Whatever.

I'm so honored to be part of a group of writers who advocate for orphans and share real life as moms and dad's with adopted children who happen to have medical needs. I love to write for this site, and I love to read the words of these champion parents because so often there's familiarity in their words and commeaderie in our shared experience. This one though had my soul jumping up and down because the kindredness of the story fit so well with ours. Please take a moment to read it here.

It propelled my thoughts towards our "whatever it takes" for our party of five. It would be easy to see Facebook posts and instagrams and tweets or all of us at church and assume, "they just have it all together. Look at that walking harmonious bunch. That Grace is just a perfect little princess."
It would be easy to assume that - and it would be a mistake. 

Sure we are harmonious at times, we have times of great joy and harmony; and we have days when it almost seems like there's a string of crises to be averted. We have gown weary of "one fire at a time living", trust me. 

But, when we said "I will" to adoption 2.5 years ago, we also said "whatever it takes."

It took a move which was exhausting, leveled our entire summer, and yet was sprinkled with obvious acts of God's providence and purpose. 

It took significant financial risk - although when you trust God to provide, it's hardly a risk. He did provide over and above that which we asked for or even imagined (and my imagination is top notch).

It took a precarious trip to China for a brokenhearted little girl complete with TSA drama over her oxygen machines. 

It took allergic reactions, consulate closing delays, nebulizers, medicines, canceled tickets, hospital trips, open heart surgery, clinic visits, tests, procedures, multiple medications, constant adjusting and readjusting - to.this.very.day. 

Whatever it takes, doesn't stop once you land in the adoption country. It gets redefined. It doesn't stop when you return home - it gets redefined again, and again, and again.to.this.very.day.

11.5 months of sleeping next to Grace is what it took for her to feel secure enough to sleep alone. She is just now starting to not panic when she wakes up alone. 

This one year and some weeks later we still are redefining "whatever it takes". It means a lot more talking through and correcting sassy behavior rather than banishing her to her room and letting her cry it out alone. I would some days love to let her cry it out alone in her room to spare my very ears from torture. Being alone, however, doesn't help her fear of being alone.  It means a lot of repeating rules, saying "I'm sorry", and do-overs, and loss of privilages instead of spankings, because I can hardly turn around and spank her for slapping me and expect her to learn that hitting is wrong. It means not just anyone can do bedtime on some days because it's critical on some days that she sees us all at bedtime - and there's no way of knowing what days will be easy and what days will be difficult. That which is easy breezy on Monday might very well be filled with terror on Tuesday. It means that I have to say,  "Whatever." when I worry about how someone might judge how we parent her because people do stuff like that, except they don't know what it's like to parent *this* child. Whatever it takes today, might (hopefully) look very different a year from now. 

It certainly looks different than it did a year ago. That progress, those little victories, the moments when I see a change becoming permanent and mastery of a skill - those are among favorite things about parenting Grace. Those are the moments when I sigh in sweet relief that the tantrums, the terrors, the "let's try this and see if it works because I'm fresh out of ideas" moments are worth it.

It's worth it. All of it.