I’ve missed one, though, these last six years, though I think of her often. She’s young – but ageless. Speaks Russian – but soundless. Important – but formless. And not here – but omnipresent. She’s Julia’s “first mother,” the one who gave her life.

We know very little about her. She couldn’t be found before our May 10, 2006 court date. I wish we had a picture of her at least. Does she have Julia’s sparklingly dark, slightly-slanted eyes? Is she athletic? Is it she who gave Julia that unusual strands-of-gold-in-brunette hair? We will likely never know.

Our earliest picture of Guanna-to-be-Julia, which we snagged off the Russian data base of orphans.  She was about 18 months old. 

There’s no denying that first mother. I’m Julia’s mom, but I didn’t birth her. I didn’t count her fingers and toes, or coo at her, or stumble around at night heating bottles. I didn’t clap at her first step, or grin at her first word. Julia has my heart, but she doesn’t have my DNA.

We’ve talked about her first mother from time to time. Mostly I bring her up. I don’t want Julia afraid to ask about her, or think that she can’t love us both. I love all four of my daughters; loving two mothers is just as natural. I’ve answered her questions as best I can. I have lots of conjectures, but not many facts.

What I do know is that Julia’s first mother loved her enough to give birth to her. She was young with no one to help her, and likely very frightened. No one threw her a baby shower. No friends at church thought to loan her maternity clothes, or a car seat. No one sent flowers to the hospital, or brought over dinner, or offered to babysit so she could run to the store. No one congratulated her for giving birth to such a beautiful, beautiful baby.

So today I want to thank her for giving birth to such a beautiful, beautiful baby.

Happy Mother’s Day, First Mom.  Our girl is doing just fine.

Last week, an American mother returned her seven-year-old adopted son to Russian after seven months in her home.   She felt her life was endangered by his behavior, including his threats to burn down their home.  She had her mother put him on a non-stop flight to Moscow, where Russian officials promptly hustled him off to a hospital for a physical examination.

Julia’s first plane ride was part of a 27-hour coming home marathon.

The mother was wrong on sooooo many levels, not the least of which is that now Russian officials are – once again – looking at suspending all adoptions.    We were caught in a similar mess in 2004 – 2006, which is why our adoption  took 21 long months.  My heart breaks for the families in process who have a referral, or who are waiting on court dates to book that oh-so-important second trip.

The Russian adoption community is in a furor.  With blogs, forums, Facebook and other forms of social networking – even with relatively few of us – it’s easy to make contact with other families.  And they are steamed.

3,702 Russian adoptions in 2006, when Julia came home

I understand the furor.  In no way, shape or form do I condone what the mother did.  In fearing for her own life, she destroyed her son’s chance at a better one, and may have crushed the hopes of thousands of PAPs (prospective adoptive parents) as well as the abandoned children they sought to embrace.

I also understand what is too-seldom a topic of discussion:  Not all adoptions are going to be successful.  Successful means an attached child and in the case of an older child – attached parents.  To me, adopting older (past infant/toddler) children is like a marriage.  You have to go into it thinking “forever.”  They have to choose you as well as your choosing them.  And you don’t really get to date those kids before you’re married.  And like a marriage – there’s a honeymoon period.  And later – there’s just the marriage.  And what do you do when it’s not working?  Counseling?  Medication?  Structured behavioral modification? Go ask Mom for advice?  Spend more time away from home?  Or is it divorce – on, in adoption, disruption?

I don’t know what this mother or her son did and didn’t do.  The seven-year-old boy had been home only seven months.  That’s not long enough for attachment.    Was he really so badly damaged that it was not safe for her to parent him?  Maybe.  Or did she just quit trying too quickly?

