The Grief of Remembering

Last Thursday Anna was fine in the morning, but in the afternoon she was inconsolable. At naptime she cried and cried for no discernible reason. She didn't need anything, and I wasn't trying to make her do anything (like sleep) that she would resist--in fact, she was clinging onto me for dear life, in contrast to her anxious behavior yesterday (more on that in another post).

She just seemed . . . sad. Grieving.

I do believe infants grieve, and our precious child has experienced much loss in her short life. Perhaps it catches up to her unexpectedly, at seemingly peaceful times, as grief does to all of us.

What's a mother to do?

I did all I could do, all any of us can do for each other. I held her tight as she buried her face in my neck and squeezed fistfulls of my shirt and lifted her face and howled to the heavens and pressed against me again as if to climb inside. I told her over and over that I loved her and that I was with her. That it was okay to be sad, that I'm sad too that she's sad and that she can't know her mother in Ethiopia. That I wished we could have met her but I know, I just know like a mom knows, she misses you too. That I'm sorry she had to leave everything she knew but that I would do my best as her mama, that I would always be here, always be her mommy, always love her.

Isshy, isshy, Yegetanesh. Isshy. Okay.

In time her sobbing stopped, her breathing calmed, her body grew heavy and relaxed into deep sleep. She slept in peace and woke in peace, and our broken hearts carried us on through the day, but they remember what was lost. I promise to remember.

Attachment and Going Back to (Volunteer) Work

With apologies for the length, here are my thoughts on attachment and schedules at this point in our adoption/parenting adventure. I tried to spice it up with some links for those of you who may, say, be considering Ethiopian adoption but be too shy to email me yet (ahem).

Because of various conversations and our post-placement review, I have been thinking a lot over the last week about attachment, attachment parenting, when to leave Anna in others’ care, and what that means for all the things I am/used to be involved in outside the house.

Attachment is not our warm-fuzzy feeling of being “bonded” to our child but our child’s trusting relationship to her parents. As one article puts it, attachment is “the quality of the relationship a child feels toward a particular person (parent, grandparent, caregiver, etc.).” Strong attachment is formed through building, over time, the child’s sense of security and comfort that their caregiver will respond to their needs—physical and emotional.

Children who are securely attached are more confident in learning and exploring, interact more positively with other kids, are more emotionally stable and able to manage feelings, and are more able to handle stress and help others handle stress. Children who do not have strong attachment, well, they are more likely to lack confidence, have difficultly with social interactions, express and manage feelings, and act out in unhealthy ways. The extreme is the dreaded Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). Most people don’t know this name but it’s what they mean when they warn you that if you adopt, your child might be “messed up” and hate you as a teenager. I can actually see signs of abandonment/attachment issues in some of the teenagers we know--not adopted--and it's not pretty.

Helping Anna form strong attachment to us is absolutely the most important thing we can do for her and our family. It’s number one. This is why we’ve been careful to be Anna’s only true caregivers—the only ones to change her diaper, feed her a bottle, put her to sleep, comfort her when she cries. (Even my mother didn’t get to do these things when she visited, and kudos to her for not trying, because you know she was just dying to get her hands on that baby for so long.) It’s why we lean more toward “attachment parenting”—responding to baby’s cries, having her sleep near us, carrying her in a sling rather than always parking her in a stroller or seat. And it’s why we haven’t left her with anyone else, despite myriad babysitting offers.

Sure, kids usually easily come to trust their parents to take care of them. But for an adopted child, it’s not so simple. We are Anna’s fifth set of caregivers. In her first six months of life, four times she thought the person caring for her would always be there. Can we really expect her to be one hundred percent confident that we the fifth will be different? She is now 8 ½ months yet our relationship is only 2 months old. Emotionally, with us, she’s 2 months old, not 8 ½. Sometimes it seems like she’s been here a long time, but two months really isn’t very long. One guideline for attachment is to expect it to take as long as the child is old when they come to you. Anna was six months when we met, so plan to focus on attachment for at least six months.

