Category — Attachment and Bonding

Thank you for all the wonderful feedback!  I had no idea that would be such a well-received post, but I’m so glad people got something out of it.  I also have learned a lot through others sharing their experiences in my comments section, so thank you.

A few people raised some good points in the comments.  I was not suggesting that I think it’s impossible for others to feel empathy towards first moms if they have not experienced having a bio child.  I have always thought of my sons’ first moms, but until I delivered Finley, I don’t think I grasped their losses quite as deeply as I now do.  That is just how I arrived at that empathy, but I think it’s possible for others to realize the significance of that loss without having experienced the bio connection.  In fact, the 2 women who’ve shown me the greatest degree of sensitivity towards first moms have no bio children -  Margie from Third Mom and Judy from Just Enjoy Him.  None of us will ever truly know what that loss is like unless we’ve lived it, but I think we can all be empathetic to it if we’re open to trying to understand it.

Jen, to answer your question without writing a novel on it, I think it is SO individual.  Here’s Jen’s comment for reference:

I appreciate this post as well…but I cannot help but wonder if it is ok to adopt when you are pregnant or if you have a child less than 1 year old? Since you are so forthright and honest, I would greatly appreciate your insight on this one? Do you feel that having a newborn has jeopardized your bonding with Shane?

I don’t want to be confrontational at all–just curious about your feelings and whether or not this has added any difficulties to bonding with adopted kiddos when they are so close in age to biological sibs.

Our agency expressly forbids adoptions when parents are expecting/caring for a newborn, yet other agencies don’t….how do you feel after your experience? Personally, I don’t know if I could meet Morgan’s needs and the needs of a new baby sufficiently. I think it would be really hard!

For some families, caring for a newborn or a pregnancy on the heels of adopting would throw them into overload - emotional and physical.  I think there are SO MANY factors to consider going into a situation like that - strength of marriage, emotional stamina, desire, physical ability, adoption awareness and readiness, mentorship and family support, work dynamics and parent availability, etc.  I’m not implying that we had the ideal set up going into this situation either, or that we never feel like we’re on overload; I’m just suggesting that every family is different and there are a lot of dynamics that contribute to the *right* answer for each different family.  

For us, it has been very difficult, for sure, but has always felt right for our family.  Yes, Finley’s birth affected our bonding process with Shane, as I’ve mentioned in several posts.  Undoubtedly, our attachment process with Shane will be more gradual than perhaps it could have been if he were our only child.  But because he is not our only child doesn’t mean we won’t still reach the same endpoint, it just takes more work and probably more time.  So no, I don’t believe anything has been jeopardized for us or Shane.  But I also think we got unbelievably lucky in ALL regards.  Had Jackson and Shane’s personalities been reversed, or had Jackson’s homecoming been tailed by Finley’s birth, we might be in a VERY different boat right now.  So I think there is some component of the situation that had nothing to do with our readiness as parents and had everything to do with the dynamics of our kids’ personalities.  And with that, we just got lucky.  Jackson was a hard baby, but he was an only child for over a year.  Shane and Finley are both very easy babies with very laid back dispositions, so we’re beyond thankful that they are the 2 that joined our family close together!

The other thing you mentioned was it being a concern for your adopted kids when you deliver a newborn right away.  If anything, I think the risk and challenges are much bigger when you’re talking about multiple ADOPTED kids coming home close together because their needs are so much greater and more complex.  I never have to worry about Finley, but if we’d adopted her too, I’d be struggling to attach and bond to BOTH new babies simultaneously.  Instead, it came easy for me with Finley (which I realize now is not a universal experience, but was the case for me), so I just have to work at it with Shane.  It’s a lot less emotionally taxing in my eyes than if they both took work and the same degree of consideration. 

In terms of agency policy, I think it’s a very responsible one to just forbid it across the board.  Because it’s so specific to individual families, and since most social workers really don’t screen very carefully for which families would be prepared and which might have a bad outcome with this scenario, it’s easiest for agencies to just disallow it.  Ideally, there’d be counseling and other preparatory steps for families like ours to go through, and for a way to assist and then assess readiness after those steps are taken.  But that’s not realistic, so instead of a creating a system with a biased case-by-case policy, they just say “no.”  While we explicitly chose an agency that did not have this policy, since we were confident about how we wanted to build our family, I do think it’s responsible on an agency’s part to just simplify things and protect everyone.  Especially if the agency isn’t good with providing resources to families who need extra help on follow-up visits, etc. 

