The Rogers

Written in March of 2006

I have a weird thing about Sophia and other toddler adoptions...I love the mark when they are finally HOME as long as they weren't home. For us, it was yesterday. We celebrated our 2nd anniversary of bringing Sophia home. She was, of course, just right at 2 years old when we brought her home, and we celebrated her birthday that day with such joy.

Today I’m feeling warm and happy about the toddler adoption experience, but I admit to being a bit afraid of it initially. I was one of those who said "as young as possible" for my first and second adoptions, but I eventually ventured way out of the comfort zone and allowed myself to actually WANT a toddler. I knew it would be a different experience...and it WAS. IT wasn’t harder or worse but rather full of such incredible nuances and unique joys that you can have in no other way but on this particular journey.

It was all muddled up by Haiti's insane blow up (there was a coup d’etat in 2004 just as we were finalizing her adoption), and we couldn't spend the time in country winning her over slowly and visiting her birthmom.

It was muddled up by my sickness, and I couldn't figure out what part of the stress was illness and what was the transition process.

It was muddled up by the arrival of a NEWBORN all of a sudden, and mommy had to be gone without prepping her new toddler in all the ways I normally would have.

It was muddled up by a year of survival, and parents who were in shock and honestly just putting one foot in front of the other most days trying to get along with humor and love the best we knew how.

I can hardly believe she survived my lack of ability to control the details of her first year home. *grin* Indeed, this strong little woman survived being orphaned in a fourth world country, so why did I doubt her abilities and our great God?

I have learned more from her than she'll ever learn from me. The journey to bonding was beautiful and hard and personal and intense and fun. When she first arrived, I consistently felt she would have been happy to go home with the strangers in Target. I knew she was waiting to see if this was forever. She needed time...and so did I.

This last week she and I were sitting in church (I always take her into the music part by herself because we bond through music big time), and a lady I know walked up and teased "Hey little girl, you are so cute...why don't you sit with ME today?" and she leaned into me and grinned "Oh no, this is my momma. I'm staying here." I teared up-I still do when I type it. She is right. We lean in to each other and make it through. She is mine, and finally I am hers.

In the first weeks home it was spring in Missouri, and we had storms as we always do. I listened intently that night to see if she would wake up and need me. She did wake up, but as I approached the door to her bedroom, the sounds I heard were not crying-she was singing. She sang her way through that entire storm while I sat outside her door and quietly sobbed. What resilience. She was fresh in a country she did not know, hearing language she did not know, with a White mom she did not know, in a room she did not know, and somehow her spirit sang. I can only hope for so much in my own life. She inspires me.

So today I celebrate the daughter I've been allowed to have as my own. She is here as long as she wasn't, and we both are entirely different people now than we were then.

{The Rogers kids 2005}

{2009}

{The Rogers Tribe}

~Meri