From 1 to 4 in Five Years!

May 15, 2012 By 8 Comments

Last week we celebrated five years of “Forever” with our first adopted daughter, Ruby Mei. It was a time to reflect on a very special time in our life. It was a time to remember that feeling of anticipation as we waited to see whom God had chosen for our family. It was a time to reflect on the red thread that brought us to her and her sisters that would come later. It was a time to ask, why we were blessed to have this path chosen to grow our family, and finally a time to give thanks for the miracle of it all.

I am guessing that many of you who read this blog are in the waiting process for your adopted child. Or, you are considering the process, or you are researching special needs. Whatever your reasons, I hope you walk away encouraged. Encouraged that your wait will be worth it. Encouraged that growing your family through adoption is one of the most amazing things you will ever be called to do. Encouragement in taking the leap of faith it takes to bring a child with special needs home. Are there days it will be hard? Definitely? Will the good outweigh the bad? I believe it will! Why am I authorized to say that? Because I have experienced it first hand. It’s personal, it’s hard work, it’s exhausting some days, and it is full of blessings! Do you think I would travel to China three times if I didn’t see the miracles in this labor of love! Every day I see moments that remind me that God called me to Mother these children. He has equipped me with no “Manual” to do my best! This gives me the hope I need to make a difference in their precious lives!

Yesterday I was approached by the Children’s Pastor at our church about our family. It seems they are (finally) starting an adoption ministry at our (very large) church. This Pastor asked Jeff and I if we would get involved. I can think of nothing I would rather do to serve! You see, five years later I can see why God called our family to this. I have been in a position to share our stories through various medias. I have met women that amaze me everyday. I have seen children come home that many people would not have the courage to love. And, I have seen the difference of what faith, hope, and love can do!

If you are waiting, and the days are getting long do not give up! Adoption is a gift worth waiting for! And you just never know what God’s plan is for your family. I hope you can look back five years from now and understand the “why’s” and the “what if’s” you may be experiencing today!

Wherever you are in your adoption journey, I wish you great joy in the wait, and blessings in the outcome!



Filed Under: Diana

Oh Mother, You Are Beautiful!

May 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s Mother’s Day. You’re a mom of one, two, three, seven, ten, fourteen?

You’re beautiful, Mother!

It’s Mother’s Day. You’re a mom to biological children, adopted children, step children, grandchildren?

You’re beautiful, Mother!

It’s Mother’s Day. You’re about to be a mom for the first time, second time, seventh time?

You’re beautiful, Mother!

It’s Mother’s Day. You’re a mom to special needs children, teen-agers, toddlers, adults, babies?

You’re beautiful, Mother!

It’s Mother’s Day. You have the best job in the world.

Who else can put on their camo and go to battle on their knees for their children everyday?
Who else can climb out of the trenches to play one more game of CandyLand?
Who else can juggle doctors appointments and surgeries and ball games and spelling tests?
Who else can wash dishes, check homework, listen to a teen-age saga, and rock your grandbaby all at the same time?
Who else can walk stealthily through a floor of legos strategically and not step on a single one?

You’re beautiful, Mother!

BELIEVE THAT. If you don’t believe anything else you hear today, believe this: God made you beautiful, and He made you to mother these children! Yours is a high calling, Mother. And you are never alone. He is right beside you, guiding you. One beautiful step at a time.

May your Mother’s Day be so blessed! Please share how blessed you are, beautiful Mother!



Filed Under: Laine

I passed.

May 11, 2012 By 11 Comments

I distinctly remember one of the questions that someone I once considered a close friend asked me when I told her that my husband and I decided to grow our family by adopting.

“Once you get home, will you try to have ‘your own’ children so that you will really know what loving a child is like?”

(If you are curious, that person and I are casual acquaintances now…)

While immediately infuriating me, I’ll admit that in the months to follow, that question rolled around in the deep recesses of my mind. And it brought along its nasty friends…

*What if we get our long-awaited child home and I don’t really love her? Will I even know if what I feel isn’t “real?” Is it possible that I’ll merely feel like I’m babysitting for the rest of my life? Am I in denial in thinking that the love I have for my children will be “as strong” as that of my friends’ for their birth children?*

Then February 5, 2007 came. Our last name was called by our guide. I somehow managed to rise to my feet and make my way across the crowded room in the civil affairs office. And the intensity of emotion in the moment that I reached out for my baby girl, my first child, caught me by surprise.

