And now, back to T

T's tiny fingers - tight, motionless. I figure this is a safe photo to share because there are no immediately identifying features, and it's important to me that you get to see a little bit of this tiny girl. It's important that you see her because she is really there. B is going to come home, and maybe be a little tentative at first, but she's going to find her way rather quickly. Those of you who know Krassimir know that although he is very delayed (how many of you who know him in person ever think of him as the 12-year-old boy he actually is?) he still has his way of finding his place. He will shake hands with people in church, or, vain little man that he is ;), run his fingers through his hair if he hears someone talking about how good he looks. If he's down on the floor playing, he will head right for whatever it is he wants, if he wants something he's not getting, he'll find a way to let you know he's upset, even if he can't tell you what it is.

T is silent. It would be very easy to never look at her, never think of her, never notice that she even exists. She spends most of her time sleeping silently, and when she does wake up she does no really move, doesn't make a sound - we heard her cry out once while she was being moved. Her whole little body is stiff, and stiff in what looks like an uncomfortable position - her head is tipped slightly back, her arms cross slightly across her chest, her legs are bent and pulled back, her feet are taut, and pulled up toward her knees. And there she lies. It's unclear when she does open her eyes if she is able to look at us or not, but unclear as it is, there seemed to be a number of times when she was looking at us, if we were in her field of view. Many sounds do not disturb her at all, but she does appear to be able to hear. At one point Gloria made a sudden squeak, and there was a perfect startle reflex from T. Gloria's shriek, unlike something like a door slamming, is something that would be heard not felt, so we're choosing to believe she does hear, which is in alignment with the medical information we've been given.

On at least two of our four visits with her I found myself pushing back trepidation as we walked down the path and up the steps to the door of her orphanage. What are we getting into?? Both times, all of those fears fled as she was wheeled into our room. She is so frail, so helpless, so unable to respond and react to her world, and yet...so very real and so very alive.

I wrote about this earlier this week in an email to my parents, but the week before we flew to Bulgaria, I just "happened" to be reading something written by a doctor who was referencing some of Sigmund Freud's work. In his estimation, the mind can be understood as three distinct parts - the id, the ego, and the superego. The ego is what we equate with reason, and the superego with morality, while the id is the more primal part of our brain which, from an evolutionary standpoint, is the remains of our "animal" ancestry. The id is mostly, or completely unconscious to the "higher" parts of our brain, but is still responsible for many parts of why we are the way we are. Where this intersects with T is in relation to a case study of a young man whose cerebral cortex (the location of the higher reasoning parts of the brain) was completely destroyed in an accident, leaving him only with the functioning of the brain stem keeping his body alive...and the basic nature of the id. Although most of his time was spent in pain and anger - all the negative primal emotions that Freud discusses, there were times when his mother would visit him and stroke his head that he would be calm and almost serene. The conclusion was that although the most primary part of our brains are mostly a swirling mass of what we would consider negative emotions (which sounds to me like the Psalms, "Surely I was sinful even from the time my mother conceived me"!), there is, in the very basic core of what keeps us alive, also a part of the human mind that has the capacity to receive love. This also aligns very well with what I understand about humanity, as creatures that are not the product of an evolutionary process, but a unique creation by God and in the image of God.

If that capacity to love and be loved is part of the most basic part of our brain that keeps us alive, that means to me that even T, as damaged as her little brain was at her birth, and from years of neglect after her birth, still has the core human capacity to understand what it is to be loved. I can not think it was an accident that those ideas were brought freshly to my attention a matter of days before we met little T.

Someone asked me if there were any things about T that would be a deciding factor about whether or not we would bring her home. My underlying thought has always been that if she will know the difference of the love of a family, we will take her. It's hard to tell from outward expressions what she knows or is able to know. But I DO know that the first day we were there was apparently very stressful to her, as evidenced by the frequent seizures she was experiencing, and that the following visits were not. Both Matt and I would like to take our chances that she noticed something familiar about our subsequent visits that made them less stressful for her, meaning that somehow, somewhere, she is aware of what's going on around her. I also know from my experience with Krassi and Reuben, that people with limited abilities often have receptive abilities that far outweigh their expressive abilities; I have no reason to believe it's any different with T. We may not be able to *see* her responses to us in any obvious way, but that doesn't mean she isn't responding internally.


Life at home with T is going to be both challenging and yet very simple. As our translator laughed one night, B's going to be a whole lot tougher to parent than T is! T is going to need regular, consistent care every single day for the rest of her life, diaper changes, bathing, tube feedings 6 times per day, three hours apart, therapies, etc. But I promise you she's never going to talk back to us or try to run away! We will find her a nice, cozy place to spend her days, talking with her during the moments when she wakes up (which I'm hoping will become more frequent and longer lasting!), and just simply being aware of her when she sleeps. Our biggest question right now is how well she will tolerate being moved and going out. Right now, those sorts of transitions are very difficult for her. Will they always be that way? Maybe. We will likely, if that is the case, need the regular help of a caregiver to stay with her at home while we're at church on Sunday mornings, for example. But we're also hopeful that with proper equipment we may be able to take her out on simple outings like that. And although those outings may not make much of a difference to her, we believe it's important that she be seen - that she be no longer hidden away because of her disability, but that others would know that she is a valuable part of our family.