But there’s another major player here – the agency.  I didn’t love our adoption agency – Buckner – every moment of our process.  In fact, Keith and my good friend Sharon can tell you about an afternoon in a Chicago conference room that I absolutely gnawed on them,  slammed down the phone and spent the evening crying.    But as I have told every PAP who has asked:  Buckner does a better job of preparing adoptive families than any other agency of which I’ve ever heard.  We had to read books, and prepare book reports.  We had to attend a two-day session in Dallas in which they basically tried to talk us out of it, telling us every horror story imaginable.   We had to pass a home study,  and after Julia was home, our social worker visited monthly for the required six months, then annually for three years.   When we needed help from Buckner after we got home, we could pick up a phone and get it.

So where was this woman’s agency – which is one of the powerhouse agencies, BTW?    Did no one from her agency discern any red flags when they met this child in Russia?   Was the mom not counseled that attachment would take longer than seven months?  Was she not visited by a social worker monthly?  Her last visit should have occurred in March, before she put her son on a plane in April.   What happened there? Was she not matched with other adoptive families – with mentors?    Was she not pushed at forums?  Was she not given books and articles to read?

If she wasn’t prepared – if she wasn’t equipped to deal with this troubled child – then yes,  I understand why she did what she did.   And her son would have been troubled.  Those kids are thrust into school not speaking the language.  They’re eating food they don’t like with people they don’t know.  They miss their orphanage mates – their family.   They miss all things familiar.   And somewhere under it all – they miss their birth parents, and they’re angry at being abandoned.  And they take that anger out on you the parent,  just like every bio child who is unhappy does, too.

Love is not enough to overcome all those circumstances.  It never, ever is.   And that is why your agency prepares you.

I’ve spoken to or emailed with parents who have awoken to their adoptive children standing over them with knives.  Children who have set fires.   Children who constantly lie, and try to break up marriages.  Children who have abused younger siblings.  Children who have stolen from home, school, church, stores, you name it.  Horrible things that generally escalate over time when a child suffers from Reactive Detachment Disorder.  Not one of those families was a Buckner family.

This child may have needed professional therapy.  If he was really threatening violence, he may well have needed 24 x 7 monitoring.  His adoptive mother was single.   How would she accomplish that plus work to pay for that therapy?

I know the adoptive community wants to vilify the mother.   And she was wrong.  Without a doubt, she was wrong.  A child is not a pair of shorts to be returned so casually.

You don’t need much preparation to decide you want shorts.  Shorts don’t threaten to burn down your house.  You don’t keep shorts forever.  You’re not paying an agency to help you find those shorts, and ensure they fit your family.

And in adoption – that fit is a very, very big deal.

Julia is sitting next to me right this minute, practicing the songs her choir plans to sing Palm Sunday.  This is her “I’m paying attention” face – because she is.  She takes her responsibilities seriously.

We met Julia four years ago today. She spoke - and sang - in Russian.   She didn’t know “family” and certainly not us personally.  She had no idea how long we had prepared, prayed, wept, saved, reorganized and planned to get her here, knowing God’s hand was it (but wanting human hands to move a whole lot faster.)  She had to leave everyone and everything she knew to leap into the unknown.   I believe her walking out of Children’s Home #47 with us was the single bravest act I’ve ever seen committed – anywhere at any time by anyone.

On Palm Sunday, she’ll led us in worship – in English.  And instead of her following us – we’ll follow her.

Just a moment ago, she began singing Chris Tomlin’s, “How Great Is Our God.”

How great is our God

Sing with me

How great is our God

And all will see

How great

How great

Is our God.

That’s right, Julia.

Get us ready for Easter.

Georgia Tann kidnapped or illegally procured more than 5,000 children in Tennessee in the 20′s, 30′s and 40′s to sell to wealthy(er) parents.  Not all babies either – some were young teenage girls, sold to single men.  Many were school-age children, snatched from their front yards with the justification of a court order secured by bribery.  Scores if not hundreds of infants died in her care, often sweltering in the summer heat of attics.

Horrifying stuff.  And yet – really historically interesting, because she also single-handledly created the first American market for adoption.  Fighting the prevailing national eugenics ferver which condemned children needing homes, she convinced couples to adopt – and thus line her own pockets with handsome fees.

