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!

The Little Incredible Kid

This is Sunny, just figured i'd make my first post about Amay.

In the past year and a half since we decided to adopt, we've gotten a lot of praise. From close friends and relatives to acquaintances there have been many to support us with kind words. And never has support meant more than in the last few months as we've began our journey with Amay.

Yet, something just doesn't feel right when I hear someone tell us about how we've done a wonderful thing or that we've done so much for this child who just a few months ago was in an orphanage in India.

The reason it doesn't feel right is because we really haven't done that much. What have we really done so far? Fill out endless amounts of paperwork, travel to India, and now try to give a child the love and compassion he deserves and has always deserved.

Compare that to what Amay has done. He spent nearly the entire first four years of his life in an orphanage. He so desperately sought the idea of a family that when the day came to leave everything that he'd know in his life behind, he calmly took Sumi's hand and walked out of the orphanage without even wanting to say goodbye.

Amay calmly walked into a completely unknown world. Filled with unknown things, unknown places, unknown languages, and unknown people. He went from house to house and city to city in India, meeting new family members. Every new place we went he'd ask, "Ame-ti-ka?" And we'd tell him no, this isn't America yet.

I still remember him when we'd take him to the park in India. He'd be laughing and playing one minute but then he'd have moments where he'd just sit still at the bottom of the slide; alone, with a sad look on his face, staring out blankly.

Amay in India; one of his moments at the bottom of the slide

Was he scared? Probably, but he couldn't even communicate that to us or maybe he didn't want to out of fear that he'd have to go back to orphanage. The only thing that was familiar to him was a cartoon called "Chota Bheem" that he wanted to watch endlessly, likely because it was his comfort. He still managed to enjoy the simple things in life that he'd never experienced before; a shower, a bottle of coke, a lollipop; the things we take for granted everyday.

Once he arrived at our home in Bolingbrook he asked again, "Ame-ti-ka?" And finally we could answer with a yes. Once he heard that answer the change in his behavior was immediate. How relieved he must have been to know that he was finally home. And yet the challenges were just beginning.

Amay still has to learn two languages. To this day he still isn't capable of deciding when he's had enough food to eat because he's never had that decision to make during the first four years. He still craves love and attention so much that even if someone he just met grabs hold of his hand, Amay won't want to let go. He has so much catching up to do in all different areas. Not to mention that he still has a family that is working to figure out how to love him like their own.

I always tell my oldest son Satya that nothing in life is given to you. That you have to earn every thing you get. But what if you don't even have an opportunity to earn it? That's what's unfair about life. Amay will get that opportunity but he's going to have to work harder than most to earn the things he wants. That's not a problem though, because I can see incredible strength in this four year old.

Being the typical guy, I don't really like to talk about my feelings, but I'll admit that many times I used to tear up just thinking about my kids and how much I love them. And now I tear up when thinking about Amay but it's for a different reason.

I can't help but think about what he's been through and what he must still be going through. I think about the courage that he's shown in fighting through the hundreds of changes that he's encountered in the last few months... and still keep going. I can't imagine one of my other two kids being ripped out of their current environment and having to start all over in a new country with a new family, new languages, and new everything.

As a parent, his strength is my motivation. If he can work through all those challenges, I can surely work through mine as well. After all, he's MY son and I'm proud of what he's done. At the end of the day, I'm going to make sure that he has all the opportunities he deserves to earn the things he wants.

So yes, we filled out a lot of paperwork and traveled to India, but beyond that all we've done is try our best to raise a son... just like everyone else. What Amay is doing is extraordinary. This is not to say that I don't appreciate all the kind words people have offered but I just want everyone to know that the little guy beside me is the one doing all the work.