Adi Is Not Autism

I know that many of our friends are afraid to ask questions but are curious about Adi and how autism affects his daily life. I would like to share with you something that happened last Saturday as a way for you to better understand him and others with the same diagnosis.

 

After Adi’s baseball game last Saturday, our family and grandparents headed to Chick Fil A for lunch. Adi loves it there. Near the end of lunch, Adi’s drink was accidentally knocked out of his hand. Now if you know Adi, that boy LOVES his soda. We have an argument with him over it just about every day so on special occasions; he gets his coveted Sprite or Root Beer. He was heart-broken and too upset to listen that the sweet employee was going to replace it for him. Adi turned around during his tears and realized that the older couple sitting next to us was staring at him because of his tears. He then looked over at another table and noticed that another couple was doing the same. Adi turned his back on them and went into full melt-down. You see, Adi realized that they were judging him. He understood that they did not approve of his response but what they did not get was that he literally could not help it. What they saw was a spoiled brat getting upset over a drink. The reality…was a high functioning autistic boy that is super sensitive to others emotions and does not know how to deal with it was absolutely embarrassed and just wanted to be alone. Brian and I moved him outside as quickly as we could but Adi was deeply hurt.

 

I do not blame anyone for their stares…if you are not aware of what special needs looks like, then you tend to jump to conclusions. Adi does not “look” like he has challenges. On a playground, you would be hard pressed to even realize he is constantly fighting to be what we would characterize as typical. Autism is hard to understand. It does not present itself in a wheelchair, with special adaptive equipment, unusual facial features. It appears completely typical until all of the sudden it is not… My boy wants friends but the art of conversation is something that is elusive to him. You may ask him a question and he will stare right past you but he is thrilled that you noticed him. Adi may repeat the words of a song to you that don’t make sense but he can read on a 3^rd grade level at the age of 5. Adi may sound like he is speaking gibberish but in reality his mind is moving so fast that he cannot get the words out so he is giving you about every 3^rd word going through his head. He may be giggling at a door but in reality he is trying to decode the mechanism of the door. When you see tears in Adi’s eyes and he is repeating his schedule to you over and over….in reality he is just trying to bring order back to his world because we have asked him to do something he was not prepped for. Adi may not appear as though he is listening in choir but when he gets home he can sing every word back to us and in perfect pitch. Adi cannot follow 3 step directions and gets lost during the process but he can add and subtract. Adi may appear to be completely oblivious to your conversations but he is aware of every word.

 

My challenge to you…don’t stop leaning down and saying hi to him. One day he will surprise you and respond back because he has learned to trust that you really want to know him. Don’t be afraid of his little quirks. One day he will learn to better control/hide them and you will forget he has a unique perception of the world. Don’t just stare at him but engage him, even if it is a one-sided conversation for a while. One day he will open up to you and you will understand just how much your acceptance of him impacted him. Please don’t talk about him in his presence as though he is not capable of understanding because he will never trust you and you will miss out on getting to know a very special person. Most of all, if you are a believer, please be careful with my son’s heart. He is learning about Jesus by observing you and witnessing the way you accept and love him. Adi has a hard time understanding things he cannot see so the concept of God is hard for him to understand. If you do not represent Jesus well, you may very well be teaching him that Jesus loves with limits. We love sharing our boy with you and want you to see how precious and unique God made him. God did not make a mistake…he created Adi for a very special purpose and his autism will help him one day to have an impact in a way a typical person never could. Please don’t look at Adi as someone with limits…view him as someone that can witness things that are completely blind to others. He actually takes delight in tiny things that we often overlook. Recently we were in the car and out of the blue Adi stated, “God is with me…God is everywhere.” My boy understands this simple concept now and a year ago he had never heard the name Jesus. We want you to be Adi’s village and pour truth into his life.

#Woodfam4...A Year Later

Msy 9th, 2016

Today marks one year since the day we were finally able to share with you a picture of our little boy. I think if you were to talk to each of us, you would hear that it has been the hardest year in the life of our little Wood family. Each of us has experienced this adoption through a different lens. Each of us in this puzzle… no less important to the final outcome but each fitting into our roles differently.  Last night I spent almost 2 hours on the phone with birth momma. We laughed together, we cried together, and we had some very raw conversation about the reality of this last year.

