Journey to Jeremiah - Part 4 - Bonding and Attachment

Attachment, bonding, grieving, connection, trauma, RAD....these are the terms and conditions that I have analyzed (ok, overanalyzed), read countless books about, studied, prayed and cried over these past 11 months.  I thought about them when we adopted Patrick almost six years ago, but I thought adopting from birth was a guarantee that these issues would not affect your family.  It's not.

Adoption and trauma go hand in hand.  Always.  No matter what the circumstances behind an adoption - there is a tragedy involved.  What to us is a moment of long anticipated joy is to our children the culmination of a series of traumatic events leading them to a place they never wanted to go.  Whether it happened after only nine months in the womb and 9 days out of it, as it did for Patrick or whether it was three and half years worth of events leading up to "that" day - as it was for Jeremiah - there is still trauma and tragedy and heartache.  Yes, Patrick's "break" was easier on the surface.  His mind can not remember his birth mother.  But, his body can.  Her DNA is a part of him and it always will be.  There is connection in our cells and when that connection tragically breaks, there is long term pain involved.  Patrick is totally and completely attached to me - and to our family.  He is.  And yet, there are issues that arise from time to time that can only be explained by the trauma he endured in utero and the break that happened soon after.  Those things are irrelevant to our love for him or even to his day to day activities.  But, they are very relevant to the man he is growing into.  They are part of him and we can not deny them - it would only add another tragedy to his life if we attempted to.

Jeremiah's story is a little more complicated on the surface.  How their respective stories will affect the men they grow into remains to be seen.  Jeremiah does remember.  Not his birth parents - that break was made early, and his mind can not remember it.  Yet, it is still a combination of their DNA that makes up his physical body.  What he does remember are the caretakers he has had since he lost his birth parents.  We are eternally grateful that his caretakers have been kind, loving, and godly.  His life has been happy and settled.  He has been well cared for, fed, kissed and played with.  He is developmentally on track and at least in my experience, well advanced in many ways for a three year old.  The problem is that no matter how wonderful of an environment you live in, when you are an orphan, living in an orphanage - that is not a family.  It is a type of "familial" living and in his case, it was a very very good representation.  But, a representation is not the real thing.  And his nannies, though they loved him dearly, were not the same as a Mama.  It was their job to love him.  I love him because he is mine.

Bonding and attachment are intentional work.  They don't just happen.  I believe that love is a choice.  God led us to Jeremiah and we chose him 11 months ago.  We began at that point to choose to love him.  I understand, because I talk to hundreds of women about this, that adoption is not an easy choice for some people.  The thought of loving "someone else's child" is overwhelming to many women (and men too I suppose, I just talk mostly to women).  They want to want to - but, they think they just can't.  For me, this is the easy part.  It never crossed my mind that I would not love Patrick and Jeremiah as much as I love my biological children.  It just didn't.  Now, I knew that adopting an older child may be somewhat different in the beginning than adopting a newborn.  Patrick was handed to me weighing five pounds.  He really had not formed any distinguishable personality yet and he was a tiny, precious baby.  I wrapped him up in my sling and carried him around just like my first four children.  And I fell in love with him as he fell in love with me.

Jeremiah came to us with a personality intact.  A pretty strong one, I might add.  I was prepared that I may have to "fake it til I felt it" with him, as I have heard many people say.  I know that three is a hard age anyway and I was prepared that he may have habits and mannerisms that just got on my nerves.  Ya know?  Like when you babysit someone else's child and you love them and you are kind to them, because they are a child and you are an adult, and you just do.  But, they do things that just get on your nerves.  It's ok to admit, we have all felt it.

I can honestly say however, that I do love him.  He doesn't get on my nerves and he hasn't really displayed any habits (yet anyway) that are particularly annoying to me.  If you are reading and you did have a hard time with bonding, please don't feel defeated or "less than" or any of that.  Every person and every child and every situation is different.  I could adopt again and have a totally different experience - and so could you.