What developed over the next days, weeks and months seemed to be real love to me. And I was relieved.

But still, every now and then, a thoughtless comment or prying question would bring that nagging doubt back to mind. And the questions festered.

*Why do some women look at me with “that pitiful look” in their eye? Do I really love her? Do I know the difference? Are those who say that what I feel isn’t really the love that a mother feels right?*

Most of the time I listened to my heart that said, “Yes indeed, this is love.” So much so that we decided to grow our family again in 2008, again in 2010, and then again in 2011.

But those nagging questions still wanted to have some measure for evaluation. Some test to pass to assure myself that the love I felt for my children went beyond conscious action. That it was at a deeper, more instinctual level.

I got my chance last May.

It was a pool party playgroup day. The TA for our fourth child had just arrived. As we knew life was getting ready to change once again, my husband and I had a date night planned for that night. It was a bit too cool for my taste to be in the pool that day and besides, I had already washed and carefully styled my hair for the evening. I chose a spot on the edge of the pool deck in the shade where I could closely watch my three splashing in the shallow end.

After giving several warnings of where the pool bottom began to slope toward the deep end, I began answering a few questions about our travel plans with several of the other moms. (You know, that kind of conversation where you don’t make eye contact because you are watching your children like a hawk).

I was just confirming to one of the astonished other moms that yes indeed, we had actually bought plane tickets for the three already at home to accompany us on our trip when I had to interrupt myself to caution my youngest daughter that she was dangerously close to bouncing herself down the slope into the deep end.

While I was explaining that we were spending some time at our son’s foster home before we flew to province, I realized that she had crossed the line. She went under for a split second and managed to pop herself back to the surface, but her face clearly showed the pure terror she felt.

So I reacted. My friends said it was one completely fluid motion, how I stood and within one stride covered the distance from the edge of the wooden deck to the edge of the pool. How I didn’t hesitate for one millisecond and continued that momentum into a dive to the center to get to my girl.

When she and I were safely out of the pool and on the side, when she was nestling her head into my chest and crying quietly and I knew she was completely safe, only then did I stop to consider that my van keys (remote and all) AND my cell phone were in my shorts pocket when I went into action.

And in that moment I realized…I had my test. My baby girl needed me. And in that split second, I responded. With no hesitation. I’m her mommy. She’s my child. It came at in instinctual level.

I passed.

No DNA test required.



Filed Under: Kristi

what we’re reading: links

May 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

From the last few weeks, some good stuff we’ve read that relates to adoption and/or parenting a special needs child.

As always, if you are a traveling family, or have posted something, or read something, that you’d like to share here on No Hands But Ours, please let us know at nohandsbutours@gmail.com.

In the news:

Meet Jessica Cox, born without arms but able to drive a car, achieve a black belt in karate and even hold the Guinness World Record for being the first armless person in aviation history to earn a pilot’s certificate. Amazing story of someone unafraid to try – and achieve – what others would call impossible.

In the blog world:

An adoption announcement unlike anything you’ve ever seen – be sure to visit A Road Less Traveled to see it.

Kelle, who blogs at Enjoying the Small Things, is mom to two biological girls. Her youngest, Nella, has Down Syndrome. And, on World Down Syndrome Awareness Day, Kelle shares her thoughts on her daughter’s special need and the lasting, and wonderful, impact it has had on her entire family.

And Amy Eldridge, at Love Without Boundaries, has begun writing a series of posts entitled “Realistic Expectations” in an effort to better prepare all adoptive parents for the day they finally meet their long-anticipated little one. I’d consider these a must read for anyone in the process to adopt from China.

Expectations on cleanliness
Expectations on potty training
Expectations on clothing
And expectations on preparing a child

Traveling Families:

And lastly, if you’re like all of us around here, you’ll want to take a few moments (or hours!) and travel vicariously with these families currently in China to bring home their children.

