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Raising Emily was so much different. The whole game changed. Even though one of our other children had RAD, until Emily came home, we never understood that with Reactive Attachment Disorder, punishment…
It has been said that love is the answer no matter the question. Right or wrong, I can tell you this: In our family, adopted children feel secure loving more, not less.…
Today, the Friday before Memorial Day, happens to be my daughter, Annie’s birthday. Though it may seem strange to you, I associate those two days. Annie left Russia to join our family…
Recently I was digitally reprimanded by someone hiding behind a fake name and profile picture. (Yawn.) The troll found it offensive that my adopted children had to live a life realizing that…
You-are-not-crazy. You weren’t crazy before you brought this child into your home. In fact, before you did that no one ever thought you were crazy. No one else caused you to question…
Oksana lived in half of this "Duplex" with her five children and three other adults. Of course there are days when I am ashamed of some of the people on my side…
Mothers Day Hard for Children My adopted daughters struggle with all of the conflicting feelings that come with a Mothers’ Day fraught with memories of a birth mother who brutally abused them,…
Some of my little friends from Far East, Russia Marina was seven and Jula was five, like my daughter-to-be. I don’t know how old Jenya, Maksím, André, Dasha, Ksenya and Natasha were,…
The first time I saw him, he was so frail. He was only a month old and his heart was so busy pumping blood through holes between its chambers that it was…
Because some of our children have Reactive Attachment Disorder measuring success is hard to do and that leaves us, as parents, frustrated. My wife sprang a leak. Water ran from both eyes, down…
My oldest daughter hadn’t been home from Russia for a month before we noticed her pointing pencils or other objects at us while contorting her eyes and face. Emily had come from…
Psychologists call them triggers. They could be events, objects, sensory stimulations or even words. When a person who has experienced severe trauma is confronted with anything that they have psychologically associated with…