I remember sitting in that family room in our agency in New Jersey. The case worker sitting down, looking us in the eye, and saying, “They finished their paperwork.” Just like that and it was done…after months of conversations, debates, and acceptance, birth parents had signed their rights away to Adi. I looked over at Brian and a sense of complete brokenness overwhelmed me. Conflicted is the only word I can think to describe my emotions that day. I struggled to find happiness in those moments. What I was taking part in, was the destruction of one family unit and the building of another.  It was not my choice to dismantle a family but I felt the weight of it. I felt the responsibility of it. I felt the burden of those choices. We both knew, that no matter how much we thought we were prepared for this moment…it would not be enough…we were not enough…but we had JESUS to fill the gaps.

The first 6 months…you guys, I don’t even know how to explain the pain of it..the joy if it…the exhaustion of it. To this day, I cannot tell you how we walked through it. I carried the grief of birth momma on my shoulders. I heard it in phone calls, texts, and emails. I carried the grief of Adi as he isolated himself, became consumed with the rage of grief, he wept in my arms and then drew my blood with his fingers. There was no manual for this. This adoption is everything we never wanted but it is exactly what God called us to do. There were no pretty pictures of a happy baby and birth parent visits. This adoption was raw and my heart has been ravaged because of it. My sweet girl was not left untouched. She longed for this dear boy…she had prayed for exactly this and yet she wept over the loss of our unit of three. She grieved the brother she had expected and was faced daily with a brother that was enraged when he laid eyes on her. Brian was the only one that Adi felt completely safe with and he carried the weight of caring for him, protecting us from Adi’s anger, and loving that little traumatized heart with the intensity of a warrior. If you could have spent one week in those first 6 months with us, you would be stunned realizing where we are today.  Those first 6 months carried more tears than smiles. We celebrated Adi’s choice to not strike in anger more than we celebrated laughter. We walked the balancing act of protecting birth parents from the truth of Adi’s grief and their anger at us for not complying with their expectations. The only choice we had was to love with abandon and persistently chase Adi’s little heart.

A year later I still weep when I think of those daily moments of holding my new son, while he raged, and softly whispering to him…”You are safe, I will not leave you, you are home.” The pain of that time is still fresh and yet the intensity of love for him cannot be explained. He is so incredibly tough and yet deeply sensitive. He loves to pull pranks and gets hurt when he hears people talking about him or feels as though he is being laughed at.  I cannot share our story without tears appearing. It is not because of how hard it was…it is because those moments God has redeemed. My little boy squeals with delight when I pick him up from school. He will climb in my arms and wrap his arms around me, saying, “I love you mommy.” He will run through the house to look for his sister because he missed her. Brian and I are finding time for us again…for months we would nod our heads at each other from across the room, in solidarity. As if to say, “I see you…I love you…I am praying for you and when the time comes, I will be here.” That fog of grief is lifting. Birth parents are moving forward slowly and celebrating the victories we share with them. We are able to find peaceful ground and share little bits of Jesus with them.

My family is solidifying as a unit and becoming established in our new roles/titles. There are more peaceful days than unrest. I can see my children physically relaxing and feeling safe. I see us smiling, laughing and delighting in each other. I cannot tell you how many times my heart was shattered and my Savior restored me. Those burdens are starting to fall off my shoulders and I am learning how to not live in survival mode anymore.

Our family is goal oriented people. I jokingly said recently to friends that a trip to Walmart requires a white board to write out lists and a plan of action. All four of us live our life by lists so that we can keep order and feel safe. We often measure our accomplishments by these lists. When I stand before God someday, I kind of expect my legacy to be in a list format but in reality this is not what I want. I want my legacy to be that I chose faith…trust…redemption…forgiveness…and that I lived out love and grace. I don’t want anyone to look at me and say, she survived cancer well…she worked hard…she adopted. I want them to say, she loved well…she extended grace…she showed mercy…she intimately knew Jesus. I don’t want to walk away from this past year with my family feeling like they survived a hard transition. I want them to walk away knowing that God was present, He carried us, we trusted Him, He redeemed us, we were witness to His power.

I stand in amazement as I spent a year of witnessing God’s restoring power. He generously bestowed His covering over us as we went into battle over hearts. We are weary and still recovering BUT I would choose this again. Knowing what I know now…I would still choose it. I cannot imagine our family without having walked this adoption story. We will have years ahead to continue the healing process. We will face questions of rejection, grief of brokenness, and at some point…it is our hope that some restoration of a relationship with Adi and his birth parents will happen. We are praying that God will reveal himself as very real and true to our little boy someday. We have hope that he will be able to one day see his birth parents again and understand their choices. That he will be able to extend grace when they need it. That God will one day capture their hearts as well. This began with a stirring in our hearts almost 5 years ago and today we celebrate that with a quiet joy while also acknowledging the brokenness that brought us together. . #Woodfam4