Rwanda to Russia

  It's only Thursday, in the midst of a very long week.  My E has thrown a curve ball the past 4 days.  His behaviors are mirroring the classic attachment disorder list as much as they ever did a year ago.  Lying, hurting others, being destructive and having a very flat affect about all of it.  By the end of each day, Ryan and I are wiped out physically and emotionally.  Probably what wears on us most is that we were sort of cruising this past month; E was having more good days than bad.  Tuesday evening, I said "I am so thankful for a job I love that I can go to tomorrow to get a break from this." (I only work part time, sharing patients with 6 other AMAZING babycatchers).

  So I show up to my clinic yesterday ready to face N.  N is an older teen, pregnant and approaching her due date.  Last week, N had kept me late because she had been telling the other midwives in my practice some crazy, over the top lies and I knew I would be seeing her next.  These were lies that were ridiculously obvious, like "I've never had an ultrasound," (we have reports from two ultrasounds to pull out of her chart), "My parents are dead...I don't live with my parents, but they are in Omaha." "I am placing baby in adoption but I have never talked to a social worker(social worker is outside the door of the exam room).  I geared up to face this lying, confused kid that I was the last of our group to see.  As I walked in the room, there sat a tiny, hunched over girl.  I introduced myself, hugged her and told her that all the midwives in our group know her well, we care for her and we keep track of her AND her baby.  Than I asked her to tell me her story.  She said, "I was adopted from an orphanage in Russia when I was 13, but I haven't talked to my adoptive parents in over a year."

  I felt a knot in my stomach and my heart melted.  We finished our visit, I left the room, sat down at my desk and sobbed.  Attachment disorder.  Of course, the lying over obvious truths, the avoidance, the disinterested body language and flat affect.  We decided that it was best for me to be the only CNM to see her until she delivered because I know "the language" of orphans.  

  I am sharing this because God is using my little boy in so many bigger ways than I can imagine.  I am broken, again, at the behaviors he uses to protect himself from our love.  But I am also motivated that E is giving me the tools to love this girl well in the place she is right now.  If Etienne hadn't given me a year of ugly RAD behaviors, I probably wouldn't have been able to recognize, like the rest of the staff, that our lying teen was struggling with RAD because she doesn't know what it means to be wanted, loved, cherished.  Beauty out of ashes.