Of Eyeballs and Eye drops

Rob has glaucoma.  We are lucky in that it was diagnosed very early by our most excellent family eye doctor.  His glaucoma  specialist is equally excellent and thus far, Rob has no perceptible loss of vision.  In fact he tests out at better than 20/20.  But he has to have drops twice daily to lower the ocular pressure.  This prevents too much pressure from damaging the optic nerve.

Today was a pressure check.  I always worry about them.  I don't want his glaucoma to worsen and i don't fully know--no one does--whether his will just maintain nicely with eye drops or whether someday it will become something much harder to manage. 

I took the day off from work as KC had a dentist appointment in the morning (where his first cavity was found. . . sigh) and then was home to care for the littles while K went with Rob for the pressure check.

His meds were changed again as his pressure while it has not changed radically over the past year, has crept into the low 20's and stayed there.  My reading shows the teens are really where we want this so I am glad there was a med change.  Now we need to go back in late July to see if the numbers are better.  I sure hope they are.

A picture is worth a thousand words!

When we went to the big city to visit Fiona, we spent the last 30 minutes or so of the visit in the school's expressive art room. This was a really amazing room with musical instrument, small figures you could play with, and virtually every art medium imaginable.  Including paint.  Lissa adores painting right now. What kid doesn't?  (well, Chet always hated it, but I digress)  She wanted desparately to paint and with only about half an hour of fun available to us, that wasn't a real option.  She clutched a large oversized paint brush and briefly howled her frustration and disappointment.  I told her I knew how sad she was, explained that we could paint another day, and hugged her really tightly.  She can readily go from sad to full tantrum mode, but I have found that a really tight hug helps as opposed to the gentle cuddle that I usually give.

She got it back together and we all started working on our collaborative family tree.  About 15 minutes in to the project, Lissa started getting restive. I knew she was massively overtired so I suggested she take some pictures with the camera.  Usually she takes about 40 pictures of her shoes. She has a shoe fetish my wee Lissa.  But I discovered when I downloaded the pics to our computer that she had a different focus for most of her digital art . . . the picture of the paint containers above and about 15 others remarkably similar! I actually thought it was pretty cool that this action helped her through her sadness and she was able to joke about all the pictures of the paint bottles at supper a few nights later. Pretty cool!

Sharing Fiona's art

This is the painting that Fiona made for Rob for his birthday.  I love the way she did the sunset oer the mountains.

We visit Fiona

Today we took an earlier train into the Big City so that we would have more time to spend with Fiona.  We left our house at a bit before 9 and arrived in the Big City about 11. We got to her school really quickly so we basically had from 11:15 to 2:30 to spend with her.  The only train we can get to leave the Big City is either a 3:30 or a 5:30.  I so can't do a 5:30 train with 2 kids as young as KC and Lissa in tow.  They woke up at 5:30 this morning because they were so excited to go see Fi.

It was a really good visit.  We spent time playing basketball, she painted Lissa's fingernails for her and we had a most excellent lunch in their dining hall.  The other kids and staff had eaten earlier so we had the place to ourselves.  I could not believe all the vegetarian options the chef had left for us.  Grilled portobello mushrooms topped with sauteed spinach and roasted red and yellow pepper.  Big leafy green salads. Fruits galore.  Plus bagels and waffles which were more kid friendly.  It was divine. We frosted the mini cupcakes I brought to celebrate Rob's birthday and Fiona gave him an acrylic painting she had made for him.  It is really beautiful, mountains at a sunset. I'll try and take a picture to post up sometime.  We also spent time seeing her room again and meeting lots of the other students and a fair number of staff folks.  One of the things that Fiona showed me was a scrapbook I have never seen before.  In it, she has kept every single card and letter and picture I have ever sent her.  I can tell because I have a really good memory and the pictures that I made the cards out of made it easy to see the chronology. It touched me so deeply to see that.  I have always believed that you  often don't usually get to know when you do something that is really good for someone.  This was one of those times when I got the gift of seeing how that effort has helped and has been appreciated.  Since Fiona never wrote back more than 3 times and for many years we had no phone contact, it really blew me away.

We also spent time playing with a host of wonderful musical instruments and making a "family tree" (this was the kids collaborative idea).  We drew  a giant tree on paper and Fiona photocopied some of the pictures of all of us that she has saved.  Then we cut them out and glued them on the tree. We spent the last part of the visit coloring the tree and adding flowers and butterflies and garlands of flowers.  We didn't have time to finish all of it, but we finished enough that they all felt good about it.

Jane came in on her day off to help this visit happen.  I continue to be amazed at her generosity of time and spirit and her dedication to Fiona's healing.

It isn't easy!

Thorn at Mother Issues commented on my recent post, saying  how widening our familial circles isn't easy.  So, so true.  I have continued my email conversations with Rob's cousin.  She needs a blog name (and I hate doing this as I pathetically enough always have a hard time remembering what alias i decided on!)  OK let's name her Kendra.  I wrote Kendra a long email in response to her phone call.  In short, I said how happy I was that we were communicating with each other but there was a lot of other stuff too.  She wrote back an equally long email.  She was very open and painfully honest.  Some of the pain pre-dates me coming into the picture, but as she rightfully pointed out, we as the adoptive family bore the brunt of the first family's anger at a system that at best failed them and at worst perhaps misled them.  Some of the pain dealt with her prejudices against our family.  Our race, our same sex marriage and our lifestyle  were not something that are part of her world and she was not comfortable with us.  Also, the adoption agency had not let the family know any of those particulars so when we began visiting it was  a huge shock.  I never knew that they didn't know anything about us, since the agency we were working with pretty much mandated the visits in the early days.  I would have thought they would or should have done something to pave the way a bit.  Instead it was more like 2 white gay women showing up in the projects with their newly adopted little black son.  Yup, those were fun times!