Attachment, I would define as the act of forming the true parent/child bond with your child.  When we talk about attachment in adoption circles, we all kind of mean whatever is the opposite of RAD.  It is a scary acronym to those of us who adopt older children.  I guess a child of any age could have RAD, but somehow we mostly equate it with the "older" ones.  Those who have already had their little wills shaped by someone else, someone who is not you.  We read books and blogs and we scare ourselves too death about the horrors of reactive attachment disorder.  And it is a real thing, and it happens.  A lot.  We want to do it right and be sure that nothing we do tips the scales the wrong way.  It is a lot of pressure.

Attachment is not something that happens automatically.  It takes real, intentional work.  You can not just jump back into your busy schedule with a newly adopted toddler or older child.  These children thrive on consistency.  Their entire world has been turned upside down.  They have no idea what or who they can count on anymore.

We arrived home two weeks ago, and today marks one month since our Gotcha Day.  So, it is still early to talk about complete bonding and attachment.  We are doing very very well, but there are still moments that it is painfully clear that we have a long way to go.

For our family, bonding has looked like spending a lot of time playing, singing, eating (so much eating).  Food is a really important tool for bonding.  What may look like bribery - and sometimes is - is also a huge factor for trust.  Jeremiah came to us very well fed and well taken care of.  That is not always the case.  However, even though he has never had to perform for his meals or wonder if he was going to get one - the fact is that he had no way to know if we could be trusted.  Food is a huge thing.  I know for me, one of my biggest concerns about our trip to China was food.  What if we can't find anything suitable to eat?  I brought a suitcase full of food - it was my security blanket in a way.  How much more so for a three year old being thrust into a situation that he did not choose and had no say in.  What if they don't feed me????  It has to be something that runs through their little minds.  So, we met him at the door with lollipops and crackers.  We allowed him to eat as much as he wanted when we would go to the restaurant for a meal.  We gave him snacks every time he asked.  We kept his cup of water full all the time and in plain sight.  Now that we have had him for a month, he has learned that we are going to feed him.  So, after he eats two bananas, then I can steer him in another direction when he asks for a third, knowing that he is not really hungry.  We still have a full water bottle near him all the time and we still offer snacks and meals more frequently than we will as time goes on.  But, I think we have cleared the food hurdle for the most part.  He does love to eat though, and has been so compliant about trying new foods.  We have learned that, in addition to his "staples" of seaweed sheets, noodles, and bananas - his "new" loves are olives, yogurt frozen into a popsicle, toast with butter, and dried peas.  Sometimes he eats these all at the same time, because you know - choices are HARD.

As we settle into our new normal, I am realizing what I already knew would be true.  This whole thing is about me.  What I mean by that is not what it sounds like.  Many would say (and do say to us daily) that Jeremiah is so "lucky" (I don't like that word and do not believe in luck) or they will say he is so "blessed" to have us.  In fact, it is the other way around completely - if I believed in luck, then there is no doubt that the "lucky" ones are us.  We GET to.  We need him a lot more than he needs us. Because you know what, God could have used anyone.  He could have picked someone far more qualified.  But, that's the thing about God.  He is just so - GOD.  He wants to draw us to a place that we never would have gone on our own.  A place where He must show up or we just couldn't make it.  Never make the common mistake of believing that God will never give you more than you can handle.  That is not Biblical and I promise you it is not true.  God absolutely will give you more than you can handle.  If He wouldn't, this chic would not be attempting to mother six children - I can assure you of that.  I am a complete and utter disaster.  There is absolutely nothing I feel truly good about in my life.  Most days I fall into bed feeling like a complete failure.  Overwhelmed with all the "little" things of life that add up to make a huge boulder in the path.  I never feel like enough in any area of my life.

But God.....He shows up in sticky kisses and giggles.  He is there when teenagers hold your hand.  He whispers I love you in the voice of a five year old who has been missing his Mom and just wants to snuggle.  He tells me over and over that though I never deserved this life, He gave it to me just because He can.  He delights to give us the desires of our heart - and a long time ago, I decided that the only true desire in my heart is to follow Him into the deepest places.  I stumble, I fall, I fail - I feel like I fail much more than I succeed.  Yet, somehow we keep moving in forward motion.  We keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Somehow, I have amazing adult children, teenagers who love me (and like me most of the time), and now two little boys who fight over who gets to snuggle with Mama.  Honestly, my life is nothing like I thought it would be at this point, but it is far more than I ever dreamed or imagined.