Straight Talk
From This Moment
Living Out a Crazy Love
Love Multiplies Here
Life’s Little Wonders



Filed Under: Stefanie, what we're reading

Big Sister: Family Within the Orphanage

May 7, 2012 By 11 Comments

While we waited to travel for our almost-four-year-old son, XiXi, I worried. He had not spent most of his life in foster care, as we’d been told, but was in the orphanage, an orphanage with a reputation for secrecy, deception, and at times even outright cruelty. At night, I wondered how damaged this child might be. I worried that he’d struggle with the concept of family, never having known one for himself. And then an amazing thing happened. I met a woman online who had just adopted a 13 year-old girl from XiXi’s orphanage. She said that her daughter was doing wonderfully well, was kind-hearted and empathetic and had blended seamlessly into their family, and had spent her whole life in the orphanage. With 600 kids under this orphanage’s care at any one time, I knew it was a long shot, but I sent this woman our son’s picture. Did she happen to know him?

Almost immediately I got an email back. “Our daughter is jumping up and down and clapping and crying, Di Di!! Di Di!!” Little brother! Little brother! With the use of a handheld translator, she told her mother that the children were sorted into “families” in the orphanage and that she’d known XiXi since he was infant. She loved him, played with him, taught him to walk. She said “Tell his mother to not worry. He is an obedient boy with a cute smiling face.” She told a story of a nanny who was universally disliked by the children, and how XiXI had his own way of pushing her buttons. At lunchtime, he refused to eat his food when Mean Nanny was in the room, but as soon as she left, he’d scarf down his rice, only to toss his chopsticks back on the table right before she reappeared, making her fume. The other children struggled to stifle their laughter.

Big Sister, like all the children adopted from this orphanage, left abruptly. Most children hear about their adoption on the way to the Civil Affairs Office. Sometimes the night before. Without so much as a goodbye, our boy’s Big Sister, a constant in his young life full of change, was gone.

As our time to meet XiXi drew closer, we received a card in the mail. Big Sister, knowing more than anyone what would be going through XiXi’s mind in the days and weeks to come, sent him a card. Rather than send it to the orphanage, where he’d probably never get it, she sent it to our home. One afternoon, I took it to a local Chinese restaurant for translation. Once it was clear that I did not need a table for one, I was escorted to the back of the restaurant where the owner and his elderly mother sat down with the card. They oohed and ahhed at the beautiful characters, hardly believing that a girl who’d grown up in a orphanage had written it. Then the translation began.

The man read aloud in Mandarin to his mother, and then repeated the words in English. “Dear XiXi, How are you? Did you have a good Chinese New Year?”

More Mandarin and then he paused. He paused long enough that I wondered if he was struggling with the translation. “I am telling you good news, XiXi. Your family is coming–a loving father, a loving mother, loving brother, and loving sisters.” The man’s words were catching in his throat and his mother dabbed her eye with a napkin.

“You are going to have a good life and happiness forever. You are going to have a nice home and then you will grow healthy, breathing fresh air. There will be a brother and sisters to play with you and you will not be lonely because they will love you and you will be part of their family. Congratulations, XiXI. Be a healthy and happy little boy, full of promise. Now you are still little and I don’t know if you still remember me, but I am always your big sister.”

Napkins all around.

We brought the card with us on Gotcha’ Day, along with a picture of Big Sister posing with her new family. XiXi was escorted into the Civil Affairs Office, pushed toward us, and then he fell apart. He wailed and screamed and kicked. He shook his head no and said things that our guide wouldn’t translate. Then he abruptly left the room. I panicked, wondering if he’d run out into the street. The Ayi who’d brought him motioned for us to sit down and to leave him be. We could see him outside in the hall, breathing deeply, trying to control his sobs. In his hands he held a photo book of our family. He slowly looked at each page, tears streaming down his cheeks, his chest heaving. When he got to the end of the book, he closed it, took another deep breath, and walked back into the room. The bravest little boy we’d ever seen.

At this point, we showed him Big Sister’s card and the picture of her with her family. A smile spread across his face. It had been over nine months since Big Sister left for America, but he yelled, “Jie Jie!!” Big Sister had started a new life and he would too.

When we got home, we called Big Sister. Acting like a teenager who didn’t want the rest of the family to hear his conversation, XiXi went into another room, phone glued to his ear. I heard lots of giggles. Afterward, I asked Big Sister’s mother what they said to each other. She wasn’t sure, but said her daughter was smiling and said, “Oh, sweet XiXi. Oh, funny XiXi.” Both kids home. Both kids safe. Both kids loved.

