Then There Were Three

Well, this is it! The final Day of Adoption Month, the final chapter of our story (Well, our Adoption Story anyway:) Things are winding up. I have a few houskeeping things that I want to take care of before I share "the rest of the story", so hang in there a minute. I want to thank all of you for participating in adoption awareness month, whether you did a great action to raise awareness, ADOPTED (one of my good friends had placement day yesterday, and now has a beautiful baby girl-yay!) participated in the blog, or even just learned something about adoption at all, that's a huge step, and I want you to know how much I appreciate it. I also want to mention that my blog used to be private, but I chose to open it for the month so that I could reach more people. I have loved it, and loved making new friends through it, so I have been considering keeping it open... But I still want to know who is reading. I have had tons of traffic, so I know there are a lot of you, so in order to feel a little bit better about it, I was hoping you would leave me a little comment or e-mail me eberling2@msn.com with just a little note telling me who you are. It can be as short as a hello or as long as a life story, (preferably it will tell me who you are, how you started reading the blog, and something funny to make me laugh, this girl needs a chuckle now and then!:) I just want to know you a little. I know you don't have to do it, but I really hope you will. Next I want to tell you how grateful I am for adoption. It has touched my life in more ways than I can count. The friends I have made through my adoption journey have truly blessed me. The strength I have gained has helped me be strong for other hard times in my life. The closeness to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ has shaped me more into the woman I hope one day to become. But best of all, I'm a mom. On Thanksgiving (Which was amazing by the way, and I will post about later this week) I had a little time to reflect on my life. I thought about how much joy I had that day, and then remembered the Thanksgivings before my kids where there was a piece of my heart missing, and though I was happy, my life just didn't seem like the one it was meant to be. I remembered feeling lonely, and the nights I cried myself to sleep wishing for the children I couldn't have myself. And then in ran my two yay-hoos and tackled me to give me good night kisses. And I wasn't alone, and I wasn't sad, and I had pretty much everything I could ever want right there in my arms (though I wouldn't complain about having a husband again, wink, wink) And that is because of adoption, and it is something I will forever be grateful for.
So now, on to the real reason you're here:)


So, we were a family. The hardpart was over, right? HA HA HA next came the adjustment period. Life was a nuthouse 24/7! Not only were we adjusting to making a family out of a newlywed couple, but the kids were adjusting to something totally new too. They didn't know us, or each other. They didn't know where they were, and they didn't know where the people who they did know had gone to. All in all though, they did adjust to that part quite well. They were both very friendly kids, and seemed to adjust to the new surroundings and people pretty quickly. We did what we could to make, especially Ethan, feel comfortable. The thing we had been most concerned about was how the kids would react to each other, but as it turns out we needn't have worried. They loved each other from the first second. Ethan was soft and kind to Adia, and she just lit up when she saw him. They instantly had a special bond, and that bond would prove to be a huge help to each other in the future. The part that didn't go so well though, was with Ethan. He was not used to following rules. He would run away from us, jump on furniture, break things for fun, hurt animals, and just generally destroy EVERYTHING. On his first full day in our house, he climbed up in our bookshelf, found our wedding photos and started ripping them to shreds. And that was just in the time it took me to change Adia's diaper. While I was cleaning that up he went into the dining room and broke almost all of the heirloom china my Grandma gave me when I got married. It was exhausting. I could never let him out of my sight, and the only time I got to rest was when both of the kids were asleep. And that leads me to bedtime. Adia was really a pretty good sleeper. She would usually only wake up once during the night, sometimes twice, but she always went right back to sleep after she was fed and changed. Ethan, on the other hand was a completely different story. Some autistic kids just don't sleep much, and Ethan is one of those. He usually only required three to four hours of sleep a night, and a one hour nap during the day. That was alright. I have never required much sleep, so I could probably have handled that fine. The problem came along with the abuse. Ethan would have terrors when he slept. He dreamed of his parents and would scream things like, "don't leave me" or "Don't hit me", and talk about things that they had done to him. He usually wouldn't wake himself up, but it would wake me up, and I spent most of my nights in his bed rubbing his back and crying over the things he was saying. Ethan also had some habits that we had to work around. He had been starved for so long that he was determined not to let that happen again. He would steal food and hide it all over the place. He would stick things in his pocket at the dinner table, and then sneak it into his room and put it under his pillow. He would come out of his room chewing on a carrot stick, and I knew we hadn't had carrots in over a week. It took a little while for us to figure out what was going on, and by that time he had hidden things everywhere in the house. He had put things in plants, under beds, in closets, behind books, in coat pockets, anywhere he could think of. He was also hiding food for Adia. If we didn't put her bottle or formula can