Dear Birth Mom, Happy Mother's Day!

Dear (Amay's) Birth Mom,

It is yet another year that I sit down to celebrate you and me.  I remember my first Mother's Day, 9 years ago.  It was filled with such joy and excitement.  I was finally a mom to a wonderful little boy that filled my entire world with happiness.  And here I am now, the mother of 4 and though I feel the same joy and excitement in being a mom, Mother's Day is often filled with thoughts of you.  I can't help but continue to wonder about you.  You son,... Our Son...now asks a lot about you.  With each question, my heart aches a bit more.  I often cry because sometimes I think I have gotten it all wrong.  Motherhood to our son has been extremely hard for me.  I have felt like a failure over and over again.  Often, people tell me that love is all you need.  I have tried that.  And it just doesn't feel enough. He needs You.  And I can't give him that.  Often, I try to forget you so it doesn't hurt knowing that you are his void.  But I see your face in our son.  He has big black eyes adn a smile that warms your heart. Amay will be 9 years old in a month.  And he has grown so much.  His heart is full of so much love, but there is a rage in him that lives deep inside his heart.  He thinks about you often.  I think about you often.  And it seems to never get easier.  There is a part of me that would love to see you and sit with you all night talking about our son. I fantasize about those days.  And then, there is a part of me that is filled with so much anger that I don't even want to share him with you.  I want him to be my son, not our son.  But then, I look at him and don't see him as my son.  I see him as our son.  And the struggle continues. Every. Single. Day.


Last year, Amay welcomed a baby brother into his life. And he is perfect.  Amay needed him in his life.  We all needed baby Niam in our lives.  After adopting Amay, there was a void in me.  I felt angry, sad, and often incompetent as a mother.  Raising Amay almost felt like being his caretaker and not his mom.  Though Amay loves me, his love for me is often easily replaced with food.  His food issues and his insecurities have made me feel dispensable.  I wanted him to love me unconditionally.  And he isn't ready for that.  Slowly, my heart became cold and I became angry.  Niam wasn't only a baby that I wanted, he was a baby that our entire family needed.  I call him our "family's keeper".  He completed and healed our family in a way that was absolutely magical.  He has brought back all the smiles and laughs that our family had missed for the past few years. I finally feel liek a mother again and my connection with Amay has become stronger.  As I rock Niam to sleep, I realize how much Amay missed in his early years.  And it helps me grow my heart bigger for him.

I wanted Amay to have somebody he can call his "own". Amay has finally found a place in the family as a big brother.  He finally has somebody he can have memories with and a sibling that is common to all of them. Amay is no longer the kid that was just thrown into a family with no beginning.  Amay adores his baby brother.  He looks at him with such joy and love.  Niam is my gift to Amay.  He is the closest family member I could give to Amay.  He now has memories of how his family was created.  Amay also did very well during my pregnancy.  He asked a lot of questions about you.  And I think he missed you most during those days.  But he finally understood how he was created and what it meant to have a "birth mom".  

Birth Mom, I love our son now.  I know that the past years have been difficult for me.  Attachment has always been hard for me.  And I'd be lying if I said it's not hard.  There are days when I miss you and want you to help me raise him because I don't know the answers.  I don't understand his temperment or don't know if I'm doing it the way you would.  But I love him.  Our hearts finally beat as one.  I love him so much and though I know that the pain of leaving him can't ever be understood...I want to promise you that you made a good decision.  He is often sad.  Sometimes I'm not sure how to help him.  But he has many happy moments too.  His father and I are trying to help him understand that it's okay to feel sad, but it's also important to find the things that can make him happy.  His older brother Satya always tries to talk to him and remind him that he has to make the best out of every situation.  And I promise you that I will do all that I can do to live up to that promise of love, success, happiness, and motherhood.

Our son will now be in 3rd grade.  He tries so hard and works very hard.  His lack of confidence in himself often holds him back.  But he is so smart and wants to learn.  He will now have been in our family longer than he has been at the orphanage.  I feel a sense of relief in knowing that.  I finally am starting to accept him as my own.  Adoption is hard.  And I know letting him go must have been even harder.  But I hope you find peace knowing that he is doing good.  A couple of days ago he told his siblings that his birth mom was his favorite mom and that I was his second mom.  Yesterday he came to my room and he told he that he was "lying" and that I was his favorite.  I sensed the guilt he felt...thinking he had made me feel bad...and honestly, a couple of years ago, i would have felt horrible...as I found myself in constant competition with you.  But I don't feel that anymore.  I have found a happy and secure place with him.  I"m not jealous of you...and I told him that.  I told him he didn't have to choose between the two of us.  And that it's okay to feel however he feels.  He was happy to know that he didn't have to explain his feelings.  I think he had started to sense the jeolousy and anger I often felt for you.  But I'm better now.  After having my recent baby, I"m thankful that you took great care of him in your tummy, and I will have the opportunity to take care of him now.

Every year I have him write a letter to you on Mother's Day. Here are a few lines....

Dear Birth Mom

I miss you.  You did an awesome job making me.  I also am wondering where you are right now.  I think you're crying and missing me.  I have a good family.  I try to forget about you, so I could have fun, but I can't.  You make me happy just like my other mom I have right now.  It's Mother's Day week, so Happy Mother's day!!!!  I love you a lot Mom.  I also want to see you and know your name.  I miss you a lot.  I think you loved me a lot.

Love, 
Amay S. Mehta

I leave you with that.  Our baby is growing up.  My insecurities about you are slowly starting to vanish and I am feeling stronger as his mother.  Thank you for our son.  He is an incredible reminder of strength, resilience, and love.  I will continue to learn from him and continue to fight for him.  Happy Mother's Day to you and me from our son.  You are thought of every single day.  There isn't a day that goes by that Amay and I aren't thinking of you.  Somedays are harder without you than others.  I often wish you can come and help me heal him.  But I know that I have your blessings for our son....and there isn't much more I can ask this year on Mother's Day.  Whoever you are, Wherever you are...you are thought of with love.....

"Legacy of an Adopted Child"

Once there were two women who never knew each other,
One - you do not remember, the other you call mother.
Two different lives shaped to make yours,
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.
The first gave you life, and the second taught you to live in it.
The first gave you a need for love and the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality; the other gave you a name.
One gave you the seed of talent; the other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions; the other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile; the other dried your tears.
One gave you up - that's all she could do.
The other prayed for a child and God led her straight to you.
Now you ask through all your tears the age-old question through the years;
Heredity or environment - which are you a product of?

Neither, my darling - neither - just two different kinds of love...

Becoming the "Perfect" Mom

"You should try to breastfeed him, he'll never be grateful, he can't do what your other kids can do, you never know what his genes are, you shouldn't have adopted a child whose caste you don't know, if you fed him more he wouldn't hoard food, if you fed him less he wouldn't hoard food, he'll forget he was adopted, don't remind him that he is adopted, he will never be able to do what you expect him to do, I told you shouldn't have adopted, adopted kids will always be a problem to the family."  And my favorite, "You are lucky that you missed his infant years so you didn't have to wake up every 2 hours!"

These are some of the fun things I've heard through the years.  And though I have never been angry with any comment that has come my way, I would be lying if I didn't admit to the stress and doubt it has caused to me as a mother.  Back in May, we celebrated three years with Amay.  And though I haven't had a chance to sit down and really appreciate the progress we have made as a family and the progress Amay has made, I am able to find myself in awe of what the past years have meant to us.  Amay is doing extremely well, with a few bumps in the road.  He spent the past two years in Kindergarten as we decided to give him the extra year to grow emotionally while at the same time allowing us to separate the two boys in grade level.  So now, as we move forward, I have a kindergartner, 1st grader, and 2nd grader.  And I. AM. READY. for school to start.  This summer was busy.  We cried, we laughed, we screamed, and in the midst of all the fun we were having, we often even got bored.  As Amay gets older, we have found that he has had many regressions.  He continues to struggle with food and his emotions.  His good days are great, but his bad days often cause the whole family to curl up in fetal position.  When he struggles, the other two kids struggle as well.  And the whold family falls apart.  And everyday, we wake up praying for a better, easier, smoother day.  And many days, our prayers are answered.  And those days are beautiful...full of lots of laughter and love.  But the other days are full of lots of tears, doubt, emotions, and screaming.

