10 Facts About International Adopting an Older Child that No One Told You....

Now how's that for the longest title ever? These 10 facts are 10 facts according to me. That may not pertain to another single person out there but they do to me. And it's my blog and I'll write if I want too. (write if want to. You would write too if it happened to you.) And maybe you will identify with them. Who knows? Or maybe you will just think I am crazy. I can already tell you I am. I internationally adopted an older child so that answers that question. ;-)

10. I was not prepared for the awkwardness I felt when we met. I have 'met' all of my other children, 2 through birth, 1 as a 2.5 year old, but meeting a 10 year old is very different. They aren't very big into you swooping them into arms proclaiming they are the cutest thing you have seen on the planet earth, which is what I wanted to do. So I took the sweet hug and was happy with that. And then they leave this child with you that doesn't speak your language or know you. In a hotel room. Nah, that's not awkward at all.

9.  He would not really have likes when he first came home. He never had a choice at the orphanage so he never had favorites. He also tried to please us a lot in the beginning and went along with everything. Or he would try to upset us and would go along with nothing. It took about six months for him to be honest about clothes, music, sports and all kinds of  preferences. He had to find out who Peter was because this was a whole new Peter.

8.The cultural differences and how much he misses it. Oh yes, he's from China but who doesn't love America? He'll move here, start talking English within the first month, love the food, the clothes, everything. He'll forget about China in a month. Oh my word. Can you say stupid? He lived in China for 10 years. It's his home. He loves it here but he still longs for China. He longs for the sounds, the smells, the tastes, everything associated with the only home he had known for 10 years. And that's ok. That doesn't mean he doesn't like our home. He just misses all he's ever known. He also misses what he didn't know which is his China mommy and daddy. And that's ok too. They gave us the greatest gift of Peter but left the biggest hole in his heart. It's now filled with Jesus (and that boy loves him some Jesus!) and love from our family, but nothing can replace the feeling of being wanted by the parents who gave birth to you.

 7. It takes awhile for the siblings to become buddies. While we were in China, everyone got along great. And then we came home.....It takes about a year for the semi-normal brother-sister, brother-brother bond to happen and even then you still work through issues. And some of these issues may really never go away. But they slowly get to know each other and slowly began to like each other.

6. We may never know his true story. Why? Because he doesn't know all of it and some he doesn't want to share. And that's ok. We hope he will learn to trust us more and more and will tell us as he is ready but we need to be prepared that we will never know all the gaps.

5. Schooling..I could write an entire book on this. And I may one day. I was not prepared for teaching school to Peter. It's different for everyone because they all have different backgrounds. Peter's was not pretty so therefore teaching him school now is not pretty. We spent 6 months working on confidence and the fact that is is ok to learn school at home. Trying to explain schooling Peter to others is exhausting. No one gets it. (well, some do) Some people look at you with pity or disgust when you try to tell them what level he is on. Some try but no one really gets it because to be truthful, I don't even truly get it. It's complex and we are still going through testing to figure it all out.

4. We will never reveal his story to you. Oh, we may give you tidbits here and there but that's all you're going to get. It's his story to tell, not ours. We want you to love Peter for who he is not, not who he used to be. You may think knowing his story will help you get to know him better or understand what we're going but nope. This includes the story of the first year at home. We dealt with so much but again, most of it was his story he was working through and finding out who he is.  This includes telling our family too. We want to respect Peter and that's protecting him. He wants to trust us and if we go blabbing the things he tells us, how we he do that?

3. His friends...I was not prepared for the tears that would come when he's included and not included. I am sure that all moms are shocked because we think we do that with all our kids. Not true. This is different. When he is included in something or someone seeks his friendship, oh my word. I cannot explain the joy. Truly, it almost makes me shed tears of joy. And I may have cried once or twice. For him to be accepted and liked when he's only known rejection, again, no other feeling. He has incredible friends and I cannot say enough about them. Now, when he's rejected or left out, the mama bear in me gets a tad upset. Maybe more than a tad. With my other kids, we discuss it and mostly chalk it up to life lessons. (we've never had a bad situation with them and I really do not want to be a hovering mom) But with Peter, something just wells up in me and I want to shake someone. I want to scream, "Don't you understand how hard this is for him? He's barely been here 2 years, has a cleft palate and left his life behind! And you're going to be rude to him because he can't kick the soccer ball like you want him to?" I want to march up to the parents and explain adoption to them. But I don't. Because just like our other kids, these are life lessons. We handle them differently because he's already had some pretty hard life lessons. We try to teach him the Biblical way to handle them and to pray about it. Which is a good lesson for mom too.

2. How hard this would truly be. I was not at all prepared for the loneliness I felt and still feel at times. This has nothing to do with my family and friends. It has to do with our lifestyle choice and changes.  Does this mean we do not have great friends and family? Of course not! We have incredible friends and family and we are blessed. But I would give anything to have a friend to go have Andes Mint frappachino with who gets this part of my life. A friend who now serves as a missionary came home this summer and we met for lunch. She adopted two internationally adopted teens years ago. I cannot tell you the joy that I had meeting with her! I was also not prepared for my closest confidantes (in the adoption world) to become names and pictures on a computer screen. I shy away from that for certain reasons but these people have become my community and who I do that part of life with. They keep me sane, answer my questions, listen to my complaints and comfort my tears. My friends and family here do the same but when you are able to talk to someone who gets it, it's priceless.  Adoption is hard. Throw in an older child then cultural differences, well, there are no words for it. Andrew recently compared it to having a baby. He's right. But this baby came with some hard stuff and a personality. The first year is hard. I cannot stress that enough. Our family struggled deeply and sometimes all we could do was cry out the name of Jesus and fall to our knees. Having friends who love you despite the way you act and care about you during that time is so wonderful. I will never forget having one of the worst days and a  friend reached out and hugged me and just told me she loved me and had been praying for me. I can still remember how much that meant to me. She hasn't adopted, she doesn't know all our struggles and she didn't care. She loved me despite my being a bad friend since the adoption and that means so much.

 1. No one told me how much I would love him the moment I saw him. No one told me that I would instantly want to move Heaven and earth for him. No one told me that I could not live another day without this child in my life. No one told me he would steal my heart just like my other children have. No one told me that even though he didn't like me for months, that I would still adore him. No one told me that I would want to do it all over again, yes even the hard parts. Because he's worth it. Every ugly word, every tear, every bad moment, every fit is worth it just as much as the smiles, the hugs, the kisses, and the laughs. I adore this child and no one could have told me how much he would mean to me. Because there are no words.