I am convinced, that even in the darkest places, there can be rays of light. I will be eternally grateful that Big Sister was that ray of light to our boy.


Filed Under: Eileen

Ripples

May 3, 2012 By 9 Comments

I took Jacob down to the bay a few days ago
and it was as he tip toed into the water
and began to play
that
I
saw
it

ripples.

And it occurred to me how his presence there and then in that moment
on that bay
was affecting change in the water.

There were ripples.

And how his presence here
he in our lives
and us in his
is affecting change and causing ripples that will last into eternity.

It starts with Jacob sure
but it begins to get farther and farther from him
his impact growing more and more and ever more.

ripple.

ripple.

His life.
ripple.

His future.
ripple.

His salvation.
ripple.

His children.
ripple.

Their future.
ripple.

His grandchildren.
ripple.

And on and on and ever on it will flow.

I don’t often see it.
The ripple that is.

I see the boy.
I see the homework.
I see the baseball games.
I see the goodnight stories.
I see the dirty socks he can’t manage to get into the hamper.
I see his smile.

I.
See.
Jacob.

But though I don’t give it much notice
or pay it much daily attention
the ripple is indeed there.
And it’s growing
and it’s beautiful
and it annoys the ever loving snot out of the enemy
because what he meant for evil
HE intended for good.

Jacob’s ripple does not stop at orphan.
Alone.
Abandoned.
Without hope.

His future is forever changed
his ripple headed in a different direction now

and sitting right behind him that day was me
someone he calls mom
watching
waiting
laughing
loving
and ever thankful for
my
son.

ripple

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Genesis 50:20



Filed Under: older child adoption, Sonia

letting go

May 1, 2012 By 4 Comments

So many aspects of the adoption process can cause you grief. The paperwork, the money, the general worry about your little one. I think there is a false sense of security in the paper chase. Something, somewhere down deep tells you that you’ve got this thing under control. You order birth certificates and schedule home study interviews, you visit the police station for fingerprints and ask friends to give reference of your ability to parent well.

All of this is well and good and you hit the ground running. Staying busy. If you’re like me, a list maker, you happily check things off of said list and feel really great about the progress you’re making. Documents and approvals come back in timely and some, not so timely, fashion.

Your dossier wings its way to China and you breathe a sigh of great relief, all the while your heart catches in your throat as you hand over months of effort to a total stranger. This could potentially be your first true experience of letting go during the months that have led up to now and the many that will follow until you hear those blessed letters spoken to your family…

TA.

But this week, a month after my first letting go of this process, I found myself on my face having to surrender again. We were DTC on 3.27 and have an LID of 4.13. Thus far, I’ve been skipping right along with this and not freaking out at all. Yay.

And this past Wednesday, through a series of jumps from one place to another online, with several emails in between them, I was given a link to a blog of sorts that has postings from our little prince’s foster home.

We knew from a missionary friend who was able to visit him in March that he is in a wonderful place. A foster home that is somewhat like a facility, a tiny orphanage if you will, caring for 12-14 children at a time. If I understand it correctly. The lady who runs it is not only a nurse, but a believer. You can imagine how comforting that was to us to know that someone with a medical background is caring for him. Not to mention the fact that we are like minded. It all seems to be such a good thing and we were feeling pretty great about his situation.

To the point, Kam. To the point.

I clicked the link and couldn’t believe it. There he was.

Our little prince.
At just days old.

Pictures of him that we never had seen and information that we had never been privy to. All I can say is, praise the Lord for Google Translate and better yet, for Google Chrome. I’m a Safari girl, but when you got 153 web pages to go through and you are dying to know what they say, you need a new browser.

I know, right?

So thank you, fine Google peoples, who brilliantly enable those of us who don’t have the energy to learn a new language in a day, to easily read about our children on the other side of the world. Yes.

Thank you very much.

37 pictures, {Yes! THIRTY SEVEN!} and 153 web pages later…I’m pretty caught up on the little prince’s life so far.

Uh. Mazing.

But then Friday happened.

As I popped out of bed, and sleepily pulled my iPhone off the night stand, just to hit the button and see the new wallpaper I had installed of our sweet boy, I remembered, that there was a blog I could check.

Like every stinkin’ day and see if there were new pictures. New info. New anything! “This is going to be great,” I thought to myself. Whew. I was feeling good.