As I continued to struggle to become Amay's mom,  it became clear that I would never be his "perfect" mom.  He made his feelings obvious many days when he screamed "I hate you!" or "You are a bad mom!".  And I cried, and I listened to everybody's advice on how to love my son or how to be a better mom.  I listened as the mom in the grocery aisle told me "cherish these days, they grow up so fast".  But the worst feelings were the feelings of being judged.  The feeling of not being enough.  The feeling of not being the "right" mother.  The feeling of somebody doing a better job.  I wanted to be the "right" mother for Amay.  I wanted to feel at ease with every decision I had made for my son.  But often, my son didn't feel like my son.  My son felt like everybody's "experiment".  Everybody had something to say to either me or to him.  I wasn't doing enough and for sure, they could do a better job.  And these feelings for the past three years have made things harder and painful.  I have always known what Amay is capable of.  I will admit that I am not easy with him.  And I will also admit that I expect him to excel and do his best.  I don't let him play the "adoption card."  He is NEVER allowed to play the adoption card.  We can work through his "adoption" issues, but I never give him a free ride just because he is "adopted".  Learning is harder for him because he had a traumatic childhood.  Food issues are tough for him.  Attaching and expressing love is hard for him.  Controlling his feelings are hard for him.  But I will never allow him to think it is okay not to work through his problems.  When Amay first came to us three years ago, people told me that it was going to be hard for him to read and learn.  And it was.  It was extremely hard.  But we worked through it.  We worked through the tears and made time.  And as he struggled to learn two languages, we continue to believe in his potential.  We worked on his confidence and his self-esteem.  We continued to tell him that he can do whatever he puts his mind to.  It was vital for him to believe in himself.  And I think it is extremely important for Amay to have a good sense of self and potential.  As he gets older, his "adoption" will become a big part of his identity.  But if he can continue to remember that "adoption" doesn't define him, he will conquer his fears and his past.  And we have finally realized that we can't do this alone.  Therapy will have to become a part of his life.  And so we have started therapy for him again to help him navigate through this journey.

As for me, these past three years have led me to this phase in my journey.  A time in this journey that I no longer care what others think.  I know that most people have the best of intentions in mind.  I don't want to feel judged anymore.  I know that I am doing the best I can.  I know that my son has made amazing progress these past 3 years.  I know what my son needs and I know that often, I struggle to give it to hime.  I struggle as a mom.  But i've seen many moms struggle.  Biological moms struggle just as much as adoptive moms do.  Every mom has a day where they wish they could go back to "pre-kids".  And every mom has had one of those days where she has locked herself in the bathroom or closet and just cried.....for no apparent reason, but just because she needed a good cry.  And of course, my kids have gone to school with different socks on.  I've forgotten to do laundry and had to have my kids wear the same underwear two days in a row( don't worry, i turned it inside out).  I've yelled at them and practically kicked them out of the room just so I can get some alone time.  I've had days where I have admitted to my husband that "I don't really like them too much today!"  I've had grumpy days and many UGLY days.  My kids have seen the worst of me.  Amay has definitely seen the worst of me.  But i've realized that it doesn't matter.  I might not be a perfect mom, but I am HIS mom.  And that, my friends, is PERFECT.

Adoption has made me Human

It's been 2 and 1/2 years since we brought our son Amay home from India.    Sometimes I still think about the first week of being home with him.  The horrible feeling of not knowing what to do with the "stranger" sleeping in the other room.  The helpless feeling of being a "new" mom to a child that was four years old.  Things at home have been better...a lot better.  Lately, however, he has been displaying a lot of anger and defiance towards me.  And I know a lot of moms, adoptive or not, can relate to kids not doing what they are told to do.  As for me, I am used to having the other two kids who "usually" do what I tell them to do without a full blown tantrum.  Amay, on the other hand, has reverted back to his violent behavior towards me.  The puzzling part of all this is that he only does it to me.  I can't understand why he is so angry at me, but most of his tantrums end with him hitting me, then telling me that he doesn't like me and lastly but the most hurtful one, "YOU are a bad mother!".  My husband has told me over and over again not to take it personally, but I can't help but become limp with every word in that sentence.  All the anger directed at me cripples my every effort to make things work.  God knows that I am trying, and learning to love him, and trying to see past his trauma.  But adoption has made me Human.  Sometimes I forget that I am a mom to this angry child.  Sometimes I forget the natural feelings of being selfless as a mom.  He often becomes violent and then tells me I am a bad mother and then asks me for a hug.  And sometimes, I don't want to hug him.  I want HIM to hug me.  I don't want to make him feel better.  I want HIM to make ME feel better. And that is not what a mom should ever feel.  A mom should always put her child's feelings and needs above her own.  But sometimes it hurts so much that I want him to make it all better. I want him to take the pain and words back.  Sometimes I want to be angry for all the effort I make that just results in me being a "bad mother".  And I know that early child trauma changes a child.  And it effects him and will effect him for the rest of his life.  I. KNOW. IT. ALL. Most adoptive moms know that their child has been through trauma.  But no adoptive mom can go through every anger tantrum remembering the child's trauma. Sometimes adoption forces me to become Human and to feel human emotions.  And human emotions often can be scary.  As a mom, your job is to comfort and love your child.  But as a human, your instinct is to survive.  And adoption sometimes tugs at my survival instincts.  There are days that I don't want to love, to comfort, to learn from my mistakes, to be patient, to do any of it.  Somedays I just want to survive.

While discussing some of the anger issues with my adoptive moms group,  one of the moms, who also happens to be a therapist, told me that anger is a secondary emotion.  That there is always something behind anger.  That we don't just become angry for no reason.  And of course, there is a lot of truth to that.  And I know that Amay isn't angry at me as a mom to him.  Perhaps he is angry at what mom means to him.  Perhaps "mom" means abandonment.  Perhaps "mom" means a safe place where he can be angry.  I actually don't know what causes him to be so angry at me.  And the truth is, sometimes I am so angry at him.  And so when the adoptive mom suggested that I, too, look for a reason to why I am angry at him, I realized that there were so many reasons that I have kept bottled up in an attempt to be the mother he deserves.  But as I thought more about my anger, I realized that adoption has made me human.  And I am trying so hard to be a mom to him.  During his violent tantrums, I want to love him because that is what moms do.  But the "human" part of me just wants to yell and not deal with the deeper issue of trauma.   For the past 7 years, since the birth of my first child, I have been just a mom.  I have been selfless, loving, caring, and everything that a mom does without questioning her efforts.  But lately, as Amay regresses, I have been in survival mode again.  I desperately want to feel like a mother again.  I desperately want to soften my heart and feel the joy of being a mother again.  I desperately want not to be angry at him for "disrupting" my normal and making me feel incompetent as a mother even to the other two kids. I desperately want to feel a "biological" connection to him.  Most adoptive moms will say that anger, attachment issues, and such are normal during adoption.  And I agree.  I agree they are normal in adoption because adoption makes us human.  Anger and having to "learn" to love your son is by no means normal in motherhood.  But it is if you are just human.  It is normal to have to "learn" to love another human that says you are a bad mother.  I get it now.

When all is quiet and I am no longer in "fight or flight" mode, I sit in my bed and think about the amazing awesome blessing that sleeps in the other room.  And I feel like a mother again.  And it is the best feeling in the world.  I love him so much.  There is a part of me that is glad that it hurts me so much when he says mean things to me.  Because 2 years ago, if he had said that he hated me, I could have cared less.  He was a stranger to me and I hadn't even really accepted him as my own.  And that is the brutal truth.  And now, 2 years later, his anger seaps through my heart and rips it apart.  My husband often tells me to let the pain go, and I know I should.  But I can't.  I want to be the best mom I can be for him.  And if his words continue to hurt me as much as they do, I know that one day I will be the mom he deserves.  I will continue fighting those words in my head and dig deeper to heal his anger.   And though it feels horrible, it is therapeutic to know that it hurts so much because i love him.  I love his soul and I love his little heart that needs so much healing.  I am lost as a mother because I don't know how to heal my son.  I am angry as a human because all of this hurts.  Adoption has made me human, and I had forgotten that moms are human too.

Adoption: Impact on Biological kids

Though this blog is mostly dedicated to "bringing Amay home"...I would like write this post about my other two children...Sitara and Satya...Sitara is my 4 year old princess...this adoption hasn't affected her much...as now she believes that Amay is just one more person she can boss around...so things for her so far have been good....she might be too young to understand the impact of it all just yet....on the other, Satya is my beautiful 6 year old son.  He is the oldest child and recently, I was reminded of how much this adoption has impacted him.  I often get lost in the troubles of being a mom...how hard adoption is for a mom, how hard attachment is for a mom...etc.

Lately, I have found Satya to be very sad....often depressed...which has gotten me a bit worried.  Two days ago, he started crying randomly again.  And as we started to talk, he told me about some of his sadness, his fears, and his struggles.  He told me "Mom, i am worried that Amay is going to grow up to not like me, because even though i try to be nice to him, i always end up being mean to him...i don't know why....i guess i am jealous that i have to share everything with him...i have to share my parents, my sister, my toys and people give him lots of attention.".....It breaks my heart to see him so worried.  Amay and Satya are only 9 months apart, so we have essentially "twinned" them.  Satya feels displaced from his oldest child place in the family, since he is constantly feeling like a twin.  Satya also feels that his relationship with his little sister is being threatened, because now Sitara has two brothers that can take care of her.  He was always the protector of his little sister, and now sometimes he feels pushed to the side.  Sitara and Amay are emotionally and mentally and almost physically the same size so they enjoy doing a lot of things together, whereas Satya is on a whole different emotional and mental level.  While Amay and Sitara are busy playing with dolls, Satya is busy watching the World Cup or learning about our Solar System.