God is there - and that is really all that matters in the end.  I am so eternally grateful.

I will leave you with a few pictures from the past couple of weeks.  That smile -- oh my goodness, it melts my heart.  Watching him learn to accept our love is a beautiful picture of how God knits hearts together.  It seems like yesterday we were in that Gotcha room, but at the very same time, I don't know how we ever lived without this little guy.  Our family was definitely missing someone - and I am so thankful we found him!!

Journey to Jeremiah - Part 3 - We Gotcha Baby Boy!

The morning dawned early for all of us.  Too excited to sleep, we all went to breakfast.  Someone had suggested that we get together to pray before we left to get the babies.  We were to leave at 9:30 and the babies would arrive at the registration office sometime before 12:30, depending on when they left their orphanages.  About six or seven families (some missed the "memo" and did not realize we were getting together) met in the lobby for the prayer time.  We dragged our chairs into a tight circle and huddled together, heads bowed - not completely unaware of the fact that the huge bubble camera attached to the ceiling above us was watching and likely recording every word.  We started out sharing our thoughts, our fears, what was going through our minds here at the last hour.  Then we took turns praying.  Corporate prayer is such a powerful thing.  Obviously God hears and responds to every prayer we utter or even think, but where two or more are gathered the Spirit falls in a unique and powerful way.  We prayed for our children of course, for each other, the other children we brought with us, for adoption in general, for China - the country we had come to dearly love - for the nannies and foster mommies who had loved on our babies in the interim, for their birth Mamas.  We prayed for the tragic circumstances that our precious ones had faced to bring them to this point.  Our hearts were full to bursting with excitement, joy, anticipation - their hearts were about to break.  We felt the full weight of that knowledge in that moment and it was beautiful and it was messy, and it hurt.  God had given each of us the most amazing responsibility - the responsibility to raise another one of His children and point them back to Him.  None of us gathered in that room that morning took that lightly.

We left for the Registration office, where we were to meet the orphanage directors and nannies that would bring us our children.  Jeremiah's orphanage was about three hours away, so I did not expect that he would be there when we arrived.  Our large group all received our children together, but we were divided for bus rides, even when we were going to the same place.  This is a picture of us with the six other families that we were with the majority of the time.

It was Monday, February 15th in China, but in the US it was Sunday evening, the 14th.  Valentine's Day.  Clearly, the best one any of us had ever had.  What better day to receive the gift that represents the very heart of the gospel - the very definition of Love itself?  

We walked up those concrete stairs and through the front door, armed with bags of "distractions."  Hand held toys, cars, dolls, stacking blocks and lollipops.  Lots of lollipops.  It looked like any other government building and a dim hallway led to the "Gotcha" Room.  It was just a large room with a few chairs lining the edges.  The nannies or orphanage directors would bring the kids there to meet us.

As I knew it would, our Gotcha was not like anything I had imagined.  Mostly because I totally and completely jumped the gun and ran away with it.  We were coming down the hall en masse with our group, having been warned over and over by our guides that most likely none of the kids would be there yet and not to worry or be anxious.  They would all make it.  Because patience is not my virtue, I peeked through the crowd into the room and I looked down.  And there he was.  All I remember is yelling over my shoulder to Stan and the kids, "Jeremiah is already here!"  And I pushed through the crowd.  

I didn't mean to.  I didn't think about it.  But, I saw him and I just couldn't stop myself.  I squatted down right in front of him.  I don't recall seeing the orphanage director or anyone else for a few minutes.  

Then everyone else saw what was going on and pushed forward.  And they just jumped on him.  I keep imagining that he actually recognized us, thanks to all of "Aunt" Carol's hard work showing him pictures of us so often.  He didn't cry and after checking me out for just a couple of seconds, he broke into a huge grin.  His orphanage buddy, Louie, who also lived with Jeremiah at Shanghai Healing Home (more on that) was also there.  Everyone else in our group just jumped in there and started snapping pictures and making videos.  We had vowed to help each other capture as many moments as we could.  At that moment, I could not see anyone except Jeremiah and the rest of my family as they gathered around him.

