I took this letter from another blog, but wanted to share it here to help our friends and family understand how our world will be once Ella comes home.
Very soon we’ll be bringing Ella home and starting the process of
becoming a new and larger family. This is an exciting and scary time
for us – and will probably be especially frightening for Ella. In her
short life, she’s gone through more changes and life-altering
experiences than most adults could handle. She’s experienced the loss
of a birth mother, has dealt with health challenges, and will soon experience the loss of familiar
caretakers, and the sights, sounds, smells, and language of her birth
country. Her entire world will be turned upside down; she will be
disoriented and confused. She will have no reason to trust us – no way
to know that we are safe, that she is secure in our care, and that we
will meet her needs.
This process of learning to trust us, to bond and attach with our
family, may take weeks, months, or years. We expect it to get easier
over time, but things are going to be a little strange at first and we
ask that you please understand and respect what’s happening. It is not
our intention to shut anyone out of our lives or offend any friends in
this process. But Ella will need us to have certain boundaries in
place to develop a strong and healthy attachment to us.
It will help immensely if adults limit what is typically considered
normal physical contact with our daughter. For awhile, this includes
things like holding, hugging, and kissing. Children from
orphanages are prone to “attach” to anyone and everyone – which disrupts
her ability to attach to us. Waving, blowing kisses, or high fives are
perfectly appropriate and welcome! We want Ella to know our family
and friends – and interact with them!
Ella has relied
on a stream of different adults to meet her needs. She’s learned to
compete for attention of every adult for basic things like food,
clothing, comfort… Charming any available adult becomes a survival
technique. While it works in an orphanage, it’s dangerous in our
world. It’s not safe for Ella to ask random strangers for a hug; in
order to learn healthy, appropriate boundaries, she needs to begin by
learning that Dave and I are the two people responsible for meeting her needs.
For a time, we will be the only ones to give her food, water, comfort
her; bathe her, and so on. If she asks you for something –
please ask us. For awhile it may look like we’re spoiling her – but she
needs to understand what role we play in her life and she needs to know
we are dependable and constant.
Also understand that our very busy, very active family – will be
dramatically limiting our activities and events for awhile. Local
friends – you probably won’t see us at every field trip, every club
meeting, every birthday party – at least for a little bit. Large or
small gatherings, parties, events, even church activities, will not be a
priority in the beginning – but it’s not permanent, and it’s not
personal. At this point, we don’t know entirely what degree of medical
treatment and therapy we may be facing with her, too. We will be tired,
busy tending to her and learning about her, forming emotional bonds,
and getting through our days one day at a time. We are eager to
introduce her to everybody – but it may not be for a little while.
The lives of each member of our family will be topsy-turvy for
awhile, and we ask for your understanding as we navigate this new
world. We are obviously far from experts in this, but doing what we
believe to be best for her. We look forward to introducing her in
person to so many of our friends and family, and hope you understand why
some of our parenting decisions will look as they do with her.
Here’s an interesting analogy of what adoption looks like to an internationally adopted child:
http://benjaminandholly.blogspot.com/2009/04/attachment-analogy.html
And another great illustration of what adopted children go through:
http://shaungroves.com/2011/01/the-list/
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