my people

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Sometimes it's just too much.

To protect my darlings' stories and to prevent the dam from releasing all my tears, sometimes it's all just too much for words.

That's why I'm so thankful for my people. People like you, who know enough bits and pieces of our daily fight for joy in the midst of the broken pieces of lives that together make up our family. People like you, whose eyes I catch across the church hall and who offer dear encouragement in a glance.

Thank you.

 {Someday - though maybe not soon - we'll be able to actually converse with words and not just glances.}

This weekend, I'm going to be with my people at a retreat of other adoptive mamas who share my heartbeat. There, I know someone else has held children as they've cried for a parent who disease stole from them, wiped sand and chalk from around the mouth of a little one who still forgets that she doesn't need to fill her tummy with those things because food is readily available here, filled out medical forms that ask for histories we just don't know, and surprised strangers by answering cries of "Mommy!" from a child who looks nothing like us.

And, y'all.

I'm crying at the thought of being with my people.


Would you pray for a refreshing of my spirit this weekend? Oh, how my soul needs this! 

{And while you're at it, praise God with me for the sweet husband o' mine who will be on solo Daddy duty for three days while I'm gone, and pray for sweet times of bonding and wrestling and whatnot for him and our six darlings. Muchas gracias, mi amiga.}
For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.
Jeremiah 31:25

the prayer you've stopped praying

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Can you even remember when you stopped praying for it?

That thing you hoped for once upon a time but, as time moved on, faded from that hopeful place?

I don't know about you, but I can't.

I can't remember when I stopped praying for Zoe to talk.

 Friends would ask if she said any words, and I would answer yes, because she did. Technically. But, of her four or five words, we were lucky if we heard one a week. So while it was honest to tell the words she had purposefully spoken, I left friends thinking that our girl was talking, because - to be blunt - some days I tire of answering questions about all the things she can't do.

I might not remember when I stopped praying for her to speak, but I clearly recall when He said "yes!" to my forgotten prayer.

It was when she said, "Yes!"

Back in December, we were driving home from the gym, and I asked Zoe if she wanted a cracker. Then I looked over my right shoulder to read her face, because that's how I used to know her answer.

She might not have always had words, but she has never hesitated to let us all know how she feels. About anything. 

 As I turned to look for the facial response, I was startled by a squeaky two year old's voice.

Her voice.

Her "Yes!"

She had said a handful of words before, but they were rare and always on her own terms. Answering a question? She hadn't ever done that, not in her 26 months of life.

But this time, clear as it could be, she answered, "Yes!"

As I gave her the cracker (and would have gladly given her a dozen or more), the road before me turned all watery. I don't cry much, but the goodness of God just overcame me. When she said Yes!, my Lord was saying yes too, to the desire that had faded from my prayers and my memory.

Meanwhile, she enjoyed her cracker, oblivious to the work God had done in and through her.

I was reminded of this tonight, when I heard that precious Asian darling crying after bedtime. After I got her out of the crib and checked her dry diaper, I said, "Sweet girl, what do you want?"

"Muh," she said, pointing to the hall.

It wasn't until after she drank her milk and was settled back into her crib that it hit me again: my girl has words.

yes, no, go away, milk, dog, kitty cat, cat, more, mama, dada, uh-oh, please, want, bubbles, ball, that, thank you, hi, waffle, and the list keeps growing, along with her babbles and incoherent strings of sounds that might be words we're not yet identifying...

 {In case you're wondering, a "kitty cat" is a real live cat, while a "cat" is a picture or stuffed animal. Obvs.}

Friend, I don't know what it is that you've stopped praying for. Maybe you don't even know what it is anymore. But I want you to know this:

He still remembers.

 He is just as trustworthy today as He was back when you were willing to trust Him with it.

And He is able to bring about the yes - or the no or the not yet or whatever other answer He wills - even if you're not able to hold on to the hope of an answer.

Oh, this girl.


He teaches me so much through her.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
(Ephesians 3:20-21, ESV)

the beauty of normal interruptions

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Over the past several weeks, when people have asked how I'm doing, I've said something like, "Well, we're good when we can stick to a routine. But then each week, we've had something major: a snow storm, the return of seizure for one kid, another snow storm, colds for three kids followed by colds for two the next week and a cold for the last one the following week, and so on. Then the routine is lost, and I gain a couple pounds by stress eating until the next hopeful start to the week."

Every week, it's been something. And every week, I've started optimistically, until the something happens that dashes my hopes for the week.

But I've realized something this week that has changed my perspective.

I'm a mom of six.

 Okay, I knew that, but here's the life changing part...

 Being the mom of six, every week is GUARANTEED to have something come up.

 All of those somethings aren't interruptions to our lives or inconveniences to our routine.

They are our lives.

They are our routine.

Especially given how young our kids are and how many have special needs, interruptions aren't the enemy of normal.

They are the normal. 

 Those pesky somethings that come up each week don't wreck the week, like I thought they did.

My response to each unexpected something is what makes the week - and the kids and my sanity - unravel.

Now that I expect those somethings to come, I can see them for what they are: opportunities.

Opportunities to show Christ's unconditional love to little ones who are hungry for it.

Opportunities to respond with grace to what the world sees as chaos.

Opportunities to declare the truth that each of our darlings are blessings and not burdens.

