesn't mean that there aren't children out there that need families. There are. There are thousands of kids on the planet that need a family. You have to pay attention, and be sure to deal with organizations that are upright, but there is such a thing as an ethical adoption.

I hope my girls adoption is ethical. But I'll never know 100%. I think I asked all the right questions, and I think that Canada follows a very clean procedure, but there is always a chance that it's not.

Worrying about that took up so much mental real estate that I forgot.

And then I got to their creche (a type of Haitian orphanage) and I remembered. It smacked me right in the face that these little girls don't live with a family. That my five year old is primarily responsible for the emotional well-being of my two year old. That my two year old might cry with out anyone to pick her up and tell her it will be okay. That on a daily basis they spend a lot of their time without the kind of adult attention that we know children need. That if they should remain in an orphanage it would greatly affect their long term trajectory. That it's a big deal to grow up in an orphanage.  That they've had a story of heart break and disappointment.

The girls creche is really nice by creche standards. They get three meals a day. They see a doctor when their sick. They have aunties who love them.  They have clean clothes. There are things I would do differently (shocking, I know) but for a Haitian creche, it's top notch. But it's still an orphanage.

So, now I remember. I remember that my two girls are living apart from us. I remember the loss they have been through in their little lives. I remember that we will be their family, and they are not with us. I remember and it hurts in a way that I didn't expect, right to the core of my being.  I'm not sad for myself, I'm a big girl and I can take it. But they're not, they're little, and they're living in an orphanage, and every day they're there is a day they aren't with us.

And now that that truth has really settled in, it makes this waiting even harder.

The first time ever I saw your face...

It is hard to put into words the feelings that go along with meeting your children. It even sounds weird. My first four children started as wrinkly little bundles who needed to be fed and changed and snuggled. That's it. I got to know them as they grew into little people.

But my youngest two children I met....in a hallway. A nanny with very little English saw us coming, led the girls towards us, let go of their hands, smiled and walked away. And there we were. Crouching down in a dark hallway, getting a first look at our girls.

Right here...this is the spot I met my daughters

They were shy, and we were weepy.

We spent the next two weeks getting to know Naldje and Melissa.

Naldje has a great sense of humour, she's full of spark, and opinionated. She is fiercely devoted to Melissa. She sparkles across the room.

Melissa is a little quieter, but don't be fooled, she holds her own.  She is sweet and independent, thoughtful and determined. She sings so sweetly to herself when she is happy.

Their laughs are audible gold. Pure sunshine.

They went from being shy when we met them, to howling when we left for the night. Their eyes lit up if they caught us looking at them. They liked having us there.

And from the moment we got there, I was dreading leaving. With every flutter of my heart, I was reminded that in the blink of an eye we'd be gone. Yes, we'll go back to get them, but I don't know when. At least that's what's supposed to happen, but until they're home, I'm not sure I believe it will really happen. And I have no way of reminding the girls that we'll be back. That eventually they'll be with us forever.

I was unable to fully enjoy the moment, because the moment itself reminded me of what was to come.

And just like that our two weeks was over.  We said good-bye and left. Someone explained to the girls that we'd be going back to Canada, and that soon they could come too. I'm pretty sure they didn't get it.

We're told that if all goes well the girls could be home in six months. Pray, please pray, that all goes well. It would be so good to have them home by the summer.

We are heading down to Haiti for a short mission trip in March, and we hope to visit the girls for four days at the end of that trip.

We'll travel to Haiti again to pick up the girls when they are able to come home. We'll stay in Haiti for a week so they can get reacquainted with us before we take them on the biggest trip of their life.

That's the plan. Stick with the plan people.

When you think of us, and wonder how the adoption is going, will you remember to pray for the girls?
Pray that they'll have hope in their hearts.
Pray that their little spirits will feel loved and cherished.
Pray that their nannies will remind them that they have a family who loves them.
Pray that they'll be healthy and safe.
Pray that they'll come home.