Bonding and Attachment

I started this post in November and, well, life got in the way,  so now I am writing a post about the most feared, loved, and intensely scrutinized aspect of adoption...bonding and attachment.

Becoming a parent involves committing to meet your child's material needs, and also committing to love this child unconditionally.  It can be hard to love a child that the day before was basically unknown to you, and it is 1000 times harder when said child doesn't want to love you.  From the child's perspective you are a total stranger who has taken them from everything they have ever known.  Why should they love you?  You need to bond with this child and they need to bond with you, and most of the natural mechanisms for bonding that intuitively and necessarily occur with a newborn (feeding and changing multiple times a day, 24/7 care and attention, near constant holding and snuggling, eye contact, etc. not to mention to time in utero where mommy and baby have a special chemical and biological bond).  How do you recapture some of those things with an adopted child, especially a toddler who is developmentally testing limits and gaining independence?

Before I delve into attachment, I want to be very, VERY clear that B is an amazing child, he is resilient, he is loving, he is funny, he loves to cuddle, and we are beyond blessed that he is our son and we are a family.  Also, we are still struggling with exactly how much of B's history and personal experience we are willing to share (we want him to have the freedom to share the deepest parts of his story with people in the future if and when he wants) so I am not giving specifics of that here.

When we met B he was 2 years and 8 months old, he had had at least 4 different living situations and in his short life he had become intimately acquainted with illness, death, and loss.  His little body was covered with scars, he had limited language skills as he spoke his own hybrid version of Sidamingo and Amharic--neither fluently, and he was described as quiet, but loving music, books, and toys, but most especially quiet.

B was very withdrawn when we met him, although he would interact with us and the toys we brought (especially the bubbles and Ababa's watch), we was mostly quiet, wary, and passive.  We were all surprised that we got to have custody of B following court (our second day in Ethiopia) so I was beyond grateful that we had done a lot of reading and preparation before we left and in the weeks to come I was also grateful that I had brought the two favorite books with us (The Connected Child by Karen Purvis and Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child by Patty Cogen).  They helped Ababa immensely as he finally buckled down and read them, were great refreshers for me when I felt clueless about what to try next, and B liked them too:-)

When B came home with us, he was very passive and overall just seemed shellshocked.  He'd put his head down and float his arms up if anyone made a move to pick him up.  He would have quietly gone with anyone.  He seemed scared and just kind of resigned and had some subtle but pervasive coping behaviors.  After a day or two he started to alternate between being in a passive shellshocked fog and long hour+ bouts of crying (usually either because he was angry he was told he couldn't do something or because he just seemed scared/sad/grieving).  It was hard and heartbreaking to see him so upset.

We started from the time we met him to try and implement some of the bonding strategies that we had read about and learned from other adoptive families.

*Full disclaimer, this is what we did.  Some things worked, some other things we tried didn't.  Every child, parent, and family is different and there is no one set of strategies/activities that work for everyone.  If you are an adoptive parent, do what works for you.  Learn as much as you can, gain exposure to as many different strategies and philosophies as you can, and then see what works for you and your family, but please do recognize that whether your child is 6 months or 6 years or 16 years, they will likely have some challenges due to their complex background and you will likely have some challenges from your own preconceived notions.  Bonding and Attachment is a two-way street, it's a family thing.  This is what we tried.  Do what works for you.  No judgements here!:-)*

For friends and family, now that I am sharing a little more about what we do and why, please don't try to use these techniques with B:-)  These are special things that we do to teach us all the mommy, daddy, and B relationship.  He loves extended family and friends and there is a lot of adoption research that points to involved grandparents and extended family as major influences in whether an adopted child really feels secure in his family, but first the mommy and daddy and B bonds need to be securely in place.  We are working on it, but we're not there yet.

By day 3 Ababa was freaking out, I was tired, and B was scared/tired/sad/angry/confused/and probably a million other emotions I can't even fathom.

• We used the Boba carrier extensively.  B loved it (and still loves it even thought we don't use it much anymore except for emergencies).  He clearly felt safe in the Boba.  He'd stop a full-on meltdown in 5 seconds flat when the Boba came out.  It was great for me b/c B was close and we could snuggle, etc. while he was in it and it was great for us as a family b/c it made sure that no one would come up and try to grab him, take him with them, or actively engage with him (all of which happened often in the very friendly Ethiopian society). For the first two months B was in the Boba 99.9% of the time when we left our guest house.  If he wasn't in the Boba, we were pretty much guaranteed a "situation" either in public or as soon as we returned to our room.