I don’t agree with all of the author’s  conclusions about Georgia Tann’s legacy affecting adoptions today.  Though she herself is an adoptive parent, she refers to us “as the most pampered of the birth triad.”  Sorry.  The adoptive parents I know have been anything but pampered.  I also don’t agree that every single adoptee has the right to know his birth family.  In a perfect world, that would be true.  But if a girl has chosen life for her baby under the condition of anonymity, I think that anonymity has to be respected.   To me, that’s no different than honoring the Baby Moses laws.   This society created the “right to choose,” and that means the right to choose privacy, too – or watch for more girls to make more difficult choices.

The book’s recurring theme is the constant gnawing ache of these adoptees to know their histories, especially if they were taken at an age when they could remember a past life.  Their pain oozes from the pages as they describe frustrating, life-long quests to fill that familial void.

I couldn’t help but think of Julia, whom we adopted at age six.  She remembers Russia, of course – the good and the bad.  And I’ve made an effort to ask her questions about what she thought when she met us – what foods she liked to eat – who her friends were – what she liked to play – so that as she forgets, I can tell her those things as part of her adoption story.

The day we met in the office of the Director of Children’s Home #47 – isn’t she a cutie?!  Keith could easily lift all 37 lbs. of her with one arm.  He said, “I don’t remember this little.”  Rachel, Lois and Hannah were that size around age 2 1/2.

I’ve made an effort, too, to talk with her about her first mother.  We know little about her, but I do know she cared enough to give Julia life, and was in difficult circumstances herself.  Julia will never hear a harsh word from Keith or me about her.  Julia and often speak at bedtime about how we’ll all be together in heaven one day, and how I’m going to hug her first mother’s neck and tell her how proud I am to share a daughter with her.  I want to keep the lines of communication open on First Mother, because I don’t want my baby afraid to talk about her.  Ever.   I don’t want her afraid to “offend” me, or be swallowed by the black hole of loss, frantically “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

I think adopting an older child is a lot like getting married.  You choose them – but they also have to choose you.    There are two families coming together, not just one absorbing the other.  The honeymoon is way easier than the distance.   And while you don’t know what tomorrow brings, you know each of you had a past that will influence it.

An adoptee kidnapped by Georgia Tann said, “There’s a hole in me that can never be filled.”

That hurt me just to read it.

Pray that we families of adoptees do the things we need to do so we don’t have to live it.

With three teenage daughters, it takes a lot to startle me.  But that comment did.  After a moment of leaden silence, I swallowed and said, “Well, Jules – tell her where you’re from.”  Julia did.  And a three-way conversation about places-we’ve-lived-and-why-we-love-San-Antonio conversation ensued.

Julia has never before offered up “I’m adopted” in front of me.  Not that she couldn’t have.  But she hasn’t.

So why Monday night?  Was it because – just before we went outside – I’d explained who the family was in Houston (our pre-Julia existence) whose son had sent us a thank-you note for a graduation gift?   Was it because the neighbor is expecting their first baby in September – and looks it?   Was it because the neighbor’s husband plays pro basketball, and may play in Russia next year?

Or maybe – just maybe – was it because she’d spent the entire day with Keith – seeing her sisters off to church camp, watching TV, running errands, just basking in his undivided attention in what she described as “the best day of my life?”

Three years later – there is still no place she’d rather be than with Keith. Or possibly above him.

Keith and I figured there would come a point when people around us didn’t know Julia was adopted.    Everyone who “knew us when,” of course, would know.  And it’s not like it’s a secret.  But it’s also not a just-met-the-neighbors talking point.

I think she’s more and more confident of not only who she is, but also who  she was.  She occasionally tells me about life in Russia now – usually at bedtime, when we are whispering to each other, snug in the rocking chair.  She tells me what she misses.  She recalls snippets of life and caregivers even before Children’s Home #47.   I bring up a few subjects she doesn’t, because I don’t want her afraid to talk about them.

