Love is Enough

Or is it?  I suspect that this could be a controversial topic.  In the adoption world, one thing you hear a lot of is "Love is not enough".  I've heard both sides of this conversation.  Many people say, "Love is enough....as long as you have Jesus' love to pour into them."  Others say, "Simply love is not enough.  There must be the actions to support that."  Personally, we fall into the 'others' category.  I believe that love is enough...but also that at times simply telling your child that you love them perhaps won't be enough.  Filling your child with the love of Jesus is enough, but if that child has never been loved by a human before, how do you get that love of Jesus to resonate in your child's heart? 

There are so many ways a parent goes about showing their children love.  More toys, fixing favorite foods, lots of hugs and kisses, prayers with and for them, lots of playdates, multiple times of doing whatever junior desires...  But to me, the most important way that a parent can love his child is by praying and learning to know the child.  Know when something is overwhelming and the child is about to break.  Know when to stay home to prevent over-stimulation.  Know if the child is showing too much affection toward strangers.  Know them.  Pray for the situation and seek help from a professional if needed. 

(Bear in mind that this is all simply my opinion.  Some children will do just fine when arriving home without seeking out professional help.  Some children won't.  We have had one of each so far.)

To tell you where I am coming from on this, let me take your minds back to 2008 when we brought home our first two children.  Our first night as a family of three (we only had custody of Addie at that point...had to wait 10 days to pick up Will) was great.  Addie went to bed well, and slept all night.  It was pure bliss.  The day had gone well, the night had gone well...we felt like we had the world by the tail.  The second night?  Well.  It was an entirely different story.  When it was time to go to bed, we found out that our little spitfire truly didn't like bedtime.  We laid her in bed after having our little family devotions, expecting her to drift off to sleepy-town soon.  We left the room, and the scream-fest started behind us.  Quickly, we found out why she had bruises and scabs all over the backs of her hands.  She bit herself...hard enough to make blood droplets.  It was terrible.  We picked her up, held her, she screamed.  And screamed.  For several hours.  We let her wander around the room rocking herself to and fro, while we sat in bewilderment.  This wasn't how parenthood was supposed to be.  We'd try to get close enough to pick her up to comfort her, and she would kick, scream, bite (us and herself), spit.  We sat and cried.  She wandered and cried harder.  Finally, she was tired enough that she started to allow us to get close without spitting at us.  She walked up to Jason and laid her head on his leg and promptly fell asleep.  Standing up.  Now what?  We picked her up and the screaming started again.  She started to calm down and we were finally able to decipher one word of all the ones she was screaming.  Milk (only it was in Russian).  Ah.  Milk.  She was able to get through to us that she wanted some milk....warmed up...and while drinking it she drifted off to sleepy-town.  I lay her down gently in her bed and she stayed asleep for the rest of the night.  Love, that night, simply wasn't enough.  We loved her. We loved her so much that we both had tears running and wondered if it truly was best for her to come home to live with us.  We ached with our love for her.  But all that love wasn't clicking in her.  She'd never been loved before.  She'd been let down by big people one too many times.  She had learned by the ripe old age of 3 1/2 that big people would not stick around.  She had learned that she had to take care of herself. 

For days after that night, she would have her scream-fests.  But after counsel from others, we didn't let her have them all alone while wandering around the room.  We held her.  She would pinch (hard enough to bruise us), spit in our faces (it was gross), scream til sweat was running (and then keep screaming for sometimes two straight hours).  Finally she would calm down and we would coo to her over and over how very much we loved her.  How thankful we were that she was our daughter.  We would pray with her.  We did all that we thought we could. 