• I had brought bottles and formula for B.  He drank half a bottle the first day and then refused it for the next week (he had pretty much no suck reflex, none, so we focused on trying to develop that through straws). No big deal we thought, he doesn't like bottles.  Two weeks later we donated all the formula b/c he still wasn't interested, but kept the bottles for the airplane ride home in case they could help his ears, and wouldn't you know it...the next morning he woke up asking for a bottle:-)  Since then, he's had a bottle every morning.  It's a great time for cuddling, eye contact, and reciting our family mantras.  He loves it, I love it, and we're going to keep doing it until he doesn't want to anymore (or maybe when he turns four...whichever comes first). He pops out of bed in the morning chattering about "mommy, bottle time, mommy makes a bottle for B, bottle time, bottle time (giggle, giggle, giggle)".

• We have tried to distill a lot of what we want B to know about our roles in the family and say them multiple times each morning (and throughout the day):

         -Mommy, Daddy, and B, that is a family
         -We're a family, and families stick together
         -Mommy and Daddy's job is to love B, to take care of B, to keep B safe, and to teach B about God.  B's job is to love Mommy and Daddy, to listen to and obey Mommy and Daddy, and to learn about God. We're a family and families stick together (it's on here twice, we say it a lot!:-)
         -Mommy and Daddy always come home
         -Mommy and Daddy will always come to pick you up

•  We talk about the day's schedule everyday--especially who is going to feed B, put him down for his nap, and put him to bed and reiterate that Mommy and Daddy always come home and when we'll be back (and for the first 7 months at least one of us was always with him).

• We co-sleep...for the first 3.5 months B and I (mama) co-slept for every nap and every night.  B actually fell asleep on my chest for most of the first couple months.  Since October we've just been co-sleeping at night and B sleeps in his own bed for naps.  Co-sleeping has been great for us all.  Just snuggling together, hearing him breathe, feeling his heartbeat, smelling his sweet baby smell, those things all help me.  He clearly loves it too (although he's a total bed-hog:-) and snuggles up all night long.  We are gearing up to start transitioning B into his own bed and I'm not sure either of us are ready yet...we'll see how it goes...it may get delayed a little:-)

• We try to be very intentional with playing with B, interacting with him, promoting eye contact, and encouraging eye contact and appropriate family responses (hugs and kisses when we come home, eye contact when asking for things, as many different kinds of snuggles that we can think of...)

• Mirroring-B actually mirrored Ababa one day a few weeks in and it was Ababa's big breakthrough in bonding--he was like Karen Purvis is actually right:-) So, we try to encourage mirroring and want to focus more on that in the coming months.

• Skin to skin contact-newborns and infants get a lot of this, toddlers and older kids not so much.  So we try to take every opportunity we can.  B also gets a massage with babycakes or organic coconut oil every day or two after his bath.  We both love this time and it visibly helps him relax and let down his guard.

• We feed B by hand.  in the beginning, we fed him everything--meals, snacks, etc.  Now it's about 75% us and 25% him.  He responds well to it and it really helps with eye contact and interaction.  We also have feed us sometimes (with real food or with his tea set).  He loves this and it really helps all of us feel more connected.

• I was with B 100% for the first 3+ months, Ababa was then home with him exclusively for the next 4 months, and for the past month B has been going to "school" 3 days a week and is home with Ababa the other two.

In a perfect world, I would have loved to be home with B 100% for at least the first year.  That's not possible for us, so there's really no use spending too much time thinking about that.  I am grateful for the 3 months I had and am thrilled for the special time that Ababa and B have had.

Despite all the strategies we are trying (which again, help us as well as B--bonding and attachment are truly a whole family activity!) we still have some rough days.  B is a far more confident, secure, calm, cheerful, animated, child than he was when we met him in July.  He talks constantly, usually loves to snuggle, enjoys being with us, is gradually becoming more attached to us instead of being willing to go with anyone (but this is still an issue to some degree) and he will try to physically and emotionally push us away with regularity, but overall it is getting better.  

Ababa and I definitely feel more bonded to B.  When we first met him, we were fully committed to being his parents and were beyond thrilled that he was our son, but I would also see kids on the street and sometimes think "they could just as easily be my child"  "what makes them different from my son"  "why am I his mother and not theirs"?  I think in some very real ways I had indiscriminate mommy affection!

B is our son, 100%.  We could not love him more or be more committed to him if he had been born of our flesh and blood.  He is our son in a way that children on the street are not.  that distinction is very clear in my mind and heart.  He is my son, physically, emotionally, and spiritually!  We are now trying to find ways to handle how to explain his unique story and Ethiopian heritage, respecting those integral aspects of his history and identity, while still helping him to feel 100% part of our family, our heritage, and our son. 

We definitely make mistakes, taking two steps forward, but one step back, and not always being the parents that we want to be, but we are trying, and in his own 3 year old way, B is trying.  We've had some big hurdles recently with the start of "school" and one of us not being with him all the time, but by God's grace we are being knit together as a family.  It is a hard, painful, beautiful, challenging, inconsistent, unknown, uncharted journey, but it's our journey and we are a family, mommy, daddy, and B.