away as soon as we were finished with it, it would vanish. He also hid water. Anything he could find that would hold water was filled in the toilet, and hidden somewhere. Once we figured out what was going on and why, we gave him his own shelf in the fridge, and in the pantry that was always stocked with food and water and that helped some, though he still sometimes hides food, and we do a nightly sweep of his room just to be sure he isn't chomping on a crunchy hot dog in a day or two. His therapy was also a hard thing to take care of. There weren't any of those services provided in our town, or even in those towns around us. In order for him to get the help he needed, it meant hours in the car, driving from one appointment to another. We also weren't accepted very well by everyone in the community. We were told that if we got the chance to choose our kids, why would we choose broken ones. The primary president didn't want Ethan in primary. The community preschool didn't want Ethan to attend, and said hurtful things behind our backs. Some of our "friends" stopped wanting to hang out. We were told that our kids were trash because they were on drugs. We were ridiculed for our parenting styles because our son was "Out of control, and just needed a couple of good spankings" It was crazy that people would say things like that, especially members of the church. The things that did help were plenty too, though. I had a great support system in my family and close friends, and even most members of the community. I had people offer to take the kids for a few hours while I showered or took a nap or cleaned my house. I had people who would remind me of my blessings and how lucky I was to have the kids, and they were also the people who knew when I just needed to cry, and they let me do that too. We were also really lucky that the kids had each other. In some things they were developing at the same time and helped each other out. Adia crawled by seven months, walked by nine, talked like crazy by a year. She wanted to keep up with Ethan, and wouldn't be left behind. In doing that, it helped Ethan learn to walk better. He was more steady as he moved, and learned his balance better. He learned to take it slower. He also learned to talk more plainly. He learned to say things because she could say them. The fact that he talks as clearly as he does, I think, we owe to her. She also taught him much about compassion, following rules, and having manners. If she learned it, he did too.
As we were adjusting to all of these things and many more, we were also trying to finalize our adoption. We had been told that we had to wait for six months before we could finalize, but we thought that was it. We didn't know that there was no guarantee that we would ever be able to adopt these kids. (We had never been required, or even been told about any adoption classes, so we literally knew NOTHING about the whole process)We were shocked the first time that was brought to our attention. We were also shocked a few months later when we were told that the judge had not even terminated the Parent's rights yet. (We were told that they had done that before the kids were even placed with us, and it should have been.) We were assured that it wouldn't make any difference, and it would happen soon, but still, that put us on edge. We didn't know what to expect. The kids had been with us for three months when the grandparents called up in a panic. The parents had decided that they were ready to be parents and wanted the grandparents to give them our address so they could go pick the kids. Luckily they didn't, but it wasn't being recieved well by the parents. Rather than telling the parents they had missed their chance, the judge decided it meant that they really wanted the kids back and gave them another chance to change thier lives. It was at this point when something totally hit me. All of this time we had been so angry with the parents. We saw what they had done to the kids, what they had done to thier family, themselves, us. It made us so mad. I can't speak for Troy, but I really can say that I hated them. I HATED them, and with every nightmare my son had, I hated them more. But then it hit us, did Heavenly Father hate them? I didn't think so. They are still his children. They made these two beautiful babies who we loved. And at that point I started to pray for them. At first it wasn't much. I thanked Heavenly Father for them. Then eventually I worked my way up to asking Him to bless them that they would make the choices to help thier lives turn out the way they were supposed to. It wasn't much, but even that made the situation stop hurting quite as much. But, I never stopped praying for the kid to be ours either. I just finally found enough faith to put it in the Lord's hands. 1 month later the judge ruled that the parents were't going to change, and finally terminated their rights. We were still dealing with many different social services agencies, and paperwork and messages were still being lost and mixed up. We never knew what was true and what was not. I finally realized that if it was going to happen I would need to help it along. I started calling each agency every day, and would put the pieces together and started figuring out what was true and what was not. I started to realize who I could trust and who I couldn't. I made copies of every piece of paperwork I came in contact with and made a note of who sent it, who had it, and dates and times of everything. It eventually got to the point that the social workers, especially LACDCFS (oddly enough) were calling me to see what was happening, instead of the other way around.Then in December, the month that we had hoped to finalize in, we were told that the judge was going to give the parents one more last chance. If they could get their life together, and keep it that way for two months, they could have the kids back. AHHH! We were devistated all over again. We didn't even know that he could do that. But, all there was to do was wait. We enlisted the help of friends and family members, and had prayers, and a weekly fast that whatever was right would happen. We just waited. And for once, the parents started getting back on track. They cleaned up their act,and kept it that way for a month, then nearly two. We were starting to think that the kids really would go back to them. Then, by a miracle our wonderful attourney convinced the judge to extend the trial period for one more month. At that point, even our little branch was fasting and praying with us. Still the parents were sticking with it. It looked again like we were going to lose our sweet little family. Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, the parents fell off the wagon. They were both found doing meth again, and they stopped going to counseling. The judge decided that this was it. He ruled that they would never get another chance at these kids. It was bitter sweet for us. How sad that they were back on that same dead end road, and that they would give up that easily, but at the same time YAY FOR US! We were finally feeling like we had the end in sight. We had a date set to finalize the end of May. We had learned though, don't bank on anything until you have it in your hands, so we didn't dare book the trip. We were right, as they ended up bumping it back a few weeks until June. Finally in the middle of May we decided to book a flight (No way were we going to drive that trip again) We also set up a time at the temple to be sealed a week later. But, of course it couldn't be that easy. Our regular LACDCFS case worker got sick and our case was reassigned to another CW. She was new, and for some reason didn't know what to do or something. When I made my daily phone call to her she told me that she didn't have any of the paperwork for the whole case, and unless she could dig it up somewhere, we wouldn't be finaizing on our date. Now, I don't know what she was doing or why, or even if she had the right to stop us from finalizing, and I didn't know what paperwork she specifically needed as she wouldn't tell me, but Heavenly Father tells me stuff, and somewhere along the line I had learned to listen. I had saved and documented every piece of paperwork involved in our case. I even had paperwork I wasn't really supposed to have. I had things from the entire process including the history of the kids before they came to live with us. All total I had over one thousand pieces of paper, and I faxed every single one to her. I also FedExed a copy of everything to her. The next day she called and yelled at me for doing that, but she did tell me that we were on for the 9th of June! We made it to California on the 8th of June, though everything from a car accident to Troy forgetting his wallet tried to stop us. The parents had made threats to take the children back, so we had been assigned a guard to stay with us while we were at the court house in California. We found our motel and settled in for a night of NO sleep. The next morning we went to the children's court. We were supposed to go in at 8am. At 11:30 we finally entered the courtroom. It was an awesome experience as we were sworn in and vowed to love the children as our own. We were able to take a picture with the judge, and both kids were given a stuffed teddy bear and a balloon. We were also able to, for the first time, meet in person, our wonderful attourney and several of the social workers who made our perfect day possible. We all seemed to breath a sigh of relief. I literally felt lighter. I don't know how else to explain it. It was a physical change as all of the worry lifted. I was almost lightheaded. Adia seemed to express what we were all feeling as we left the court room, she blew the judge a kiss. Oh, what a wonderful day! We went back to the motel room and all of us fell asleep. We slept for seven hours, unheard of for Ethan. It was as though we hadn't slept for all of that time and we were catching up. We were able to stay a few days, and visit with the birth family and also with Kyle. We went sight seeing, and to Knotts Berry Farm. It was a much deserved vacation. When we got home we set out to get ready for an even more important day, Temple Day. From the very beginning we had been telling the kids about going to the temple. We had explained what we could about being sealed and how it meant that we would always be a family. Ethan, especially had become fascinated with the temple. He kept asking every day when we could go in. He wanted to go see Heavenly Father and Jesus, and meet Angel Moroni and play his "Doo-da-doo" It was the most exciting day we could imagine. It was the best day ever! Ethan didn't get to meet Moroni or play the "doo-da-doo", but he says he saw Jesus, and I believe him. And that's the end, or the beginning, however you want to look at it. We are a family now, and no one can ever take that away from us. Both kids continue to grow and improve. Ethan especially improves every day. He isn't even the same kid anymore. He has been excelling in a mainstreamed class at school for two years now - take that all of you "experts" who said he would never get out of Kindergarden! :) He still has his struggles, but we have our groove down now, so we are working through it. Adia is a spitfire. She has her own opinion, and you can't change it. She still excels at everything she does, which is only a little bit annoying:) She is still her brothers biggest fan, and also his biggest protector. They are best friends. They are truly our family. They even look like us now. Adia has blue eyes and blonde-ish hair like me, and we have exactly the same nose. Ethan has dark brown eyes and brown hair like Troy, they both have the same high cheek bones and stubborn chin. If you didn't know, you would never be able to tell that they aren't ours. I giggle every time someone tells Adia "you  have such pretty eyes, you look just like your mom." The Grandparents are both still living and though they struggle sometimes, they seem to be doing well. The birth parents are currently doing very well.