Attachment: Challenges

August 2011

Attachment: What adoptive parents read lots and lots of books about.

The term attachment describes the connections that keep a family bound together. Attachment is the net, the glue, the bond.  For most biological families, new babies begin to form this bond with their moms and dads from birth (and some say, before birth).  New parents hold and kiss and watch and listen to and admire their infants for hours at time. New babies get lots of time smelling and tasting and hearing their parents. Their first sight is of their parents' faces.  All that time holding a newborn, playing with an infant, cuddling a baby, and chasing a toddler is the foundation of what keeps families together.

So for adoptive families, there is often quite a bit of catch up to be done.  Most adoptive families don't start at birth, even in newborn domestic adoption.  All international adoption is done when children are older, often toddlers or school-aged children.  Most children adopted from another country have experienced a major loss, some kind of trauma and some period of living in an institution. All those are major factors is how the attachment process will go. For some families, it is really rough going.  It can take years for children to feel safe and whole in their new families. This is why adoptive families read lots of books about attachment (or was it just me?)

Our family attachment process has had its challenges, but for the most part the kids are doing really well. (Which saint do I thank for this?)

By far the biggest challenge was simply that we adopted two children at once. My sister, God bless her, has twins.  Once she left me in the room alone with them, and they both started crying.  It was the longest hour five minutes of my life.  Who do I pick up first? Who will calm down first? Can I hold them both at the same time safely? OHMYGOD please just stop crying!

There have been only a handful of times when Daniel and Lily both needed me desperately at the same time.  Those few times have been the most heartbreaking and terrifying of the past year.  I can't hold them both at once; I can't meet their desperate needs right now.  Who will calm down first? Who needs to eat something first? Who can I safely hold while I talk calmly to the other? Those were tough moments. Lucky for me, my kids tend to tag team their tantrums.

Two children at once was a great blessing for our family (no more adoption paperwork! hooray!)  However, having two children to bond with made our attachment process a bit... jumpy.  Three steps forward, 2 steps back.  Daniel, who came home at age 5, heading off to Kindergarten just weeks after we came home. So bonding with Lily went on the back burner while I made sure Daniel was secure enough to spend all day at school.  Rounds of sleep issues put Lily on the front burner, then trying to explain holidays and birthdays made Daniel the focus of our bonding.

The best decision we made was for me to take a maternity leave (unpaid- ouch!) I stayed home with Lily for 3 months.  It was great for our family, and for Lily and I to become closer. The fact that I missed the first few months of school made going back to work really challenging.  And we are still digging our way out of the financial hole we fell into without my salary. But, it was the best thing for our family and our attachment process.

The other thing we did to promote our family attachment was to prioritize our family time.  We spend our weekends together- at the park, visiting family or friends, having fun. We try not to drag the kids around running errands or over schedule ourselves. We make sure that the weekend is simply the four of us, together.  We keep to the same schedule as the week. We don't stay up late or skip naps or have meals at odd times.

Routine=structure=predictable=safe=attachment.

Evenings are the same. At this point we are nearly religious about our evening routines.  Even Lily can recite it now: home, bath, dinner, TV, books, bed. When Daniel was first home and learning English we would go over our daily routine each morning. It became a litany for him; it helped him ground himself in our family life. Dinner, bath, books, bed.  Wake up, school, park, dinner, bath, books, bed. 

Are our kids completely and perfectly attached to us? No. That takes years. In "family time" they are both just over one.  We've been family less than 1/2 of Lily's life, and only slightly longer than they lived in an orphanage.  Maybe in 4 years, maybe in 10 years. But are we growing closer every day? Yes, most days. :)

August 2012

Attachment.

This weekend, like most weekends, we went to the park.  Lily raced around and around, and ran far out into a field. Then she turned back to wave to me.

Waving at mommy may be an insignificant moment in most family's life, but for ours, it was huge.  Until recently, Lily would run and run and run, and never look back.  We sometimes joked that we would test to see just how far she would go. But we always got too scared to try.  

Most 2 year old don't run far from their parents. They may play and run and chase, but they don't go more than a few yards from their parent: their "home base".  And every so often, they run back to "base" for a hug or a sip of juice or to show off a boo-boo.  

Our two year old would run, and run and run... until Andrew and I worried about her running into traffic, or out of sight, or into danger.  Then we chased her down and made her come back to "base".  