You also made the comparison to your situation with Morgan, who just came home.  So he is still a “new baby.”  I totally understand you feeling that way and probably would feel the same, but we we had spent 4 months with Shane prior to Finley’s birth.  He’d only been home for 2 months, but it wasn’t like having 2 brand new babies at exactly the same time, which for me would have been overload.  That said, I do know families who have done that with great success too.  Like I said, it’s all very individual! 

This post has been collecting dust in my ‘drafts’ folder for awhile, so I thought I’d put it out there.  As always, this post represents MY experience and MY perspective.  I welcome other views in my comments and hope that no one finds this offensive; that was not my intention in writing it. 

A lot of people ask me if the emotions, love, etc. are the same when you adopt as when you deliver a bio baby.  For me, the short answer is no.  Don’t misinterpret that to mean one is less and the other more, or that the love I have is deeper for Finley than it is for Jackson or Shane.  Because it is not.  That love is every bit as intense and as deep.  But the way I’ve arrived at that love is so totally different. 

My love for Finley has always been effortless; my attachment to her never required work, contemplation, analysis, or struggle.  It just was.  She came from my body, my brain had a physiologic response to my hormones, my body reacted when I heard her cry, and without effort, it has sustained her with nourishment since she was conceived.  When she cries, my body continues to PHYSICALLY respond without thought - I have milk letdown.  I know how to console her and her needs are obvious to me (mostly anyway).  She needs me, my love, my body.  Nothing more, nothing less.  That’s the case from birth through the newborn period anyway.

My instant love for and attachment to my daughter is so very different from how I have grown to love and adore my sons.  Adoption is difficult.  In our case, we entered our sons’ lives after they’d been physically and emotionally separated from the women whose bodies had grown them.  We entered after they had gone on from that loss to live for ~6 months in orphanages with too few caregivers and other needy babies who had sustained the same early loss.  Their needs went well beyond the comfort and milk a body effortlessly provides a bio child.  Their wounds are deep, their needs significant, their cries about much more than hunger, a dirty diaper, or the cue for a nap.  And often, I had no idea exactly what they were crying about.  I felt detached from the inconsolable crying.  Frustrated when I couldn’t sooth my own child.  I still feel this way about Shane on occasion, as we are still very much in the throws of his adjustment period and have to work daily on our attachment process with him.  I’m still very much in the cycle with him where I get frustrated with his irrational crying, then get frustrated with myself for not having more patience for his crying.  I am still able to detach from his crying, and then I feel horribly guilty for doing that.  It’s a familiar cycle, as I experienced similar emotions with Jackson early on.  I know it will get better with time, but that’s just the reality - I’m doing my best, but I know that won’t feel good enough for awhile. 

I realize my love for my sons has been a choice, something I’ve had to intellectualize before I actually started to feel it in my heart.  But when I did begin to really feel it, it grew deeper and deeper.  And the feeling it has given me when it became a reciprocal love was unparalleled.  Rewarding doesn’t begin to describe it.  And that was because it took work.  So please understand that I do not mean nothing was gained by the fact that this love was not reached effortlessly.  But the getting there was hard, and we’re still not all the way there yet with Shane.  It takes time, effort, a TON of patience and energy, but I know it will come.  And when it does, I won’t be able to fathom loving anything more deeply.  Adoption is an amazing way to build a family, and I’ve always known that. 

