Not Even 100 Days...

It will be three months tomorrow. Our family has existed in our hearts for much longer, but our time together is still short of 100 days. While we have come such a long way since those painful days in Ethiopia, I look at where we are and marvel at the distance we still have to go. The girls have been with us only half the time that they spent in the care center and I am reminded that bonding is a process that takes months and years of time. I look back and think of how miraculous this whole process has been, I am reminded of where I was those few short months ago and I am humbled.
I can re-read a million times what I shared while I was there and it doesn't do it justice. It also reminds of what I didn't share. At the time I felt it was most important to share my own story. The experience through my eyes as a mom, but I left out other pieces, and other people, that went through the same helpless heartache I did. I didn't blog about it at the time for a lot of different reasons, but now, having time pass and relationships re-newed, I think it is important that I share it.
When I think about all the preparation for the trip, I remember going over all the possible options of how the girls would react. Their reaction to me, to my mom, and Marcy as well as the enormity of the transition itself. The biggest fear at the time was that the girls would cling to Marcy and Mom (as experienced and wonderful parents) and look at me as a third resort. You can imagine my shock and horror when their rejection of them was equal to and much longer lasting than their rejection of me.
The fear the girls expressed towards both Marcy and my Mom was drastic. I may have touched on it in speaking about the return flight home, but I want to elaborate a bit so forgive me for repeating pieces of our story again (if I do).
We were prepared. As prepared as we could have been and far more prepared than we needed to be in some areas (packing). We had talked through the process, the emotions, the logistics, everything that we had been told to prepare for.
That said, there truly is NOTHING that anyone can tell you to prepare you for the unimaginable heartbreak of watching your child go though the agonizing torture of knowing another transition is coming and YOU are the source of it. There is no scream as horrific, no tears as full of emotion, no kick or hit as painful as that of your own child fighting against another unknown future with a face full of fearful disbelief.
Mom and Marcy are the only ones that will ever know the pain of those days. They are the only two people that lived it with me, cried through it with me, and did their best to lift me up throughout it.
It was obvious from the first day we met the girls that the focus would have to be a disconnect from the world they had been in for 6 months and a bond with mom. They were in no way, pulled to anyone other than the faces they knew at the care center so the battle for their attention was laid out early. There was no interest in Marcy Mom or me. No smiles. No hugs. Nada. It was only after we took them into care ourselves that we noticed a change in them.
Their adjustment to me went far smoother than expected (though their was some obvious reservation) but their fear of Marcy and Mom was still very apparent. While we didn't know what we would be facing when began our travels, the emotional extreme of it all was difficult to process (to put it nicely).
We knew then, as we do now, some of the whys and how's of it, but it doesn't heal the heartbreak felt by those who simply long to hold their family. Two women, who have only ever, been examples to me of what tremendous mothers can be and do, stood by and watched the girls and I work through our own unimaginable pain all the while, feeling a pain all their own. They also felt an entirely different kind of emotion. Helplessness.
They had come be a support. To hold. To carry. To play. They could do none of it. From the time we brought the girls to the guest house where we were staying, those girls were not out of my reach for more than a few moments at a time and those moments were spent crying or on the verge of it, with fear written all over their faces. Even in a room with the three of us present, the girls wouldn't laugh or play or even distance themselves more than few feet from me.
While we all tried to encourage one another and find different reasons for the girls fear, the hurt went without saying and nothing could be done. Time and patience would have to heal it, but in the days of that trip and the time that followed, trying to hide it or work through it became harder.
Mom and Marcy gave us the time we needed and the distance from me and the girls served two purposes. It allowed for a stronger connection with me (which was the primary goal), but it also buffered some of the heartbreak of the girls continuous struggle to accept the two women with me.
The flight home was the most difficult flight I have ever been on. It was the hardest part of the trip for all of us I think. Hard in a different way though. How do I explain this?....
Imagine a plane full of Ethiopians watching an obscene number of American families taking their beautiful Ethiopian babies and moving them to a different country. The emotion and internal conflict of the hundreds of people on that plane was palpable. Throw into that the lack of fresh air, space, or ability to move around and you have a recipe for disaster.
The first leg of the trip went fine. The girls slept through much of it and while I had Ella on me in a carrier, Macie was able to rest across a couple of seats while I walked around with Ella.
It was really the last 5 hours that were the worst. Macie was alright as long as she was not asked to leave my side. Ella, however, would not rest unless I was holding her and standing up. By "not rest" I mean scream bloody murder and it was LOUD. In fact, it was a scream heard throughout the whole plane. While this is happening, the flight attendants are asking us to sit down and quit walking around, which is terribly difficult to do when you KNOW the screams of your child are disrupting all the passengers on the plane. I am fairly convinced that glares, even when unseen, do, in fact, bore a hole into ones head. My head is still healing.
Diaper changes had to include the three of us because Macie would start screaming the minute she was out of my reach. Imagine the smallest airplane bathroom, then put two toddlers, a packed diaper bag, a dirty (and very full) diaper and an emotionally drained Momma in there and you have a tightly encased disaster.
I remember standing in that bathroom with those two babies sobbing and Marcy standing helplessly outside the door waiting to ask if there was anything she could do, knowing that there wasn't. No one could help. No one could fix it. No one could get me or those girls off that plane fast enough.
Two hours from landing, I shut down. The girls spilled water on me, put stickers everywhere, ate everything they could get their hands on and I sat there silent, unmoving and stunned. Staring out a window as silent tears of doubt fell down my cheeks, I ran through a million different reasons I wasn't good enough to be a mom to these girls. Marcy and Mom watched from across the isle praying for my strength as they struggled with their own limitations in their ability to help.
I remember turning to my mother and mouthing the words "I can't do this." As the intensity of the moment overwhelmed me. I thought, if this is what my life is now, I am not able to do this. I am not good enough.
While there were other babies on the plane, I was sure mine were the loudest (and am still fairly sure of that). It was without doubt that everyone on that plane was judging me as a parent. From the passengers, to the flight attendants, to my own family, I was certain they all knew that I was not meant to be a parent and that I had set myself up for failure. I was certain they all wanted to rip those children out of my arms, knowing that I was not capable of caring for them.
Those hours were my rock bottom. Those hours of doubt in myself were the hardest. Those emotions are difficult to admit to, even three months later. It's hard to imagine feeling it now, but my memory is clear and it was very real at the time. If I am honest with myself and with all of you (as I have been), then maybe it will serve some purpose.
I can say that the minute we could undo our seat belts, I put both those girls back in their carriers and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The knots on my back from 20 hours of carrying around 20-60lbs of extra weight could not have stopped me from picking those girls back up and calming the fears and screams we had all heard for the last few hours. From the time we stepped off that plane and onto solid ground I have not looked back.
While all of this comes out fairly neatly and in nicely typed letters, the pain of experiencing it is something that is etched into the flesh of ones heart and will never be forgotten.
I can not tell you how miraculous it felt to watch my mothers eyes fill with tears this last week as her two newest grandchildren hugged her, ran to her and asked for her in the morning when they awoke.
We knew time would heal. It was obvious that it already had done amazing things as people began to visit, but there was something unique about this visit- something that put me in awe of how far we have come in 3 months.
Again, I struggle in even posting all of this as only Marcy and Mom will know all that it means, but I am hopeful that it may do at least one family some good as they come home, or take off on their own path towards adoption.