Adoption is a tough journey for everybody, but often we forget the biological kids that are involved that have to digest this new change in their lives...a change that often feels like a "disruption" from their normal functioning lives...and honestly, i don't know what to say to my 6 year old who struggles...i don't know how to tell him that I THINK things will feel better...because i don't know when it will feel normal again...for him....things for Satya have been so very hard...and i know that things for Amay were hard too...so as a mom, i am stuck...trying to understand both kids while trying not to hurt anybody's feelings....i feel that often i have to hide my feelings of love for Amay so that I don't hurt Satya...and i KNOW that is so wrong...but my heart just sinks when Satya gets hurt...maybe it is because he is my first child...every mom  (okay, most moms, I think?) have a soft spot for one of their kids...for me, it is Satya...Satya has always been the emotional, easy going, sensitive, kind boy....he is exactly like his father....i am very possessive and protective of hims....so if anybody hurts Satya (even Amay or Sitara), i become "momma bear"....Satya always talks to me about his "conscience"...he says that sometimes he wants to turn his conscience off because it is always telling him to be good.....

I hope things get better for Satya...we started this journey with Amay with spitting, fighting, kicking, scratching, throwing, and just about everything in between...and that part of the experience has stayed with Satya and he has had a hard time moving past it....he has seen Amay pulling my hair, kicking me, and spitting at me...and I think he was too young to process the "disruption" at that time.....the hardest part for Satya has been that often he is too mature for his age.....all kids behave badly sometimes..and a lot of kids are jealous..but for Satya, jealousy and being greedy and selfish makes him uncomfortable...and when he behaves in those ways, it affects his state of mind which leads him into sadness....he is almost too good for his own well being....

I am having an extremely hard time trying to be a mom to two kids that have two very different needs...though adoption is a family affair, it is often hard because our biological kids didn't sign up for what comes with it....as Satya once said to me..."i knew adopting Amay was going to be hard, BUT, i didn't know it was going to be THIS hard..."....I spend a lot of time thinking and worrying about Amay and his issues..and spend a lot of time reading books and paying attention to the changes i need to make for him...but today, I am thinking about my Satya...he has definitely gotten lost in the process..and i have often failed to pay attention to his needs and to the changes i need to make for him so he doesn't grow up having negative feelings towards adoption or towards his brother.....This isn't about biological vs adopted kid....this is about just two kids who have come from two different worlds...and it is my job as a mom to help them transition into one world.....an adoptive family can't be just about making the new child feel loved and safe...it has to be about making every child in the family feel loved and safe......my fear is that one day Amay will say "you loved Satya more"...or that Satya will say "you changed our entire family for Amay"....or that they will not like each other because i failed to transition them into our new family...my fears for the future are tremendous...it burdens me and troubles my heart....i can only hope that all my children will be grateful for the life we have chosen for them.....

To Birth Mom, Happy Mother's Day....

Dear Birth Mom,

Though many times I try to forget you, I can't help but see your face in our son....he has big black eyes and a smile that warms your heart....Though I don't know where you are or what you look like, I think about you everyday....sometimes with love, and sometimes with anger....I wonder what you would say to me if you met me, and what i would say to you...some days i feel that i would hug you and just cry...for all the pain and love that I feel in our son....and some days i feel that i would just scream....for the loneliness i often see in his eyes and the doubt in his heart....but i love your son...our son....it scares me to know that one day he will ask about you....because though i know i want him to cherish you, i am scared that he will want to know so much  more than i will ever be able to give him....and with those unanswered questions, i am afraid that he will feel empty....every day i feel that i try so hard to love him and to give him everything he needs, but often i feel like a failure, because every kid wants to know where they come from....he belongs with me, but comes from you....and no matter how hard i try to feel that i will be enough, i know that he will never feel complete without knowing about you....and days like that, i am angry at you....but not sure how you could have changed anything, because i believe that every mom wants the best for their child...so you let him go, hoping for a better life for him....i wonder, where are you?...who are you?  what do you look like?....do your eyes widen and your nose shy away when you cry like his does?.....does he have your big black eyes?....these are the questions that burden me as Mother's Day comes and the questions that will make him feel incomplete on Mother's Day as he gets older...these are the questions that i want answers to so that i can complete my son and his story....

Your son didn't always feel like my son, or our son.......it took me very long to accept him as my son...and i am sorry for that...i know that you wanted a mom for him that would fall in love with him at first sight...and i did not do that....the first year was so hard, and often i just waited for you to come and pick him up...i felt alone and overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a mom to a child that needed me so badly....i wasn't ready to be his mom....and his need for me made me feel angry at him...and often at you...i prided myself on being an amazing mom to my two children...and he came along and challenged everything about me...he asked me to love him with every ounce of my existence, and i didn't know how to....mom's are selfless, but he made me feel selfish..because i held back sometimes...being his mom would mean that i would have to love him...and if i loved him, i would have to mend his pain...and to do that, i would have to think about where he came from and what he had been through...and i couldn't do that...it was too painful....so instead, i chose to be angry......

Mother's Day is here....and I am no longer afraid.....I am proud to be his mom and so proud for the child he
is and for the man he will one day be...in the past two years, i have watched our son grow into a young little boy who knows where he is headed...Your son... OUR son... is an amazing little boy and you would be so proud of him.....he is caring, loving, sweet, so cute, and never gives up...he wants to just be loved...love is his only need...he currently fills his need for love with food...because it is the one thing in his life he feels in control of....but Birth Mom, you would be so proud....he is only 5 years old but has gone through more than most adults have....he is a fighter.....we teach him to be strong and to know that he is smart and deserves to be whoever he wants to be....that he will grow up to be somebody amazing one day and he will change the world...he says he wants to adopt 9 children....!....he is persistent, and he is everything you imagined your son to be....so on Mother's Day, I want you to be proud....of your son and our son.....for the life that we will give him together....because no matter where you are, you will always be in our hearts...in his heart..

To you and to me....Happy Mother's Day from OUR son...

"Legacy of an Adopted Child"

Once there were two women who never knew each other,
One - you do not remember, the other you call mother.
Two different lives shaped to make yours,
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.
The first gave you life, and the second taught you to live in it.
The first gave you a need for love and the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality; the other gave you a name.
One gave you the seed of talent; the other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions; the other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile; the other dried your tears.
One gave you up - that's all she could do.
The other prayed for a child and God led her straight to you.
Now you ask through all your tears the age-old question through the years;
Heredity or environment - which are you a product of?

Neither, my darling - neither - just two different kinds of love...

If I met "HER", would she be proud?

About 7 months ago, I woke up from a dream that has since changed my life as an adoptive mom to Amay.....I woke up in a panic...scared, confused, and not sure of what to make of it.....As many of you know, my struggles with Amay for the first year home with him had a lot to do with my attachment to him.  I often felt that i didn't love him the way he loved me and often felt short of being everything he expected me to be...sometimes I felt that i wasn't ready to be his mom....and wasn't ready for all the changes that came with Amay...his moods, his behaviors, his extreme need for love and attention...and of course, i wasn't truly ready for a third child who would not only be my third child, but he would be my middle child who happened  to only be 9 months younger than my oldest...so i wasn't ready to have "twins"....and as many of you know, life as i knew it fell apart the year Amay came home to me....and the chaos, and stress, and depression, and often anger became my new normal......FAST FORWARD....to now...almost 2 years since Amay has been home....after lots of therapy, thinking, crying, loving, and just accepting our new normal, we have become a functional family....and I finally feel that I am the mom that Amay needs and wants.  I no longer have the insecurity of feeling that I am not enough or that i am not giving enough.....

So, going back to my dream...7 months ago, i dreamt that I met Amay's biological mother....and though I know that is a very slim possibility, I dreamt it....and she came to me in my dream and only asked me one question "Did you love my son the way I love him?"......and my one year of therapy and security and all that has come crashing down on me and that one question has haunted me....because though it is easy to say that you love a child to best of your ability, it is hard to say that you have loved him with perfection...so i wonder if this feeling of "not loving enough" will ever go away...because i feel that I am in constant competition with the "other woman"....and it is silly when i write my thoughts down on this blog....and sometimes scary to be so vulnerable...but i need to know if other moms feel this way...because i know with my biological kids that nobody can love them the way i love them...a year ago, i would have known that i didn't love him the way "she" would have loved him...but now, almost two years later, i love him with all my heart and soul...i love him so much....but do i love him the way 'she' would have loved him?  How do you fight biology?.I love him like i love my biological kids, but i don't know if even that is enough......Needless to say, i am back to struggling and sometimes feeling depressed because this question haunts me so much that sometimes i feel that the world is watching me....and I am in a constant struggle trying to explain my love for Amay to the world...and sometimes i feel that people are judging and watching me....for things that i might say or do to Amay...but the world doesn't know why I say or do what I say, because the world doesn't see the struggles we as a family see.....So, why do we monitor his food...why do we put him to sleep earlier than the other kids, why do we control him more......the world doesn't know that Amay has food issues, or that if he doesn't get his sleep he becomes emotional to the point where he will start hitting me, or they don't know the little things about him that may trigger him to become physical or emotional.....and though i didn't care what the world thought, lately, i have become consumed by it...i feel that people want to see me love him with perfection...because that is what his "biological" mom would have done....I have become consumed by what people think about me as an adoptive mom..sometimes I even feel that I have to make sure that I am always in control of Amay and his behaviors because my worst fear is that one day, when i am not around, somebody will yell at him about something...so i am constantly trying to keep him away from adults and others who might find some of his behaviors inapproriate....Though the Indian community has, for the most part, been very supportive of our adoption...I have come across some very ignorant people that have said some very mean things about my son....some people have questioned his caste, or where he comes from..questioned our adoption...questioned who he will be when he grows up and if he will truly ever love us.....yes, sometimes the Indian community can me ignorant and mean.....and with that, i feel that I am trying to keep Amay away from the entire world to prevent him coming across people that will hurt him..Is that how his "biological" mom would have loved him?....or am I preventing him from being himself only because of my fears of the world...and sometimes I put him in a bubble just so nobody can hurt him....but he doesn't want to live in a bubble...he wants to be a kid...but i am constantly watching him and reprimanding him because of my own fears..I am afraid..sometimes i want to go to a world where it is just me and Amay...where nobody can hurt him and nobody can question me.......for some reason, if somebody said something mean to my two biological kids, i would probably just ignore it...but if somebody says something about Amay, my heart sinks and I fall apart..not for the day, but i fall apart for months....because I often feel that when I am not around, somebody might hurt his little heart by saying something cruel....and to be his "perfect" mom, i need to make sure he never gets hurt so that one day...If I met "HER".... she would say she was proud of the way I loved OUR son....!