It was surreal really, I don't know how else to put it.  It was a day that I had dreamed so much about, worked so hard for.  I had tried to prepare for it, but you never really can.  The emotions are completely overwhelming.  And being in a room filled with other people experiencing the same thing made every emotion intensified.  I used to be a very private person.  I like being alone.  When I was younger, I never wanted to talk to older women - I didn't want a mentor.  I didn't want to open up to anyone.   I just wanted to be inside my own head, to work it out alone.  As I have gotten older, I have found that you miss so much by not sharing life's personal moments and struggles with others.  We are all broken.  God sent me my first mentor about 12 years ago, and having her in my life has taught me that I need my sisters in Christ.  Stan needs his brothers.  We need people that we can share life's joys and heartaches with - God created us to live in community.

So, a community "delivery room" is about the best explanation I can think of for the Gotcha Day scenario when you have a large group like we did.  We would stare at our babies - still a bit in disbelief that the long anticipated day had come - hug them, and then carry them around the room to snap pictures and ooh and aah over our friend's babies.  For two hours we watched the children come in, we heard the cries and the laughter.  We took thousands of pictures and videos.  We laughed and cried with each other.  We took in the emotion of the reactions of others.  Some people laughed when they first saw their babies, some gave shy smiles and patiently waited for the children to make the first move, some barreled into it with no reservation (that was mostly the kids), some broke down in sobs, and some people literally fell to their knees - praising God and absolutely overcome.  It was a beautiful, glorious picture of heaven.  It was just a sliver of what that glorious day will look like.  When our faith culminates and all of our hopes become our reality.  Gotcha Day is just a little like that.  And I believe God was smiling.

By noon the last of the children had arrived.  We gathered our things and our new little ones and headed back to the buses.  Then began the work of bonding.  Grief is no joke.  And make no mistake, these kids are grieving.  But, they are tough and courageous.  They are made of the stuff of heroes.  Next post I will talk about the bonding process and how that has looked for our family.  It is so different for everyone and really nothing that can be predicted.  I do think that many people in the adoption world today are not prepared for the intensity of the grieving process and often give up too soon.  These precious souls have faced tragedies the likes of which most of us can not comprehend.  They are wounded.  But, they are oh so resilient.  So incredibly brave.  They fight for a fresh start and we have the holy opportunity to fight with and for them.  It is a privilege and an honor that we are so very grateful God has given to our family.  Thank you for reading and for being a part of our journey. Your prayers, your support, your love for our kids mean more than you can ever begin to know.

Journey to Jeremiah - Part 2

So, I am a worrier, a dreamer, and kind of a downer.

If you have read my blog long - or ever - you are thinking....duh.  NO way.

I dreamed up the absolute most fearful 12 hour flight to Beijing that you can imagine.  I mean, picture a Boeing 797 doing the stunts of the Blue Angels (and not on purpose).   You know, the one and only thing that is half way comforting about my ridiculous tendencies is that the reality is rarely as horrific as I dream it up to be.  The problem of course, is all the time I waste dreading something that I can't change.  I am pretty sure God speaks about that in Scripture many, many (many) times.

Anyway, as He always is, He was there.  "His faithfulness reaches to the heavens..." (and it certainly reaches up to 40,000 ft.)  If the flight was turbulent I don't recall.  Truly.  No fear.  And it actually went by way faster than I ever dared hope.

We landed in the Beijing Airport at 7:00 pm China time - the day AFTER we left Arizona.  Such a surreal thing - to "fly over" an entire day.  There was one other family from our travel group on our flight.  They also had three of their other children with them and our CCAI guide Jason was waiting for us at the baggage claim.

I want to pause to give a shout out to CCAI.  There are situations where your child's file can not be picked up by CCAI, and you can't use them.  But, you guys, if there is ANY way at all for you to use Chinese Children Adoption International - then you absolutely must.  I am sure there are other great agencies, but I can not imagine how anyone could be any better.  Their customer service is beyond compare.  Our guides did everything but tuck us in at night.  NO joke.  Maybe some people don't want to have their hands held, but for us rookie travelers - YES please.  Help me cross the street, I am so good with that.

