My Red Heart-thread

Anyone who has ever had to "sleep train" a child knows it's no easy task. I read once that it takes 12 months for a tiny, new human's biological clock to register awake-time and sleep-time. So imagine, if you will, a tiny human who has already had their clock set and wisking them away to a time zone exactly the opposite of the one they just mastered. Sleep becomes a luxury... That's my argument for buying the good, expensive eye cream.

It did (just) get better but S just didn't want to sleep in her crib. So right after she turned two, we decided on a toddler bed to see if that would help. It has,(Woo woo) and we now have a brand new routine at bed time that includes reading bedtime books. Let me preface this with saying that I started S's book collection about six years ago. I have always loved books and I have no shame in admitting that I wanted to my kid to as well. I had been looking forward to the day that I could cuddle up and read The Giving Tree, Goodnight Moon, and Oh,The Places You'll Go to my little one. Turns out she has no interest in anything but The Very Hungry Catapillar. I have, on occasion, managed to introduce some new books to S. Among them, The Red Thread, An Adoption Fairy Tale, by Grace Lin.

The Red Thread is based on an ancient Chinese belief that an invisible, unbreakable red thread connects all those who are destined to be together. A King and Queen have a perfectly magnificent kingdom, a fancy castle, and a pretty good social life, but something was missing. They finally figure out that they are tangled up in a never ending red thread that is pulling at their heart. So they follow the string to the source, all the way over the ocean, and find a little baby waiting for them at the other end of the strings. Cue the happily every after. This synapsis does the book no justice, as it's beautifuly written and I can't get through it without pausing to give S a big hug.

I never thought that we would adopt, and now I can't imagine a world where we didn't have S. Going through the process has opened up the amazing new world to me. Not just the beautiful and wonderful world of incorporating the Korean culture into our family, a world where I can say I have experienced that instant and insane and impossible love for a little human I just met, and a world where I have the priviledge of being S's Mom. Sure, it's exhausting. Yes, it's a hard job with never ending hours. And although I can't pay the bills with hugs and kisses and "I love you Mommy's," it is the best compensation I have ever received.

The process of going through S's adoption taught me a few things, among them learning to let go of the need to control everything. I will tell you that going through the IUI's and IVF trying to have a baby started this process. You do everything the Doctor tells you to do, you take all the pills and get all the shots (even though they literally make you a hormonal whackjob), and then you still have no say over the outcome. It's heartbreaking and infuriating. With the international adoption process you know the outcome (YAY!!) but you have no control over how fast you can get there. A little less heartbreaking, a lot more infuriating. No matter what, though, you keep chugging along because of that red string pulling at your heart.

We're coming up on the first year anniversary of our trip to Korea to bring S home. I've been reflecting on the journey we've been on, from start to finish. And the journey S has been on. I think about her birthmom and foster family and all of the amazing people who cared for her for the first year of her life. I know that they love her just as much as we do. I worry when I hear about anything bad going on in Korea and hope they're ok. My heart aches for them that they don't get to see her sweet signature smile, or hear her laugh every day like we do, or get hugs and kisses. The day we got S from the agency in Korea, we had to say goodbye to her foster family. They were people we had literally just met, yet I felt a very strong bond. Saying goodbye to her foster mom was so beyond emotional, I don't know how to describe it. There were no words, just a look, that only we understood. It's weird to think that you have this bond with virtual strangers all the way on the other side of the world. And then I remember the red thread.