"Half" way there.....

On February 23, I ran my first Half Marathon at Disney World in honor of orphans around the world in support of an organization called Health for Orphans.  Specifically, I ran for 2 adopted kids, Baby R and Noah.  (You can read more about these beautiful children on my previous blog).  I would like to take this time to thank all my family and friends who supported me and this wonderful cause with their prayers and donations.  The two families are truly grateful for your thoughts.

So, everybody has been asking me about how things have been going at the Mehta household and how our Disney trip went.  Needless to say, the Half Marathon was one of the best experiences I've ever had.  People always say that adoption is not a sprint, rather it is a Marathon.  And so, as i ran my first half marathon, i realized that my adoption journey was very much a marathon.  The first couple of miles (or months) I was pumped to find out what the experience was all about.  So I left the group that I was running with--Health for Orphans--and went out running without really pacing myself, only to find myself out of breath and alone without the support I had coming into the race.  Very much like adoption, where I spent a lot of time learning and "training" from parents who were in the adoption journey.  It felt good to have the support and know that they were there when you needed them.  But as time went on and my son came home to me, I felt alone in the whole process and didn't know where I was headed and who I could turn to.  Everybody was moving a lot faster than I was and seemed more "experienced" at parenting (or running) than I was.  And though everybody told me that adoption was not a sprint, i felt like i was running fast.  Perhaps running away from all the issues and insecurities that came with adoption.  The Half Marathon became easier once I found my pace and the confidence knowing that "I could do this".  And adoption, too, becomes easier as time goes on.  You find that you aren't so bad at parenting.  And sometimes you need to give yourself a "walk break".    And that everybody "runs" differently.  There were times during the half marathon that i wanted to just throw my hands up in the air and give up....I was tired... I didn't want to run anymore because i didn't know where i was headed...and more importantly, i was afraid to fail.  And it was times like this that I needed to know that there was a bigger purpose....I needed the text from my husband that came just in time....."Keep running, the kids are at the finish line cheering for you"....and it reminded me that this is my purpose.  My kids, our kids, the world's kids.....this is our purpose in running for a cause...running for orphans...running for adoption...and though we are afraid to fail our adopted children, they need us to finish what we started..to love them to care for them, and to be their "forever"..  Along the way, i found so many people cheering us on......and as others empowered me, i felt like i empowered others.....and as i passed the finish line, i saw my three beautiful children and my amazing husband.  I received my Half Marathon medal, and it felt good.  The entire day felt good.  As do my nights with adoption when i have finished a long day with my son.  But the next morning after my half marathon, i woke up thinking "that was just the Half, now I have to find the energy to finish all the way"........as in adoption, there are many nights where i feel good about our journey and our accomplishments, but there are many days where i know that i am only half way there...how will i ever find the energy to go all the way...because there certainly is truth in what they said to me.."adoption is not a sprint, it is a marathon"...not a half marathon...a full marathon...

Amay is doing wonderful.  He truly has made many big strides in this past year.  He started Kindergarten this past year and has surpassed our expectations for him. He continues to amaze us in the way he has beautifully transitioned into our family.  We continue to find ourselves struggling in a few "adoption" related issues, as do so many other families.  Attachment, frustrations, grief of loss....it is all a part of our daily life with Amay, but on the bright side, he is a happy kid with so much potential.  Amay still struggles with separation issues.  When his father leaves out of town or if i leave to go to the store, he falls apart.  He asks if I will be back and a switch goes off in his head and he just loses it.  He also struggles with how to deal with mommy saying no to him.  He feels that when I tell him he can't do something or that I won't do something for him, that it is a direct rejection.  When he first came to us, when i said no, he would spit at me, bite me, or pull my hair.  He has definitely grown out of that phase, but it is still very hard for him to deal with mommy saying no to him.  So I have to make sure I use my words positively with him to avoid meltdowns.  For example, if it is time to get out of shower, i have to say "it is time to come out of the shower" instead of saying, "no more shower"...the latter sentence has gotten him yelling and screaming and hitting me.  Finally, he still struggles with food issues.  He has yet to figure out how much is healthy for him.  We continue to bounce back and forth on the best way to deal with his food insecurities, but have not yet found something that works for the family.  Since all the kids in our house are very close in age, it is hard to set rules for one child without hurting another.  Needless to say, we are working at it all.  One MILE at a time......

I don't know how.....

 To My Son:

I don't know how to look at you and not see another mother's face in those big black eyes of yours....
I don't know how to hold you without a little distance between us....
I don't know how to love you without wanting our first 4 years together...
I don't know how to look at your baby pictures and not continue to imagine what you must have been like...
I don't know how not to be angry at you for sometimes making me feel "not enough" as a mom
I don't know how to hold your hand without feeling the burden of "forever"
I don't know how to be enough when I know I can't give you anymore....
I don't know how to stop thinking about how often I fall short of what you deserve...
I don't know how to heal your heart without thinking about where you've been and how hard things must have been...
I don't know how to cry it out, because the pain seems to never go away, of knowing what darkness is in your heart...
I don't know how to tell myself that it is okay that I will now be the Mom that can't  make everything better for my child...because I can't change the beginning of your story.....
I don't know why I love you so much, but don't want to feel any of it.....because you give "tough love" a whole new meaning...
I don't know why I continue to feel guilty for not having come earlier....
I don't know why I love you so much despite how bumpy our road is...
I don't know how I became your mother, and you my son....

I know when you look at me, you don't see another mother's face..you only see me...
I know that when you hug me, you never feel a distance between us...
I know that you don't miss our first 4 years together, but cherish our time now..
I know that you  feel angry sometimes too for not knowing where you belong...
I know that when you hold my hand, it is "forever"
I know that you don't think that I am "not enough"...but only that I am your mother...
I know that you don't expect me to heal your heart, just want me to love you despite your wounds..
I know that you don't want me to cry it out, rather, cry with you and soothe you...
I know that you don't want me to change the beginning of your story, but just want me to be there for the rest of it...
I know that you aren't mad that I didn't come earlier, just happy that I came..
I know that you know how you became my son, because you dreamt me into your life and I dreamt you into mine...



I don't know how to define our relationship or the love that we share, but I know that my life is incomplete without you....I am sorry for my own shortcomings as a mother, but I hope that you continue to think that I am enough....because you and I are "forever"! 








 

Happy Birthday Amay!

As life continues to get busy, it has become extremely hard to write posts when they are due....Amay's birthday was June 22nd and we had a wonderful day.  A week before, I talked to him about his birthday:

Me: Amay, your birthday is coming up.  Do you know what that means?
Amay: Yes, I am going back to India!
Me:  Why would you go back to India?
Amay: I am going to go see my other mom?
Me: Amay, you know we don't know where she is, right. But if you ever did get a chance to meet her, what would you do or say?
Amay: I just want to say Hi and give her a hug, BUT then I am coming right back to YOU!
Me: (holding back tears) I'm happy you will come back to me.

As this year passes for him and our whole family, there is not much more to say but that we celebrate Amay's birth into this world.  I am so happy to be his mother and though I often mourn the biological absence, I am blessed to have him in my life.  My husband used to tell me that there was a song that reminded him of Amay when he listened to it when Amay first came to America..  And now, this song has become Amay's story.  When my heart becomes heavy for him, I listen to this song.  So on his birthday, I thought about my Amay and this song.  "Nothing is given except the ties that hold us together, Lay down your Load, because everyday it's gonna grow.....You are shielded by the hands of love"


Fearful child have faith in brighter days,
Stay until this darkness fades away,
Lie still beside me, I'll hold you now, I'll hold you forever.
Winters hand will freeze your heart again,
Doors will close no time to start again,
Nothing is given except the ties that hold us together,
Lay down your Load, because everyday it's gonna grow,
And busk in the sunshine, try to pay no mind, try to pay no mind at all,
To all the things that you don't know, you've got time to realise,
You're shielded by the hands of love,
Cause you are young,
Fading light may make a fool of me,
Courage fails strength slips away from me,
Lie still beside me, and hold me now, and hold me forever.
Lay down your Load, because everyday it's gonna grow,
These days are sacred, hey now don't be scared, baby don't be scared at
All,
Of all the things that you don't know,
You've got time to realise, You're shielded by the hands of love,
Cause you are young,
You've got time you gotta try, to bring some good into this world,
Cause you are young, Cause you are young
Ohhh...
Cause you are young

Happy Birthday to my son.  Thank you for letting me be your mom and for giving me time to learn to be perfect for you.  I love you and I promise to shield you by the hands of love.
 

