Loss and Grieving

Today marks 3 months since an Ethiopian judge declared we were a family.

These days we are seeing a lot of this. 

And this...

Which is perhaps why last night was a harsh reminder of the reality of trauma. This sweet and brave boy is making huge strides with trust and learning to live in a family. However, last night as we laid down to go to sleep, the tears started. At first they were silent but they quickly grew to full blown sobs which told me this was about more than a little guy that didn't want to go to bed. I remembered reading in one of the many adoption books we have read about narrating your child's story and using pictures. So I pulled him into my arms and pulled up pictures on my phone. We talked about how Nati used to live at the orphanage with his friends and caretakers. I listened as he named them off one by one. We talked about the day mommy and daddy came to meet him. We talked about the guesthouse and our beloved driver Yoseph. We talked about the long plane ride home and meeting his siblings for the first time. We talked about new experiences since he has been here.

As I turned off the phone he looked up at me and said "Mommy, Daddy, Addie, Emme, McKinley, Benji, Nati, Betasaida.". And there in the broken English of a four year old was the answer to the tears. Nati is at war within himself. He loves being in our family and yet he undoubtedly longs for the familiar. 

After pacing and rocking and swaying and singing for over 2 hours this is how he went to sleep. 

Exhausted I went to bed after shedding my own tears. This morning I woke up and looked at the calendar only to realize the significance of the day. 3 months ago was one of the best days of my life. It was the culmination of months and months of fighting for Nati to be in our family. 3 months ago today was also the last day Nati spent in the place he had called home for years. It was the last day he was surrounded by his friends and caretakers. It was the last day he ate the same thing for meals each day and wore the same clothes. It was the last day that everyone around him spoke the same language. It was the last time for all those things and he probably didn't know it.

So while the change may have been for his good it still involved loss. 

Loss that he is still very much grieving.

It has been 3 months since life changed forever and the body remembers even when the mind forgets.

Breaking Out Of The Cocoon

I am so excited to be writing this post. I have been praying for wisdom about the right time to do so. We have now had custody of Nati for 11 weeks and have been home for 9 weeks. Typing those numbers out seems like such a short time but in reality the time those numbers represent also feels like an eternity. Tomorrow will mark 12 weeks since we left our house and boarded our first flight to go to Ethiopia. So much has happened in those 12 weeks that I do not think I could type it all out if I tried. It has been a beautiful time of watching Nati experience new things and watching our family blend together. In most ways it feels like he has always been here. We are making good progress in bonding and attachment. 

This progress has taken time, energy, patience and lots of love to accomplish. It is one of the reasons it is so hard to break out of our cocoon. Because of how important routine and consistency is to Nati, change in schedule can sometimes undo some of the progress made. Unfortunately, some of that could not be prevented as he needed medical care very early on in our time home. However, we have tried to minimize every other outing that could wait. 

So actually tomorrow is pretty monumental. We will be going to church for the first time as a family of 7!!! 

We are so excited to carry Nati into the church that helped bring him home. So many of you have shown our family overwhelming love and support. We are so thankful God gave us a physical reminder of His provision over the last 2 years, through you. Tomorrow morning I will walk into our Sunday School room filled with people who have prayed, cried and celebrated every step of this process with us. I will walk into worship, where we have raised our hands in surrender when we didn't understand and where we have stood with tears streaming down our face as we absorbed God's faithfulness in the waiting. 

However, tomorrow I will be holding my son in my arms

...and there will probably be more tears.

*** Below I am sharing a form letter from an adoption resource because it explains so beautifully why we will still be keeping Nati close and asking that your refrain from too much affection for the time being. Please do not be afraid to approach us and be excited to see us. We are certainly very excited to see all of you. ***

Dear Family & Friends,

After almost two years of waiting, our precious Nati is finally home! We know that each of you reading this has, in some way, supported, loved and prayed for us. Because we know your care for Nati and our family, we want to share with you some information that we hope will best equip everyone around him to assist us in laying the strongest and healthiest foundation - emotionally, physically and spiritually.

In many ways, Nati will be like the children who entered our family through birth; we will parent like other Christian families as we bring all of them up in the instruction of the Lord. But there will be a few, initial differences. For years now, we have researched bonding and attachment in children, especially those coming home through adoption from an institutional orphanage setting.