She started to go whole days without the scream-fests.  She still bit herself whenever she was extremely upset...but that was it.  By October (3 months after we got home), she was a fairly normal little 3 1/2 year old girl.  Then the holiday season struck.  She had a major melt-down the day after Thanksgiving.  Too many people.  Over-stimulation (a phrase that we laughed at until we experienced it).  We knew that we had to get help or we would go crazy.  That very day, we contacted an attachment therapist.  (Addie had also been extremely affectionate with people that she had never met before.  She would hug and kiss folks that she didn't know from Adam.  She sat on any and every lap that would allow it.  It bothered us, but we thought we were being over-protective....)  The therapist told us about a program for young children that 'should take about six weeks to go through'.  It took us 12.  For twelve very long but worth while weeks, Addie slept in bed with Jason and I (Not recommended if you like to get sleep at night).  We started feeding her every meal.  We took her to the bathroom rather than allowing her to go herself.  She got bedtime bottles of warm milk (taking her back in time to the missed "baby stage").  She rode in the 'pouch' (Ergo) day in and day out....only getting out for "exercise time", restroom breaks, naps, meals, and bedtime.  (For the first several weeks she had day-long scream fests...complete with the biting (her favorite spot was my collarbone), pinching, and spitting.)  Then the scream fests slowly tapered off, and finally by week 10 she had calmed down completely.  She would actually interact with me while she was in the pouch.  She would sing all day.  She was a completely different little girl.  Her rocking herself to sleep at night stopped pretty much completely, as she knew that I was only six inches away from her all night long (I loved to feel her little hand slide through the covers to find my arm in the middle of the night).  Also, for that twelve weeks, we went nowhere except church.  Jason did, of course.  He had to go to work.  But we had no evening plans, no grocery trips (Jason or my mom went to the grocery for me), no nothing.  It was long.  It wasn't really what I would call fun.  I felt very similar to a hermit.  But it was, oh, so worth it.  At the end of the twelve weeks she knew that we loved her.  I believe she was beginning to understand what love really is.  She knew that when we went away to a place where there were other people that she could stay with us as long as it took until the overwhelming feeling left her.  She obviously was beginning to feel safe.  She lost a tid-bit of her independence and started asking us for help.  She started acting afraid of various things...wheras 'before pouch' she was scared of nothing.  I definitely wouldn't say that she was completely 'all better' at the end of the 12 weeks, but she was so much better it was astounding. 

Now?  Two years later?  She acts very much like a well adjusted little 5 1/2 year old.  Praise the Lord!!!!

Telling her we loved her simply wasn't enough for her.  She needed to learn to trust us.  She needed to learn that we would love her no matter what.  Spitting, pinching, kicking, biting....none of it was necessarily pleasant, but I think it was all a subconscious test.  How is this mommy who claims to love me going to respond if I spit at her?  It took work.  It took (takes) lots and lots of prayer.  It took love (as an action) to get her to the point that she could finally understand that Jesus loves her. 

So, I guess, in a sense, love is enough.  As long as the child knows and understands what love truly is, it will likely be enough.  I think the problem is (and remember that this is purely my opinion) that too many of us have romanticized views of adoption...or of parenthood in general.  Ideally, telling and showing a child that you love them should be enough.  Praying til you're blue in the face is enough.  But, sometimes, it takes more.  Sometimes the road is rough.  Sometimes, we have to do things that we said we would never do (like letting a child sleep in bed with my husband and I :).  Sometimes, the road that Jesus chose for us to tread looks nothing like we think and thought it should.  We didn't sign up for a child with attachment issues, but Jesus knew that we needed that.  Praise the Lord....He didn't think we needed two of them at the same time!!! 

Will was a child who fit the 'love is enough' statement to a 't'.  On the first couple days he was a little concerned about us.  But he learned to love snuggles (still does, sometimes...if he's not too busy).  He learned to love being loved.  And it took no extra work on our part.  God knew that we could only handle so much.

Who knows what Jack Nickolay will be like.  We have the Ergo ready and waiting.  In fact, he'll likely be hauled around in that from day one.  Poor guy.  We learned a lot the last time around, but I know that we still have so, so much to learn.  The older our children get, the more I realize that I have no clue what I am doing!!  We're not perfect parents.  We don't have near everything figured out.  Only through the love of Jesus.......