My Resources

In this journey it is so important to have resources.  Counselors, books, things that speak into your situation.  For me it felt dark and over whelming and I felt alone. 

The funny thing is that years before, prior to having any children I researched adoption.  I wanted to adopt.  I read story after story of people's adoption experiences and naively I sat back and said, "Oh I could do that."  I read of the horrible first year and thought, "Oh just a year, I can handle that." FYI there is no such thing as a magic number.  I got every agencies information packet and dreamed of adoption.  Usually my dream was of an open adoption with a baby boy.  Sometimes, I thought about older kids or sibling groups, as I'd hear those stories and my heart would ache for them.  After years of infertility and two miscarriages of trisomy 13 babies, I pulled back out the adoption packets, but the price stopped me. We were a young poor couple and reading through the criteria seemed daunting.  It felt like we would never be old enough, married long enough or have enough income to adopt. 

Then God did a miraculous thing and healed me from my Robertsonian Translocation of my 13th and 14th chromosomes.  I went on to have three miracle babies and miscarry one more.  Adoption was put on the back burner.  Then in January of 2016 my husband came to me and asked me to pray for his heart toward adoption.  We suddenly were old enough, married long enough and felt ready. Two months later we met our daughter and the journey began without any of the agencies I had read up on. All the things I thought I knew from all my reading and research were suddenly thrown out the window.  

I quickly saw that disciplining this child was way different from my bio kids.  I realized I didn't have the tools I needed to do this alone.  I began my reading and research all over again.  The books that really helped me to see things differently and gave me tools to reach my daughter were: The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis and Discipline that Connects with your Child's Heart by Jim and Lynne Jackson.  

I got to go to a parenting seminar put on by Jim and Lynne Jackson and I really feel like that was a turning point for me.  They didn't just tell stories of how you should do things but gave me tools and ways to think through my children's behaviors and my ultimate goals.  This wasn't just for adoptive parents but it addressed so many things that I was going through with my daughter.  

I found that I needed these books, and I needed Christ more than ever.  The resources came to me at just the right time.  Sometimes sent to me by caring family members or friends.   My goal is reach my children's hearts, to teach them love and safety and connection so that for the rest of their lives they can connect and love others, and ultimately connect to Christ.  While not all the books I'll show you are "Christian", they all help reach the goal of true connection.  The picture below contains my favorite books so far.  I now believe that anyone thinking about adopting, especially older kids, should read these first, so that they are not going in blind. Having these tools and resources may help avoid the feelings I felt—drowning in the unknowns of dealing with a child from trauma.