In the middle of the story

I’ve been reading some China forums lately with posts from families who have kids with developmental delays. It’s been a discouraging week and a half at our house since we tried a very low dose of Ritalin for Matthew and had to deal with some very unpleasant side effects. It seems that as it stimulated Matthew’s brain, it also enhanced some of his neurological challenges (like head hitting and tics), which were frustrating and hard. And he was generally fussy and unhappy, even to the point of tantrums, undoing the balance and rhythm at our house which we work so hard to create.

So it felt like soothing balm to this mama today to read from some other families who parent kids with special needs. It turns out that even during the season when parents were bringing home non-special needs kids from China (mostly 2010 and before), many of the children who came home had developmental delays because of neglectful orphanage environments.

I don’t know why, but for some reason reading these posts helped me re-frame our family situation. There are still moments (sometimes more like hours) when I still carry around a lot of anger and grief about the fact that Matthew has as many challenges as he does. I’m haunted, a bit, by the naive expectations I had about bringing home a special needs child from China. 

But at the same time, I wasn’t lying to myself with the expectation that our kid would come home and catch up—this is what so many other families had experienced. I talked with many China adoption parents before our adoption (in part thanks to our adoption agency who willingly referred me to other adoptive parents) and the stories I heard, without fail, were ones of success and a positive transition.

But obviously those aren’t the only stories out there, as evidenced by the dozens of posts I read today on the China Talk developmental delay forum. It just wasn’t what we were expecting.

Sometimes I wonder how differently my life would feel now if Aaron and I had decided with PURPOSE to adopt a child with developmental delays—if we’d have a different perspective had we chosen the special need we got.  We had done so much reading and research on cleft lip and palate—and honestly I feel like I have that special need down pat. It’s traumatic during surgery, and it requires a lot of catching up with language and feeding, but it feels manageable. This other thing—this vague developmental delay diagnosis—is not so manageable some days. There’s no trajectory that’s clearly laid out for getting from one day to the next. It’s all just trial and error—like our “trial” with Ritalin last week that proved rather disastrous for us all.

While I was reading the China Talk forum today, however, it dawned on me that several of the parents who posted were describing their children who are now 10 or 12 or 15. Our family can’t even begin to imagine or know where we’ll land because we’re still in the middle of the story. We’re not even 2 ½ years in, and we’re still unraveling all of Matthew’s threads, trying to discern what he needs and how to best support him. It’s exhausting some days—I won’t life—but it’s also really fulfilling and gives our life the kind of extreme purpose that turns out to be a blessing in the end.

Last night during a walk in the pouring rain, I had a lovely conversation with one of my favorite fellow adoptive mamas. She’s the one I call when my heart is so, so discouraged—and she calls me when she’s in that place too. We’ve vowed to be brutally honest with one another—when it’s good and when it’s very hard.

After several minutes of me venting into the phone and her patiently listening, we landed back (together) on the conversation of why parenting a challenging adoptive child is hard but why it’s also amazing and good and purposeful. And then she said, “You know, I’m pretty sure when we look back on our lives, this parenting we’re doing will be one of the most important things we did. It will be one of the biggest blessings.”

I think she’s right.

Being in the trenches all day with a child who has developmental delays certainly isn’t easy. Maybe from the outside our lives look like they are sweet and lovely and put together, and they are some days—but they are also exhausting, frustrating and discouraging. I won’t lie—it’s a different kind of life than I expected for myself.

But we’re still in the middle of the story right now. There’s no telling what the ending will be like—who will be the hero, who will rise, where this will all end. And in this season, I’m glad that’s the case. 

Because just as I do when I read a gripping novel, these days I’m still cheering for the underdog—in this case, Matthew. I’m still holding out hope that a happy ending exists—that he’ll win the day—that he’ll stand on his own two feet at the end of this growing journey and live a life that’s fulfilling to him.

No matter what, I’ll forever be Matthew’s mama, standing proudly by his side, having born witness to each step of the journey, when the ending finally comes.