Anyway, so Jason met us at the airport, with the bus (and driver - Master Su) and off to the hotel we went.  On the way, he gave us the schedule for the weekend's activities and lots of history of Beijing. Jason had a habit of repeating himself.  He said literally everything at least twice - and he hit the important things (like what time to be back on the bus the next day) three or four times in one sentence.  You could tell this was not Jason's first rodeo and he likely learned long ago that the Americans do not listen very well.

By the time we got into the room and settled, we were ready for bed.  Since we had eaten on the plane, we had some protein bars, took a melatonin (those things have literally saved my sanity these last few weeks), and off to sleep we went.  Considering our internal clocks were way off, we were up bright and early and off to breakfast in the hotel dining room where we met the rest of our travel group.  These families deserve their own post, so I won't go into much detail except to say that we met 13 other families during our time in China, and they are life long friends now.  No doubt, there are not that many people on the planet that I have shared moments as intimate as the ones we shared in that Gotcha room on the 15th.  We're getting there.....

After breakfast, we all went to the bus.  Jason showed up at breakfast in a BRIGHT yellow coat and a  large red flag with CCAI printed on it.  He was going to make sure that all of his charges were accounted for and safely delivered to the next city.  Bless him, he was awesome!!

The first day we toured Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City.  Then, we took individual rickshaw rides to a private residence, where the owners served a home made lunch to our entire group.  With 14 families, lots of us bringing other children, and two bringing grandparents - we had a grand total of 43 traveling together.

It was a wonderful day of seeing the capital city and some of the most famous landmarks in China.  Glimpsing the culture of our future children was important and eye opening.  On the surface, I learned that the Chinese people are very cold natured, they love tall blonde Americans and follow them around like the paparazzi, they have no personal space limitations and don't mind walking in a herd with their bodies literally pressed together and moving along like a tidal wave.

On a deeper level, I learned that everyone should be the minority at some point.  Experiencing a period of time when I could not understand anyone, didn't look like anyone, and most often found everyone staring at me was disturbing and yet very profound.  It opened my heart just a little more to the plight of my brothers and sisters of all races and the prejudices that still sadly exist in our country. A nation that was founded to give shelter and refuge to the masses - meant to be a melting pot, a land of opportunity.  Yet, we have not come nearly far enough in areas that really matter.

I learned that Jeremiah's people are strong, beautiful, smart, and they are survivors.  The Chinese birth mamas have encountered so many many obstacles in creating their families.  Poverty, pollution, a government that controls your life so rigidly that it tells you how many babies you can deliver.  A medical system that prevents poor families who want to keep their babies from being able to do so because of finances.  The courage and bravery of the mamas and babas who would actually leave their babies in a public market, knowing they would be found, hoping against hope that they would be adopted - would I actually have that kind of selfless love and steadfast courage?  Would I?  Or would I hold my baby tight against my chest and refuse to give him up until he drew his last breath?  I honestly don't know.  As selfish as it sounds - I don't know if I would have the courage to give them up that way.  Not ever really knowing what happened to them.  Oh, how I wish I could hug Jeremiah's first mommy.  How I wish I could somehow tell her that he is loved, happy, and ok.  That we will do for him medically what she could not.  Somehow I imagine myself being able to communicate with her.  On some deep, primal level that only two people who passionately love the same little soul can do.  I pray that she just knows.  That two weeks ago a peace flooded her tormented soul.

China was amazing in so many ways.  It was a place of almost mystic haze.  It is steeped in ancient superstitions.  Beijing was old meets new in many ways.  The ancient landmarks, the traditional pagodas and architecture, the Great Wall, the temples, the Buddhas - all that in stark contrast to the absolutely breathtaking skyscrapers, concrete, cell towers, and thirty million residents pressed together in a huge mass of humanity.

