My Best Teacher

When I first expressed my intention to adopt Darrel, the nurses repeatedly warned me, "He is a premature baby with complication at birth resulting in loss of oxygen supply to the brain. You are facing risks of severe brain damage, mental retardation, delay in speaking, walking or other developmental delays. None of those can be predicted at this stage. Are you sure you don't want another baby?"

To which I repeatedly and stubbornly answered "It won't matter, I'll love him anyway."

Today Darrel was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. He's been tiptoe walking for a while and I've read that the most common causes are autism or cerebral palsy (CP). Through my reading, I've noticed that CP's symptoms alarmingly resemble Darrel's condition. But I tried to calm myself and kept hoping it isn't true. But hearing a specialist declaring the diagnosis is like realizing your worst nightmare has come true, except it's ten times worse.

"OK, will he ever be able to walk?", I asked.
"Most likely yes, but not as a normal child would."
"On a scale of 1-100, how close will he be compared to a normal child?" - silly control freak me tried to seek solace in numbers, in statistics.
"85 - 95, depending on the severity and the location of the brain damage, ma'am."

Let me tell you, there is nothing as painful as hearing your child being declared damaged in any way whatsoever. No matter how kindly it is said.

That's when I lost it and bombarded the poor man with questions about possible treatments: Will he need braces, or casts, or physiotherapy, will surgery be necessary - if so, how would you weigh the risk of anesthesia compared to the benefit - what age do you think is most ideal to perform the surgery, will he need muscle relaxant treatment - I've read that not all of them are FDA approved... and so on. Basically, I blurted out every reading materials I've went through for weeks, while I'm sure those had been his reading materials for decades.

When the doctor finally able to stop my avalanche of questions, he reminded me not to get ahead of myself and imagine the worst. That further tests are necessary to determine the degree of severity and then and only then suitable treatments can be decided. So he sent me home with a recommendation letter to perform more tests.

Keeping my promise to love Darrel anyway is not hard at all. What's hard is imagining the number of tests and procedures he'd have to go through, the peer pressure when he's old enough to understand it, the possibility that he'd be dependent on walking aids, worrying who would take care of him when Hardi and I are no longer alive. Prognosis like "premature aging, deteriorated life quality around the age of 40 etc" haunted me during the long drive home.In my mind, I tried to control things that will happen 10, 20, even 40 years from now.

And then Darrel woke me up from my thoughts, "Mama... sun... sing!"
He saw the sun in the sky and asked me to sing one of his favorite songs, Mr. Sun. So I did and he sang with me, clapping his hands merrily throughout the song. Although 10 minutes ago he was still screaming on top of his lungs when the doctor examined him.

He reminded me about the seemingly endless capacity children have to be happy. About the fact that he is a survivor - he's been through two surgeries before he reached the age of 4 months. He's had IVs stuck to his head for months. He's survived another severe lung infection when he was 6 months old, even though at that point the doctor told me: at this stage, ma'am, all we can do is pray. He beats the odds, every single time. And here he is, happy as can be, as if nothing bad ever happened to him. And isn't that what matters, eventually?

And I remember this picture taken on his birthday not a week ago:


His happiness is what matters, that much I know now.
And whatever the result of our efforts may be, I'll make damn sure I'll give him enough reasons to have that smile on his face. With his cheerful nature and the endless natural joy he seems to carry and spread to everyone around him, I'll say we have a pretty good chance.

You know that old adage, the one that goes: Our children are our best teachers?
I, for once in my life, shut my mouth and don't argue.

Sometimes... it's not that simple

Not flesh of my flesh

Nor bone of my bone,

But still miraculously

My own.

Never forget

For a single minute:

You didn't grow under my heart

But in it.

a

A sweet, immensely sweet poetry. But I’m afraid it’s not that simple. Explaining adoption to your child is never a simple thing. I went through many, many articles about how to talk to your child about adoption. Those research brought me to other articles on other parties’ point of view, the birthmothers’, the adult adoptees’. And what I read send shivers down my spine.

I read through the experiences of birthmothers, their grieve, their loss and I left feeling I must be the most wicked person on earth for separating a child from his natural mother. Another voice reminded me: but it was her choice too, you didn’t force her to do that, you returned him when she asked you to, and then you laid out all the options she could’ve chosen from, you’d offer to take care of the medical costs, the future education and living cost if she wants to keep her child, you offerred to raise him together and she eventually decided to give him for adoption anyhow. Why should you feel wicked?

Because I saw the tears in her eyes, when she whispered good-bye and gave me Darrel’s legal papers.