What pregnancy and having a baby biologically has really driven home for me is just how primal that connection between a birth mom and her child truly is, which has made me realize in a deeper way how significant that loss really is for my boys.  I have thought about their birth moms so often since my delivery and wondered how anyone can endure such a separation and loss.  It breaks my heart to think about it - for Jack and Shane, as well as their first moms.  Those first few weeks with Finley were so filled with love and joy, as well as the physical pain that was a constant reminder of her delivery.  I also had this very primal sense of protection over her.  I had NIGHTMARES that she’d drowned in the tub, or that I’d rolled over on her, or that she’d fallen from a high place.  Stuff like that.  I’m not positive, but I think those fears are normal when you are responsible for a totally helpless, very fragile, teeny teeny tiny life.  I know it’s really common to have dreams like that in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy as well.  It makes me wonder if Jackson and Shane’s first moms are plagued by fears for the boys as well.  See, every time I woke up in a panic, all I had to do was reach out and feel that my baby girl was sound asleep in my arms.  Then I could drift back to sleep with a smile on my face knowing she was safe.  It kills me to think Jack and Shane’s first moms might be going through that, or that they might’ve when their boys were first born and separated from them, and that they may never have the peace of mind that I do because they may never know how much their babies are loved and cherished by Travis and me.  I just wish I could share that with them so they could at least know what incredible kids they gave life to and how much we love and adore them. 

So it dawned on me the other day that my kid hasn’t had a bath in a week.  Whoops. Of course things are a little crazy, but I’m sort of proud of myself that I’m finding a groove with the little ones.  It helps so much to have nice weather outside because I can get them loaded up and outside for long walks, which is great for me and they enjoy it as well.  It’s part of our routine now to walk several miles at least once a day, and that is usually how I’m guaranteed at least 1 little nap for Jack (he can’t resist dozing on a relaxing walk in the stroller) and some exercise for me.  We have a BOB double for the boys, and I carry Finley in my Ergo, so we can get truckin at a pretty decent pace.

I had been struggling with Jackson recently.  Well, pretty much since I came home from the hospital actually.  I think he’s harbored a LOT of anger towards me for being such an absentee parent since that whole labor thing went down, then for me being out of commission for the weeks following.  Not to mention that when I did come home, I brought with me yet ANOTHER new baby!  Travis had been his primary caretaker for awhile, and since he started rotations at the hospital and I’m back to being the primary for all the kids, Jackson has just been testing and challenging EVERY.  THING. 

I’ll reluctantly admit to having been outsmarted on numerous occasions by my toddler.  I made the mistake of giving him choice, which makes him feel like he has more control and more power, a big problem for a little toddler who refuses to give up those things to his mom so she can be in charge of his world.  I also made the mistake of creating gray rules, which I’ve learned do not work with Jackson.  Things can’t be contingent on “if this, then you can do this, etc.”  They have to be black and white, with firm boundaries, for him to respect the rules.  He’d developed this annoying habit of throwing his toys over his head just to see where they’d land.  I used to be amused by that, until there were other little babies present.  Since Shane is pretty much built like a lollipop (aka a “head on a stick), his noggin always seemed to function as a magnet for any toy-in-flight.  He’d been bopped on the head one too many times, and with Finley around too, I had to put my foot down on that one.  So the next time Jackson did it, it was a little plastic ball he chucked into the air, and it hit me square in the forehead (I think my parenting may have been more effective if I’d been able to suppress my laughter!).  Anyway, I told him to go pick up that ball and bring it to me because he was going to lose his toy.  He walked over to it, as if he was intending to adhere, then announced “kick,” as he kicked it across the room.  {As an aside, Jack has made a point of narrating his own actions.  It’s hysterical, sometimes.  Other times it serves as a great warning that I have like 5 seconds to dive in front of him, like when  he announces “push,” just before he shoves Shane onto his head, etc.}  He turned and gave me his devilish little “F U, Mom” grin.  So I brilliantly gave him the choice of “you can either bring me that ball NOW, or go sit in timeout.” 

This is where he outsmarts me. 

The kid went racing by me, laughing all the way, and sat himself in timeout.  He sat there kicking his feet with pleasure, wearing the BIGGEST smirk on his proud, smug little face, relishing in his victory.  So, in accordance with my mom and our social worker’s advice, no more choices (other than things like “do you want to paint or color?”).  And he knows now that if he throws a toy, he loses that toy. 