We are confident of this: God's design is PERFECT! His plan for parents and children is a beautiful and meaningful picture of His love for us. Attachment between a parent and child occurs over time when a baby has a physical or emotional need and communicates that need. The primary caretaker (usually mommy) 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 & calms the baby - which teaches him 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 several caregivers at an early age can be a major trauma on their little hearts. The good news is that we can now, as Nati's parents and forever family, rebuild attachment and help him heal from these emotional wounds. When Nati comes home, he will be overwhelmed. Everything around him will be new and he will need to learn not just about his new environment, but also about love and family. He has not experienced God's design for a family in an orphanage setting. The best way for us to form a parent/child bond is to be the ones to hold, snuggle, instruct, soothe and feed him. As this repeats between us, he will be able to learn that parents are safe to trust and to love deeply. We are, essentially, recreating the newborn/parent connection. Once Nati starts to establish this important bond, he will then be able to branch out to other, healthy relationships.

Nati will have, what may seem like, a lot of structure, boundaries and close proximity to us. Please know that these decisions are prayerfully and thoughtfully made choices based on immense amounts of research and instruction from trusted adoption mentors. We will be doing what we believe is best to help him heal from those interruptions in attachment as effectively as possible. Why are we telling you all of this? Because you will actually play an awesome and vital role in helping our boy 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 limit what is typically considered normal, physical contact with Nati. This will (for a while) include things like holding, 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 or high fives are perfectly appropriate and welcomed! Nati should know that the people with whom he interacts are our trusted friends.

Another area is redirecting Nati's desire to have his physical and emotional needs met by anyone (including strangers) to having us meet them. Orphans often have 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. To share this is difficult for us because we have snuggled, cared for, fed and loved so many of your children. Please understand that we want nothing more than to have Nati hugged, cuddled and cherished by ALL of you (he's totally irresistible and huggable). But until he has a firm understanding of family and primary attachments, we would be so grateful if you direct him to us if you see that he is seeking out food, affection or comfort.

We are incredibly blessed to have so many loved ones around us who are excited to welcome our son. We couldn't ask for a better extended family & circle of friends for our precious boy. Thank you so much for your love and support over the past two years. If you have any questions please feel free to ask at any time!

Surgery and Settling In

Sorry it has taken me so long to write an update after Nati's surgery. I had intended to do it much sooner but honestly our days since surgery have been pretty rough. We are all doing fine but the surgery definitely unraveled some of the hard work we had accomplished since coming home and that has been a little disheartening. Any timetable we had for hitting our new normal has been thrown out the window. We have extended our cocoon for a little bit longer and are trying to follow Nati's lead in attachment needs. We cannot wait for everyone to meet Nati and to be back at church as a family. However, we truly believe we have been doing what is in Nati's best interest. So thank you for being so patient with us as we are building this important foundation for him. We know you are all so ready to meet Nati and we are grateful for your continued support and prayers for our family.

Ok, back to surgery day. We arrived at Mercy Hospital around 6 AM on September 22nd for Nati's surgery. We were then placed in a waiting room for 15 minutes before being taken back to the holding room. It was here that we confirmed Nati's information and lack of medical history, met with our surgeon and our anesthesia team. We were reassured over and over again that this was a minor, routine procedure but this did nothing to settle mom and dad's nerves. The first thing they asked us to do was to change Nati out of his Thomas pajamas and into a hospital gown. This of course set off a wave of tears as Nati tried to rip the gown off and put back on HIS pajamas. Clothing and shoes continue to be huge security items to Nati and I truly believe that somewhere in his mind he thinks that keeping them on at all times means he is staying with us. It is heartbreaking to watch this and on this already stressful morning it almost sent me into tears as well. 

Something we talked extensively about with all members of the care team was the fact that there is research showing that 30% of Ethiopian kids are rapid metabolizers of Codeine. We put it down as an allergy and told them we did not even want him to have hydrocodone after surgery even though they assured us it was different. What we didn't realize at the time was that Ethiopian kids that rapid metabolize Codeine can have trouble with anesthesia and other narcotics as well. So when the nurse insisted we give him Versed to help him calm down, I went against my mommy instinct and allowed it. Within 3 minutes Nati was completely out of it and limp in my arms. Thankfully the anesthesiologist understood Nati's background and allowed me into the OR until he was completely under anesthesia. 

