Looking
at the calendar, it was 10 years ago just last week that Gregg and I put aside
our dreams of having a family “the good old fashioned way” and started down the
adoption path. For the first six years,
we had dreams of a baby being the missing piece to our family puzzle. After six years and plenty – and I do mean plenty of research, we decided a baby wasn’t necessarily the missing
piece – it was a child. We opened ourselves up to the possibility
of a child up to age 8 and kept learning.
We
knew that children adopted at older ages frequently come home with feelings of
grief, loss, and profound sadness. We
knew that they frequently have histories that go above and beyond and are
heartbreaking. Then we brought Francis
home.
While
my son’s history is his and his alone, I will say that he has endured trauma I
would not wish on my worst enemy. At
seven years old, he has been to hell and back and he is my hero for surviving
it. What he went through yesterday made
him the tough little boy he is today.
His trauma pushed me from “Just Mom” to “Trauma Mama,” and here is my
first confession: I love and adore my
son, but oh, what I wouldn’t give to just be a regular mom.
What
fills my heart and breaks it all at the same time is my son’s desperate need
for a mother – not just now, as he should, but that he recognizes what he
missed as an infant. Not everyone who
knows us can see it when he rages. It’s
hard even for Gregg to understand when he sees me, beaten down and discouraged,
my hair a mess and my eyes half-shut from the mental and physical
exhaustion. “Mommy” can sometimes be too
much for Francis. “Mommy” has not been
constant in his life. Will I leave
him? Why am I saying no? We’re taking steps to work on this and the
attachment is getting much better, but there are still regular struggles.
Still,
as much as we struggle, I know that I am the only one that Francis goes to to
be soothed. He frequently regresses into
baby behavior with me. Another
confession? I love that I can do that
for him. I love that despite the fact
that he can fight me tooth and nail, most mornings he will come to me as soon
as he wakes up for some cuddle time in the rocking chair. And the fact that we can have an absolutely
horrible day, but he still only lets me tuck him into bed and rock him to
sleep, singing horribly off-key lullabies.
I love that he will stop whatever he’s doing during the day to refocus
himself and reconnect with me through a “big hug.”
What
Is amazing to everyone, those closest to us especially, is how this sweet
little boy who needs reassuring cuddles from his Mommy can turn on what seems
like a dime and suddenly lash out the moment something in his brain tells him
something isn’t right – whether we see it or not (and so many times it’s
not). He’s big for a seven-year-old and
has a pretty athletic build, so when he goes to town hitting, kicking, head-butting,
and biting, he’s got force. This I could
certainly do without, and it’s not often understood how I can love him through
a black eye. I do. He’s my son, and he’s forever.
Sometimes
I wonder what our lives would be like if we maintained the line of thinking
that “if we’re only going to have one child, we should adopt one as young as
possible.” Honestly, even though I may
wonder, I wouldn’t change my family.
Make Francis’ life easier for him, yes, as well as our own daily
experiences working through the trauma.
This little boy, while frustrating at times and with a firecracker
temper, is also one of the greatest love and joys of my life, with a brilliant
smile, infectious laugh, and huge, warm hug.
I wish he didn’t live through what he lived through and I wish I wasn’t
living the after-effects. But I do
believe that the hardest-fought battles yield the biggest rewards, and that’s
my Francis, all the way around.
