Blessings of Health

As I was sitting up at 3 am with our youngest child who appears to have the flu, I was thinking about what a blessing it is to be here. Not only to be here in Haiti, but to be here with our kids. Naomi started throwing up around 11 pm. Julia brought her downstairs where I was "attempting" to do some work on my dissertation. At first we thought it was from the peanut butter. The sweet little thing had gotten into a jar of peanut butter and before we realized it, she had spooned into her mouth waaaaay too much peanut butter. Naomi actually said when she came down the stairs, "The peanut butter made me sick"....hmm....maybe so.

But....an hour later, she was sick again and an hour later, once again. By 3 am, I was thinking it's probably not the peanut butter or she wouldn't still be throwing up. Kids are funny though. They can appear perfectly fine, throw up, and then move on like nothing happened. In between Naomi being sick, she sat there and told me how much she loved me. This is a common thing for Naomi probably because she's the baby of the bunch and somehow realizing that she may be the very last baby in the family, we have given her a ton of attention. She must be told hundreds of times a day that we love her very much, so she proceeds to tell us numerous times a day how much she loves us.

Naomi and me on the road trip

The amazing part of this is that she has the natural the ability to give and receive affection compared to many of our kids that come from significant trauma histories. It does not come so naturally to them because they have learned the exact opposite from an early age. They've learned to not trust where Naomi has learned that mom and dad (and all of her siblings) will drop everything to cater to her needs. Yes, she is a bit spoiled (maybe a ton spoiled), but I far prefer that to the alternative.

The Lord has blessed us with many children from numerous different backgrounds. He has also blessed me with the opportunity to help other families in working with kids with trauma histories, kids with attachment challenges, kids that joined families through adoption, kids that have bounced all over the place, and all sorts of behavioral concerns that come along with those scenarios. This blessing has also contributed to me traveling a fair portion of time. Over the last 10-15 years, I have traveled all over the country and all over the world. This began predominantly in working with adoption, but spread into humanitarian aid work and promoting spiritual and mental health needs.

It's been an exciting journey, but sometimes exhausting as well. The pursuit of going back to school to get my bachelors and then my masters, various post graduate degrees, all kinds of training certificates, and now my doctorate, has been a God thing and an incredible blessing. This blessing has come with the need for tremendous family support. I have taken many breaks over the years (each time a new child joined our family I would take 6 months or more off school). For this reason, many of our kids have only known me to be in school. After all, I've been a student for 12+ years.

Schooling has also brought a lot of travel into our lives. Thankfully there are amazing options with online degrees, but with the type of degree I was seeking, face-to-face classes have also been imperative. It would be difficult to become a therapist and learn how to interact effectively with clients exclusively on-line. So, for one degree I had to do 500 hours in person over one year. This was done in one and two week increments in various parts of the USA. I would also go to various professional conferences and meet with faculty, professors, advisors, etc. The blessing was that most of this travel could be scheduled around things in our lives.

Under the circumstances, it has really gone very well. Being in private practice in the states allowed me the opportunity to have complete control over my schedule. I could work an hour here and an hour there. When Naomi was in the hospital, I could see a client or two in the city and go back to the hospital. When she was out of the hospital, one of the older kids could come with me to work and sit in the conference room. This way I wasn't really away from Naomi for more then an hour at a time in the beginning. As an attachment specialist, this was a really big deal to me.

We thought that by adopting a snowflake baby (frozen embryo), we really had adopted the youngest baby possible and therefore that child would not come from hard places like most of our other children. Then Naomi was born three months early, spent two months in the NICU, and subsequently had heart surgery. Naomi actually ended up with many of the risk factors for attachment disorder or complex developmental trauma, that is seen throughout the population of adoption. She had a traumatic birth and a traumatic beginning in life, which changes how she interacts with the world. One clue to this was getting shots in the NICU and then shots later on as a toddler. She would often not cry at all, and if she did cry, it was a very delayed reaction. She was poked and prodded so much in the beginning that she became accustomed to that. Not only did she become accustomed to a higher pain tolerance, she also learned to not look to others for help.

Naomi in the NICU

She was attached to all kinds of tubes, so we were not able to pick her up much of the time. If she cried, we had to stand there and watch her in the little box as they were messing with her tubing. She would often stop breathing when we picked her up and they would have to put her back in the box. This early trauma produces a very similar affect as we see many children adopted at an older age. Thankfully we were there from the beginning in order to counteract many of these challenges!

Finally able to hold her 

I was realizing last night (or early in the morning) that the Lord really has been watching out for us. With all of my travel, I really cannot think of a time where I was talking to my family and someone was throwing up in the middle of the night. When the kids have been sick, I miraculously have been there. When Naomi stuck the battery up her nose and had to go under general anesthesia here in Haiti, I was there. When she had a 104 temperature for a few days in a row, I was there. I was actually scheduled to go to a conference the next week.  I remember we were praying about me adding her to my ticket and getting her to a doctor in the states, but a few days before I left, she recovered.

Each step of the way, we have seen the Lord's hand in the details with our family. It's not been free of trial and struggle, but it has been clear that God is with us! Today is our oldest son's birthday. He is 23 years old. Boy, how time flies! Knowing Joseph, I will not write a whole post on him. He is very much like me (sometimes this is good and sometimes not so good). He's an introvert and doesn't care to be publicized. I will say he is an amazing artist. He is the one that stands out as different in our family. Can that even be possible? Joseph is an old soul. He's one of those kids that was born old. When Joseph was 14, he moved down the road to take care of my mother (grandma mei-mei). My father had passed away and my mother's cancer came back, which left her needing full time care. We moved back to Oregon and eventually moved into the house I grew up in. We were blessed to find a two bedroom house for grandma just a few houses down the road.

Joseph began early on to take the roll of caregiver to my mom. It was a family event, but Joseph took on the bulk of day to day care. We would make all her meals and I would bring her to all her appointments, but Joseph was the one to help her up, get her breakfast, make sure she took the correct medication, and help her to bed at night.

Being single teenage mom, my parents were very much a part of Joseph's life. My mom took care of Joseph while I was in college (which we ended up putting on hold three classes short of my bachelors degree because the Lord called me to be a full-time stay at home mom and called our family to adoption). Even over this past summer, my mom was telling people, "I used to take care of Joseph when he was a baby and now he takes care of me". This is very true. Joseph cares for grandma and also cares for his 19 year old sister Phuong who isn't able to live independently. I don't know many twenty something year olds that would do that. He's finishing up his final courses for his bachelor's degree and works within the art community in Portland.

As Naomi was sick last night, she also was talking about Jo-Jo. She was saying, "I love jo-jo. That was fun visiting jo-jo. When is he coming to see us?" He is a blessing to our family and an amazing big brother, even if he does get annoyed by this land of misfits that we live in (his description).

Joseph in Haiti. Yes, he's wearing a suit.
He brought chocolates for the kids from the Cook family! 

We realize looking back how quickly they grow up and it changes the way we respond to our younger children. We aren't focused on looking forward to the next step in their lives. We spend more time enjoying the moment they are in. If we could freeze Naomi at her age, I think we probably would, even though it's a challenging age. Be thankful for the moments in life even when they are filled with sleepless nights and cleaning up puke. Someday, you will look back and miss those days!

"Give thanks in all circumstances; 

for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus" 

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV