The Conference

If you are the type of person who's first response tends to be "I told you so", just don't even continue. You'll drive yourself crazy...

This is me, raw.

I went to an adoption conference over the weekend. I didn't want to go. In fact, I made every excuse in the book not to go. Not enough money. Not enough time. Who is going to watch the kids? I really don't need to learn anything else. And on and on and on.

Even up to Thursday night at 4:30 (I was supposed to leave at 7) I was still hemming and hawing. I didn't even pack anything. I just wasn't going to go.

My husband made me.

I'm so very glad he did.

I won't lie to ya. We've been struggling. I haven't written anything because if I did...all you would hear is whining, boo-hooing, poor me-ing, & sob story-ing.

I am exhausted.

Adoption is hard.

Adoption isn't pretty.

Adoption is so so so BEAUTIFUL.

I knew going into this journey that it wouldn't be easy but I'm that "I can do anything, the glass is half full" kind of girl, remember? It was only going to be HARD for other people, not us. Not me.

Dang. I was wrong.

I'm listening to one of the twins scream in bed. Not a typical two year old scream, I can handle those. I can't even begin to describe the sound to you. It is horrifying. And I can't do anything about it right now because if I go in there, I might start screaming, too....

We have days when the screaming never stops. When the tantrums are repeated every 5 minutes. When no amount of consoling, rocking, feeding, coddling or holding will help. When all I want to do is lock myself in the bathroom and hide.

This is hard. And I'm tired. And I'm broken. So broken.

So, I left for the conference with a pretty defeated attitude. Mostly I decided it was just going to be a nice break. The microchip and I would enjoy a long car ride, see some friends, stay in a nice hotel, and come back a few days later recharged.

I was wrong again.

Hear me, now, I did have a nice car ride, the micro was on his BEST behavior, my friends are wonderful and I slept for 10 hours straight on Friday night. Lovely.

The conference, though, taught me so much. I'm not the only broken adoptive parent. I'm not alone. There are other large, multiracial families out there.

For the first time in over a year, I was completely normal. I didn't stand out. There were many children from "hard places". I wasn't alone.

And I feel so alone. How do we turn to people for help the times we feel like we are failing when THOSE people are the ones who helped us fight to bring these ones home. Or worse, when those people are the ones who questioned our abilities to care for this many children to begin with? Who constantly say "I don't know how you do it?" or "if I were you, I'd be crazy". Well, let me tell ya sister, you don't. You don't ask for help.

If you are reading this and you have friends who have adopted or who are fostering, please come along side them and offer help and then actually follow through with that help, even if that family says they are doing alright. And Christians out there, step up. We need you.

Back to the conference.

Everything Dr. Karyn Purvis spoke on applied directly to my three youngest. Everything. She would say something and I thought "that's him/her!" I nodded my head so many times you would think it was going to fall off. Yes, we have that struggle! Yes, we have those issues! YES!

Someone understood.

And better yet, there was hope.

But there is so much to do. I realized this weekend how many things I was doing wrong and how many things I was doing right. I'm not an utter failure. This isn't the end. We won't always be screaming.

I'm still broken. Our family is still struggling. We take life minute by minute.

But there is hope.

And that, my friends, is huge.