When you know who you are – and you know who you were – I guess it’s easier to acknowledge facts that meld the two.

Like you never lived in Houston.

And you’re adopted.

A tiny fraction of that paperwork is a lengthy written personal evaluation done in preparation for a social worker visit.  Keith is not keen on questions more personal than, “What’s your name?”   So imagine his delight when – in October, 2004 (Julia came home in May, 2006) - he and I each had to answer literally 18 pages of questions like, “Describe why you are not satisfied with yourself” and “What are your three main fears or concerns?” – all before our first social worker visit.

I had never before had any meaningful contact with a social worker.  I’d met a few social work majors in college – generally people whom (to me) seemed to be trying to compensate for majorly messed up home lives of their own by trying to fix everyone else’s.  But here I was in October, 2004, chasing dust bunnies and mentally preapring for whatever else I might be asked by whom I pictured to be an 80-year-old drone in bi-focals and corrective shoes, eager to peer under my couch cushions.

Instead – our agency (Buckner) sent us Jennifer, a super-friendly, well-organized social worker from Ft. Worth, who specializes in adoptions.  One of the first phrases out of her mouth, “I don’t care about your dust bunnies.  And I don’t even look under my own couch cushions.”   I knew I liked her right then.

Jennifer did the required pre-placement family visits before Julia arrived home in May, 2006, as well as the required post-placement visits (monthly for six months, then on the year marks.)  We actually looked forward to them.

Today was huge for us.  Today was our last required post-placement visit.  We’re coming up on the three-year mark of Julia’s adoption, and that’s the last post-placement visit required by the Russian government.  Jennifer flew in to ask a few more questions, check out the house, talk to all of us (individually and together) and share a pizza.

Everyone in the home has to be interviewed alone.  Rachel told me later, “Mom, I told her how you beat me every night.”

When we started in 2004, Jennifer was taller than Lois and Hannah.  Not so much now.

So as soon as Buckner files this last report, stick a fork in us, we’re officially “done” with what we owe the Russian government.

Of course, we’ll never be “done” with what we owe Buckner. And everyone who helped us bring Julia home, like Jennifer – with whom I want to be friends for a long, long time.

But in the meantime – it feels good to be “done.”

Monday, “Irina” – a mom and social worker in St. Petersburg – posted a general “I lurk here” kind of message.  Being polite, I was one of several who posted a “nice to meet you” return message.  My board signature always contains a link to this blog.

I thought no more of it.

Tuesday, I had a Private Message from Irina in my adoption.com inbox.  In a city with 10,000 children living in 100 orphanages, Irina had visited Children’s Home #47 and recognized Julia from the photos of this blog!   Here’s part of her private message:  “I came to them in 47 DD and saw Julia very small! I have its some photos – if want, I can send you them on an e-mail!”

If want….IF WANT???   I picked up my jaw and shared my real email address immediately.  Within hours, pictures popped in my email inbox.

Julia’s the cutie in the orange dress.  I’m guessing she’s age four or five here. The children are standing in a common area between the school/play room and the dorm. We dressed Julia right here before we took her hands and walked out of Children’s Home #47.  In retrospect, I marvel at the courage she displayed. I’ve lived six times as long and have never displayed half as much courage as she showed walking away from everyone and everything she knew.

I’m guessing she’s age four here, which is when she came to Children’s Home #47.  Can you hug a picture?  Can you fold a blanket around it and promise to love it until the day you die?  I long to do so.

Russian Orthodox baptism via kitchen pan at age five.  We knew a priest visited monthly.  Julia remembers our lighting candles in Moscow’s Kazan Cathedral.  I think the priest either brought candles to light, or she had visited a church at some point earlier, because she knew to drip wax on the base, then insert the candle.  (I sure didn’t know it!)

Keith and I are thrilled to have these bits of her past to share in the future.

The web surfer in me says, “Oh, what a wonderful coincidence – that Irina would make the leap from a user board posting to sending us these pictures.”