But I pull the page up and read that our sweet boy was being moved.

That very day.

To a new foster home.

And my heart began to ache.

I was happy to read that his buddy, a little boy with him in many pictures, will be going to this new home as well. And it is with a real family…not a foster facility or a tiny orphanage. But to an actual home.

Still, I’m aching. Aching that he will have this transition. That this will be yet another relationship that he must learn to forge…and then learn to leave. That he will be in an environment that is new and different. And potentially scary. I mean, it must be, right?

My head is spinning and I’m taking it all in that our sweet boy is going to have a hard day. A hard week. A hard month. But in that moment, I remembered that he’s no stranger to hard. In my scouring of that website, I read how our baby boy was found.

On the ground.

In a park.

During winter in China.

Loosely wrapped in a single blanket with no diaper.

His umbilical cord still attached.

And a body temperature of 91 degrees.

My dear Jesus. Thank you for sustaining our son. Thank you for whoever found him there. Who may have heard his cry or seen him shiver. Thank you for this nurse. This woman who runs the home where he has been cared for.

Who, upon receiving the call about the little prince, came running when the orphanage said “no”.

Who, when standing in the hospital and hearing the words from the physician, “There is nothing we can do for this little boy” said, “I will take him home with me.” And that’s just what she did. She took him back to the home and placed him in an incubator that was donated by a China adoption charity. The next day she wrote how he had pulled through and gotten warm finally.

Reading those words about our son on the screen causes my heart to swell with gratitude. And awe. And peace.

There is so much of this process that we try to control or figure out or speed along. And there is so much more of it that we can’t do any of those things to. But this is know, in the midst of uncertainty and aching in my heart, letting go is a good thing.

Letting go of control. And expectations. And worry.

Our little prince is beating odd after odd that is stacked against him. To God be the glory. I’m letting go.





Filed Under: heart defect, Kam

Graduation

April 29, 2012 By 3 Comments

Not the high school kind of graduation. Or even the middle school or elementary type. But this is a graduation that I am ecstatic to be celebrating with Sunshine – she has officially graduated from Physical Therapy!

Although we expected she’d be somewhat physically delayed when we brought her home last June, we truly weren’t prepared for the extent of her delays. At just over one year old, our little Sunshine could sit like a champ. But she could not roll over. She could not get to a sitting position from laying down. And she certainly couldn’t crawl. In fact, we’re convinced she was never put on the floor based on her reaction to us trying it. We could leave her sitting in the middle of the hotel bed in China without fear that she’d find a way off. She was completely immobile and relied on us to do everything for her. We simply weren’t prepared for her complete lack of mobility because she had been cared for in a loving foster home and physical delays were not part of her diagnosed special need. She had very low muscle tone (a common issue), and that made it even more difficult for her to catch up.

Once we brought her home, she started rolling over within a few weeks and was scooting all over the house within a month! And then unfortunately, her progress kind of halted. Throwing in multiple cleft surgeries made it more difficult also. We had her evaluated by Infants and Toddler (the county program), and they assessed her at about 6-7 months old physically. We were assigned a wonderful physical therapist who came to our home once a week for 7 months. The visits were never happily welcomed by Sunshine. She screamed for the entire 45 minutes for weeks. I always enjoyed seeing Sunshine’s therapist, but I truly dreaded the visit itself. It was exhausting! Slowly though, Sunshine warmed up to Trisha and although she rarely let her touch or hold her, she didn’t get upset every time she came to visit.

With a lot of work, Sunshine made slow progress. She was quite resistant to “therapizing,” as I called it, but I got used to being a therapist 24 hours a day with the tools Trisha gave me. I could turn almost any situation into a therapy moment, although Sunshine was less than thrilled about that. There were many tantrums and stand-offs over those months. But over time Sunshine began to feel comfortable enough to take steps on her own. And when she was about 20 months old, Praise God she started doing the cutest little penguin walk! She has continued to show progress and now at 23 months, she walks all over the house with ease.

And with that progress came the time to say goodbye to Trisha. I was sad to say goodbye … but oh-so-glad that we were in a position to not need her therapy visits anymore. Because no matter how silly or crazy fun Trisha may have been, Sunshine just didn’t buy into her antics and was very resistant.  Trisha was always so amazingly wonderful and just rolled with Sunshine’s lack of enthusiasm. A fellow believer and adoptive mama herself, she was a perfect sounding board for me and always just got it.  I will most definitely miss her and am so grateful she was the one to help my daughter grow.