Her email revealed that I hurt her long ago by allegedly refusing to have her take Rob to the barbers.  Truthfully I do not ever remember this conversation.  But the fact that I remember things very differently does not mitigate the fact that she at least perceived a rejection of help that was never, ever intended on my part. It just goes to show how much care we need to give our words. They are so powerful and can have such long lasting impact.

There are some rough patches to navigate.  There is a lot of family anger over the fact that they have been denied access to Fiona.  I am trying to step nimbly through those murky places.  I figure that is what clinicians and social workers are paid to deal with.  I know the fact that we continue to have relationship with Fiona though we could not finalize the adoption has to rankle.  I know too that I don't have the ability to help Kendra see that the inability of first family to be consistantly and reliably present for Fiona is detrimental.  Rob has enough grounding that I think it is less an issue.  Fiona does not.  But I fear that anything I might try to say by way of explanation (and this convo came up in the first place because I mentioned we were seeing Fiona again on Saturday to celebrate Rob's birthday with her) is likely going to sound like I am judging Kendra and her family.  I am not.  But I do want Fiona to continue to progress and know from past history that the on again off again thing leads to serious decompensation.

And yet, Kendra has grown so much though from the angry young women I first met when Rob was 5 She said that she can see we give him a good life and that he is happy and that is all she wants for all kids.  She ended her email with "i respect u now."  I respect her too and it is a good place to start.

Widening the circle

Adoption is always about loss.  I know I didn't get that back in my 20's when I started this journey for the first time.  I got it an an intellectual level but not at a gut level.  That comes with travelling the road.  And it comes differently with every adoption, every child, every family.

Last night Rob's cousin called.  Years ago when he was newly our son we tried to have a relationship with her. She had adopted Krystal, the bio sib that Rob was most closest to and we wanted to keep that connection.  It did not go well. That is pretty much an understatement.  Cousin was hostile and defensive and clearly exhibited anger at us. I think the fact that we were white and gay didn't help things either.We were way outside the comfort zone.  And we were not family.  And we had taken her cousin.  And thrown her other cousin in an RTC because we didn't want her.  Obviously these are not true statements but they were her perceptions and probably mirrored that of all the other first family members we have never met.  Talking didn't help.  My Pollyanna niceness didn't help.  There was a big fight.  Mostly K took the brunt of that as I was not there when it happened.  Cousin broke off contact.  I still sent regular letters and gifts for Krystal and kept reiterating that we would love to hear from  them.  Nada.  Eventually they moved and I had no forward and contact ended for a bunch of years.

Cousin began calling infrequently a couple years ago.  Because it isn't in me to hold a grudge, we had long talks when she called.  Time passed and we became facebook friends and she has spoken with Rob a few times. It has still been strained but different.  I could tell she was trying.  I could tell she was trying to accept that we were part of the reality of his life now.

Last night he was asleep when she called.  I don't waken him for phone calls.  He has sleep issues still and that doesn't go well.  I was apologetic and explained.  She was really nice about it.  In years past she would have said something about how he would want to be wakened if he knew it was family.  This time she said she knew it was late and explained her reason for why it was late.  I told her I would have Rob call her today and that the first thing I would tell him in the morning was about her call.

She said that she knew we were family and she wanted us all  to be part of each other's lives.  She acknowleged that the reason Rob and his siblings went into care due to a bad situation in their home. (previously it has only been looked at as an evil  unfounded removal) and that the reason they were not placed with family was because no one but her could pass a CORI.  As a young mom herself she could not take them all.  Her pain was palpable.

But the circle of our family and more importantly of Rob's family, widened last night.  I am grateful for her courage to call.

Birthday thoughts

Tomorrow Rob is 14.  Hard to believe really.  When we first met, he was younger than KC is now--but oh so much more worldly.  Chet was flabbergasted when Robbie asked him if K and I drank "40's" or had weed in the house.  Chet said weeds were in our garden and had no concept of what a "40" was.  Questions that won't come up for my two younger kids.

And tomorrow, he is 14. Now taller than me, with a deepening voice and feet that just don't stop growing! LOL   It used to be that the weeks leading up to his birthday were pretty tough.  Not tough like what i read on some other blogs, but tough for us.  Upticks in crazy lying, sleep pattern changes, less talking.  Nothing so severe we had to change things up like celebrating on a different day, just stuff to get through.  For Rob, I have actually found that ignoring most of it seems to cure it.  It is event specific behavior.  The event passes and the behavior does too.

I don't really know the why of the acting out.  I suspect some grief of course.  But I also think that at some level he feels unworthy of a focus just on him.  Or nervous about it.  He is my quietest child who prefers helping to starring.  If our family were a play he would be stage crew, not on stage.  But my personal strategy is to ignore that for this one time each year.  For this one day you ARE center stage in the best way possible.  And despite the fact that he rarely asks for a gift, we manage to find something cool and truly wanted (younger sibs are really great source of parent intel!).

At any rate, this year the weird birthday blues haven't been as intense.  They started later, and were so minimal that I am astounded by his progress.  He has been a bit quieter.  He has had some "forgetting" of some basic family rules.  But really, nothing huge.  No crazy lying at all, which is a really big achievement.

We have his party tomorrow.  All our birthday parties are family parties.  The one thing I did change was from having "kid" parties.  That was a layer of stress that didn't help him.  And it didn't help him feel closer to us.  But tomorrow while he unwraps gifts, he will be wrapped in our love.  And on Saturday when we train in to the Big City to see Fiona I will bring cupcakes so that we can fete him again with her present.