Warning: Proceed with Caution - Adopting Out of Your Birth Order

When we entered into the world of foster care and adoption we established some basic rules.  Our number one rule – we don’t adopt or foster out of our birth order……..Simply put, we believed that a birth order was not to be messed with, it helps establish roles in a family and then there is no confusion for the children about their position in the family. 

It wasn’t long before our rule was challenged.  In October, God grew a 9 year old in our hearts, a young man 6 months older than our eldest child.  This posed a problem in our mind, it went against our rule.  Still, God placed it on our heart to view his profile, his pictures, to hear his story.  We did so with open hearts and the entire time we felt as if God was calling us to pursue adopting this child.  Oh the struggle we faced with going against rules we had established but that rule could not be held up by anything biblically so we had to make a decision; trust God and throw the rule out, or ignore the Spirit speaking to our hearts. Over the next month we prayed daily that if this was not God’s will that the doors close and that if it was His will that all hearts were prepared for the transition to follow.  The day before Thanksgiving a committee determined that of the families pursuing Brandon, we were the perfect match and selected us as his forever family.  It took 4 months before Brandon was able to permanently move in with us but in those 4 months we were able to Skype, have him every other weekend, prepare our family for the transition and pray about the changes to come.  The transition was going amazingly well, far better than we could have anticipated. The kids loved him, wanted him to move in immediately, and Brandon adjusted as if this was always his home.

                Four months of preparing, four months of discussing what changes were going to happen with our children and we felt confident that things were going to be pretty smooth, well relatively smooth at least. We made this decision as an entire family through prayer and petition.  It was apparent that our children were just as on board for this as we were.  We thought about how this birth order change was going to affect our oldest daughter and we came up with some plans to initiate in order to help her adjust.  Or so we thought at least. 

                In looking back I realize that we were in a sense looking through a telescope.  If you imagine yourself peering through a telescope into space you are able to clearly see a small picture of what space is.  That small picture is clear, but you have to span around in order to see any other parts of space. The big picture, the whole picture is unable to be seen while looking through that telescope.  Yet, peering from Earth without it, the whole picture isn’t clear, it is out of focus.  You can’t see in clarity until you are directly upon it, until you have entered space and are in the midst of it.  That was us. We were seeing only a small part of this change and the affects clearly. We had yet to be in the midst of the change. 

                It wasn’t until Brandon had been living in our home for a couple of weeks that we started to see things clearly.  Man did we feel like kicking ourselves when we realized we hadn’t fully realized and been proactive about the impact this change would have.  We knew Brandon and Elena would be in the same classroom – we thought that was a good thing for him, a blessing.  We knew they would be in the same Sunday school class – again we thought that would be a good thing for his transition.  What we couldn’t see is that this was not a blessing for Elena. After a day of holding her while she cried and witnessing the resentment she was starting to feel towards him we realized that we were finally in the midst of the whole picture and could see in clarity.  Elena wasn’t just in the same classes as Brandon, she suddenly was sharing her parents, her siblings, her home, her teachers, her friends, her gymnastics, her entire day had Brandon in it. The only thing she had to herself was her bedroom.  Everything else now included her new brother.  We didn’t think about her friends spending more time with him than her at recess, we didn’t think about the fact that they are only 6 months apart and therefore will always be in the same classes, sharing all the same people in their lives.  We couldn’t see that her typical routine of being the first one awake in the morning and enjoying her favorite television show would now not exist because Brandon wakes even earlier than her and turns on his show.  Our daughter was feeling squished out of her home, her life.  We had not prepared for this.  As much as we tried to see the whole picture, we have truly learned that until you are in the midst of it, nothing is clear.

                In Elena’s mind, this was her house first and truth be told, it was.  Now it is also Brandon’s house.  We have worked diligently to be mindful of how this change is affecting every part of her life.  She is not the eldest child anymore, but she is still the oldest daughter. We have given her the largest bedroom to honor that. As much as we are against televisions in the bedrooms, we placed one only in her room to allow her the ability to continue her morning routine in a manner that cannot be affected by Brandon.  We have kept her counselor separate from Brandon’s.  She and I have a special lunch date every Thursday that does not include any of her siblings. It has been our goal to stop looking through a telescope and to be more tentatively aware as we enter into the moments.  In doing so, we have seen some very wonderful and positive changes.  We know this is just the beginning and that unclear moments that we have not prepared for will arise.  Blessed is our family though that God has chosen each of us to be a Kittelson and He will see us through this entire journey.