Adoption One Year Journey: The good, the bad, and the ugly....

It has been one year since the day I met my son Amay....it was a very very hot day in India when I walked into his orphanage with my older son Satya...Satya and I were very nervous, but excited...to finally meet our Amay...the little boy we talked about and thought about every day since our agency matched us with him....and as we walked to the second floor of his orphanage in Pune, there he was....starring out the window....almost symbolically...as if he was waiting for me all these years...and as I called his name, he looked and smiled at me....he didn't waste another minute without his mom...he smiled and gave me a hug..and little did we know that this little boy was not only going to be a part of our family, but he was going to change our entire lives in one short year......

Here we are as a family one year later....and as Amay's "gotcha day" approached, i couldn't help but think about this entire past year and all the ups, downs and everything in between we have gone through as a family...and if there is one thing i can say about adoption, it is that there is no other journey like this one...there is no other journey that is going to make you feel as menopausal as this one will...because one day you will be happy, the next day you will have post-adoption blues, and another day you will wake up with hot flashes, and then a few minutes later you will be smiling at your little boy that you just yelled at a few seconds earlier.....Good, Bad, and sometimes very Ugly...

The Good:  The good days are the days that you are waiting for your child to come home...you might think these were the bad days, but looking back now, you realize they were pretty good...because you had nothing but love in your heart...love and pure desire to bring your child home......your heart aches, but in a good way...you miss him, you love him, and though he isn't your blood, your entire existence feels empty without this child whom you only know in a picture....but he is yours....and all is good.....and then more good days come....you meet him, and you bring him home....and there will be days where you won't have to try or fake things ....sometimes you will love him naturally...and sometimes you will kiss and hug him without even thinking about it.....and you will feel like a good person again....and things will feel good......

The Bad:  The bad days are the days of endless paperwork....by endless, i mean dozens of copies of the same passport picture...and then renewal of the fingerprints....because maybe, in some warped world, fingerprints change in 6 months...so the agency asks you to RENEW your fingerprints...seriously?....are they really asking me to do this?....but at this point, you will pee in a cup and give them your stool sample and get checked for HIV over and over again and get pricked for TB, and send in all your letters of recommendations, and your letter of who plans to take care of this child in case you die...and the list goes on and on....the bad days are also the days after you bring your child home...and you realize that you don't love your child...the child that you longed to bring home...the child that you cried for every night....that child....you don't love.....you sometimes don't even like him....but books told you to fake it, so you do.....and bad days are those days where you hide in the bathroom so he can't find you...just so you can have a minute to think about your family that used to be before your new addition came along......and bad days are when your bio kids start acting out because they too are having a hard time with the addition......and you realize, this child is going to change your way of living.....bad days are when you feel like a horrible mother....how does a mother not love a child that so badly longs to be loved?...how?....and these days will feel like really bad days....and then someone will ask you "is it worth it?"...and if you read my earlier post on that question, you will want to punch somebody in the face.....those will be your bad days....

The Ugly:  Sometimes the bad days feel like they can't get worst...but they might....and for a lot of us, they did.....you will find yourself crying in the middle of the night..sobbing in the bathroom as the rest of the family sleeps....not because you are sad, or mad, or lonely....but because you are confused and tired.......and just feel horrible....it feels like you can't do anything right for this child...maybe you weren't meant to be his mother.....and you feel that everybody is doing okay except for you...and that God messed up and matched you with a child you can't take care of...that you are just a horrible person and a horrible mother and can't understand how your heart has hardened.....and that everybody is watching you...judging you...laughing at you.....you try over and over to love, to be patient....and just when you think you get it, your child starts grieving...and it won't be a grieving where he cries once in awhile...no, it will be where he starts draggin you around the house with your hair, and he will kick you and spit at you and cry bloody murder......and you won't know what to do...so you will yell at him and do EVERYTHING the adoption books told you NOT to do...you will yell, you will put him in time-out, and both of you will be in survival mode....and very quickly your bad days become the ugly days.......

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly......and then there is The Perfect....the good, the bad, the ugly, and the perfect....the perfect moments are the moments that are going to get you through all the other moments.....and the perfect moments are going to be the moments that are going to make everything worth it......the perfect moments are when you will sneek into your son's room so you can watch him sleep...and you will cry.....watching your little boy sleep in his warm bed with his brother snuggled next to him...and you will watch and realize how perfect he is....and how beautiful he is...and you will cry because you hate that you missed his first four years.....you will grieve not being his biological mother...and though it might feel bad, these moments will be perfect.....you will feel like a good mother again.....love will seep back into your heart during these moments and you will remember why you started this journey in the beginning....your child will take your hand and one day while being in the ICU for 10 days without food for 100 hours, he will say "all i want is mommy to love me and hold my hand"....and it will feel perfect.....and during these perfect moments, your heart will ache for the other children you saw at the orphanage who are waiting....the children you consciously forgot about because your new additon was making things so hard that you didn't want to think about the others....but perfect will be when you will cry for these other children and your heart will ache again....and it will be perfect when you realize that you are not only a good mother, but you are his mother.....this little boy is your son.....and no matter what you do or what you think you fail to do for him....to him, YOU are perfect.....

Our perfect moments as a family have been nothing short of miraculous...we have watched our little Amay grow into a phenomenal boy in one short year....and i have never sugar coated our journey....and i will not say that this past year has been perfect or easy...it has been far from that.....many tears have been shed from every single member of the family....from me to my youngest daughter Sitara...everybody has felt the impact of this journey.....but we have gone through perfect moments that are hard to forget.....and moments that have felt like they were meant to be....moments where i have looked at Amay and have felt his entire past in his lost eyes......and moments where we knew that our decision to adopt Amay was perfect!

Today, one year later, Amay is doing amazing...he is a completely different boy than we brought home a year ago....he came to us confused, sad, angry, and often lost....but today, he is ambitious, happy, secure, confident, loving, and absolutely precious.....this past year has taught us so much about ourselves, our family, our lives, and our purpose...and one year later, we are proud to have our Amay home with us.....we love him so much and are truly grateful for God's plan for our family.....

Thank you so much to all of our friends and family and blog followers for your encouragment, kindless, love, and inspiration. Thank you for being a part of our journey...and most of all, thank you to my beautiful and amazing husband for believing in me as a mother...for always reminding me that i am stronger than i think i am and when i think i can't love anymore, he proves me wrong....i love you Sunny for who you are and for my three incredible children...thank you!!!!

Good Morning "Kid", Goodnight My Son!

It's been almost 9 months since we brought Amay home....and though at first I thought that the waiting period was similiar to 9 months of pregnancy, I now realize that these first 9 months of him being at home have been more like being pregnant with him......the first three months with him made me nauteous....just like my other 2 kids did in my tummy.....i had morning sickness to say the least...I woke up every morning feeling sick to my tummy.....and it was exactly how i felt when I was pregnant.....thinking to myself, why did i want this kid so badly....he makes me feel sick.....and yeap, i felt the same during pregnacy...there were often times that my 2 bio kids made me feel so sick in my tummy that i thought exactly that....and frankly speaking, it was just a matter of getting used to....during pregnacy, my stomach was trying to get used to the hormonal changes that often made me throw up merely at the smell of certain things....and with Amay, the first three months was very similiar...I was getting used to the sight of him, the feel of him, and even the smell of him...I had mentioned in my earlier posts that sometimes it felt wierd to wipe his "snot" or to clean him after he had used the bathroom....b/c often, it just felt "unnatural"......and as the end of the "pregnancy" has come, i feel excited for what the future holds for us....his touch feels more natural, his new "baby" scent is something i am now getting used to....and though he is 4 years old, he is still my little baby that i need to nurture like an infant.....he often lays in my lap and curls up in fetal position...wanting so badly to be a part of everything i am...he touches me as if he has never touched another person before...he holds me as if he is on the top of a mountain about to fall off and he needs to hold on for dear life....and he smiles at me as if nothing else matters but that i love him....and with every touch, every hug, and every smile, my heart breaks into a thousand pieces...b/c frankly, it is a lot of pressure....i am everything to this child, and to me, sometimes he is just a kid and sometimes he is MY kid.....though that statement might feel a bit insensitive, i am not one to sugarcoat anything.....regardless of who he is and where he comes from, i love him.....so very much....i just wished that loving him wouldn't take so much energy out of me.....there are days where i try to not look into his eyes, b/c i know his big dark eyes will take me to a place where i don't want to go....and if i stare long enough, i will shatter and fall apart....if i look hard enough, i see my little Amay in the cot at the orphanage all curled up without anybody to love...without anybody to hold...without anybody but himself....and i don't want to stare at him that long...b/c i don't want to hurt the way i know he has hurt.......but as his mom, i have to go there...i have to heal his wounds...but I don't know how...and that makes me feel unfit and vulnerable as his mom...how does a mom not know how to heal her child?....when he hits me or pinches me or does something unexpected, why can't i just look into his eyes and remember that he comes from a hard place..?...why do i keep letting myself forget.....i keep telling myself that nothing bad has happened to Amay...that he is fine and he is going to be fine...that his first 4 years were fine and he is just a regular toddler with regular tantrums....but I NEED to stop saying that to myself....i need to let my heart come to terms with his past and accept the fact that my son comes from a hard past...and that my son might never heal from it...and that his first 4 years were more influential in his life than i will probably ever be......and if i try to make him a "normal" kid because it makes me feel less hurt, i am just hurting him more....by not giving him the attention that he needs.....