Because when I offered to send her photos, she looked away and said ‘no, thank you ma’am, it would be too difficult’. And I can see the agony she was feeling.

Because I heard her whispered to him when she visited our home: ‘be a good boy, don’t make your mom worry’ and though she didn’t cry then I could tell it took all her strength not to. A strength I may never find in myself.

Because even as I laid out all the options to her, my heart still selfishly prayed fervently but oh please please please let him be mine.

Because even though I felt aghast when the nurses at the hospital told her that she should’ve let me raised Darrel instead of her because I would’ve been able to give him a better future, I only fell silent and didn’t contradict them. For this, I’ll forever be ashamed of myself.

That single statement left me wide awake at nights thinking: does it mean that only the haves can raise children, are we judged as bad or good parents based on our economical status? My husband didn’t came from a rich family, he’d spent part of his childhood in a semi-permanent house, but his family is one of the most stable, loving and happy family I’ve ever known.

Who are we, to be so arrogant to determine who is the better parent? And I’ve seen enough of rich, spoiled brats who are emotionally disturbed, I’ve read enough about rich children with tons of toys but no mom & dad to play with because they are too busy working, I’ve seen children who prefer their nanny over their mothers.

Where did we ever get the idea that a richer parent means a better parent? I’m a human being, with my own faults and flaws, and so is she. As simple and as complicated as that.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere, I’m afraid, for I haven’t found the answer yet. I kept second-guessing myself, did I do this in the best interest of my child, or to fulfill my own longing to have a child? That is a guestion I need to ask myself – point blank; that my heart needs to answer honestly and for that I need to look deep down into my soul. It’s never a black and white situation, there’s no such thing as black & white in this life.

What scares me more is when I read through the adult adoptees’ point of view and experts’ opinion about adoptees.

Research and testimonials I’ve read so far described some common issues faced by adoptees:

1. Feeling rejected and abandoned by their birth parents, accompanied by feeling grief and loss.
2. A damaged sense of self-esteem. There is a tendency to think “something must have been very wrong with me that my own parent gave me away”
3. Insecurity, lack of trust, dissociation.
4. Sense of guilt for wondering about his/her birthparents, they may feel ungrateful towards the adoptive parents even for thinking about this.

And that’s just to name some examples. Introducing the idea of the “chosen” child, as sweet as it may sound, brings another different set of problem. The child may feel pressure to live up to a certain standard, being the chosen child. He may feel that in order to be our child, he needs to fulfill certain qualities. While actually parents’ love is every child’s God given right, it should be and is unconditional.

I used to think that if we provide a loving and stable family environment, if we can keep a positive attitude towards the adoption concept, we’d be able to keep him from feeling all of the above. Unfortunately, according to those research, no. Though a loving environment will help him in overcoming those emotions eventually, most likely he would have to go through those emotions first. And it’s not going to be easy.

I watched my son sleeping last night and again fervently prayed that God will grant me the wisdom, the strength, love, patience and whatever it takes for me to help him go through what would unavoidably be a very difficult and emotional period ahead. If there’s a way to shield him from this pain, I’d go down that road, but unfortunately that’s not the way real life works.

Maybe it’s like what my husband says: Love him, expect nothing back. And pray for the best.

A Beautiful Life – A Tribute to Papatua Eddy

This album was made a while ago, actually, in memory of my uncle, Papatua Eddy, who passed away a few months ago. He was the “official” photographer of our family history. He captured the beautiful, funny, happy, crazy, sad and ugly moments of our big extended family.

Now, whenever I reach for my camera, I always think of him. We miss you, Papatua. But I’m sure you’re in a happier place. And I’ll bet when we finally meet you there, you’ll have albums of our pictures… taken without us even realizing it. Just like you always did.

PS: Forgive the pictures’ quality. They were taken with my old camera, just before it was broken. After I took these pictures, poof, it went to camera’s heaven.

What's out there?

In every parent's wish for their child, there's an unspoken prayer - 'don't make the same mistakes that I did, be much much more then I ever was'

Don't be afraid to make mistakes, baby. That was my biggest mistake and oh, how much I have missed because of that. But, sweetie, we live and learn, that's what matters.

My own little miracles

I find it a miracle that:

…..two people from different religions, race and family backgrounds
could fall in love as deeply as we do

…..we are given the strength to ride the storms of
family feuds, poverty and infertility
and to come out of it…
still holding hands

…..we are so fortunate to be blessed with
Life’s Greatest Gift
– our son Darrel

…..even now, you still take me as I am,
the good, the bad and the ugly parts of me.

Thank you, Lord,
for this miraculous life You’ve blessed me with,
and for this little thing called LOVE.

