Four years ago (wow,) Dalton and I began our journey as parents when we made Elliot's adoption official and he became our son. We had no idea what we were doing with an almost-three-year-old. We had been married almost two years at that point and jumped into parenting a toddler very quickly. I've talked about this before, but Elliot was born at 26 weeks. The first three months of his life (from what we have gathered from translated paperwork) were spent in a hospital. He wasn't in the hospital with family members anxiously awaiting his time to come home either; he had no family caring for him. I can't even type those words without my eyes filling up with tears because it literally cuts me to my core. For three months, he fought for his life and the Lord watched over our little blessing who we didn't even know existed yet.
I'm not writing this to make you sob at your computer or feel bad for him; I'm writing this because I have learned so much about the first three months. You see, after his first three months, he was finally put into a foster home where he would spend some time in before being moved to a second foster home before meeting us. I cannot speak with certainty, but most likely for those first three months he was not held much, talked to, smiled at, or comforted regularly. His nurses and doctors probably did a wonderful job, but as their shifts ended each day, there was nobody comforting him like a baby should be.
Flash back to two years ago. Our son, Kipton, was born on January 7th of 2020. When I think about how different Elliot's first three months were compared to Kipton's, it breaks my heart. From the moment Kip woke up each day to the moment he was laid down in his crib, he was looked at, sung to, held, smiled at, and nurtured. We responded to his cues. If he was hungry, he was fed. If he was tired, we rocked him or held him until his eyes got heavy and he fell asleep. When we changed his diaper, we talked and sung to him and watched him smile. Even as a small infant, he knew he was loved.
When we adopted Elliot, we knew the journey would not be easy. We didn't go into it thinking it would be as simple as just taking a child under our care and making him apart of our family with all things going on our way. The only information we were really given was that he was born premature at 26 weeks, it was noted in his chart that his biological mother had mild mental retardation, and that she never came to visit him the 3 months that he was in the hospital as a newborn. Those are hard words to read and to swallow, I know. We knew it would be hard, but if I'm being honest with you, I didn't know it would be THIS HARD. We spent 7 weeks in Hungary and some of those days were excruciating for me as a new mother. Elliot didn't have much to do with me and would scream and cry if I tried to hold him or touch him in public. There were plenty of good days, but the hard days were rough. We talked with our social workers and just continued to pray that the connection would come. Thankfully today, we are way further from those days in Hungary, but the attachment issues still come around from time to time.
Once we were home, Elliot spent most of his days with me for the first 4 weeks until we transitioned him to a daycare for me to finish out the last few weeks of the school year. He was three years old, but developmentally, he was much more like a two year old. He was learning English like a champ, but had difficulty understanding and following requests. He would get very frustrated with things, more-so than his peers and he could not wait his turn for anything without getting upset. Many times we would just skip any type of function that involved any sort of waiting (stores, holiday events, etc.) because we knew that it would lead to some sort of tantrum. Thankfully he played well with his peers at daycare and his cousins, but we knew something was different about how he acted. He preferred (and still does) adult attention and interaction and is often seen sitting with the adults at a birthday party or kid function. Again, the attachment from birth that I talked about earlier comes into play here. He didn't have that interaction as a baby and therefore craves it now.
We made it through our first year of being home with him with a lot of lessons learned, a lot of tears shed, and a lot of questions asked. I don't know how many times I wrote in my journal, "is it going to be like this forever?" and to be honest with you, it felt like it every time. Around 3 and a half, the behaviors really started to amplify. We finally left the daycare he was attending when I changed jobs, and he was able to attend a daycare at the high school. He was there from August to October, and that's when we saw that his behavior was much more than just "being a boy" or "being a kid." We were always being called or sent messages because he was such a difficult child in the classroom. It was taking 2 or more teachers to handle him each day (and we're not necessarily talking about just screaming tantrums- his was more of a refusal to do things). It was hard. I cried so much. Being a teacher, I know the expectations of the students I have in my own classroom, and to know that your child is being the disruptive one causing other students to not learn, is heartbreaking. After a lot of meetings with the staff there (who were so patient with us) and our social workers, we decided to try something else.
In October of 2019, we requested that Elliot be given a comprehensive evaluation to see if he would qualify for Special Education services. If you had asked me eight years ago when I started teaching how I would feel about that, I probably would have cried and wanted to try anything else first, but as a mom, I knew that we needed to do what was best for our little boy. I don't look at services such as that being a "label," anymore and I'm so thankful that in today's times we are past that point now. He qualified for "other health impairments," which we expected because he has a lot of weakness on his right side (the doctors assume he had a stroke in utero). He was able to receive OT and PT through the school and we drafted his IEP within the next week of getting his ruling. Later that month, he moved to my school and was placed in Mrs. Alison's class.
