We recently finished our last home visit with our adoption agency and are awaiting a finalization of Adi’s adoption. We started this adoption with an email in October of 2015. It is hard to believe it has been almost 6 months of learning this little guy. Spending hours watching him sleep, struggle to understand, and finally come to a place of peace. We will still have hard days ahead of grief and anxiety but for the most part, we are through the hardest transitions. Adi knows who his family is and prefers us over anyone else now. His battles with his sister have lessened and he sleeps without restless dreams, no more waking every little bit to make sure we are still there. He just trusts that we will do what we promise. Our promises are important so we follow through no matter how small. He is starting to delight in family outings and talks about them for days and weeks following. He has found a voice and is learning that it is safe to use it with us. He knows we will love him through his anger and celebrate his accomplishments, loudly I might add. Slowly we are broaching the subject of how he came to be in our family and he is starting to not be fearful or angry when discussing it. God is making himself real to Adi and we are grateful to be witness to that miracle. We remind him daily that Jesus is always with him, even though he cannot see him. That Jesus protects him and gives us everything we need.
Our birth parents are healing and moving forward. We love them and see them in Adi’s face and hear them in his voice. We are fiercely protective of them and also overwhelmed with the responsibility of that. The grief is still there for them but not as overwhelming. We are still praying that God gives them a peace about their choice so they can fully trust us to raise Adi. They have refused counseling so the process is longer and harder. They are opening their hearts to hear from God. We are seeing God work in amazing ways and are praying that He uses this adoption to bring them to the cross. Each week we see a softening in their emails and delight at his pictures/videos rather than hurt. We will soon be moving to less frequent contact and are praying that will give us all progress in the transition.
Anna Beth has faced so much change this year. It has been as hard to watch her walk through these changes as it has been with Adi. Eleven years as an only child and then to suddenly have a 4 year old brother invade every area of your life is hard. She observed all the hard of birth parents grief; she was witness to and victim to Adi’s grief, and she grieved the change in her own family. She wanted this adoption but wanting something does not lessen the effect of it. At the same time of going from the one and only, she was given more independence in the move to Middle School. My girl wants to love having independence but she really LOVES being our little girl. So many hard things she has faced in personal relationships with friends, family dynamic changes, and added responsibility. Anna Beth has not handled all of it well but she has handled most of it with more maturity than I see in some grown adults. We are proud of her and when she struggles, we step in to support and guide. We have moved into a new phase of parenting with her and it is so hard to change roles. She no longer needs our constant physical supervision but now she needs our spiritual and emotional support even more. Daddy and I have had so many quiet conversations on how to love her best through this hard. Sometimes we get it wrong but God showers grace on us in those moments. She continues to grow in beauty both inside and out.
In the last 6 months, Brian and I have dealt with more changes and grief on less sleep than any human should have to endure. At the same time, we have believed that God would sustain us so we have kept moving forward, knowing that the intensity would lessen with time. Many nights we dealt with the kids by dividing and conquering. As patience waned with one, we would switch off kids and plow through. I admittedly have struggled the most between the two of us. Birth momma has sought me out the most and I have been her support through the grief, sometimes daily. There were days that her grief was almost more than I could bare, while at the same time I was trying to walk Adi and AB through their anxiety and grief. There were days I would sit at my desk and just work through tears… tears of grief, exhaustion, and uncertainty, before heading home to face a night of hard. Kids needing emotional support, laundry piled up, a house that had not been truly clean in months and a husband that I lived in the same house with but we could hardly connect. Most of our deep conversations were done through email once we arrived at work. Both of us are emerging out of the fog now, we are planning dates, we are no longer too tired to stay up and talk, and we are able to now push Adi and AB to fly some on their own. We did not adopt a baby, we adopted an almost 5 year old that came with deep emotional baggage, his own opinions that he could not express, and he scrambled to maintain control of something so he felt safe. Slowly we are learning how to function as a family of 4 (#Woodfam4), to thrive and be able to see outside of our little world again. (Please forgive us if we have failed to see and reach out to you the last 6 months) The ties that bind us are growing stronger and God is molding us daily to His image. As we are quickly approaching the end of 2016 and will be celebrating 13 years of marriage soon after, we can now look back with appreciation at the hard of this past year. A year fraught with uncertainty, deep emotional pain, crazy highs, and lots of hard work…many times just trudging through each day. We fought hard to trust God and have been rewarded beyond our comprehension. Once again, God blew away the box we had Him in and made himself real to all of us, including our extended family and friends.