My world, my joy, my everything

I suck at stitching, so this stiched paper is a real blessing for me.
From the first time I saw it, I knew it would be the perfect paper for my favourite photo of Darrel (for now, that is).

This is quite an easy peasy one, I just cut out the butterfly pattern a bit to insert the chipboard branch. Added some painted chipboards for accents, painted the title: "My world" with acrylic paint and stamped on it here and there. Traced a chipboard birdie onto a patterned paper. Sticked them here & there, added trims and scrap papers aaand… we’re done! The paper’s already beautiful, there was really not much left for me to do.

A world of imagination

Trivial? You bet!

So un-noble of me? Hell, yeah!

But tell me, honestly, aren't you tempted?

If there's such a world, wouldn't you pack your bag on a moment's notice?

Taking chances....

………..is sooo not me. It’s true that I often jump and worry about the consequences later on, but that only happens when it involves matters of the heart, things I value significantly. For other things… I’m very conservative.

I’m a fraidy cat….. I’m scared of trying new things, I’m scared that people would think I’m different, I’m scared of making mistakes - VERY, I’m scared of taking chances because then I wouldn’t be able to control the end-result. Although if you really think about it – who could ever control that?

When I started planning to have a baby, I began to think: (pretty late, huh… - as my friend Dina would put it: where have you been, Laine? Errr, not sure – control freak land, I suppose). Do I want my baby to imitate that? To live a life so cautiously calculated that everything gets so predictable and boring and tense? To have him ended up in a job that he hate but had to do anyway for 8 freakin years – just because in college he took a major that was considered by most people as the safest route to stability? Hell, no! Those were my mistakes, and I hope they would remain mine not his.

I hate accounting, hate every last bit of it… and yet I managed to have a career up to senior manager level in a big 4 accounting firm. From society’s point of view – I’m pretty ok. From personal point of view – I’m pretty screwed up. Who would spend 8 years doing something she hate? That would be me – the fool that I am. All because I’m too afraid to try something different, to take the path less travelled.

A couple of years ago, I was given the opportunity to try something new at work – involving branding & graphic designs; which I knew squat about. Literally squat. Photoshop? Heard of it – had something to do with pictures, right? Cropping, masking, layer, InDesign, design principles, layout, grids, margin, bleed & slug…… errrrr, mmmm,excuse me… I felt like I was in a whole new country with a totally different language. Not to mention that I’m technologically illiterate (or gaptek – as we Indonesians normally put it). But I thought, what the hell… let’s just see if I can work this one out.

And guess what… I love it! The feeling of trying something totally new and discover that I can handle that – with many scratches and bruises, of course, but hey… I managed. And for once in my life, coming to work doesn’t feel like a heavy burden.

So, to remember that feeling I decided to make something, with mediums I’ve never tried before. Canvas and paint – I know squat about them, too. And here it is, my first scratch and bruise playing with something new:

I know, I know, you’d say: Laine, what the hell were you thinking? My answer is: None, I didn’t think. I just created. And yes, it’s hideous… I agree, but I love it – because of the story behind it. :)

Here’s to taking chances!

My Black & White World (was) - another Project 365 pages

I see things in black and white, right and wrong... that is until recently. Yeah, you guessed it right, until I had my baby. Not just having the baby part, but also our journey to have him as our son that reminds me that there are some things that you can't just categorize as black or white. I was also reminded that when things seems so dark and gloomy, God often has a beautiful plan for you. So these pages serve as double reminders for me about those things.

Another Project 365

I tend to complain... very...very much. And I also have this tendency of wanting everything to be perfect, as I've planned them to be. If things don't go my way, I'd freak out and act as if a major catastrophe has happened. I believe the correct term for this freaky behavior is obsessive compulsive, and that is something I need to work on really, really hard. So, I've made a couple of pages as reminders to myself to be a better person.

I played around with some liquid pearls from Ranger and just love the result.

Some more close up images of the person I need to be:

And most importantly:
When I first started scrapbooking, I measured everything. And by measuring I don't mean by inches or cms... I needed to make sure that every thing is cut correctly, up to each millimeters. I know freaky, right? Over time, I learn to be more relax about precision and what do you know it has impacted other aspects of my life. Of course not dramatically, but I see a little progress day by day. Let's hope... let's hope that I'll continue progressing.

The Most Meaningful Moment of My Day

I came across this article from real simple and somehow I found it inspiring, well at least something's worth to think about. It's definitely not the time I have to wake up in the morning. Naah, I'm definitely not a morning person, never have been and never will be.