Opportunities to be reminded of how patiently God deals with me and to practice that patience to the ones closest to me.

Yes, it's hard. Yes, my plans always often fall apart. Yes, I'd really rather get the big girls to school on time than have to clean up a diaper blow-out and track down a lost jacket and console a little one who seems to constantly trip over her own feet and then end up pulling up to the school as the bell rang.

 Yes, that last sentence was a description of this morning.

 But I know a God who has done hard things - the hardest - for me.

When I view each hardship in the day as an expected opportunity rather than an unexpected interruption, I respond a whole lot more like the God I'd like to emulate as my children watch how I react and learn either wisdom or folly from my example.

I thought I was chasing normal and failing to grasp it, while all along I've been grumbling and missing the beauty of normal in each perceived inconvenience.

Yes, this new normal is beautiful.

Even in the midst of the "somethings" that crop up each week {or day}.


And? Sometimes the somethings are something wonderful, like a feisty two year old who loves helping Mama with the laundry. 




an accurate FASD diagnosis matters #preventFASD

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We tend to look at behaviors rather than people.

All of us: teachers, parents, people in general.

When there's a diagnosis in the picture, sometimes we swing the other way: focusing on the diagnosis instead of the person.

Both are wrong.

People matter.

And that's why an accurate diagnosis of FASD matters.

Wait, what?

 Let me explain: if we want to consider the needs of a person, we have to consider them holistically. To do so, the underlying causes of behaviors must be examined. In the case of behaviors related to FASD, an accurate diagnosis can help pinpoint the origin of the issues at hand.

Dan Dubovsky, who is the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) specialist for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) FASD Center for Excellence and who led the most recent MOFAS webinar, shared a story of a man with violent behaviors. Doctors discovered a lesion on his brain and subsequently removed it surgically. The violent behaviors disappeared. Prison or rehab or other negative outcomes wouldn't have worked for him. Any of those outcomes would have failed to address the cause of his behavior and would have failed him as a person.

Thankfully, his doctor saw him as a person first, not just a set of poor choices and violent behaviors.

FASD can often be misdiagnosed as adolescent depression, bipolar disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, autism (especially in cases in which verbal skills are average or advanced), reactive attachment disorder, traumatic brain injury, antisocial personality disorder, or borderline personality disorder. All of these misdiagnoses have a host of research behind them, detailing practice-proven interventions that can be beneficial for each diagnosis.

The problem is, though, that if the wrong diagnosis is assigned to a person, then the wrong underlying causes are assumed, which usually leads to the wrong interventions being applied.

In other words, misdiagnosing FASD can be just like putting a man with a lesion on his brain in jail to address his behavior instead of dealing with the lesion to address the cause. The wrong diagnosis for people with FASD can likewise lead to poor outcomes, like homelessness, educational failure, unemployment, addiction, broken relationships, drinking during their own pregnancies, and so on.

In preventing FASD, we tend to focus on a list of dos and don'ts, a list of behaviors to emulate and ones to avoid. But it's not about those lists: it's about babies who can be profoundly impacted by their mothers' drinking habits, who then become children who can struggle with sensory integration and attention and mental illness and medical disorders, when then become adults who - if never diagnosed correctly - have trouble fitting in with the rest of the world because they were never given the tools to do so.

But the good news? When prenatal exposure to alcohol is avoided, FASD can be prevent 100% of the time. When prenatal exposure to alcohol is known (or hypothesized, in cases of adoption - for example - when full medical history isn't available), then parents and professionals can look holistically at the individual and ask, "What does this person need to be successful?"

Because FASD is about the person, not the diagnosis.

I'll include more information about strategies and tips to answer that question in next week's post, as I close out this series of posts, all part of a sponsored campaign with MOFAS and Brandfluential. You can still register for the last webinar, coming up this Thursday and focused on the topic "Family Matters: Strategies for Successful Outcomes." 

living with cerebral palsy

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As we made a list of special needs we'd be open to in adoption, CP - a group of neurological disorders that affect movement - wasn't on the list. We hadn't completely ruled it out, but we certainly hadn't ruled it in either.

But now? We can't imagine our lives without Zoe, and our love for her emboldens us to take on whatever else comes with her diagnosis.

For us, here's what that means:

  • MRIs to check brain development, particularly in the areas affected by PVL, her particular kind of brain damage. 
  • physical therapy twice a week. 
  • occupational therapy once a week. 
  • speech therapy once a week. 
  • check-ups with the neurologist and the physiatrist. 
  • fittings with the orthotist for leg braces and wrist splits. 
  • meetings with the early intervention program, which are now moving toward meetings with the school system as she nears age 3.
  • Botox injections (and possibly oral meds or surgeries in the future)

It means all that, but it also means:



We still don't know what the future holds for Zoe: if she'll ever live independently. if she'll continue to keep up with her peers in cognitive ability. if she'll walk. if she'll maim other children by plowing them down with her gait trainer.

you know, things like that.

But, if we're honest about our helplessness and God's sovereignty, we have to admit that we don't know what the future holds for Jocelyn or Patience or Philip or Robbie or Patricia either.

It might sound childish, but we still believe the words of the song we learned as kids. We trust that He holds the whole world - including our whole family and Zoe's whole brain, just as he shaped it - in His hands.

For that, we are thankful.