This brings us to the present predicament of everything that revolves around the school year starting up and I, well, I’m not sure where I’m supposed to fit in. In the past I would run the PowerPoint at church and serve on a committee. We have a small group at our house and sometimes I make food. And most of all I’ve been sort of a (left-handed) right-hand-woman for Aaron in church youth group, I’ve given rides and hung out with kids, and I’ve helped plan and prepare for and lead Young Life Club.

• Category 1 is done. No more church worship stuff.
• Category 2 is fine for now. We meet at our house and Anna is fairly content to hang out with us.
• Category 3 . . . may have to go. Or be altered so as to be nearly unrecognizable. I’m not sure. I just know a lot of these activities aren’t conducive to hauling a baby along. (I also have to stay home and work sometimes, because man do I suck at getting work done during the day now.)

What about leaving her with someone? I think both of us realized last week in talking that we’re not ready—and/or we don’t think Anna is ready. Sure, she seems to love everyone and is getting to know some people she sees consistently. Maybe she’d be fine. Or maybe she’d seem fine but the hesitation to attach would be stirred. Or maybe she’d regress—remember the football game incident? And the week of not napping? She seemed to regress that week. I say this because when she first came home, she would scream bloody murder for her bottle. I mean zero to shaking with violent sobs in sixty seconds. After a few weeks it got better; putting a bib on her no longer meant you were trying to torture her but might actually mean you would indeed feed her soon. But that week after the overstimulation meltdown and frustrated mommy putting her in a new playpen and leaving her crying longer than ever—she went back to the violent sobs sometimes. It was like she was saying, “I don’t trust you anymore. You stopped being responsive to me so I’d better make my demands completely clear” (and really loud).

I don’t want to see that again. And certainly not continuing for long.

I'm sure plenty of people might think we're paranoid. That we need to be away from her (both at the same time). That we'll spoil her by responding too much. That because she's a baby she'll just naturally be fine. I find it ironic that it seems the same people who would warn about "messed-up adopted kids" (attachment disorders) would turn around and minimize efforts to prevent that. But I digress. The point is, it's too important not to err on the side of caution. With all she's been through already, she deserves our all in parenting, especially at this completely dependent stage.

Our solution for now is to bring her along when I can and sit some things out for now. She has warmed up to sporting events and had a rockin’ good (though exhausting) time at Wildhorse Canyon for Young Life leadership camp. She did okay at youth group as long as she could suck on a grape, so I will probably try to be there most weeks and maybe ease into letting someone else watch her in the nursery nearby after a while or something. But Young Life Club? At any given moment it might involve yelling, loud music, strobe lights, inflatable or food-based projectiles, and people setting a very bad example as to what foods/nonfoods should be eaten together (see: lettuce/live goldfish), all in one room with nowhere to escape to.

And so it was that as we headed to leadership camp to talk about how we will serve kids together, I harbored the knowledge that there is no “me” in “we” right now, at least when it comes to doing Club. I’m still helping with planning and still can do “contact work” which in theory is the most important part of Young Life . . . but it’s strange to think I won’t be at Club with the kids and leaders.

I’ll feel a little left out two Mondays from now, I think, but I also think it’s the right thing for right now. You can’t all do all of the stuff all of the time, and our little girl needs me more than those bigger girls and guys right now. I have to trust our team, and I have to trust our family, and I have to trust our God.

Baby Breakdowns and Mommy Meltdowns

Last Friday we were excited to take Anna to her first football game, here at our very own Smallport High School. We love football season, and it was a perfect still-summer evening for small town sports.

Total disaster.

Complete baby breakdown.

Walking in, she was fascinated. Sitting down, she was fine. Meeting a new teacher friend, okay...nope, crying. Being back with us helped some, but the sun was in her eyes and what's that sudden clapping noise and is that the voice of an angry duck god crackling down upon us?! I took her for a walk in the sling and she calmed down. I eased back into the stands gradually so she could get more used to the noise and lights. For a bit she was fine on my lap and looking at friends around us. But then she got upset again and I took her out again, and this time she wasn't going to let me even think about taking her back in there. Soon she was reaching total overstimulation meltdown and we had to bail out. She shrieked as if under pain of death all the way home--thankfully only a mile--and cried all the way through being changed into pjs until we gave her a bottle.