We toured the Great Wall on Saturday.  It was freezing, it was a brutal climb, especially dragging a five year old who was "soooo cold he was going to diiiie right here on THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!"  But, the view from the top (well, not quite the top, I couldn't drag Patrick that far) - but the view -- there are no words.  Over 4,000 miles of wall stretches across the northern part of the country.  Building the wall took the lives of an estimated 1,000,000 people - it is known as the "longest cemetery in the world."   It was absolutely breathtaking.

After we thawed out, we toured a jade factory, learned the history and significance of jade to the culture and had lunch at the restaurant on site.  It was a wonderful day, bonding even more with our group - dreaming about our babies who we would meet on Monday morning in a new city, and just soaking in the culture so that we will have so much to share with our kids when they are old enough to ask questions.

Jeremiah, we loved "your people."  We loved their soft smiles, their shy waves and quiet "hellos."  We love their jet black hair and beautiful almond shaped eyes.  We loved learning all that we could about the things that make China one of the most studied ancient cultures in all of history.  There is such an intensity there - we fell in love with the people.

Sunday morning we left early for the airport.  Again, our amazing guides made the in-country flight as painless as possible.  They gathered our luggage, collected our passports, drove us there, walked us in and received our boarding passes and hugged us good-bye at security.  We flew 2 hours south to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, where in the wee hours of the next morning, 15 children - orphans no more - would begin to make their way from all over the countryside to one central office building in the middle of a bustling city.  Fourteen Mamas and Daddies, three grandparents, and more "extra" children than I can remember would be waiting to smother them with hugs and kisses.  Lollipops in abundance - tears, smiles, emotions that literally drive you to your knees.

Coming up next.....Gotcha Day!!!!

Journey to Jeremiah - Part 1

How do I even begin to put into words the past two weeks?  The past year really.  What started out as a fuzzy picture of a little boy in a "stylish" jogging suit and a pretty thin medical file with some scary predictions - brought us to a place that I have always dreamed of going........

CHINA!!!!

And that little boy up there - well, here he is today!

This picture was taken less than one week after he was placed in our arms.  Those eyes, those outstretched arms.  The very heart of God wrapped up in the joyous smile of a child who now has a forever family.  A Mama and Baba of his very own - always and forever.  There is no greater joy on this earth.  And friends, there is NO medical file scary enough to not be worth seeing that smile directed at you.  Our God is bigger, He is greater - and He is in the business of moving mountains and making scary predictions doable - just because He is there.

So, let's back up.  The paper pregnancy started in early April when we received the file.  It was the only one we looked at.  Much the same as we had done with Patrick almost six years ago, we prayed simply that God would send us our child.  That we would not have to say no to a file.  We looked it over, prayed about it, sent it to a couple of doctors we know, and we said yes.  In a span of 24 hours.  We sent it to the doctors, not for "approval" or a yes or no, but for a "tell us what to do next" kind of thing.  We knew.  When the picture from the file came up on the computer screen for the first time, Patrick said, "There he is.  That's my baby brother."  Through tears, Stan replied, "Go get him."   

So, I went.  The paper process was excruciating.  I won't lie.  I have given birth four times, in every manner you can conceive of.  I have adopted domestically.  And there is not much that compares to the international process.  It is brutal.  The sheer amount of documents that must be notarized, certified, authenticated. The acronyms - LOI, PA, USCIS approval, TA..... What does all that mean, you ask?  It means that instead of hours over the toilet with morning sickness, it is hours in the car with your files of documents.  Going to the courthouse, going to the notary, going to the UPS store.  The guy at the UPS store we use literally hugged me one day and said "I hope you are almost done, you look really tired."  Bless him.  

It was hard.  But that smile.  I would start again today.  

So, finally - finally the TA arrived.  That means Travel Approval - and all the rest of it begins to fade.

"Book your flights," were the best words our agency uttered during the entire year!!!

So, we did.  Our Gotcha Day was exactly ten and a half months after that picture slowly rolled onto our computer screen and that little face became a part of our lives forever.  

Here we are!  February 10th, 2016 - leaving Seattle for the long flight to Beijing!!  Look out China - Patrick is coming!!!  

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our journey to Jeremiah!!