The business person in me says, “Wow.  Here proves the value of social networking.”

But the real me – the “me” that’s buried way down deep – knows it was what my friend Johnnie calls “a God wink.”

He loves the little children, you know.  All the children of the world.

Lois – 9th grade (now w/glasses); Rachel – 12th grade; Julia – 2nd grade; Hannah – 7th grade.  Julia wanted to wear her new blue school spirit shirt, but Rachel talked her out of it.  “Julia, only dorks wear school spirit shirts the first day.  Do you want the cool kids to turn you over into a trash can?”  She gets lots of guidance.

Rachel’s first day of kindergarten in 1996.  I cried.  She didn’t.

Lois got “a little lost” her first day in (the huge) high school.  Rachel started her after-school job and, “It’s work.”  (imagine that)  Julia is coincidentally sitting next to the daughter of Ukranian natives and “Mom, she speaks Russian.  Real Russian.”   Hannah started homework the minute she got home.

Rinse and repeat for the next nine months.

Keith and I have known lots of adopted people, including some of our dearest friends and family members.  But….they were all adopted as babies.  Infants.  Or – as we continually read the desires of potential adoptive parents on the user boards – “as young as possible.”

That is so, so different from adopting a six-year-old.

Rachel, Lois and Hannah never questioned my authority.  When I told them, “Pick up those Legos or I’m throwing them away,” they knew I possessed the authority to do what I said (and I pitched the Legos, too, BTW, the morning after I next stepped on one in the dark.)   When I shot a blistering look across a church pew or a restaurant table, they snapped-to or faced the certainty of punishment.  They might not have liked or agreed that they needed that punishment  – but my God-given authority to met it out was never challenged.

Neither did I have to prove my love.  Practically every breath of baby Rachel’s was documented, photographed and shared with half of Houston.  I laid on my left side in a hospital bed for 34 days to give Lois that critically-needed time to cook.  During her 37 days in the NICU, I rocked and sang to her for hours daily (Keith said she would know the entire Baptist hymnal before she went home.)  And Hannah – well, Hannah slept on my chest in my old recliner at least half of the nights of her first two years with her near-constant ear troubles.  She would wake and fuss; I would soothe her, medicate her, whatever and we’d both drift back into a too-light sleep.   Rachel, Lois and Hannah have always known that I loved them.  I pray they always will.

But what did Julia know?  She saw two big, funny-talking people coming from somewhere outside of St. Pete to take her away from every person and every thing  she knew.  She was told to call us “Mama” and “Papa,” which she did – but what did it really mean?   In retrospect, I think perhaps the bravest act I’ve witnessed in my life is her walking out of Children’s Home #47 wtih us. She really didn’t know what was ahead for her.  But she put on those Old Navy jeans and light-up tennies and out she strode.

I give major kudos to Buckner (our agency) for insisting we prepare ourselves to adopt a school-age child.  I have spoken and emailed with too many parents whose agencies did nothing to help them prepare.   They read nothing – no books, no magazines, nothing.  They spoke to no one who’d done it – they drew on no other family’s wisdom., or asked the magic question, “What do you wish you had done differently?” They didn’t join user boards – and I’ve said all along that we learned as much from the user boards as we did from Buckner. Their agencies didn’t push them to engage an international adoption doctor to evaluate the child.   Their agencies took a check – the couples took a child – Lord love them, now they’ve got that child.

When I talked to families that had done this, I got to where I could tell in the first two minutes if it was going to be a “yes, it was hard, but we’re so glad we have him/her” or “it’s been a disaster, it’s destroyed our family” story.   I heard plenty of both.  And based on what we heard from those families, and the books, and the magazines, and our social worker, and the user boards – we got as equipped as we could be.  Perfectly equipped?  No.  But equipped.  With the sites on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome bookmarked on our laptop with which we traveled, and with which we sent pictures and video to our chosen International Adoption doctor.  With a blanket we slept with for weeks to leave with Guanna-to-be-Julia on trip #1, so she would remember our smell (which is the most powerful sensual marker for children.)   With toys to measure her skills, and a notebook to trace her feet for the shoes we needed to bring.  With a list of questions to ask the orphanage director and orphanage doctor.