Attachment is a big word in Adoption.  It's a big worry. It's a big deal.  It's the thing that comes easily to most families, and that adoptive parents have to work hard at every single day.  A healthy, attached toddler will not run far from mommy.  A recently adopted toddler will simply keep on running. They have no "home base" yet. 

When Lily first came home, she would go to any adult for the typical "mommy" check-ins. When she fell down or got bumped, she would show off her boo-boo or ask to be hugged by total strangers.  She showed little preference for me when we were out in public.  It makes sense, doesn't it, that when you have been raised from infancy in a care center staffed by multiple adults, that you think all adults are caretakers. 

So we've been working on attachment. We are by no means done with this work, but little by little we are seeing tiny signs that our children are growing more deeply connected to us.  We are definitely not experts on attachment; we've had lots of ups and downs on this journey. We consider ourselves extraordinarily lucky at how well our children are doing. 

In the next couple of posts I'll go into detail about how we helped our toddler and our older child grow more deeply connected in our family.  I'll also reflect on what didn't work, or isn't working.

Sleep update: (oh, how sleep and attachment are connected!).  Lily is sleeping through the night, but taking a long time to fall asleep, and waking up just a bit too early. We're working on it. Thanks for all the advice!

these two.

dare devils!

Although we thought we were done with The Year of Firsts, we took the kids to their First Amusement Park this weekend!  If you haven't been, I highly recommend Quassy Amusement Park in Middlebury, Connecticut for families with little ones (or a mix of littles and bigs).

Daniel spotted the roller coaster from the parking lot, and immediately this became his favorite place ever.  He went on every ride (we'd let him on), and some twice.  Then we went to the water slide area, and he was in 6 year old boy heaven.  Standing under a giant bucket that randomly pours a ton of water on your head, the force of which knocks you to the ground? GREATEST THING EVER!!!! He would have stayed there for the rest of his life.

It turns out that we have two little daredevils on our hands.  Two-year-old girl looooovves the kiddie roller coaster and the "frog jumper" and the train going through the dark tunnel and the helicopter that flies up, up, up... she was squealing and clapping her hands all day.  More! Faster! Higher! More! More!  Daniel went on the roller coaster with the only adult who could stomach it (thank you Uncle Lee!), and I've never seen him grin wider.

There is a funny internal debate that most adoptive parents do constantly. It is kind of like the nurture/nature debate, and similar to the "She's more like you! no! She's more like YOU!" thing that all parents do.  We adoptive moms and dads are always asking ourselves, is this behavior or personality trait just them, or is it inherited from their first family, or is it because they were adopted?

Is Lily an outgoing, curious, sensory seeking child because of her early deprivation and adoption as a toddler? Or not? Is Daniel a brooding, curious, non-stop question-asking kid because of his early trauma and then adoption as a young boy? Or not? Are the like their first parents in these ways? Would they be daredevils if they still lived on a farm in Africa? Or is that kind of risk taking behavior normal there? After all, they have to learn to be independent much earlier than most American kids.

Once during our weekly dinner at Ghenet an older Ethiopian man who was eating with the family of the owner started to play and talk with Lily.  When I came by and started swinging her up to the ceiling (to her squeals of delight), he shook his head and said, "oh no, no, no, we don't play with girls like that."

So would Lily be brought up to be a quieter, more inhibited version of herself if she was still with her Ethiopian family? (Would her first mother be aghast at her antics here!?)

Silly, un-answerable questions. Even Daniel can provide little insight. Although he did once tell me that in Ethiopia, no one was "the boss of him."  The grass is always greener, kid. The grass is always greener.

Daniel using the phrases "My First Family would never make me do this!" or  "I want to go back to Ethiopia!" to try and distract from a consequence or chore is a whole other blog post! 

"You are the best Dad ever!" " I feel a little sick, son"

We're already looking forward to next year's trip to Quassy (aka, Paradise).  Next weekend, we'll be hitting Coney Island.  I'd better buy some Dramamine.

a year in review

remember when you took photos and then waited a few days (weeks?) to find out what they looked like? And most of them came out like crap? Yes, me too...

