I realize it has been 7 months since I last wrote anything. It has not been an easy time in our lives and I felt like I couldn't write anything. I don't know that I'll have the time to fully relate the last 7 months, but here is a start. Evan redeployed March 8, 2011. We arrived in Bulgaria March 19, 2011 and took custody of Annie on March 21. We were prepared for a sweet but scared little girl. We were not prepared for a child that is so damaged emotionally that she acts out constantly. We weren't prepared for a child that screams for hours, that hurts herself so badly that we fear the possibility of a child abuse investigation (on several occasions she has purposely smashed her face into objects hard enough to give her a black eye and for weeks she will continue to pinch the bruise any chance she is not supervised so that the bruise remains, that is one example!), that constantly rejects our love and affection but thrives on control, anger, and hurt. We weren't prepared for a child that attacks us and attacks our other children. We weren't prepared for Elijah to suffer regression from all of the stress. We weren't prepared for Kieran's issues (which as of right now is sleep issues diagnosed as parasomnia and a request for an autism evaluation because of his autistic tendencies and the fact that it somehow runs in our family). So... here is a kid by kid update, starting with Annie.
When Annie first came home, she did everything and anything she could think of to get a reaction from Evan and I, from smearing poop on stuff to peeing herself (and other people, other people's stuff, etc.) to attacking her brothers, us, herself... We would have several bad weeks, then a good few days, then it would start all over again. At first her appetite was good, but eventually she realized that she could make food a power struggle and the last several months she has tried to eat as little as possible. In July I broke down crying to our pediatrician and he sent us to a child psychologist. He was very guarded and wouldn't explain why. I broke down crying to our speech therapist and shared all of our experiences- she confided that even before I did so, she suspected that Annie may have reactive attachment disorder. We got a recommendation to a child psychologist and had 1 phone session and one visit in our home. The child psychologist, who is experienced with RAD, told us she believes Annie has RAD, but she wanted to see her several more times before making the diagnosis.
The next week, the psychologist was no longer able to keep Annie on as a patient due to being accepted into a position at a university an hour and a half away. We have been unable to find a replacement, as it seems RAD is not something most psychologists are experienced with. It is something that is typically only seen in children who have been in an institutional setting (such as an orphanage or hospitalized for long periods of time as an infant) or in foster care. Although we don't have an official diagnosis, we agree with the doctor that Annie does indeed have RAD. The next time we saw our pediatrician he asked me if Annie had been diagnosed with RAD, as he had suspected it, but he didn't want to tell me. He has said several times that he's not sure if Annie will ever get better.
Thankfully, right THIS MINUTE, we are in an okay place with Annie. She has not formed an attachment to us and while I have feelings for her, I'm not sure I have formed a good attachment to her. Evan doesn't feel like he has attached to her at all. Let me be clear on one thing- Annie might be a very frustrating and challenging child, but she is NOT A BAD KID. Not at all. She is a HURT child. We don't know why exactly. It may be that her baby house (NOT the orphanage we adopted her from, the first orphanage she lived in) was not attentive enough to Annie as a baby. It could be just that Annie did not thrive emotionally in that type of environment even if they did meet her physical needs- it's a fact that some kids are just higher needs than other and if Annie was hardwired to be a high needs kid and she didn't have her emotional needs met... I'm not saying she WAS in a bad place, just that we don't KNOW. RAD can also happen when a child is hospitalized and not with their parents (or main caretakers) regularly, so it is not unheard of in kids with otherwise emotionally healthy families.
So what we see is this- Annie is very superficially sweet. She is an adorable- okay beautiful- child and she KNOWS it. She uses her looks, her smile (remember that RADIANT smile?!) to get what she wants. It is the only way she knows how. When someone tries to get close to her- like our family- she acts out against them. Some books I have read on RAD say that a child needs to feel bad, to confirm their feelings of worthlessness so the more you love on them, the more they act out. This is what we see. We love on Annie and she immediately openly defies us. She hits, kicks, spits, pinches. Until recently, we were NEVER able to capture a tantrum on video because the second she realized she was being taped, she would stop whatever she was doing and immediately act like a very sweet and obedient child. More recently, we had been video taping Elijah's melt downs so his therapists could see and Annie decided she WANTED her tantrums on tape, too. As soon as we realized that, we stopped trying to video hers. She LOVES the camera and video camera. She is constantly telling us she is pretty and cute as well as asking to see videos and pictures of herself. We ask people not to tell her she is pretty or cute because it is such a huge issue- rather we tell Annie what a good job she did doing this or that, whether it be jumping up and down, giving a high five, finishing her dinner, coloring in the lines, etc. We try to focus on actions that she can own rather than her outward appearance.
