A year ago on April 13, 2009, we met Hunter for the first time and signed his official adoption papers less than an hour later. After 22 long, hard months of waiting (often not so patiently), he suddenly joined our family forever.
The day started with us being left by our guide at the hotel and our car showing up an hour late to take us to the orphanage and the driver getting lost. We will never forget our first sight of Hunter. We expected to be ushered into a room, wait and have some sort of formal meeting. Instead, he came running out from behind a corner, blew straight by me and Jim and ran right to Marshall to look at his hand held video game!
Lily immediately started wailing. So loud, in fact, that we have almost no audible video from those precious minutes at the orphanage. We knew she was insanely jealous but we thought it was because Hunter was getting the attention and we were talking to the foster parents and orphanage officials and the babies. Only this week did she tell me she was crying because Marshall was showing Hunter his video games and not her!!
From the very first moment we met him, he was exuberant, happy and loving. Our child with an "expressive speech delay" had no problem rattling off to pretty waitresses, taxi drivers, tour guides or just about anyone. He didn't hesitate to tell anyone we were his new family and that we "eat a lot!" The only time he cried was when we tried to get him to take a nap or told him he couldn't use the computer. He immediately took to all of us, ice cream, cartoons, books, swimming, travel, hotels, drawing, flying, bike riding, roller coaster riding, boats, all American food, our dogs, our neighbors, our church, our friends and relatives.
This is not to say that our transition was all rosy. We had about a 6 week honeymoon stage before he started with boundary testing, crying in frustration over the language barrier (particularly when he thought he couldn't get us to understand he wasn't ready to go to sleep at 10 pm!), intolerable aggressive behavior towards Lily, a male chauvinist attitude towards girls in general and mom in particular, exceedingly poor sportsmanship, an inability to share, pouting when he didn't immediately get his way, etc... Looking back, this all seems so relatively minor and what should have been so expected at the time but of course it was very stressful on all of us. Yes, there were days I wondered what the heck I had done to our family. I had inappropriate outbursts at all the kids in sheer exhaustion and frustration. Did Holt make a mistake in placing this child with us? Why were we drawn to adopt an older child and what made us think we were capable? There were agonizing days of guilt when I didn't much like this little person new to our home and wasn't sure how I would grow to love him. We talked to Holt, to friends with older adopted children, other parents in our Dong Nai group, our pediatrician and others. We got through it. We did not abuse our son or send him back to Vietnam.
And look at us today - a year later. Over the last year, Hunter has revealed some of the things he endured in Vietnam. We will never know really what his experience was but it wasn't close to ideal. He is terrified to have anyone speak to him in Vietnamese and swears he will never go back, not even for a visit. Of course, this will likely change one day which we hope for. His achievements this year are nothing short of miraculous and heroic. He is in kindergarten and he is reading short sentences, knows his whole alphabet, can write short stories and poems (mostly about how he loves his family and ice cream!), can count to 100 by 1s, 5s and 10s, can add single digits, understands sets, can find any game on a computer or video game, ties his own shoes, gets himself fully dressed and groomed everyday, communicates fully in English all the time. he is polite, always says please and thank you. He is incredibly loving and adores the family. He is the first at church to run up when the minister prepares communion and nothing makes him happier than participating loudly at the service. He still has the most soulful, beautiful eyes. He is our little hero and our love for him grows daily.
Why am I rehashing all this today? Why not just post a montage of glorious photos from the year? (which I will do later this weekend!). Because yesterday the Russian President decided to halt international adoptions to the US because of the insane and cruel actions of an adoptive mom to her 7 year old son. The Joint Council on International Adoptions has asked families with successful adoption storied to tell their truth today.
Is older child adoption difficult? Absolutely. Does it turn your house upside down even under good circumstances? Of course. Does it overwhelm you and scare you and turn you into a person you don't even know some days? Can it cause you anxiety and panic attacks and depression? YES!!!
But...you work through it, you use your resources, ALL OF THEM. Its hard, damn hard but my God - there is nothing like hearing Hunter tell me at night how much he loves me and listen to him say his prayers thanking God for all the good people and things in his life. Nothing better than watching him read a book for the first time or play around with Marshall and Lily in the yard. Hunter is such a blessing to us in so many ways, we can't begin to count them all. A year. Can it really only be a year since we first met?
Hug your children today and praise God for whichever way they came into your family. Pray that families struggling post-adoption get help when they need it and that government officials will not penalize waiting children for the stupidity of one.
Hunter, Marshall and Lily we love you and are so proud of you!