I sat there watching Aaron hold her and wanted to cry myself. What have I done? There goes all the attachment, all the efforts and goodwill and trust undone by the betrayal of a mommy who made her stay in that horrible place until after halftime.

She had been so upset before her bottle, she threw it up all over Aaron and herself. Bad, like Frankfurt-airport bad. (That story coming soon.) He hit the shower and I gave her a bath.

Voila! She was all smiles and giggles. Oh, life is so grand and Mommy and Daddy are so funny! That is, when they're not trying to kill me via the cruel and unusual torture of watching your team lose by 40 points.

This would be the happy ending to the story except that it marked the beginning of a long week of baby breakdowns and mommy meltdowns triggered by a sudden onset of Refusal to Nap Syndrome. RNS is common in homes where one parent works at home during the day, usually intensifying dramatically as the parent's tight nonnegotiable deadline approaches.

I'd gotten a slow start on my work project--trying to get my brain re-engaged and familiar with style rules and all--and desperately needed some nice chunks of quiet concentration time. Ehhhnt, sorry, Dream Baby's not here right now; she's been replaced by Nap Nightmare Baby, who likes to be paid attention to all day and might fake falling asleep after 20 minutes of holding but will cry immediately upon contact with any form of bedding.

Mommy Meltdown #1 came Tuesday afternoon. I was going insane because I couldn't concentrate to work, I couldn't make noise doing anything around the house, I couldn't even take a much-needed nap myself. And as deadline panic approached I didn't have the time/patience to hold her all day or listen to her fuss or monkey around with letting her cry, checking in at increasing intervals, and all that--plus I'm not willing to let my new child bawl her eyes out in a playpen alone anyway, for attachment reasons. Especially after Friday night's debacle.

Tuesday Aaron came home early to save me and got her conked out downstairs somehow. Maybe there was liquor involved; I don't want to know. Wednesday was just as bad--she napped 30 minutes total, until just before our Bible study, which is not really the optimal time. Of course she was an angel for the audience. Thursday I got an hour nap out of her and just let her be awake near me. At least then she was quiet.

Now, happy ending time: With a little sleep-deprivation of my own, I got my work done on time. Today she took two naps again. Tonight she was content in my sling until well into the second quarter. And she even smiled, because we were only down by 8.

After One Week

I am sorry I have not been blogging. For some reason time seems to be taking a different pace . . .

We have been home a week and a day. Anna has been doing wonderfully overall. She loves to eat and I swear she's chubbying up before my eyes. She's 14 pounds already! The first few days she was up in the night and early in the morning, but we have tried keeping her up later and she has made it through the night a couple times, like 10:00 pm to 7:00 am last night. We had some visitors during the week and Friday took Anna for her doctor's appointment in Portland. She did well performing her tricks for the doctor, such as showing how well she can pee on a table. Twice. The cough she had when we met her is all but gone; her cradle cap is much better; we think she had scabies which we killed, but that has made her itchy and rashy. I hope it clears up soon although I think it's now bothering me more than her. The blood draw was rough, though, especially since they had to try twice to get it. Why, Mommy and Daddy, WHY?!?!

Friday night traffic from Portland was horrible, but we still beat the bus of Young Life kids coming home from camp so we could be there to meet them. I expected certain girls to come running at me and Anna . . . I did not expect ALL OF THEM to swarm and to make such an ear-piercing high-pitched SQUEEEEEEEEAL. Whoa, chicas, back off a little! She lasted a bit but then we had to retreat to the van. Long day for a little girl.

Today she made her debut at church and was so quiet some people didn't even realize we were back there. She chewed her Detroit Lions teether and then fell asleep on Aaron for a while.


But she barely napped the rest of the day and this evening was not a happy camper. I don't know if it was the failed new bottle experiment or what, but I'm sure the neighbors thought we were torturing her. All the bodily functions seem to have returned to normal, though, and hopefully tonight she will be doing a lot of this:

I will start posting on our Ethiopia trip as soon as I finish journaling it, and I'll have more pictures. It's just that a certain girl and Harry Potter have been fighting for my attention!