As far as Jackson’s anger towards me, it had become quite the problem.  For one, because he was disrespectful and disobedient at every opportunity.  He also refused to look me in the eye, show me affection, and did quite the job of creating a “good parent / bad parent” dynamic between me and Travis (this could be a separate post).  He’s just so smart and SO manipulative, and at one point, I’d made a rule in order to keep the baby safe that Jackson is not allowed to touch her little vibrating chair.  I often set her there when I need to hold someone else or do something that requires my hands to be totally free, and Jack had been using those opportunities to go and shake the crap out of the chair.  Hence the rule.  The second Travis walked in the door after work, Jackson went running towards him, flung his arms around Travis’ neck, and dragged him DIRECTLY over to the babies chair.  This is all before I had a chance to tell Travis the new rule.  Meanwhile, Jackson was watching me the WHOLE time, another “F U, Mom,” as he grabbed the side of Finley’s chair and shook it. 

A lot of Jack’s anger was turning into aggression towards Shane, an easy target.  Not an obvious form of aggression, like overt hitting or kicking, but he’d do things like sit on Shane’s lap while Shane was on the floor, then lean into him to make him fall over on his head.  Or he’d walk by and “accidentally” step on Shane.  My mom and I had long talks about Jackson’s behavior, since she’d had a chance to witness it directly while she was here.  She strongly believes a lot of his pent up anger and control issues are related to birth mom loss.  She explained that Jackson’s security comes from feeling like he’s in control.  On the other hand, that is exactly what is preventing him from trusting me fully or allowing himself to attach securely to me.  I often disagree with my mom on adoption topics and feel she is a little too psychoanalytical at times.  However, I do think she presents some valid points in relation to Jackson’s behavior.  On occasion, he has these fits of hysteria.  Most people would see that and just think he’s having a nasty temper tantrum.  But I think I’m starting to see these episodes differently, as I’ve never quite seen another kid this angry, even during a tantrum.  These are ragerums, seriously.  So about 2 weeks ago, he was climbing up the blinds (not an uncommon occurrence around here!) and he bumped his head.  He was crying, so I scooped him up to comfort him, but he wanted NOTHING to do with me.  He started kicking and pushing off me to get away.  I said, repeatedly, “let mommy hold you, let mommy hold you,” but I think at that point he just couldn’t overcome his anger at me to let me comfort him. 

So I took a piece of advice my mom gave me and used it as an opportunity to force the hold and just let him rage in my arms until he was done.  I was only able to do this because my Yiayia was here with me and could take Shane out of the room so he didn’t get scared.  I held Jackson tight against my body for 40 minutes while he screamed bloody murder, neck veins bulging, eyes popping out of his head…honestly, the kid looked like he was running from a headless horseman.  It was just pure anger and fear coming out.  If you’d been a fly on the wall, I assure you, you’d have thought I was conducting an exorcism.  I tried to just keep voicing his feelings, saying things like “I know you’re angry and I can see you’re so afraid.  Mommy is right here holding you.  You’re safe with mommy.  Get all that anger out,” etc.

He eventually passed out in my arms, and I stayed there and rocked him for a long time.  When he woke up from his nap, I was right there with him.  I had no idea what to expect and was so pleasantly surprised when he threw his little arms around me, wrapped his legs around me, and just sunk into me.  It was a strange breakthrough, and although I’m sure it’s only the beginning of working t
hrough his feelings, things have been very different since that happened.  He’s been SO affectionate towards me, he hasn’t been nearly as aggressive towards the babies, and he’s been listening…well, better anyway. 

When our friends were here this past weekend, things got a little crazy again for Jackson.  I think anytime he feels like he’s competing for attention, issues surface and he takes it out on Shane a little bit, starts disobeying rules and testing me all over again.  The other time things get a little wild is when Travis comes home in the evening and gets Jackson all riled up.  Whenever he’s hyper, we have those problems surface yet again.  But at least he’s not so angry with me.  It’s funny because before the holding episode happened and Jack was still pissed at me, when I would read a book to him, the big and little characters became “dada and baby.”  Since the holding episode, many have returned to “mama and baby.”  Interesting. 

It’s always tricky as an adoptive parent to know when to consider your child’s behavior could be adoption-related, and when it’s just your kid being himself.  I tend to disagree with my mom a lot on this topic because I feel like she can be extremely hypersensitive to adoption loss, and while I try to be sensitive to it, I worry that her extreme can create self-fulfilling prophecies.  Complicated stuff, but I think the answer usually lies in the middle.  Either way, Jackson is doing much better.  Now Travis and I just need to get our acts together and make sure we’re always on the same page with disciplining him and parenting him consistently so he doesn’t have to mind read!