At 7 months home Annie still rarely plays with toys unless she is mimicking her brothers or classmates. She attends public school in a semi self contained classroom. She spends at least an hour a day in a typical kindergarten class, but mostly at non academic times. Her only current diagnosis is an educational diagnosis of moderate mental retardation. We don't know if that is accurate or not, but for now, it gets her the services she needs. We had to move off post in order to get Annie and Elijah the services they needed at school. The new school is nice and now all 3 kids are in the same school district. (More on that in the other kid's updates.) The school on post was bent on working against us in everything we did- from allowing Annie to gorge herself to the point that she didn't need to eat except at school to showering in her with hugs and kisses despite our many requests that they use high fives- our rule is "Hugs are for family, high fives are for friends." For our autistic sons, it is a good life lesson- it won't be cute when the boys are adults hugging (or attacking in some cases) every stranger they see. In Annie's case it is for attachment. She seeks to have a superficial attachment to any adult that is not mom or dad. Many adoptive parents (at least of older kids, it's probably not an issue with a newborn ;)) adopt some sort of rule on this, because it is SO important for kids coming from an institutional setting to grasp that these new people are FAMILY. They come home never knowing what a mom and a dad are- they may have heard the word, but they don't understand what it MEANS.
In the old school Annie would come home with suspicious bruises, including, once, marks on her arms like someone had grabbed her arm hard enough to leave a hickey like mark from their fingers- yet we were told constantly that she was a perfect angel and had no behavioral issues. We were not allowed in her classroom to observe or check on her. We made the decision to move ASAP and while it remains to be seen whether it was a good move financially, it was definitely better for Annie. The new school is fantastic about our requests. Annie is not thrilled with not being a princess at school, but I think she is settling in and having lots of fun, regardless. She is also LEARNING. Arizona has this insane curriculum of teaching a semi cursive writing style beginning in kinder. Surprisingly, Annie is starting to be able to crudely reproduce these letters, with guidance. She still has no idea what they mean... But she is in a learning environment, she gets a break from the emotional stress of a family, we get an emotional break from her and I can recharge- all good things that I feel outweigh the down side of being separated from her so much and having a curriculum I don't care for. Her English is great and I honestly believe she is speaking English much better than she ever spoke Bulgarian.
I'm not sure what the future holds for Annie or for us. We are learning that God is equipping us, if we just ask. It has not been easy and I imagine it will not be for a long time, if ever, to parent her. I have hopes that eventually the attachment will be there. She has many, many struggles and with our other children, it's not always easy to be the parent that all of our children need.
On to Aiden. Aiden expressed a desire to try public school this year and with all of the turmoil and stress in our lives, Evan and I agreed that home schooling was, unfortunately, always a priority, so I made some calls and we found a school that would accept Aiden as a student. At six years old Aiden is supposed to be in 1st grade. Academically he is at a 3rd grade level. The principal placed Aiden in 2nd grade for several reasons- 1, Aiden has social emotional deficits for his age level, so placing him with older kids is a concern, and 2, Arizona doesn't like children to be outside of their age appropriate grade level and penalizes schools for advancing or holding back children. I've never heard of a child in AZ being more than one grade ahead or behind, I'm not sure if it is even possible. I know that the state can choose to withhold funding for a child that is not in his/her age appropriate grade. Anyway... Aiden is doing okay in 2nd grade. In some ways it is very much a challenge for him because he has to interact with people socially (and appropriately); he has to sit for extended lengths of time, which is hard for him (for various reasons, including his low muscle tone, he literally doesn't have the core strength to sit still and not fidget or move around), and he has a time limit in which to complete his work. He has only 15 minutes to eat lunch, which is another struggle, as he is a slow eater. Academically, he is not being challenged at all right now. Arizona is very much behind in terms of ranking vs. other states, in the last 5 out of the 50 states. They don't have real history/social study or science goals for 2nd graders (in California, we studied the history of California in 2nd grade, I distinctly remember this), both of which are subjects Aiden excels in and finds interesting. Their main focus is bringing up the math and reading comprehension scores of the state. The math is ridiculously easy for Aiden, except when they have vague renditions of coins, although I think this has gotten easier for him since I put coins in his pencil case for him to compare the drawings to. ;) The reading comprehension program they have doesn't seem to be a good fit for Aiden, since some of the questions they ask (specifically, the why questions) are difficult for Aiden. His teacher has too many students in her class and I think she struggles with keeping everyone orderly and progressing. Many of her kids are English language learners and take up much more of her time than a child like Aiden.
That being said, as far as his allergies- the school has done GREAT. So far we have been very please with their efforts to keep Aiden safe. In January Aiden can take a test for gifted placement- I'm not sure if they will base the test on his age or grade, but we'll see. At this point, I would like to go back to homeschooling next year. I don't feel that Aiden is being challenged academically and I personally don't see the benefit of forced social interaction. We could get quality interaction by joining a home schooling co-op. I have hopes that our situation will be calm enough next year that I can successfully resume home schooling, but at this point only time will tell.