I know that this isn't a sprint...adoption is a marathon.....and i am in it for the long journey...but every morning, i wake up and start sprinting....i don't know why i keep sprinting during this marathon...b/c i am out of breath.....so out of breath that i can barely talk to anybody anymore.....i need to slow down.....i need to pace myself.....one hurdle at a time.....ONE. HURDLE. AT. A. TIME.!!!!

Since the day we brought Amay home, things have been tough for me..on an emotional level....love him, in love with him, annoyed, love, more love..more annoyance...sad, sad for him, pity for him, pity for me....and the list goes on....but for those moms out there in my boat...feeling what i am feeling...i am here to tell you that things get better with time.....you won't always feel like a horrible mom...or a horrible person...and you will come to love this kid....who also happens to be your child.....

the first few months with Amay, i used to wake up dreading having him come into my room...b/c first of all, i am not a morning person so i don't want any kid coming into my room at 6 am whining "mommy!"...but to have Amay come in was different....as soon as he said "mommy" i would hide under my covers wondering "who is this kid and why is he calling me mommy?"....and every morning i had to remind myself that he isn't just any kid, he is my son...but who does that?...what mom has to take time to remind herself that she now has another child....these are the "unnatural" parts of adoption...that sometimes you go to sleep and forget in the morning that you have a child.....maybe he can call me "aunt" for a while is what i used to think....i didn't want the pressure of being a mom for him....by him saying "mommy" it automatically meant we had exchanged vows...to love and hold til death do us apart...that i would care for him and love him unconditionally no matter what happened.....and wow, that was a lot...from going to a whole bunch of paperwork where you were the "adoptive parent" to a kid crying and whining at 6 am calling you "mommy!"...let's take a step back....wait, let's take a whole mile back....so, as the wierd mom i am, i thought of fun ways where i would be happy to see him in the morning...i changed his pajamas to something cute..i wasn't fond of his yellow spongebob pajamas...i didn't like them, and surely, i thought that if i changed his pajamas to something cute, it would make me love him more in the mornings....and no, it didn't work...i still woke up every morning thinking good morning "kid?"....and went to sleep saying good night "kid"....

Now, 9 months later...i still wake up every morning thinking Good morning "kid?"...and i start my day with the awkward feeling of who is this kid in my house...and as the day goes on, he touches me and i remember that he is my son...and he says "i luv you" and my heart melts...and he hugs me and becomes limp in my arms....and by the time it is noon, i am reminded that this "kid" is my SON...MY SON...my beautiful, incredible, resilient, awesome, loving, hurt, wounded, insecure, but MINE....and so as the day goes on, we have our moments where i get angry at him..and moments where i am not sure how to deal with him...and moments where i wish i could reverse time and had not missed 4 years of his life...and moments where i want to look into his eyes and see all the pain....and moments where i am so busy with all the kids that i know i can't look into his eyes b/c crying a river isn't part of the schedule for the day...and moments where he cries uncontrollably...moments where i feel that everybody is doing better with him than me...and i am supposed to be his mother....and moments where he hits me and pulls my pants down to get my attention (yeah, happened today and i give you the okay to laugh about it!)..and moments where i have run out of answers...and as a mother, i should never run out of answers, right?...but that is what adoption is all about.....so to those mothers out there who have reached out to me numerous times about their struggles....i want to say that adoption makes us feel vulnerable and incompetent at times....but at the same time, it humbles us....and that is what Amay does...he humbles me....by letting me know that i don't have all the answers...and it is okay.....b/c he doesn't want me to have all the answers..he just wants to know i love him even when he pulls my pants down when he gets mad...i do still love him, i just need to be better at showing him....so now, 9 months later, as he sleeps in his bedroom while i write this, i say to him "goodnight my son, sweet dreams..."...and in the morning he will probably be just a "kid" again....but i will continue to fight until this kid never feels like a kid to me again...just my son...every morning and every night.....that is why he is here....to have a mother every morning and every night.....good night my dear son!!!

The Perfect Storm

We started off 2012 in anticipation of bringing our son Amay home from India....After receiving his picture in November of 2011, we were quite excited to finally meet him and bring him home....needless to say, 2012 was a year full of lots of anxiety....and just an uncomfortable feeling of an incomplete family....of a "son" that we now had a picture of, but still no real memoris with...in mid April, we received a call that Amay was ready to come home, and a few days later, we were headed to India...and of course, only a week after that, he had joined our family....and now, fast forward to 2013, and here he is...sleeping in his new bunk bed with his brother in his room as I sit to take a minute to write this post....we certainly have had our ups and downs with Amay....and for those of you who have kept up with my blog, you are quite aware that I have struggled immensely with being Amay's mom....many times, I have felt that I have failed him....sometimes I even greived that he wasn't born in my tummy...books always informed me that adoptive moms will also grieve the loss of having had this child in her tummy..and at first, I thought that was a bit silly...but i have gone through that grievance.....and i have cried wanting him to have been born to me.....so that i feel like I am his mother..his only mother...and that i don't ever have to feel guilty knowing that somebody (his biological mother) could have definitely loved him more than I do....how it would have hurt her knowing that I struggle to love her "son" the way I know she would have naturally loved him.....but so, everybody struggles....but I am proud to say that regardless of how i may often fail him...i love him so much.....i read some of my older posts and i can feel those days where in my heart i just didn't want to love him....but today, i am proud to say that i love him...he has been resilient...and he has been strong...and every time I pushed him away, he pushed toward me even harder....and when I let go of his hug a second too early, he held on for a few more seconds...and his need for a mother has made me want to love him more....who cares if he wasn't in my tummy.....he is now in my heart....and so what if i have days where it is too hard....every mom has days like that...adoptive or biological....

Anyhow, it has been awhile since I have written about how Amay is doing and how the whole family is coming together...so I would like to take you back to a few months ago when Amay's appendix burst.....a time in our journey that I call "The Perfect Storm".....

It was Saturday evening, when Sunny and I had a night to ourselves and we were headed to a holiday party for Sunny's work...and as usual,when we are without the kids, we end up talking about the kids.....I was telling Sunny how I am feeling a lot closer to Amay and that my relationship with Amay is getting a lot better and I am starting to feel like a good mother to him....as our conversation progressed, I confided in Sunny that there are times where I still feel like it is too hard...and that I needed to know if what I was feeling was normal, and i just needed to bond a little more with him, and need to know if Amay was happy with us.....and I wanted Amay to trust us more....and finally, we ended our conversation with me telling Sunny that I was tired...tired of parenting..three toddlers was just a bit too much....and though I love being with them, I just want to be on vacation with my husband...and I asked Sunny if it was okay to be selfish because I was tired....and though the faces of those orphans at Amay's orphanage come to me EVERY single day, I wanted to forget those faces...and forget the hands that reached out to hold me hoping that I would be the mom they had been waiting for...only to see those sad faces when I walked out with Amay's hand only.....and left behind the other 50 or so kids..and at that time, I promised that I would be back for another...and now, here I was......and I said, "sunny, is it okay to never think about the orphans again and just want to live my life....because I am tired and want to be on vacation..."...in hindsight, this conversation sounds ridiculous, but I guess it proves how tired I must have felt to have had those words come out of my mouth....and Sunny said, "it just depends on what you think the purpose of your life is...".....

And then, "The Perfect Storm" hit....though Sunny and I are not the most religious people in the world, I do believe that this perfect storm was God's answers to all my questions.....the perfect storm hit the next morning, when Amay's appendix burst....and though a normal kid would have cried in pain, Amay did not do that...he lay in bed with tears rolling down his eyes while he bit his lower lip until it bled...and my 3 year old came down to tell me that Amay was crying...and we headed to the emergency room which then led us to 10 days at the ICU....and it was then, that all my questions had been answered..Amay did not trust me enough to know that if he told mommy that his pain was unbearable, mommy would take care of it...so he lay there in pain soothing himself....but 10 days at the ICU were a blessing in disguise...it was during those 10 days that I got the time that I so badly needed with Amay...without the hustle and bustle of life...of being a stay at home mom of 3 toddlers....it was then that i could just lay there with him and let him know that we were here to stay ....that mommy and daddy promise to make everything better to the best of their ability...he asked if he was going back to the orphanage after the hospital stay...and it broke my heart...to know that even after 8 months, he didn't know where he belonged...and it was then, that we knew we had to do better...that we needed him to know that he wasn't just a child we adopted...he was our son...and he was now a part of our family...and that we needed him as much as he needed us......he spend about 70 hours without any food or liquid...and when I asked him if he wanted anything at all, he said, "yes mommy, i just want you to love me and hold my hand..."...if it wasn't at that moment that God had come down and slapped me awake, I don't know what else could have done the job...because His answer was as clear as it could be..it was God saying, "NO!, you can't just forget those faces of those kids at the orphanage...."....because they don't need food or clothes, they need love....they need a family...they need a mommy and daddy...and it's not only what they need, it is what they want...even a four year old will forget that he hasn't eaten for the past 70 hours when his need for his mom's love is greater...and though maybe not everybody can adopt a child, it is still our duty as a society to know the importance of spreading the word...and doing our part.....and I truly don't know if we will ever go back for another child....i hope and pray that i can find the strength that i need to do this all over again....regardless of how tiring and often emotional it may be....but even if i don't go back..i know that God wants us to never forget....never forget the faces of the children who long for a family...and just pray for them.....pray that even if we can't be the ones to adopt them at this moment, that somewhere, somebody else will....