I was escorted out to the waiting room where Brandon was waiting and told the doctor would be with us in 10-15 minutes. Sure enough about 15 minutes later the surgeon came out to tell us that the surgery had went really well for the most part. He was only able to remove part of Nati's adenoids because when he got the tonsils out he revealed a split uvula which is an indicator for a partial cleft palate and he believed the adenoids were keeping it covered. As soon as he left I looked at Brandon with tears in my eyes and said "Praise God, a cleft palate could have very easily been a death sentence for our already hard to feed boy in Ethiopia.". Once again we were being reminded of how God's hand of protection has been over Nati even since he was in his birthmother's womb. 

We had explained over and over again how important it was for us to be there when Nati woke up and to be the first ones to comfort him so our nerves set in again when 30 minutes passed and they still had not come to get us. I went up to the desk and asked them to call back and check. The woman at the desk said that he was still in the OR but that as far as she could tell everything was ok. We waited another long 15 minutes before being called to go back to recovery. As soon as we enter the recovery bay I could hear Nati crying all the way at the other end. I walked as fast as I could without running and when I turned the corner I was met by 3 nurses and someone from the anesthesia team. One nurse immediately began helping me get the side rail down and encouraged me to pick him up. As I was trying to pick him up without tugging on any of his monitor wires or IV the woman from anesthesia began talking to Brandon. I could tell by her voice that she was pretty shaken up as she explained that she would strongly encourage us to never give Nati narcotics again. When the surgery was over they could not get Nati to wake up, even after reversing the Versed multiple times. His breathing was also still having trouble regulating even while I was holding him. She said she has only seen one other person in her career have this much difficulty with anesthesia and the narcotic.

Within another half hour we were moved to the pediatric floor where Nati's vitals and breathing were monitored very closely over the next several hours. He was also given a steroid to try to counteract any effect the Narcotic was still having. For the next couple hours his speech was slurred and he could not sit up alone. He cried for almost 2 hours straight after waking up from surgery and when he finally fell asleep he only slept for 30 minutes. However, by the afternoon he was holding down fluid and drinks and so they sent us home that evening. I can honestly say I am so glad they did. As soon as Nati got home and in his pajamas he went to sleep and slept through the night. I think he just could not relax in the sterilized environment of the hospital. Benjamin was also very relieved to have us back home. He had asked for Nati all day and on the way to Springfield kept saying " I'm going to get my mom. I'm going to get my mom."

The days since the surgery have been hard. We had been doing hard work to try to keep Nati's eating and drinking routine in place and all of that has been undone. We have been rotating Tylenol and Ibprofen every four hours and if we miss a dose Nati starts crying and pointing to his throat and saying "asamama" which is Amharic for hurt. He is still only eating soft foods and we are thankful that he is taking fluids very easily. We have been getting lots of extra cuddles as well and for that we have no complaints. ;)

In the last two weeks we have also had many really encouraging moments. We have had a huge answer to prayer in the surgery not undoing attachment for Nati. If anything he has allowed us to nurture and baby him even more which is really a wonderful thing. 

Nati has been working on his coloring skills and is now able to use multiple colors and different strokes. Before he would use one color and only draw straight lines. He also has mastered 3 puzzles and has learned to have fun while doing them. He is learning to do creative play with baby dolls and cars and trains. It is hard to imagine but, at the age of 4, Nati has had to learn to play. He has likely never had people sit down and show him how to roll the car instead of banging it on the ground or how to build a tower. In fact when we first took custody of Nati the only thing he wanted to do was pack the toys back safely into their packaging or cling to them desperately so no one would take them away. It has been such a joy watching him learn how fun it is to actually play with the toys. This is, of course, still a work in progress but we have been so encouraged to see so much growth in such a small time. 

Nati has also learned a few new English words and phrases in the last few weeks. His favorites are "I want it" (This applies to pretty much anything his siblings have or sweets), "more", and "come mommy/daddy". We are also continuing to learn more Amharic and there is still a lot of pointing. We are figuring it out and communication is happening which is the most important thing. 

We have now had custody of Nati for 9 weeks and we have been home for 7 weeks. I would say that our days are now mostly good with a few hard moments. Nati is learning what it means to be in a family and to have one mommy and daddy that will meet your needs. We are learning more about Nati's amazing personality everyday. All of the kids are creating a sibling bond. 

We are doing hard work, but it is also beautiful work. 

Life is starting to settle...and that is a really amazing feeling.