After a two year process with Kia of nutritional grounding, doctor upon doctor visit, test upon test, one almost tolerable year of a special needs preschool, and an unsuccessful one-month stint this fall with another preschool, we are starting to find the path that, for now, will be a good one to start a new and hopefully, exciting journey with Kia.
Kia has always been a little mystery to everyone around her. Everyone always agreed she is strikingly beautiful, a motherly little girl, and one who has an incredible memory of places and people. But we all knew she was struggling with something and we couldn't quite place what it was. That is always so difficult with adopted children because they have so much more at work in their little lives: so much loss, trauma from early life, and often delays due to needs not being met in their early days. And often, people wave a hand over the delays adopted kids have and say, "Now that she is in a loving home, she will be fine."
FINE
That is such a crazy word, isn't it? I mean, are any of us really FINE?
But I think we all get so wrapped up in our adopted kids being FINE that we forget they might have real things they are dealing with that we must work on discovering and helping as soon as we can. It is easy to dismiss these things, but after nearly two years, we couldn't dismiss things any longer. Our little girl was still struggling even after interventions and every attempt we had made nutritionally, emotionally, and educationally, and she needed more than we could give her on our own. It was just a matter of finding the RIGHT help.
And we believe we are now on the right track. Kia was recently diagnosed with PDD-NOS (on the autism spectrum), and she will be attending a wonderful autism classroom in the city. After visiting the classroom and having meetings with the team working with her, I couldn't feel more RIGHT about this. There will be a maximum of 7 children in her class with FOUR adults working with them intensively. The children there are amazing and so sweet! Kia fit in with the class perfectly, and the team working with her is so excited to have her join the group.
After leaving my first visit with her new (at the time potential) classroom, I was dealing with such a mixture of emotions. I was so thrilled for Kia that she would have an environment that would be sensitive to her emotional needs while providing her a chance to be successful with learning and socializing. I also felt sadness because my little girl wouldn't be with me for a large part of the day five days a week. And then the sense of failure wrapped its ugly hands around my neck. I had failed my Kia. I was an educator of ten years, but I couldn't help her learn or help her with skills she so needed. What was wrong with me? I struggled with that feeling of failure for days.
The next week, we met with her team to finalize Kia's goals and discuss her evaluation more in depth. After two and a half hours, Tim and I came away from that meeting with even more of a sense of excitement for Kia for these folks really knew what they were doing and they were so happy to have Kia with them (unlike the sense of fear we got from other places). Yet, I also found a sense of freedom from that failure feeling I had. I realized that although I had an education degree, these amazing people had special degrees and experience specific to helping children with intense special needs like Kia had. This was their specialty. And it was ok that it wasn't mine. It truly does take a village to raise a child, and I needed to accept that fact and let other members of the village help me with Kia.
I think that is a lesson so many of us moms need. As we prepare for motherhood, we dream of what our children will be like, what they will become, and we, without realizing it, set expectations for ourselves as mothers. We will be patient, all-knowing, calm and will have clean homes, perfectly behaved children who grow up to be doctors or professional athletes, will cook Martha Stewart dinners every night, and will do nothing but skip through the fields laughing and giggling with our children. OK, that last one may be just mine! But no matter our background, education, or experience, nothing can truly prepare us for our children who are coming to us through the womb or through our hearts. And believe it or not, we ALONE cannot meet the needs of our children. They need love from many and needs met by others than just us in the community. I am not a medical doctor, so I need a medical doctor to help with their medical needs. I am not an expert with childhood milestones, so their therapy team helped me learn about that. We all need space from each other once in awhile, so we need help with childcare. So it makes sense that since I cannot know everything about helping my little girl with autism, that we would find a great team of psychologists, social workers, teachers, and aids willing to help her. And yes, even those mommas who have it all together on Facebook and Pinterest need help raising their children. It doesn't make them less of a mother for allowing others to help. It makes them better moms for realizing their kids need more than they can give, and they are willing to seek out those resources for them.
Our family keeps marching forward in this incredible post-adoption journey. Thanks for your ongoing prayers and for all those in the community helping us raise our children!
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