I've been working on making a photo album of the past year, and I've been finding it a very overwhelming task. Maybe because someone in our family (Andrew) takes sooooo many photos. Maybe because it was a Year of Firsts. Maybe because I get sidetracked by admiring just! how! cute! my babies were when they were "babies".

Anyone else make photo albums/scrapbooks online? Any tips or tricks to share?  I need help!

Here is my attempt at a "Year in Review"...

July

August

September

October

November

December

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

her story

The kids are wearing traditional clothes given to them by the care center staff.

Some nights when I'm putting Lily down to sleep she asks to see a family photo we keep near her crib. It is of the four of us on the day they said farewell to the orphanage and we became a family.  Andrew and I are sporting wide grins, Daniel has a quiet smile on his face and baby Lily is chewing a finger.

Helping our two children understand, grieve and process their adoption story is very different for each of them. Daniel was old enough to be very aware of the events happening around and to him. He remembers his first family and the death of his mother.  He understood, as well as a 5 year old could have, what happened.  Why? is his big question.  And as he grows older, he will keep asking it, and keep adding to the layers of his understanding of his story. The essential What Happened, he lived and remembers.

Lily, on the other hand, was an infant (and a very sick one at that) during all of those drastic changes.  She has no memories of it and little understanding.  She doesn't know what happened, and she is too young and has too little language to ask us.  But sometimes... sometimes she looks like she is trying to figure something out, something big.  Sometimes she wakes up from a nap and is inconsolable.  Sometimes she seems like she is looking for someone that she only instinctively knows should be here.

So some nights I tell her a little story: her story.  And this child, my wild, impulsive, active, busy toddler, stills and listens.

I say,

 "Lily Tagessech, you were born in Ethiopia. Your father's name is G-----, your mother's name was A------.  When you were just a tiny baby, your mother died.  Your father decided you needed a new mommy and daddy, so he brought you and Daniel to an orphanage.  Then mommy and daddy flew on an airplane all the way to Ethiopia to get you, and we all came home to America together.

And here you will stay, forever and ever, and always and always.

The Beginning."

And then she falls alseep. What does she dream of? I wish I knew.  I hope. I hope, she dreams of home, all the versions she's known.

Siblings

I've always been very grateful to have a sister.  When we were young, we always had a playmate. When we were teens, we always had someone to complain to about our parents. When we were in our twenties, we always had someone to complain to about our parents, and our boyfriends/husbands/in-laws.  Now we are both mothers, and we have someone to gripe to about our children.  Who else will allow me to say, "I'm going to kill them!" and not remind me of my years of longing to be a parent, but instead recommend I refill my wine glass.

Only a sibling has that special connection and family memory- only a sibling knows the wealth of data behind the simple moan, "Mom, ugh.!"

There is plenty of research, literature and theory on sibling relationships.  I'm sure there are whole books about how to foster sibling relationships.  My completely unproven theory is the "Shared Enemy" one: siblings are close when they have a common cause, usually "mom is so crazy/dad is so annoying!" That worked in my case, anyway. (For the record, my mom is not crazy and dad is not annoying. Hi Mom! Hey Dad!)

When we received our referral for siblings, we did lots of preparation.  We put together lots of IKEA furniture and read lots of blogs and books. We planned: sleep strategies, holidays, transitions, media, race/heritage, hair, and on and on. But we didn't plan how we would raise siblings.

However unplanned, I seem to be doing really well fostering a close sibling relationship between Lily and Daniel.  I'm fulfilling the "mom is soooo crazy, right!?" role very well, thank you very much.  I've already caught the across the dining table sympathetic eyeroll, the conspiratory whispers, the "come on, let's go to our room" escape from mom strategy and the sibling translation of parent-speak.  And one of my children is still in diapers.  I can only imagine that sibling created shenanigans that will happen here when someone learns to talk properly and no longer needs help climbing stairs.

How are you raising your siblings, if you have them?
Are you close with your own siblings? Why? Why not?

Glimpses

I just got Lily to sleep, finally.  This is her first night in her very own room, in her very own "big girl bed". (Well, her crib with the rails taken off.)  She may not be quite ready for so many big changes. She had a hard time falling asleep. A hard time knowing that it was time to stop opening drawers and playing with her dolls. But, it's summer and I have the time it takes to paint, put furniture together and relocate toys and dolls and clothes, so it had to be done.  Sometimes we are just not quite ready for the big changes in our lives, but those changes happen anyway.

As I watched her fall asleep, looking so "grown up",  I found myself imagining glimpses of her at older ages... her as a taller, thinner 4 year old, her as a pouty teen, her as an exhausted young mother, falling asleep face down on her pillow.  Sometimes it's as if all the ages of herself are already there, locked inside her. Perhaps because she has already seen so much of the world, perhaps because she looks so much like her older siblings and birth family, perhaps because she has such a Personality.

But I think we can see glimpses in all children.  Sometimes I look at my students and for a moment I see them as adults... the cop, the doctor, the business woman, the professor. (I love to dream that my working class/immigrant students will attain those positions.)  Sometimes I can see glimpses of a darker nature... who might be the one arguing with the cop, or needing treatment from a doctor.

In my son's face, I can see two glimpses. In his smiling, running face I can see a young man, powerful, joyful to be learning to drive, handsome and proud to show off his muscles to girlfriends.  My son so longs to be grown up. He constantly asks at what age he can drive, at what age he can buy a motorcycle (never!)... I plead with him not to rush his already (in my experience) shortened childhood, but he would jump through time.

The other glimpse I see is when he is angry or frustrated and his face sets into a stubborn scowl, and I see him as many others would, and perhaps will; an angry black man, a menace. Will he learn to soothe that scowl, to show that he is not dangerous or threatening, even when angry and frustrated?  Will the scowl remain on his heart, shortening his temper and his vision?

When my children first came home, their very different personalities quickly emerged.  I used to explain to friends just meeting them that Daniel looks tough on the outside, but is in fact very sweet.  Lily looks very sweet, but is tough as nails.  Slowly their inner selves are being to match their outer ones.  Lily has some tough looks, and Daniel's young sweetness is growing up... into what, I'm not sure yet.

Tonight my children are sleeping in their very own rooms. The crib is dismantled, the high chair is on its way out the door.  This weekend we'll be buying big boy bunk beds.

I am totally not ready for this change.

Yes, Chef!

My writing has been sidetracked a bit lately due to all the reading I've been doing. (ah, summer!)  Andrew gave me the new Marcus Samuelsson book for my birthday (while we ate at his restaurant Red Rooster- ta da!)

I highly recommend it to everyone who loves:
1. Ethiopia
2. Food
3. Cooking
4. Traveling
5. All of the above

Just a few pages in his memoir Samuelsson (I call him Marcus in my head, but I'm trying to be cool here.) reflects on his adoption to Sweden from Ethiopia, and the few memories he has from his early childhood in Africa.  He jokes kindly about all the adoptive mothers who come up to him to share their children's stories.

Ahem.

Here I am, a Marcus, I mean Chef Samuelsson stalker.  When Andrew and I went to Red Rooster for our anniversary this winter the Chef was there, and graciously agreed to my request to look at photos of our kiddos.  He sat down on the booth next to me, and taking my phone from my hands scrolled through my photo album.  He asked about them, their ages, etc.  Sigh. It was a marvelous moment (for me).

There are so few Ethiopian adoptees in America, and very, very few grown up ones. I think we adoptive moms have latched onto Samuelsson as a role model for our children, and his Swedish mother as ours. In Yes, Chef he is wonderfully affirming of his adoptive family, while honest about the complications and joys of reconnecting with his Ethiopian family.  He talks about the very different memories and experiences of his sister, who was 5 years old when they moved to Sweden.  Most movingly, he reflects on the ways in which his Ethiopian, Swedish, and international travels have combined to make him who he is now: a chef and business man with a family in Harlem.

If you live in or visit New York, I highly recommend eating at the Rooster.  (You'll need to make a reservation exactly one month in advance to get a table.)  The food is interesting and delicious, the service is warm and attentive, and you never know who might come in the door.  On our first visit we ate next to a former Governor!

Of course, Samuelsson is a chef: most of the book is about food.  Food preparation, food culture, tasting, traveling, discovering food.  If you like to cook it will make you want to go shopping at a farmer's market and pull out your big pots.  If you like to eat it will make you want to explore a new neighborhood or spice family.  I've found re-newed energy for perfecting my own doro wat.

And after you eat the doro wat or catfish at the Rooster, you might as well read the book too. It will make you hungry all over again.

The Wait. Part 2.

