“He told me Mom hit him.”
Those were the words our youngest son said to my husband.
Wait. What?
Where was this coming from?
We were in the middle of our two-week visitation, meeting the two children we would one day become parents to. This was supposed to be such a special time. And it was. But suddenly, I found myself trying to understand something I never imagined would happen.
Let me go back to the beginning.
We had traveled together as a family. My husband, our two children, and me. We had waited so long for this day to come, and now it was finally here.
We were excited, nervous, overwhelmed. So many emotions to process.
Would they like us? Would we connect? Would all four kids get along? How would we manage spending two weeks together in a country so different from our own?
There was so much going through my head.
We arrived late that first night, and all four of us went to bed knowing that our soon-to-be children, and our kids’ soon-to-be siblings, were right across the street.
It all seemed so surreal.
I had imagined this day for so long, and now we were finally here.
The next morning, we met them.
Both kids were full of joy, energy, and excitement. Almost immediately, all four children seemed to click. They started playing, laughing, and having fun together.
What a blessing that was to witness.
Our little girl seemed a bit more distant with me than her brother, but I completely understood. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must feel like to meet total strangers and be told, These people are going to be your family.
How confusing and overwhelming that must have been.
But our son was different.
He acted as though he had known us his entire life. Almost immediately, he started calling us Mom and Dad and referring to our children as his brother and sister.
I have to admit, I was a little surprised.
But I figured he was doing his best to fit in, to feel comfortable, and maybe to feel like he belonged.
Looking back, I wonder how much of that was genuine excitement and how much was a little boy trying to figure out what was expected of him.
At the time, I didn’t question it.
Things were going surprisingly well for the first few days.
And then I started setting some boundaries.
Nothing crazy. Just the normal things you do as a parent. I wanted us to spend time together, play games, and get to know one another.
One afternoon, T wanted to play on my phone. I told him we weren’t going to use the phone right then. Instead, we were going to play games together as a family.
He wasn’t happy about it.
But I didn’t think much of it.
Kids don’t always like being told no.
Later that day, he told our son that I had hit him.
I was shocked.
I was upset.
And honestly, I was scared.
What if he told someone else? What if someone believed him? Could something like this affect our adoption?
My mind immediately started spinning.
I couldn’t understand why he would say something so serious about me when it simply wasn’t true.
My husband and I tried talking with him about what had happened. There was a language barrier, although he already spoke some English, and we did the best we could to communicate.
Did he fully understand the seriousness of what he had said?
At the time, I truly didn’t know.
I knew he was upset with me because I had told him no. But I couldn’t understand why that would lead him to make up a story about me hurting him.
Looking back now, after everything we have walked through, I see that moment differently.
I believe he had already learned that certain behaviors could help him get what he wanted. Lying, manipulating situations, and saying whatever he thought might work were patterns that had likely developed long before we ever met him.
And that’s the heartbreaking part.
He was just a little boy.
A little boy who had already experienced more than most children should ever have to experience.
He had learned ways to survive in a world that hadn’t always been safe or predictable.
Those behaviors didn’t come out of nowhere.
And while I didn’t understand them then, I can look back now with a different perspective.
That doesn’t make what happened okay.
But it does help me understand that there was so much more going on beneath the surface than we could possibly have known.
People have asked us over the years, especially after everything that happened with our son, Were there signs? Did you see anything early on?
And I guess the answer is yes.
There were signs.
But we didn’t understand what those signs meant.
How could we?
We were meeting our son for the very first time. We were learning who he was, just as he was learning who we were.
We didn’t know his whole story. We didn’t know everything he had experienced or all the ways those experiences had shaped him.
And even if we had known?
It wouldn’t have changed our decision to love him.
It wouldn’t have stopped us from welcoming him into our family, our home, and our lives.
He was our son.
By the time those two weeks came to an end, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind.
He was ours.
Both of them were.
Leaving them behind and returning home without them was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
I can still remember that feeling.
We had finally met our children. We had spent two weeks loving them, laughing with them, and beginning to build a relationship.
And then we had to say goodbye.
I didn’t know what the future would hold.
I didn’t know how hard some of the years ahead would be.
I didn’t know that one day I would look back at moments like that afternoon with the phone and realize there were things happening that I simply didn’t understand.
But I knew one thing.
God had brought these two children into our lives for a reason.
We were going to be there for them.
We were going to love them.
And no matter what challenges came our way, I was committed to being their mother.
I didn’t know what the future held. I only knew he was my son.
And I was his mother.