First of all, your comments brought me to tears.  I can’t even believe what an awesome support group we have from our friends and family.  And I could NEVER have predicted what an incredible source of support I would find in my blogging community, which really has become an important community for me.  It’s not the perc0cet talking when I say I really love you guys!  I had no idea how many people were so invested in Finley’s birth and in our family, and it just gave me the warmest feeling of support to read those comments.  Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

People in medicine always joke that, as a patient, you “never want to be the interesting medical case.”  Unfortunately, there were few medical personnel involved with labor and delivery or anesthesia at our hospital who hadn’t heard our story as of a few days ago.  Lots of people stopped by our room to say they’d heard about me - the patient who labored 4 days, had 3 epidurals, and still landed a rough c-section.  Finley is a pretty well-known baby in these parts already, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear our case was the topic of a morning report, noon conference, or hell, even an M&M conference (morbidity & mortality) because of how complicated a medical case we turned out to be.  We are letting ourselves grieve and feel the disappointment of things not going the way we’d hoped, but truthfully, in the end, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat - I’d make all the same choices.  I’m even more convinced now than ever before that, unless necessary, as ours was in the end, c-sections should be done only with sound medical indication and side effects of epidurals should be seriously reviewed before reflexively chosen.  Having experienced many of the complications and side effects related to both, I wouldn’t wish those on anyone.  Not on anyone.  Nor would I wish this recovery on anyone.  I keep wondering how much easier it would have been to come home to a house full of babies if I didn’t have all this pain with which to contend.  It was obviously far from elective in my case, and medical technology was necessary to safely bring Finley into the world, and for that I am thankful.  And granted, it would’ve been easier had I not spent days in labor AND had the damn section.  But you get my point - it was a rough way to go.

There are a few last pictures I wanted to share.  The first was shortly after arriving at the hospital in labor with the midwife measuring heart tones with a handheld doppler.  The next is after Travis carried the baby back to our room, while I was being wheeled out of the OR, and they were getting Finley’s measurements.  Unless you know Travis REALLY well, you probably can’t see that he’s crying, but it’s such a tender picture to me and I absolutely love it.  And in case I didn’t explicitly say it anywhere, Travis was the most incredible birth partner I could have ever dreamed of having.  Really and truly.  He was amazing.  He was patient.  He was gentle.  He was encouraging.  He was supportive.  He was protective.  He was loving.  He was proud of me, and I was so proud of him. 

So, I went back to the hospital last night for what was hopefully my last procedure related to this delivery.  As it turned out, I did get a very severe spinal headache from the wet tap, which happened during attempt #2 of 3 epidurals (the epidural I had hoped not to get at all in the first place).  The headache was totally incapacitating, but I was discharged from the hospital under the hope it was only a situational headache.  You see, the onset was just towards the tail end of the “48 window” following my wet tap, but also coincided with a huge meltdown I had that involved so much sobbing it was easy to explain the headache away with all the head and nasal congestion that followed.  But I came home and it never went away, except when I laid flat on my back.  [A brief explanation of a spinal headache - basically, the epidural needle punctured my dura, and spinal fluid escaped.  There was, therefore, not enough volume to bath my brain and spinal cord when in an upright position.  The "slumping" of my brain because of the decreased fluid volume when gravity takes effect translates into a severe headache when standing that is really only relieved, or partially relieved, by laying flat.]  So I was basically useless and in excruciating pain every time I tried to stand up or even sit upright.  I was a contributing parent to 33% of my kids, and that is only because I have these magic pillows that give Finley her power.  When she’s within striking distance, she’s ravenous!  When she’s done re-fueling, she likes to put her little arm around her pillowy friends, nestle up to them, and pass out.  It’s the cutest thing in the world.  I plan on breastfeeding Shane eventually too, to answer a few of your questions.  I just need a little time to get the hang of it with just Finley first, since it’s her ONLY source of food.  I do think there’ll be PLENTY to go around though!  Travis has made several comments about my National Geographic look, so I’ve had to remind him that I am TOTALLY capable of suffocating him in his sleep if he’s not careful!