Sunshine still has more work ahead of her, but it’s less intense and stuff I didn’t feel we needed continued therapy visits for … things like learning how to kick and throw balls, walking (not crawling) up and down steps, climbing, and walking in the grass with ease. I think we are well on our way with all of those milestones and I am so proud to see her “graduate” from Physical Therapy!



Filed Under: cl/cp, Nicole C.

Attachment in the Trenches

April 25, 2012 By 4 Comments

When we were in China, we traveled with several other families. In our travel group, I don’t think I’m exaggerating by saying that we had “the crier.” Unlike the other happy, giggly children in the group who were quick to return their parent’s smile, our sweetie was unhappy much of the time. Despite our efforts, she rarely smiled and often cried. I even had the young daughter of another family come to me and say on more than one occasion, “Your baby cries a lot. What’s wrong with her? Our baby is happy.”
Ouch.
Rationally, I knew that her grieving meant that the attachment process was in full swing. And that is a really good thing. That made everything else totally bearable. But grieving, no matter what form it takes, still made my heart sad right along with hers.

So rather than worry about my daughter’s sadness, I concentrated on capitalizing on her attachment process and doing all I could to reap every ounce of bonding that I could. It was just a change in my mindset. Being proactive helps me get through tough times.

Now that we have a solid 7 weeks under our belt, things are much easier, and our journey continues to get easier every day. It’s so good that I often forget that this process of attachment is still in full swing. Lest I entirely forget, a meltdown surely happens, and I resort back to my China-travel attachment bag-o-tricks.

The following are notes I wrote down while in China and while we were completely in the trenches of attachment. I can’t tell you how happy I was to stumble across this list a couple weeks ago. When push comes to shove and I have a screeching toddler at my ankles while I’m trying to get dinner on the table, or when things just seem off, it’s hard for me to remember specifically what to do. It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in the moment and frustrated and forget practical techniques.
My linear mind loves resorting to list at times like these.

So here it goes. Maybe it will help someone else out there too.

—The Ergo is my best friend. My Ergo allows eye-to-eye contact and physical closeness, on the front, not the back. It correctly aligns the baby’s spine, unlike other carriers that suspend baby leaving their legs dangling downward. I’m sure there are other good carriers too, but I’m most familiar with Ergo. Just avoid carriers that “hang” a baby by their crotch. A baby carrier also makes it so no well-meaning person (waitress, Grandma, random Chinese granny…) can take your child from you. If you have a Velcro baby, it makes it easier to get any sleep on the plane (no fear of dropping baby if you doze off), get the essentials done, and enables me to use bathroom and not set her down. TMI I know, but still wanted to pass it along.

My father and I waiting our turn for some street food in Guangzhou. My Ergo always held her securely against with me when we went out… as well as much of the time when we were in the hotel too.

—In the beginning, we stick to only one person to meet all her needs. All her food, drink, toilet, diapers, bathing, nose wiping… everything. We added another caregiver, Papa, later, a few weeks later when we felt like her attachment with me was solid. Then others as time went by. This one person caregiver in the beginning is harder than it sounds. Our sweetie took a liking to her 13 year old brother within days. And he instantly ADORED her as well and wanted nothing more than to feed her and offered to give her a bath and more. I was often tuckered out which meant I would have LOVED to say yes when he offered help. But I knew that I needed to be the only provider of her needs. So in the beginning, I tried (emphasize the word try, sometimes I have to snag a break) to do everything for my new daughter.

—In China, we often skipped the side trips and tours. I had a very hard time with this one. I think it’s important to get to know the culture of my daughter. I wanted to be able to know China and appreciate it so much that I can tell her all about her land of birth. But, in the end, attachment comes first. So I found that often we skipped the excursions and gave my new daughter 100% of my time, if I felt I needed to that day.

