CJs Daddy

Thank you very much for asking - I suppose it’s time to explain our approach to that finally.

These days, attachment discussion actually transcends all types of family formation. It’s the very thing that happens between parents and children as they get to know one another, whether they meet through birth or adoption. Attachment always occurs between children and parents, no matter what kind of relationship they have. Attachment can range from healthy to destructive, familiar to co-dependent. Obviously we’re looking to develop a healthy long term oriented attachment.

If you’ve never heard it described explicitly, think of it as the next level of bonding, but even much more than that. We’ve all bonded with a variety of people in our lives, but formed real attachments with very few. In short, attachment is the process of becoming fully trusting and reliant on another human being, generally within the context of parent child relationships. Some (including me) would consider attachment to be something that often takes place within a marriage and many other close relationships.

In the context of adoption, attachment concerns often top the list of worries. Because our children spent some period of their lives with someone else, we did not participate in their attachment development. Of course, this can be a concern within biological families as well. Most of us practice these techniques during the early months and even years after birth. Eye contact during feeding, responding to cries quickly, hugs, kisses, and skin to skin contact; these are all techniques that aid in healthy attachment formation between parent and child. Much of this comes naturally, some of it might need to be deliberate.

Note again, that in our case, we have not been able to experience anything like this with Carmen yet. When we bring her home, she will have already formed a strong attachment to N, her foster mom, and to some degree the rest of her foster family. She will know and recognize N as her mother - the one who meets her needs. Even though we visited, we will essentially be strangers to her. While we’ve known her to be a good natured baby, and we are confident in our abilities, Carmen has no idea about this, and will constantly be searching for her mother.

She will simultaneously grieve the loss of her family, and be searching for security in her new family, looking for someone else to meet her needs. It’s critical during this transition period that we allow her to grieve, but immediately begin to become a family. It might sound odd that someone under the age of one might grieve, and you might be wondering (as some have verbally) how in the world she’ll remember this. Be assured that even if she forgets the events themselves by the age of 5, she will be extremely confused, frustrated, and distant unless we are careful about how we foster attachment right now. Note here that we’re working with a bit of an advantage in the adoption community as CJ has had the experience of attaching to someone early in her life, and thus will be able to learn this again with us. It’s often more difficult for children who have lived in an orphanage to form healthy attachment in a new family. There are additional techniques often used for children from these situations.

So here’s basically how it works - or at least how we plan to allow and encourage our precious Carmensita to attach to her new parents - us!

During the time in our hotel in Guatemala, we will begin the attachment process in ways that might seem like “duh” to most of you experienced parents. I mean, of course we’ll change diapers, give bottles and baths, play, and sleep. Duh. But it’s how we go about it that might differ that what you’d expect.

Normally a 10/11 month old child might hold her own bottle and sleep in her own crib. You might let her fuss a little bit at night before falling asleep. Parents of a baby this age will start to look for signs of walking. There will be none of this in our home!!!

We’ll hold her tight in our arms to feed bottles, keep her sleeping in our bed for as long as she seems to need, and respond to her cries and calls without hesitation. We’ll be carrying her pretty much all the time. She’ll be strapped to one of us with the snuggly and likely be strapped to the red head regularly during the day when I return to work.

Another key point that we must mention. For the first few months at least, there will not be a lot of other people holding Carmen, at least not for any extended period of time. If you are holding her, we’ll be coming for her at the first sign of trouble. We’ll be the ones to be meeting her needs because she needs to learn that we’ll be the one’s meeting her needs, KWIM? It will be tough at first, but if CJ becomes distressed in any way, or starts to go to someone else, we’ll need to immediately take over. This is not to say that any of our dear friends and family aren’t perfectly capable of taking care of a child. As a matter of fact, we have a strong support network.

You see, Carmen will have been removed from the only home and family she’s ever known. She has to learn as quickly and as securely as possible that we are her new family. These techniques will be combined with lots of snuggling, skin to skin contact, eye contact, and zerberts! For the first few weeks, we’ll be limiting visitors and probably not leave the house with CJ a great deal.

Much of what I’m describing above should sound familiar. It’s not all that different than how a family might handle bringing home a new born infant. You see, Carmen needs to be able to regress initially in order not to regress permanently. We have to baby her a little so that she understands that we will always be there for her.

OK folks - I apologize for the long-ish post, but I felt the need to finally go through all of that more formally. We really do believe in attachment parenting, so I may discuss our progress as time passes. And of course, we’d be more than happy to hear from all of you any tidbits of advice (or full on essays!) on the subject.

Hang on Carmen - we’ll be there in 8 day!!!

Posted on March 4th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Adoption, Attachment, CJ, PGN