We made the decision to pull Aiden from physical therapy. He has a wonderful therapist but the scheduling/receptionists were a nightmare and forever messing up our schedules- coupled with there being so little time in which therapies could be done after school and the fact that Aiden wasn't progressing... It seemed like the obvious choice. Aiden started soccer in September. It has been good for him. We are currently trying to figure out what other activities he will be doing from now until the end of the school year, as there is a league that has a winter and spring session of soccer. Although soccer has been GREAT for Aiden, it has also been a little stressful on the other kids so we have to take that into consideration as we make our decision. We're also considering martial arts and gymnastics.
Aiden continues to do ABA therapy, which has been a huge reason for his success in school. One of our therapists will no longer come into the school as of this week, but our team feels that he will do just fine with just one therapist coming into his school several days a week rather than the 4-5 day coverage he was getting. We will see how this works out. If he starts to do poorly and it becomes an issue, we will have the option of pulling Aiden out of school towards the end of January, but at this point we are hopeful that he will do okay.
At home, Aiden struggles with many things. Attitude, respecting adults, understanding that just because he is extremely bright doesn't make him an adult or give him adult privileges, fighting or arguing with his siblings, not wanting to play with them... The list goes on. I think some of it is probably typical for an oldest child who has started school away from his younger siblings and some of it is from his Asperger's, maybe some from the stress we've all been under, etc. We did learn that, for whatever reason, Aiden has a weak bladder. His bladder is unable to hold a normal amount of urine and he also has difficulty completely emptying his bladder, both of which contribute to him needing to go frequently and with urgency. His urologist wants him to try a prescription medication, which I have yet to fill. I haven't researched the medication to find out if it is corn free- I will probably have to actually fill it to find out. As far as Aiden's allergies, he had a scope done 3 weeks ago. It showed that his eosinophil level is still high. We are waiting for an appointment with a doctor that specializes in allergies and is familiar with corn allergies, specifically. The doctor he had been seeing for his allergies is a pulmonologist that also does allergies... Aiden had an immediate reaction to a formula the doctor assured us he couldn't possibly react to (even though the first ingredient was corn syrup), so while I think he is a fine pulmonologist and we will continue to use his practice to manage the boys' asthma, we would prefer to see a doctor that specializes in allergies for allergies. I'm not sure what our next step is. The old doctor was pushing for removal of all food and a strictly formula diet (but not a corn free formula!), which we don't agree with. We didn't even know that there are medications (asthma medications!) that can be used to treat Aiden's EE (eosinophilic esophagitis) without resorting to drastic measures like tube feeding a 6 year old child who is perfectly capable of eating (and who is willing to eat). For now, Aiden's asthma seems to be under control. Other than his EE, he is physically healthy. He hasn't even had any colds or other illnesses besides an occasional runny nose (which could be allergy related). Aiden also lost his first two teeth (center bottom) and the adult teeth were already grown in behind. He is also getting his first set of permanent molars. My baby boy is growing up!
Since I forgot to mention this above, Annie is also very healthy and has never had so much as a runny nose that wasn't related to crying. ;) She has had quite a bit of blood work and check ups done. She does have a heart murmur, which wasn't in her records, but it is a functional murmur and requires no monitoring or further cardiology check ups. Her bone age corresponds with her size rather than her actual age, about 3 1/2 years, but this is not unusual for a child raised in an institutional setting. Typically, it is normal for a a child to "lose" one month of physical and developmental growth for every four months they spend in an institutional setting. By those calculations, Annie isn't nearly as delayed physically or mentally. All of her blood work is normal, so we will follow up with an endocrinologist regularly at least for a year or so, but they don't think that anything is physically wrong with her to cause her bone growth delay. As a side note, we also know nothing about the size of Annie's bio parents, so she could very well be right on target based on her genetics, but we have no way of knowing. We aren't concerned.
And on that note, I'll have to end this, because it has taken me about two hours to write this and my family needs me. I'll try to do an update on Elijah and Kieran soon, as well as Evan and I- and of course, post more pictures. :) I realize this update is probably going to scare some adoptive parents. That's okay with me. If this scares the, off adopting, then maybe they weren't ready to adopt or meant to adopt. It is NOT easy, it is not all sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. In fact, we rarely get rainbows, it is mostly stormy weather in a boat that feels like it might not make it- but at the same time, God didn't call us to this because we were equipped. He will equip us because He called us to it. Whether that eventually means that we were only stepping stones in Annie's life or if we are truly her forever family, I have no idea, but I'm acting on the belief that we are her forever family because God made it clear that we were to adopt her. I have no intention of disrupting but I am aware that her needs may end up being greater than Evan and I can meet. It's kind of like marriage- you don't go into marriage thinking that if things get bad, you can just get a divorce, otherwise that is exactly where you will end up. You HAVE to have the attitude that this is for life and that with God, everything is possible. And it is. God is good, all the time.
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