Anyway, back to the story.  So we went back to the Labor and Delivery floor of the hospital last night and I had a “blood patch” performed.  Basically, another needle in the spine.  Fun stuff.  They draw sterile blood from my arm, inject it into my back.  That should fill the volume I was missing, and help form the clot that will seal the punctured dura.  I wasn’t sure it worked when we left last night; mine was slow to heal.  I only knew that I was having horrendous pain at the site of the injection.  My back is completely black and blue, not to mention covered in contact dermatitis, since I’m apparently allergic to the tape they used to hold the epidurals in place.  I am unable to bend at the waist without this weird buckling pain.  But I woke up this morning a new person since the headache is GONE.  Thank God.  I finally have some pain relief and feel like I have been able to participate in the care of my kids today.  I think I am finally on the road to recovery.  Oh, and despite the fact that my body is COMPLETELY disfigured and unrecognizable to myself, I celebrated the very welcomed re-appearance of my belly button today, permanently warped as it may be.  My incision is still a little painful, although I hadn’t noticed until the agony from my headache lifted- the headache which had been distracting me from noticing the large cut below my abdomen.  Realistically, I think I have a few more days on pain meds, and I’m ok with that. 

I cried my eyes out saying goodbye to my Mom this afternoon.  She’s been here since 3/15, and I honestly don’t think Travis or I could’ve survived any of this without her.  Travis and I have been dreading her departure for awhile.  She has done EVERYTHING for us these past few weeks - cooked, cleaned, rubbed my back through early labor (alternating with Trav), took such good care of Jackson and Shane BY HERSELF since my dad had to fly home with the kids on Wednesday, traded on and off with Trav at the hospital to care for me, cried with me in disappointment, held me while I wept in pain, coached me through breastfeeding, helped me get Shane through his grieving, talked about me everyday with Jackson so he would understand I hadn’t left him, decorated our home, cooked weeks
worth of meals that we can easily pull out of the freezer, and bought us everything under the sun from a downstairs rocking chair, bassinet, baby swing, newborn clothes, a newborn bathtub, tons of nursing supplies (bras, tanks, lotions, etc.).  Sorry Daddy - I’m pretty sure you don’t want to check your bank account anytime soon! 

Here are a few pictures of my parents with Finley, and one that I absolutely love of my mom and Shane:

I have a lot to say about Shane, but I’ll just give you the short story version.  He has gone through a very obvious grieving process and when I came home from the hospital, he was still so angry with me.  I was basically absent from his life for a week, and he changed so much in that short period of time.  He’s HUGE, for one.  Really though, he’s losing that baby look so fast it makes my head spin.  He’s also eating EVERYTHING now from avocado to entire bananas.  Like I said before, initially he would cry hysterically whenever I was near him.  So I had to just hold him tight through his rage and FINALLY.  Finally, he let it go and let me console him.  It was so sad, but things are so much better now.  He wants me to hold him and is happy to be in my arms.  He smiles every time I come into the room or anytime he looks over at me.  Thank God, again.  My heart couldn’t have taken much more of that if he hadn’t let me back in!  He’s still out-of-sorts in that he’s not sleeping as soundly and is more needy than usual.  All the emotional stress is compounded by the fact that he’s cutting new teeth as I type, which is never any fun.  Please keep our little Shane-bug in your thoughts and prayers.

Finley is quite the superstar.  She’s an eater AND a sleeper.  Seriously, I know it has to get harder, and I don’t want to speak to soon, but I can’t get over how easy she is as a newborn.  The boob is an amazing thing.  It’s crazy to be a parent to a kid whose needs are as simple as the boob, for a change.  I’m just so in love and absolutely obsessed with her; to me, she’s perfection.  She’s totally helpless, completely innocent, and entirely dependent on my body.  I never thought I could possibly love her so much.  Really.  I worried that I was prepared and excited for labor and delivery, but was terrified of the part where we actually had to bring home a 3rd baby.  WOW, did I have it ass backwards!  Turns out, bringing Finley home and having enough love for #3 was the easy part! 