And – most useful – techniques to use to bring her closer to us.  Because we needed them.

Julia didn’t love us when she met us.  Neither did we love her, other than in a sense of agape love.  We loved the idea of her and were confident we could come to truly love her.  But our first two weeks (in Russia) were not easy.  In fact – she totally rejected me.  My authority and my love (fake it till you make it) were forcefully and flagrantly dismissed.  Keith was a man – both a novelty in orphanage life and an authority figure in Russian life.  She took to him right away, including pushing away other children who got too close to him.  But me?  She was used to dealing with women and – as she has shared in bits and pieces – she hadn’t always been treated well by them.

The day after court – May 11, 2006.  Notice she is totally leaning on Keith.  And away from you-know-who.

Julia wanted nothing to do with me.  It took a 90-minute, screaming, back-arching holding session in the hotel room one afternoon until she would relax against me.  (We knew of holding therapy from the books, and from other parents.)  I sang hymns the entire time, not because they meant anything to her, but because they kept me from getting mad.  At the end of that 90 minutes – when she lay spent in my arms, sweaty, red-faced, totally exhausted – our relationship began to improve.

Adoption is complete when the judge signs the papers.  Attachment, however, takes time.  The books say about two years for a school-age child.  Keith and I think her attachment really cemented last fall, when she was so sick, after about 16 months home.

I can’t speak to attaching to adopted infants, never having done that.  But I can speak to attachment with an older child.  To me, older child attachment is a lot like marriage.  There’s the ceremony.  And then comes reality.  Reality is that you’re in a relationship with another person, including all their strengths and struggles.  And both of you get to choose.  You can accept each other’s position in the family  – or not.  You can love each other – or not.  But both of you get to choose.  No one person has all the power.   You’re not Burger King.  You don’t get to have it your way.

When Julia leaps onto Keith for a tickle – when she asks Hannah to play a game, or Lois to watch a video, or Rachel to go swimming – and, yes, when she snuggles up against me and goes to sleep – she is choosing.

When I soak in her little face as she sleeps – I see those choices.  And I sleep better, too.

Oh how she loved “machinas” – cars.  And this train.  And the following week – the planes at the airport.  Anything with a motor that moved.  She used to sing a little song about machinas.

Yesterday, I asked her to bring me the keys to my “machina” and I got a ‘Huh?” in response.

Fast forward to today.  Her first-grade teacher (the sainted Ms. Jones) sent home her daily journal because her work was so good.

Translation:  “I would have made it to school, but I did not want to go to school.   Instead I went to my cousin’s house.  I went to my cousin’s house.  While I was walking I saw a fox.  The fox said, ‘Mmm?  The rabbit looked good to me.’  Then the fox took the rabbit.  He took the rabbit home.  He tied the rabbit on a rope.  The rabbit told the fox to go to a store and he did go there.  The rabbit got away.  He ran home and told his mom, ‘A fox almost ate me.  I am never going to miss school.’”

That’s an original story.  Her language skills – both oral and writing – are on par with other first graders, and her teacher is confident she’ll pass the tests required for second grade.  Is she academically where Rachel, Lois and Hananh were in first grade?  No.  But neither were Rachel, Lois and Hannah where she was physically and emotionally for their first six years.

Funny thing about education.  There’s what you learn in school – like how to spell “fox” in your journal.  And then there’s what you learn out of school – to run like a fox to show that journal to your daddy.

We are rapidly approaching our second annual Sister’s Day celebration – May 18, the day Julia came home. The last two years have certainly been an education for all six of us.  An education with not only what Julia has learned at school, but also what all of us have learned at home.   Julia wrote, “I am never going to mes school,” and I support that – because now she is not missing a family.