But there's something I love about mornings, though - that is after I'm completely awake and begin to notice my surroundings. So... the most meaningful moment of my day is this:

I start my days with a short walk around the block with my son, Darrel. These trees in front of our house are home to tons of birds and butterflies that dart happily from one branch to another and they never cease to amaze us. And for the first time in many years, I really notice things. I notice my son's utter amazement in seeing these everyday beauties, I notice the shrill sound of birds chirping, I notice the beautiful pattern of butterflies' wings and the beautiful swift movement birds make when they fly, I notice how beautiful a flower is when it has just bloomed and all covered with dews, I notice how fresh the morning air feels. I notice.. period. All the things that has always been there for the taking, but I was just too busy to stop a while and look.

I've also made a page from this picture as part of my Project 365 and this is what I came up with:So what's the most meaningful moment of your day?

Project 365

Whaat? You’re sure you’re going to do this? – said a voice inside of my head when the idea first came to me. You work 9 – 5 everyday (which, is a blessing - I know. Believe me, I know, I’ve had my share of time when my working hours varied from 9 – 5pm to 9 – 2am; including weekends. With the latter being far more often that it can be considered a routine and the first an exception that justified for a celebration). You have a baby to take care of, a husband that also need your attention and a house to clean up. When will you ever find the time? You barely have time to sleep. Hah - you’ll never make it! – said the voice pessimistically.

“Hush! I’ll never know until I give it a try. So give it a rest, you helpless pessimist!” I scolded and the voice grew silent, chastened.

So that’s how I found myself starting to work on this project. The idea is to take at least a picture everyday & scrap it. Which means by the end of the year I should end up with a 365-pages album. OK, that might be too overwhelming, so I decided to take it down a notch – scratch that – a few notches.

I committed to scrap everyday. I won’t even push myself to finish one layout every night. I’ll just scrap as often as possible and hope that by the end of the year, the number of pages wouldn’t be too far from 365. And I won’t be limiting myself to pictures, at times when I don’t have good pictures or just haven’t got the time to print the good ones, I’ll look for quotes, thoughts….. anything that inspires me on that particular day. I might even use digi layouts from time to time.

And last but not least – I won’t even think of matching colors for the entire album. It’s 365 pages, ladies. If I insist on having matched colours and patterns from cover to cover – there’s only two possibilites:
1. The album will be in one color – and I can tell you from the get go that it will be chocolate – my favourite color. I know I should say brown, but chocolate is far more romantic, isn’t it?Ooh, I sound so much like Anne from the Green Gables.
2. Or…. I would find myself in a padded cell, holding strips of papers all around me and screaming “Oh no, they don’t match, they just don’t match!” Uh-uh, definitely not good for my soul! So let’s not do that.

And another note to self, I won’t push myself to create a masterpiece (yeah right, like any that I’ve done was ever even close to that… LOL). I will accept that just like my real life – which has good and bad days, my album is bound to have some ‘wow – pages’, ‘so-so pages’ and even ‘yucks – what the hell were you thinking?- pages’. Hopefully, the last one won’t be too many… LOL.

So now I’m crossing my fingers and… scrap scrap scrap. I’ll come back to post some of the pages I’ve finished.

The face I come home to

If a cute face like this is waiting at home, who could resist the urge to go home ASAP?
Have a nice day everyone, now I'm running off to meet my son's happy face.

2010 Resolution Page

I know, I know, it’s almost end of January already. But then again, it’s better late then never.
Without further ado, here goes:

Oh… how I miss traditional scrapbooking. And one day I just couldn’t resist myself from buying that beautiful Prima transparency. Since then, it’s been haunting me, screaming to be scrapped. This page is again, inspired by the very talented and creative woman, Ria Nirwana. You can see her 2010 resolution page here. Now, now, don’t even think of comparing hers to mine. She’s waaay out of my league.

In her blog, she described what her resolution means to her. I figured, what a nice way of thinking. So doing what a mediocre usually does, I imitated. To me, living inspired means:

Eversince I had a baby, I’ve been struck in awe to see how amazed my son is on everything around him. Not only lovely things like morning breeze, birds, cats or butterflies but also unexpected things such as the ceiling fan. Maybe it’s the breeze that brushes his face, maybe it’s the movement of the fan itself or maybe it’s the light from the lamps. Whatever it is, he’s mesmerized by it. His face would light up brighter than those lamps. He reminds me to pay attention on little things around me and try to see things through childlike eyes because beauty and loveliness might be just around the corner.

And to:

Because I want to remember the joy I experience every single day. And to be able to hold those memories when life storms struck unexpectedly, as they always do.

And to:

These days and everyday onwards.