Alison and her assistants worked tirelessly with Elliot. He loved going to school and he loved his peers. We still saw a lot of defiance and refusal to do things that were asked of him at school and at home, he threw the worst fits about anything. We just kept praying and starting each day fresh. We praised him on his good days and tried to figure out what things worked and what things didn't. Right before we had Kip, we were told that Elliot was going to move into Mrs. Karen's room because she had students who were more of his age, so the day after Christmas break (and the day that his brother was born), he moved to a new classroom down the hall. Mrs. Karen and her assistants worked with Elliot so well over the few months before COVID hit, but it seemed like nobody (including us) could really figure out what made Elliot "tick." He loved going to school but only wanted to do what he wanted to do. A reward would work for a few days and then it was worth nothing to him the next week. The tantrums at home got worse and we still avoided going places that we didn't have to go to. We were all at a loss.
During the months of March-July of 2020, Elliot, Kip and I were home together just the three of us most of the day. Those months were hard for everyone, but as a mom to a newborn and a mom to a five year old trying to stay in a routine, they were tough. Elliot THRIVES with a routine. We had charts on the fridge that had our schedule for the day from the moment he woke up until about 4:00. He had a choice board of things he could pick from. You name it, we had it. It made our lives work and brought a lot of peace into our home during those few months.
In August, he started Kindergarten in Mrs. Null's class and because of COVID, we had a distant learning day every Wednesday that year. The first two weeks of school were great (and we've learned that those two weeks seem to be his "honeymoon phase" before the real behaviors start). After those two weeks, they were experiencing the same things as in previous years. Now it was having more of a negative impact because he was interfering with his peers' education. On distant learning days, he stayed at the school with me and I always dreaded those days (I know that's awful to say, but they were SO hard). I was trying to do my job, help him with his packet of school work and manage his behavior all day long. You can ask my co-workers, I was not a fun person to be around on Wednesdays. All in all, Kindergarten was a hard year. We managed to make it through it and Elliot learned a lot, but we still knew that something different needed to happen for him to be more successful in the classroom.
The summer of 2021, we saw some improvement and maturity in him outside of school. Dalton and I would go somewhere and later say, "well that wasn't that bad" or "Elliot, you did a good job waiting in that line." Little things like that were a sign of hope for us. He started 1st grade in Mrs. Pierce's class this past school year and to be honest, we were nervous starting the year. Again, he had his "honeymoon phase" and then not long after, the behaviors started back. This time it involved refusing to do his work, defiance, disrupting the class instruction, and hitting. Every day he was coming home on red or orange and his teacher and I were talking every day after school. We changed things in his IEP, but knew that more had to be done. His teachers were doing everything possible to ensure that he was learning. They gave opportunities after opportunities, but nothing was working and it was exhausting to us all. We soon made an appointment with a clinic in Hattiesburg to have Elliot tested.
This is the part that is hard to write. No mom or parent or anyone wants to have their child "diagnosed" with something, but we also knew that we needed more help than we were able to give Elliot ourselves. We met with Dr. Kent at Connections (cannot say enough good things about that place) after Elliot's testing was complete, and he was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder). I have taught plenty of children with ADHD and two with ODD, so I knew what that looked like. It was hard as a parent and for me as a teacher to hear those words with my child's name attached, but the Lord continued to tell me, "it's going to be okay... this is not a label for him... it's going to help him." In early November, Elliot started some medication to help him with his impulses and attention. Within a week, Elliot's behavior calendar changed from reds and oranges to ALL GREENS. Yes, you read that correctly, all greens. His teachers could tell a difference and we could tell a difference at home too. His doctor met with us shortly after and was so proud of Elliot. He told us, "you know, this medication is not making him act right, but it's allowing him the opportunity to make the right decisions." I know that medication is not the cure-all, but if it is what enables our child to make the decisions to be successful, we will do whatever it takes.
The past month and a half, he has made leaps and bounds. Just before Christmas, he and I did some Christmas shopping together and he went into five stores with me and walked around without messing with everything, waited in long lines and never once complained. I would have NEVER done that with him six months ago. He's able to communicate with us better when he's frustrated, which is something that used to just result in a tantrum. He enjoys school more now because he's able to learn. It's made a world of a difference in his life and in ours. It's far from perfect, and he's nowhere near the "typical" child, but I've talked to so many adoptive moms and moms who have children with all sorts of needs and they all agree that there's no need for them to be the typical child. We just want Elliot to thrive being himself and be as successful as possible doing what he loves.
Don't get me wrong... it has been a HARD JOURNEY and we know that there will always be bumps along the road. Anyone who has taught him or worked with him in any capacity knows that. He has such a huge heart, and we are beyond thankful that we get to shepherd him as his mom and dad. We pray for his heart daily. We are so blessed that God saw fit for us to have him, Kip and their baby sister in our family and we pray that we would always seek Him for guidance and for strength. He's sustained us these last four years as parents and as a family, and we know that he will continue to do so as the years continue.
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