Thank You God for the Perfect Storm..10 days at the ICU were tough....but I now know how it was part of the plan to help us gain the strength and faith we needed to get back on this journey....

Welcome 2013....we look forward to many more memories with our wonderful additon to this family...we truly couldn't feel more blessed and more excited than we do now.....there still are many days where i feel overwhelmed, stressed, incapable, and confused by all the emotions this journey of adoption presents....but everyday, i feel blessed that Amay is part of my life...that he has seeped into my heart and has taught me what life is all about....a four year old has taught me something my past 30 years of life couldn't teach me...he has taught me that there is nothing greater than love.......all we need is love.......I am so blessed that he has chosen me to be his mom....he has chosen me to love him.....and for him to love me....God bless my family and yours....with love...this new year 2013!!!!!

Being fake is sometimes a good thing.....

For those of you who know me, you probably know that being fake is not my style....it is a character in people that I can't stand and it is something that I have vowed never to be...being fake is a waste of my time and frankly, i don't care for it....SO, that being said, when adoptive moms and adoptive books continued to tell me to "fake" my love for my son to make things easier and to ignore my feelings, i initially thought it was a horrible way to start a relationship with Amay...after all, who thinks that the secret to a healthy relationship is dishonesty....but friends, after 6 LONG months of letting my heart guide me in this journey, I have surrendered and realized that being fake isn't so bad after all...actually, it is a good thing....and even just a week of being fake, I have realized how much easier things could be....and sometimes, you can even trick your heart to believing some of your feelings are genuine.....and so, as I continue to hug and kiss Amay even at times when i don't genuinely feel it, i must say that it has been a great thing.....Amay has the biggest smile on his face which in turn has made me feel like a good mother...not to say that I don't love him....but sometimes in adoption, love doesn't always come naturally....and so sometimes, you have to fake it....but i guess not everything we do for our kids is genuine, right?...I mean, I often tell my 5 year old son that I LOVE playing superheroes with him all day and that it makes me so happy....i do love to spend time with my son, but DREAD playing superheroes....but i often fake the smile on my face as I pretend Ironman is about to go partner with Incredible Hulk to rid the bad guys.......so really, what mom isn't fake once in awhile..?

I guess the struggle for me was trying to be someone I wasn't comfortable with...I hate the feeling of being fake....most of you probably know me as an emotional thinker...i think and live my life emotionally and let my heart guide me to what is right and wrong...perhaps it is my heart that has lead me to all the great things and decisions i have made in my life...marrying my husband, having 3 wonderful kids, and going on this wonderful journey of adoption....being true to myself is deeply rooted inside me...and it is what i believe....so though i know that sometimes faking a lot of my feelings is what i need to do, i still struggle with it...it's like cheating on someone you love.....but for those of you who are at the point where I am on this journey, I think I am here to let you know that it is time to surrender...and sometimes let your feelings take a back seat.....because waiting for that "i am head over heels for my child and just want to hug him forever" feeling might not come as quickly as you want...but I have been assured that it will eventually come...but until then, being fake is a good thing....and for those of you not on the adoption journey yet and feel that being fake once in awhile might be something you are interested in, there are 147 million orphans in the world and a child that becomes an orphan every 18 seconds that may benefit from your fakeness...haha...that was my lame attempt to contribute to November's National Adoption Month....

All kidding and fakeness aside, Amay is doing wonderful and is making lots of progress....we are so blessed to see what a happy amazing little boy he has evolved into.... Sunny and I feel very optimistic about this journey...we spend many hours a day and many days a week talking about our feelings and where we are in our journey and where we would like to be....and finally, we are at the point where we feel optimistic...I have often felt alone with my feelings....not knowing if what i felt was normal or if I was ever going to be the mother that Amay deserved....but after many sessions of therapy, many blogs with adoptive moms, and many conversations with my amazing husband...I have realized that I am normal in all that i feel...regardless of how abnormal my feelings may make me feel....sometimes I have felt that my husband has been more natural at this than me...and I have felt left behind....but every night, i am assured by him that he is right there feeling everything i am feeling......we have lost many tires during this drive on this long and unknown road....and have felt many bumps in the road...but finally, we feel that though the road may continue to be bumpy, we now have the tools we need to be on a smoother journey...

"When Sad looks Mad"

I have been meaning to write for such a long time, but as you can imagine, life with three kids doesn't slow down....But yesterday, I came across an article on an adoption website that was titled "When Sad looks Mad"....and it really resonated with me....because as I thought about the content of the article, I realized that so much of Amay's "mad" is actually "sad"....I spend my entire day telling Amay not to be mad about this and that, but I didn't for a minute think that maybe his mad is actually his way of being sad....it was an interesting article...that talked about how kids from orphanages don't know how to express any other real feeling except "mad"...so when food was taken away from them, they didn't get sad, they got mad...b/c it was survival...when someone took a toy away, they got mad b/c it was the only toy they had....if they couldn't fall asleep at night, they were mad at themselves...not sad so that somebody would come and comfort them....so in an institution, there is no feeling of greed, sadness, or embarrassed...it is more of just fight or flight........kids that come from orphanages often don't know how to express anything but mad...not to say that they don't feel anything else... inside them, they are hurt, wounded, and very sad........and now, it all makes sense, that sometimes, "sad looks mad"....and even as adults, we often take out our anger on something that initially made us sad but now has just turned into anger.....so today I ask that those struggling with me to understand our "mad" child, take a minute and look into his/her eyes, and see beyond the anger of lonliness, rejection, separation...and look for the sadness that is deeply buried under......and you will see, that they have been sad for so long and nobody has paid attention...and that sadness has grown into madness.....

To My Son....Thank You!

Today was your first day of school...and I couldn't help but wonder where these 5 months have gone and how far you have come and how far our family has come....I remember the first time I came to pick you up, 5 months ago and you were watching out the window, and when I softly said "Amay" you quickly turned to my voice as if it was the voice you had been waiting for the last 4 years....and you gave me a shy smile and let me into your arms....and I would be lying if I said that these past 5 months have been the most wonderful and joyous months...because even though you are only 4 years old, you know that things have been tough for all of us....especially for you...and though I try not to think about how hard things must be for you, I know that they are hard...I can tell when I see those big tears roll down your beautiful dark eyes..when sometimes you cry and I can't soothe you...sometimes when you hit me because you don't know what to do with all the anger you have built up from those years of waiting for me to come pick you up.....sometimes I have it in me to be the mom you deserve, and then there are days when I shy away from that responsibility because I am afraid that I will never be the mom you deserve...but today, my son, I want to tell you how proud I am of you....how truly proud I am to be your mother...to be the mother of a child that is so strong, brave, resilient, and breathtaking....I know I don't take enough time in the day to hold you, or to tell you how much I love you....or to show you that you are worth every single day spent with you.....I want to say that I am sorry...I am sorry that this journey has been so hard for you...for me, for us....I am sorry for often not loving you unconditionally.....for often getting angry at you for making me feel guilty for feeling overwhelmed...when I know clearly how you must be feeling...I am sorry that even as your mother, sometimes I put my own feelings ahead of yours.....today, I want to take the time to say I love you....and that I am sorry for being "human"...if there is one thing I can promise you as your mother, it is that I am trying every day, to be the best mother to you and to your siblings......

Today, when you went to school....you held my hand tightly...and kept asking me if I would be back to pick you up...and though in your heart you knew that Mommy would be back, I know how hard it must have been to let go of my hand...but you did it so gracefully and effortlessly....and as you let go of my hand and took your teacher's hand, you looked back at me....and once again, ran to me and whispered, "mommy, i love you"...and those four words today have resonanated with me more than they ever have....you tell me that you love me everyday...but today was different.....because today when you said that to me, I wanted to just hold you and never let go of you...ironically, there was a part of me that felt like asking you if YOU would be back......because this whole journey feels surreal...

My son, thank you for your patience....thank you for giving me the time that I need to be your mother...thank you for understanding my bad days with you...because no matter how many bad days I have had, you have never failed to love me....you love me unconditionally...even though our love was originally built on many "conditions"...I know that we have a long journey ahead of us...and I am by no means where I want to be in our mother-son relationship...but I want to say that I love you.......thank you for being my son...thank you for praying for me into your life.....and thank you for challenging everything I am....because you make me want to be a better person and a better mother...and to me, that is what living my life is all about......Amay, my son, I LOVE YOU!