Look at that wide eyed happy couple without any gray hair! Awww....

I have three champagne corks in Daniel and Lily's "Treasure Box."  They are nestled there along with Lily's 'baby' shoes and the t-shirts they came home in, and the little gifts that the Care Center gave us on our last day in Ethiopia.

One cork is from celebrating our official entry into the waiting family list.  We'd been filling out paper work and reading books and going to classes for months, and now we'd finally jumped through all the hoops,  fulfilled all the requirements of our adoption agencies. Yeah! Now we get to Wait, Officially!

The first wait was the trickiest for me, because I had to learn so much during it.  I'm naturally a pretty impulsive, quick to action person. I don't comparison shop.  I decided to marry Andrew after just a few weeks of dating.  I picked the very first wedding dress I tried on. And so on.  So having to sit, and wait, and wait, and not go crazy was very hard.  It required a lot of learning and a fair amount of growing up.

During this time I regularily got the following comments: "Aren't you, like, adopting? What happened?"  "I'm just sure you'll get pregnant now!". "Did you hear ___________ (every single person of child bearing age I know) is pregnant!?", and "Are you still adopting?".

I was tempted to get a t-shirt that said, "paper pregnant" with a big blow up belly, but that seemed immature.

So, I learned to wait. I learned that some days are easier than others, and some days are harder.  And that either way, I was going to be okay.  I learned that sometimes I needed to avoid baby showers.  I learned that whatever I was suffering, it was probably nothing compared to what our future child/children's family was suffering.  And that turned out to be the truth.  While I was sitting around trying not to twiddle my thumbs, our children's family was enduring illness and loss and hunger.  I've read that some adoptive mothers remember feeling extreme anxiety or pain on the days of loss for their future children.  (Those smart cookies that kept journals.)  I'm not sure if Daniel and Lily and I were connected in that way.  But I do know that I thought of them,  a lot.

I really don't like going to the dentist (who does, really?).  But I remember walking home from the dentist's office on a freezing cold December evening, thinking, "Hey, this is one of the easy days. I'm doing okay. Look at those beautiful stars."  When I got home, there was a voicemail from our social worker waiting for me.  And the First Wait was over, just like that.

And the new wait, the much harder one, was just beginning.

blog on blogging

A good friend of mine once said, "Everyone's life would make a great book."  I suppose we are testing her theory out now, all of us bloggers. (I hate that word! Can we start calling ourselves essayists please?)

One of my favorite blogs (essayists) to read is Finding Magnolia.  This family just brought home a tiny, sick little baby from Ethiopia, and I've been anxiously following her story as she comes home and receives medical care.  I've never met this family, or even live in the same time zone, but I'm worried about their baby girl.  Am I crazy? Or is it just the new internet connected world we live in?

I started thinking about the power of stories in our human lives.  How stories have always enthralled us, have always held the power to engage us like nothing else.  Didn't the English riot in the streets when a new Dicken's story was late? Perhaps my addiction to blogs is simply the latest version of the power of storytelling.  Everyone's life makes a great blog. Who doesn't want to know what will happen to a sick little girl from a country far away? And we have the gift of being able to add photos and videos and links to our stories.

I'm incredibly lucky that we created our family during the blog/youtube/internet age. How else would I know how to do Lily's hair? Where else would we find Ahmaric cartoons? Where else can I read stories about families like mine? There aren't that many of us Ethiopian- American families. (Which is why I immediately start stalking those that we do meet in person.)  I'm also incredibly grateful that so many folks have read and enjoyed the stories I've shared here. It is amazing to write a post in my quiet little apartment, and days later see a graph of all the "clicks" it got and read your comments.

Motherhood can be very isolating and frustrating, (as has been written about so often lately)  It always has, which is why women have always found a way to connect with each other to share their stories... over canning, quilting, the playground, the food coops, through letters and phone calls, and now... the internet.

Now I've got to go check my blog roll and see how that baby is doing. Thank you for listening to our stories...

I have no idea who they are copying.

