We wanted to write to let you know a
few things we feel you need to know about Little Miss at this stage of us being
home. We want to shed a little light on what this transition period of coming
home with “B” has and continues to look like for our family – and how you will
be a part of that! Things are going well and we know a lot of you have had various
questions and probably are curious about many things. We are always more than
happy to talk about our process or answer questions, so feel free to reach out.
We want to educate people who are interested in adoption in any way that we
can.
There are two important areas we want
to highlight to everyone...
Her Health
&
Her Attachment
Because
of B’s medical needs, we are being careful right now with her exposure to a lot
of the things still going around right now, since it is still the end of flu
season. Obviously we can't shelter her nor have we, but in essence, she has had no exposure to and does not have built up immunities to any
of our U.S. “bugs” that are being passed around like crazy right now and as we
all know, it’s been a rough winter and continues to be for all of these bugs
and viruses. Because she will continue
to see doctors and specialists in the upcoming days, we do need to continue to aim
to keep her as healthy as possible for any other testing and
any possible future treatment(s) she may have in the weeks/months ahead; otherwise, these important
things can be delayed. We just want those who are close to us or will have close
contact with her to understand why we’d like to be as careful in this area as
possible. This is why we’ve stayed at home the larger portion of the time since
bringing her home. That said, we just ask everyone to please exercise caution
in this area, especially if you have been or are sick to try to refrain from
touching her little face and hands, etc. [trust us- we think her little face
and hands are cute and oh-so-irresistible and just begging for touching, too! :)] This will
hopefully aid us in continuing to
keep her well for any upcoming appointments she will have. We know this may sound over the top to some,
but we hope that you will understand where we are coming from and that we
aren’t trying to be “crazy paranoid parents”… we promise we are very laid back-
there are just a lot of things still unknown right now until we get further
along with continued medical appointments.
The second area that is equally
important is the area of bonding and attachment to us as her parents. This is one of the number one issues/concerns families can suddenly find themselves facing in adoption. Because we know you care for Brielle and our family, we want to
share with you some information that we hope will best equip everyone around
her to assist us in laying the strongest and healthiest foundation we can for her –
emotionally, physically and spiritually.
In many ways, Brielle will be like a
child who entered a family through birth; we will parent in many ways just as
other Christian families as we aim to bring our children up in the instruction
of the Lord. However, there will be a few, initial differences. For several
years now, we have researched and studied bonding and attachment in children,
especially those coming home through adoption from an orphanage setting. We are
confident of this: God’s design is PERFECT! His plan for parents and children
is a beautiful and meaningful picture of His love for us. Because our daughter is new to us being her mom and dad, it is
important for us to have some important boundaries for the first few months. If
you’re someone who we will see regularly at home, church, our just out and
about, please take the time to read these notes on attachment and why this
plays a crucial role in our daughter’s well-being long-term. These come from
well-known Christian international adoption specialists and medical
professionals with years of adoption experience and research.
Attachment between a parent and child
occurs over time when a baby has a physical or emotional need, communicates
that need, and a primary caretaker meets the need and soothes the child. This
repeats between a parent and child over and over to create trust within the
child for that parent - the baby is hungry or needs changing, cries in
distress, mom feeds/changes/calms the baby – which teaches him/her that this
person is safe and can be trusted. This also aids in very important early brain development. By
God’s very design, an emotional foundation through attachment is laid in the
tiniest of babies, which will affect their learning, conscience, growth and
future relationships. The security provided by parents will ultimately give
children a trust for and empathy towards others.
Children who come home through
adoption (especially orphanage settings or difficult foster home settings) have
experienced interruptions in this typical attachment process. The loss of a
biological mother and father at an early age can be a major trauma in their
little lives. For our daughter, she has experienced the loss of everything
familiar- the sights, smells, food, people, and language of her birth country
to name a few as well as comforting caretakers. These losses can easily overwhelm a child and may manifest
themselves in various ways day to day. Everything around her continues to be
new and she will need to learn not just about a new environment, but also about
love and family. Though we could see by visiting her orphanage that she was
loved, she still did not experience God’s perfect design for a family while living in
an orphanage setting. In many ways, her world has been recently turned upside
down. She may struggle with feeling safe and secure at times and may develop
new fears in her new environment and may lack the ability at times to trust
that we will meet her needs or protect her from these new fears.
With God’s help, we can now, as her
forever family, work together to rebuild attachment and help her heal. The best
way for us to form a solid parent/child bond is to be the primary ones to hold,
cuddle, instruct, comfort and feed her in these early stages of her being home
and learning to identify us as her parents and primary caregivers. As this
repeats between us, she will be able to learn that we are safe to trust and to
love deeply and will always be there to meet her needs. We are, essentially,
recreating the newborn/parent connection. Once she begins to establish this
important bond over time with us, she will then be able to branch out to other
healthy relationships.
Children from orphanage settings are
prone to reach out and attach too easily to anyone and everyone – which hinders
the important, primary relationship with parents. Children who have had various caregivers may appear very
friendly and may eagerly go to anyone at times to have their physical or
emotional needs met as that is what they’ve learned in their early days of life
as a mode of survival. A child
struggling to learn to attach may exhibit indiscriminate affection with people
outside of their parents. It may appear harmless and as if they are “very
friendly” but this is actually quite dangerous for the child. Please understand
that we want nothing more than to have our daughter hugged, cuddled and
cherished by those closest to us, but until she has a firm understanding of
family and primary attachments, we would be so grateful if you direct her to us
if you see that she is seeking out food or comfort.
Please know that these decisions are
thoughtfully made choices based on years of research from both trusted medical
and international adoption professionals and advice from adoption
professionals. We will be doing what we believe is best to help her heal from
the early interruptions she had in attachment. We hope that you will understand and trust that we are doing
this to give our little one an ideal environment to become a secure, well
adjusted, and confident little girl in our family.
Though we continue to see amazing
signs every day that she is attaching well, we can’t give an exact timeline on
what this will look like or at what point we’ll say that she is “fully attached”
to us. This takes time and every child is different. We hope and pray that this
transition will continue to be smooth, but given the huge amount of new sights,
people, and experiences day in and day out, we will continue to watch her
progress carefully and how she interacts with both others as well as us.
Why are we telling you all of this?
Because you will actually play an incredible and vital role in helping our
little girl to settle into her new home, heal, and lay a foundation for the
future. It will help us immensely if adults who are around our daughter limit
what is typically considered normal, physical contact with a young child who
you are around frequently. This will (for a while) include things like everyone
holding her or excessive hugging and kissing. Waving, blowing kisses, high
fives (which she loves to give), or a pat on the back are perfectly appropriate
and more than welcomed. She should
know that the people with whom she interacts are our trusted friends and family.
We are so grateful to have a community
of friends that will help our daughter feel loved, safe, and secure. We couldn’t
ask for any better family and circle of friends for her. Thank you so much for
your love and support throughout this entire adoption process. She is doing so well and God continues to grant us so many answers to prayers that have been prayed for so long.
** some portions adapted from Show Hope resources
