Information

If you are new to adoption then you maybe haven't heard about what will happen when we return back to America.  A welcome home at the airport by all our family and friends will depend on how well our children adjusting while in country.  We will make that call and keep you posted closer to the time on that.  We will want to see all of you who have supported us on this journey but have to remember it's not about us.  Here's a letter to help explain what the weeks following will look like for our family.

Dear friends and family,

We wanted to write to let you know a little about what this transition period is going to look like for our family – and how you can help!

Because our children are new to us being their mom and dad, we will have some strict boundaries for the first few months. If you’re someone who we will see regularly at home, church, or just out and about, please take the time to read these thoughts on attachment:

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, cries in distress, mom nurses and calms the baby – which teaches him/her that this person is safe and can be trusted. By God’s very design, an emotional foundation 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 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 on their little hearts. For our children, they are about to experience the loss of familiar and comforting caretakers as well as the sights, smells, and language of their birth country. When they come home, they will be overwhelmed by this loss. Everything around them will be new and they will need to learn not just about a new environment, but also about love and family. They have not experienced God’s design for a family in an orphanage setting.  Their world will turn upside down. They may struggle with feeling safe and secure and may lack the ability to trust that we will meet their needs.

The good news is that, with the Holy Spirit, we can now, as their forever parents, rebuild attachment and help them heal from these emotional wounds. The best way for us to form a parent/child bond is to be the only ones to hold, cuddle, instruct, soothe and feed them.  As this repeats between us, they will be able to learn that parents are safe to trust and to love deeply. We are, essentially, recreating the newborn/parent connection. Once they begin to establish this important bond with us, they will then be able to branch out to other healthy relationships.

Please know that these decisions are prayerfully and thoughtfully made choices based on personal experience, research, and instruction from trusted adoption mentors. We will be doing what I believe is best to help them heal from the early interruptions that they had in attachment as effectively as possible.

While some of this may seem like overkill or even sound a little bit crazy, we hope that you will understand and trust that we are doing this to give our children an ideal environment to become a secure, well adjusted, and confident children. We can’t give an exact timeline on what this will look like or at what point I’ll say that they are “attached” to us. This takes time and every child is different. We hope and pray that this transition will be smooth, but given the huge amount of new sights, people, and experiences awaiting them in America, we don’t know what to expect.

Why are we telling you all of this? Because you will actually play an incredible and vital role in helping our children to settle in, heal, and lay a foundation for the future. There are a few areas in which you can help us:

The first is to set physical boundaries. It will help us immensely if adults who are around our children 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 holding or excessive hugging and kissing. Children from orphanage settings are prone to attach too easily to anyone and everyone – which hinders the important, primary relationship with parents. Waving, blowing kisses, high fives, or a pat on the back is perfectly appropriate and welcomed! They should know that the people with whom they interact with are our trusted friends.

Another area (probably the biggest as we’ll be keeping them close to us for the first few months) is redirecting their desire to have their physical and emotional needs met by anyone (including strangers) to having us meet those needs.

Former orphans often have had so many caretakers that they, as a survival mechanism, become overly charming toward all adults. A child struggling to learn to attach may exhibit indiscriminate affection with people outside of their family unit. 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 children hugged and cherished by ALL of you. But until they have had a firm understanding of family and primary attachments, we would be so grateful if you direct them back to us if you see that they are seeking out food or comfort from anyone but us. It is totally fine to let them hug you, but please don’t pick them up or hold them on your lap.

Also, please feel free to ask us any questions at any time. We are so grateful to have a community of friends that will help our children feel loved, safe, and secure. We couldn’t ask for a better extended family and circle of friends for them. Thank you so much for your love and support over this adoption process.

Love,

Andrew, Sherrie, & family