Second Choice

a female wood carrier walking down from the mountains, Addis Ababa

Daniel and Lily both have Life Books, which we try to read often.  Right now they are not as interesting as The Avengers Sticker and Activity book, but we try.  Their life books are simple versions of their story; how they came to be living in America, with us.  In the old days of adoption, children weren't told their story- sometimes living until adulthood without any idea of where or from whom they came from.  We try not to have any secrets from our children.  Daniel, especially, knows exactly what happened: he was there.  But there are parts of the story that we don't dwell on, at least not now.  We don't dwell on the fact that there are medicines in America that could have cured his mother. We don't dwell on the fact that in America, fathers don't have to watch their infants starve. Hunger, yes. Starve. No.

We also don't dwell on why mommy and daddy decided to adopt.  There are many people who create or add to their families through adoption as their first choice.  I love these folks.  We came to adoption the round-about way. First we tried to get pregnant.  Then teams of doctors tried to get us pregnant. Then we decided to adopt. PHEW! (Side note: a homestudy is nothing after infertility treatments. Want to know everything about me? Sure! I have no secrets anymore. I get to keep my clothes on? Even better!)

One of these years the kids will figure out that adopting two Ethiopians was our second choice for creating our family.  But you know what?  Relinquishing their children to be adopted was their Ethiopian family's second choice too.

Adoption is a tiny beautiful bandaid on a large ugly problem.  My children have a loving family, plenty to eat, and a chance for a successful, healthy life.  They are very lucky in how their bad luck turned out. Their family's second choice turned into a second chance.  There are millions of children around the world who just have bad luck and then more bad luck.  There are millions of families torn apart by disease, poverty, lack of clean water, fear and religious intolerance.  Only a small thousand of those children are adopted.

So when people say, "It is just wonderful, what you are doing."  I first say "Thank you", and "We have been very blessed."  Then I think, if I was really wonderful and saintly, as you might be thinking, I would have given all the money I spent adopting these kids into keeping their first family intact.  That is the argument that folks make when they criticize celebrities, and non-celebrities, for their international adoptions.  I don't really disagree, in theory.

John Seabrook wrote a beautiful piece about adopting his Haitian daughter in The New Yorker last year.   In it he reflects on how, in miniature, international adoption makes perfect sense. A child needs a family; a family needs a child.  When you pull back and look at the bigger picture, things aren't so clear.  It suddenly seems like there are millions of families who need better choices, more choices.

There are parts to our children's story that we don't dwell on, at least not now.  But someday, I hope, those sadder, harder, more confusing parts will inspire them to create change in the world, as they have inspired me to share our story here.  Until then, Avengers! Assemble!

These Two

Yes, they are biological brother and sister. We get asked that a lot. I'm always surprised, because I think they look so much alike. Also, they are inseperable.

One afternoon I came home from work without Daniel (who usually travels with me.) He had an after-school program or a playdate or something.  Lily greeted me, then looked for Daniel and then FREAKED THE #@*$ OUT when she realized he wasn't there.  So much so that we went to pick him up early.

I've read about other siblings adopted together being similarily attached to each other. It makes perfect sense to me. If you've lost every other family member and the only home you've ever known, you'd be pretty stuck on the one person who's still around.

Daniel and Lily are certainly each other's best friend.  But they weren't always. During the first trip, when we first we met them in their care center in Addis Ababa, we had them bring the baby down from the nursery to the big kid playroom.  All the children shouted to Daniel that his sister was there.  They crowded around her, tickling her and calling her name.  Her brother looked at her and shrugged, then went back to playing ball.  Lily was also un-impressed with her big brother. On our trip home, in our first days together, they mostly ignored each other.  I suppose the excitement of two new parents and a new home was enough distraction.

Then we took them to the pediatrician for the first time. Lily had to be strapped into that horrible board thing to have blood drawn. She screamed and screamed during her entire exam.  Andrew was sitting with Daniel in the waiting room.  The baby had some milk and fell asleep, exhausted from the ordeal of American style medical care.  It was then that I saw Daniel's face. He had tears in his eyes, and his face stern and terrified, his eyes accusing me.

Daniel is here next to me as I write this. Lily is napping.  Her brother flits from activity to activity, unable to really enjoy himself solo.  At some point he asks if it is time for her to get up.  (Good God, NO! Never wake a sleeping Lily!)

Before we child-proofed (ahem, Lily proofed) the doors, Lily loved to try to sneak into her brother's room in the mornings to wake him up.  Now she just bangs on the door, calling his name.

These two.  I hope they always can't wait for the other one to wake up.