On a side note, Satya came up to me 2 weeks ago and said "mommy, I hugged Amay today because he was crying.."....and I looked at Satya and said, "Really?!?, I am so proud of you..you have never hugged Amay"...and he excitedly said to me, "I know! I am starting to love him! I didn't love him before, but now I am starting to love him."......Satya has also been struggling with his feelings for Amay...and 2 weeks ago, he made a great leap forward...Praise God for his continued strength, love, and faith in our family.  God has filled in all the emotional gaps in this family, and we are truly grateful to Him for helping us through this journey.....!

"Is it worth it?"

As months go by with Amay, we continue to have people ask us questions that sound wierd when they are asked....only because we are slowly starting to really feel that Amay is no longer our "adopted" son, but just our son....so now when people ask me if he is my "real" son or if my kids are "real" siblings, I hesitate at first not knowing how to answer the question...but then quickly rephrase it in my head with the word "biological" son or "biological" siblings so I can answer patiently and with more grace....don't get me wrong, i don't get mad with such questions, but now that he is really starting to feel like he is part of the family, i often try to forget that he is adopted...only because it helps me transition better.....however, two weeks ago, somebody asked me "is it worth it?"....and believe me when i say there was no graceful way to answer that question, because in my head i had rephrased the question to "is HE worth it?".....for some reason, i wasn't even mad at the person...i just came home, and had this gut wrenching feeling in my stomach....to think that somebody would even ask that question.....nobody asks a mom after she has given birth to a newborn if "the child was worth it"....or if "the pregancy was worth the child"...so why would somebody ask me if the adoption was worth Amay?....well friends, let me take you to the morning of that day....to help you understand why that question had hit home for me.....

That same morning of that horrible question, I had asked Amay to pick up the cards he had thrown on the floor...and 4 year old Amay screamed "No!"....so I asked again, "Amay, please pick up your cards" only to have him scream "No!" again...so I said, "fine, don't pick them up"....and before I can even walk away, he kicked me in my leg, and starting hitting me....not just one slap...but started punching me all over....not sure what had triggered him, i just walked away and didn't respond....(thanks to my therapist, i am better able to handle situations like this where initially i just want to start yelling and screaming back at him)...but this time, i just walked away....and that made it worst...he came after me and bit me in my stomach.....and then grabbed my hair and dragged me around the kitchen.....and though at that point I wanted to react, I just didn't know what to do..especially because Satya and Sita were both watching the terror....and so once again, i just let this play out...and finally he started spitting at me......at which point I grabbed him and put him in time-out....and he started to cry really loud and desperately cried, "mommy, please please please kiss me...!"...and you can probably imagine the look on my face..i was disgusted, surprised, angry, and thinking "there is no way in h-ll i am going to kiss you after all that"....seriously, did he just ask me to kiss him after that...?....

Anyhow, that night, i discussed with Sunny what had happened...and of course, as usual, my husband knew how to respond and had figured it out...that by me disapproving of his behavior somehow made Amay feel that I was rejecting him...and if I said, "fine, don't do it" it meant that i didn't care what he did and what he didn't do...and that didn't sit well with Amay...he needs to know that Mommy cares at all times...even when he doesn't do what i tell him to do...and this was probably not the time to just walk away from him.....but believe me...i was caught in the moment...so much at that point that i had gone to my days where i used to think that I was done babysitting him and I was ready for his "real" mom to pick him up.....

Anyhow, going back to "is it worth it?".....i am sure that most of you who have adopted agree with me when I say that just because we have adopted a child, we are not advocates of it and don't think that everybody should go out there and adopt a child because it is the thing to do...absolutely not....adopting a child is not the answer to a "human crisis"....but is an option for those who want to help the human crisis AND want to parent a child...it has to be both.....so when i am asked "is it worth it", it makes me believe that people think that adoption is something that is just a process of endless paperwork and then a child arrives and you decide if the child was worth the loads of money and process....nope....you have it wrong....everyday, especially days like the one we had that morning, assure me that this is just not a process...but rather a journey...a journey with many ups and downs....days where i still sit in my bathroom at 2 am somedays and cry....and cry and cry...because it is the best time to cry...everybody is asleep and i don't have to answer to my kids or my husband...but just need to release it all.....because though I know that Amay is worth EVERYTHING....it is hard...hard to fall in love with a child that isn't biological...it is hard to look into those big brown eyes and lie sometimes and say "I love you so much"....or hard to get spit on while your other kids are watching...or hard to feel that you are a horrible person for not loving a child that wants to be loved so badly....it is all so hard.....but like my husband says and continues to say, it is all so hard for Amay too....so perhaps the right person to ask such a question to is probably Amay....so if ever somebody wants to ask "is it worth it"....ask a child who has traveled the world to a place of unknown people, language, culture just so he can have a mommy and daddy....ask the child who often cries and asks "are you ever going to send me back to the orphanage".....ask him if "it" was worth it...and if he is worth it.....maybe this question wasn't such a bad question..it was probably just asked on a horrible day....and brought up a flood of thoughts and emotions.... adoption takes every ounce of energy from every single member of the family.....it is hard to have such a bold and upfront question thrown at us.....b/c everyday we wake up to feel "normal" again.....and then, somebody asks "is it worth it?"...is WHAT worth it?...next time, just ask "is it hard?" or "how are you guys doing?"

I guess I am not sure what the point of this blogpost really is.....but I just wanted to set some things clear to people and to get things straight in my own head so i can continue to answer questions gracefully even when not asked with politically correct terms......adoption is NOT something that people do to one day say to themselves, "yeap, it was all worth it"....so please don't make us or our children feel that somehow something should feel like it was worth it or that he has to somehow prove that he is worth a "process" or that he deserves parents.....just b/c we vent about "attachment" or "grieving" or whatever the challenge is for the day shouldn't be translated to "this isn't worth it".....we all know this is hard...and knew it was going to be hard...but at any point, if you don't know what to say when an adoptive mother cries to you and says, "i don't love him"...just say "it's okay"...don't question her motives on adoption or ask if it was worth it.....it's not what we want to hear...and really, if you ask yourself that question, you realize that it doesn't make any sense at all.....nobody asked me if my bio kids were worth the 2 degenerative discs, 2 C-sections, loss of feeling in my left thigh, possible hyperthyroidism, broken tailbone, and gestational diabetes with 90% chance of my diabetes returning....

Anyhow, enough venting...and more updating....Amay is doing amazingly well....he is starting to feel secure with us and finally starting to open up to us about his past...he used to never talk about the orphanage, but now, sometimes he talks about his caretakers and his friends from the past....we are assuring him that it is okay to miss and love the orphanage and that just because he misses it doesn't mean that we will send him back......a lot of kids block out memories and fear that if they talk about what they miss, they will be sent back....but we are so glad to know that Amay is feeling secure...of course, there are days where he reacts to something and I am not sure what cord i hit, but something reminds him of something from the past and then there is no way to console him but to just let the moment pass...like the one we had earlier.....his eating is becoming a lot better....the first time i fed Amay, he ate 8 chapatis...and i gave it to him b/c i felt bad for him...but soon realized that he was just hoarding the food and eating b/c he didn't know when he would get so much food again...and then would go to sleep with a stomache...and to him, the food was well worth the stomache.....but now, we have taught him to stop eating when he is full....and though it is hard for him to say no to food, he is trying really hard and has come a long way.....what else....???....Satya is still struggling to find a spot in the family with Amay here now....somedays i feel that they are never going to figure this out...that Satya will always have some anger towards Amay for becoming his "twin" brother......but then, there are times when I KNOW in my heart, that Satya is going to come past all this and make everything work..i feel that Satya is like me in the sense that Amay makes him mad b/c he wants to love Amay so badly but is having a hard time doing it......as for me....i continue with ups and downs....somedays, i love him b/c he is a good kid....and somedays i just can't find it in my heart to even give him a hug.....but i am now more comfortable with my feelings about him....i used to be ashamed to say that i didn't love him, or that sometimes i waited for his "real" mom to come pick him up, or that often, i hid in the bathroom just so he wouldn't find me.....but now, i am proud to say that i feel what i feel and we are working through it....and i love him for the little boy he is and for all that he has endured...i look at him sometimes when he randomly says "are you my mommy?" and just want to eat him up.....b/c he asks that question as if the answer will someday change....and i answer each time with "of course, you are my baby!"...and though sometimes i love him and sometimes i don't love him, one thing is for sure...I am his mommy, and he is my baby....and that will never change.....

so if you must know and if i must answer the question...YES, he is worth every hardship we go through and will ever go through in the future..because no mother says her son isn't worth it.....so the question isn't if if it is worth it...b/c sure there are days where we feel it is too much to deal with and that our lives before the adoption were a lot easier and more "normal"..but that doesn't for a second mean that it isn't worth it.the question should be whether or not we are up for the challenge...and often it's okay to say it's too much to handle...that's why i don't advocate adoption...some families can handle one biological child, while others can handle 5 adopted special needs children...and it's all okay.....but that doesn't mean our orphans are not worth it.....every child is worth it...it's about what we are willing to handle....so as for me, there isn't enough 4 year old spit in the world that would make me believe that our orphans aren't worth it......because every child deserves a mommy and daddy.....PERIOD!