—We did it together. We co-slept. I’m a very light sleeper and need my sleep to act like a human being the rest of the day, but co-sleeping, or some version of it, ensures that our new daughter knew we weren’t going to leave when she dozed off. Nap together. Eat together. We let this also include co-bathing too. In the bath or shower, which ever works. She evidently doesn’t mind baths, and I think she found them relaxing. Much to my dismay, she is however scared to death of the shower. Both Jude and Tess showered with us for months while we held them and relaxed as the water drizzled on them. They also liked to play at my feet with toys in the shower as I washed my hair.

—Not too much too soon. Put away the crazy loud toys and things that over stimulate. Our two favorite toys that we took on our China trip were stacking cups and a small rain stick. These two toys are amazing. They are ENOUGH for the whole trip along with the toys she finds in the room (peek-a-boo with a blanket, empty water bottle with a coin in it…) I try to carry this over to accessories too. As much as I’d like to stick a hair bow in her hair, she’s just not ready for it, so I’m trying to resist the temptation accessorize my sweetie. She’s made it clear she didn’t want anything in her hair, so I’m giving them up for now. I have some really cute ones though.

—Forget training up the way of a child… for now. Spoil her. Let her have candy. As I learned on this trip, let her sleep however and whenever she wants, as long as she sleeps. Skip the highchair if your child resists it and let her eat on your lap. Or skip your lap and let them eat in a highchair if your child isn’t ready for you yet. Scoop up a crying, falling, toppled little one even if you know she’s not really hurt. Let it all be about attachment and being there for her every little need while you’re traveling and when you first get home.

—Games and finger-play songs the promote eye contact are now some of her very favorite things to do. Her favorites include peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, horsey horsey carry me, round and round the garden, this little piggie, itsy-bitsy spider. I seat her on my lap, facing me and we sing and do the hand movements together. The giggles are the icing on the cake!

—Massage is a very good thing. I purchased a lotion in a scent I loved before we traveled. At least once per day, I massage her, usually her feet and legs. Massage is a favorite after her bath and at bedtime. It calms her down, and she genuinely loves it. And the skin contact between us is invaluable.

Truth be told, with some adaptations for the age of the child, these things work for all my children. Sometimes my 9-year-old just needs to sleep with his mama. And sometime playing a game with the big kiddos is just the thing to break the ice after a tough day.
Although I don’t think I’ll be carrying around my teenagers in the Ergo anytime soon.



Filed Under: Nancy

What We’re Reading: {Links}

April 25, 2012 By 10 Comments

From the last few weeks, some good stuff we’ve read that relates to adoption and/or parenting a special needs child.

As always, if you are a traveling family, or have posted something, or read something, that you’d like to share here on No Hands But Ours, please let us know at nohandsbutours@gmail.com.

In the news:

Annie Clark, age 7, was born without hands. Adopted from China, she recently won the national penmanship award. Truly inspiring story and video.

And a sweet story of an older American couple, 66 and 69, living in China and caring for orphans with significant special needs. It began in 1993, when they were asked if they would take a look at a baby girl – with numerous special needs – who had been abandoned on the campus where they taught. They now run a facility that cares for 32 children with autism and cerebral palsy.

In the blog world:

Angie, from a Blog Full of Weldons, transparently shares about her daughter’s recent cleft surgery, and the ensuing post-adoption depression it caused for her. Beautifully written, and straight from the heart… it is a blessing to many when we, as adoptive moms, can share our hearts so honestly.

Karin, from Our Treasures From Afar, shares pictures from her son Jordan’s recent surgery to create a new ear. The final results are amazing.

Hiking Mama, from Hike. Blog. Love., writes about her son’s recent diagnosis of autism and test results. And the fact that no matter what she is told by “specialists”, or what numbers he is assigned on paper, she knows the undefeatable hope she has for her beloved boy.

Our own Nicole, from Living Out His Love, shares some fantastic ideas for sensory play. She has created sensory bins for her daughter – with water beads and coffee beans – and both have been extremely well received by her daughter, Sunshine. Great ideas for any adopted child.

And new adoptive mama Carrie, from To China We Go, shares about her recent realization of being a conspicuous family – and the ensuing comments they have received – now that her daughter Abbie is home from China.

Traveling Families:

And lastly, if you’re like all of us around here, you’ll want to take a few moments (or hours!) and travel vicariously with these families currently in China to bring home their children.

One Less Broken Heart
September Sweeties
Finding Faith
Kaylee’s Journey Home



Filed Under: Stefanie, what we're reading