Here are some new Finley pictures:

And guess who has taken a liking to all Finley and Shane’s new stuff?  Yup, this kid:

We (myself included) throw around terms like “bonding and attachment” quite frequently in the adoption world, and we also have a tendency to use them interchangeably.  These terms, however, are not synonymous.  There are a few other things that struck me from people’s responses to my last post that I’d like to address in this post.  Because these are big, heavy, significant topics for me, coming from a family with 4 bio kids and 5 adopted, which has dealt in depth with adoption specific issues like RAD and birth parent loss, it’s hard for me to read some of the comments and emailed feedback without responding based on my family’s experience.  I hope this isn’t a post I end up tagging as “controversial,” because I truly am not trying to offend anyone here. 

A lot of people want to focus more on the similarities than the differences in parenting adopted and birth children.  Many AP’s also state that their child’s “attachment” came really quickly.  I’m not trying to discredit anyone’s experience, and I know this is going to rub a few people the wrong way.  However, I think it’s important to deconstruct “attachment” on a basic level because I think not giving credence to the differences between attachment and bonding, and the challenges in raising bio versus adopted children does a disservice to fellow AP’s who are struggling, as well as minimizes the significance of the loss our adopted children have experienced. 

First, to address the difference between bonding and attachment, this is a pretty good article that sums it up.  Since it outlines the distinction, I won’t try and paraphrase:

As defined in most research literature, bonding is distinct from attachment in two important ways.

• First, bonding refers to a phenomenon that is relatively short-term (i.e. hours or days after birth), whereas attachment is a relationship that develops gradually over the early months and years of the child’s life.

• Secondly, bonding describes an experience that, to a large extent, is more one-sided than attachment. In the early moments of life the infant is not mature enough to be an active, knowing partner in a relationship with the caregiver.

Thus bonding is largely the parent’s experience. In contrast, attachment is a mutual, reciprocal relationship in which the child becomes a full partner, purposefully working to maintain the relationship with the caregiver.

So I want to back-up and qualify something from my previous post.  By stating that Shane is “an easy baby by comparison to Jackson,” I am not, in any way, trying to insinuate that he is attached to us.  He has reached a certain level of comfort with us, for sure, but he has only known us for ~6 weeks now.  There is no way that is a true attachment.  Am I bonded to him?  I believe so.  I know that will continue to grow, but I do feel connected to him and that has come much easier than I expected it to.  As stated above, that bond is a one-sided feeling, from me to my son.  This early on, it is unrequited.  As new parents, we desperately want our child to be doing well IMMEDIATELY.  I felt that with Jackson and tried to convince myself we were further along than we probably were.  Like I’d heard said by many AP’s before me, I’d say things like “aside from the sleeping issues, I think he is totally healthy and really well attached already,” failing to recognize that sleep is a manifestation of a baby’s feeling of security.  Our kids may “goo” and “ga” and laugh with us during the day.  They may make eye contact and seem happy.  But when we are within weeks or months of having pulled them from the only safe environment they have known, after they’ve already suffered the traumatic loss of a birth parent, these are merely signs of superficial attachment.  When we look closer we can see that true, healthy, SECURE attachment can take years, especially when the child suffered that loss and separation in infancy (thus, never establishing a foundation of trust and attachment).  It’s not that the process of attaching doesn’t begin early, but I think that is a process which takes a LONG time and is constantly underway.  For some kids it’s faster, for others it’s slower.  For some, the superficial attachment seems to happen unnaturally fast, but it takes a long time for that to progress to a secure attachment.  For others the process is slow and steady.  For kids like Jackson, it is slow and difficult.  But for the vast majority, it WILL happen, one way or another, and it will ultimately result in a healthy attachment, thank God. 

In response to a very good, thought-provoking comment on my post below stating that perhaps being a bio parent to an inconsolable baby is more difficult simply because the blame cannot be put on adoption and loss, thus making the parent feel that having an unhappy child is a result of their own inadequacies as a parent…I appreciate that perspective.  I have not experienced that from the bio parent’s perspective yet, but I can imagine it would be difficult.  That said, there are a few recurrent themes and issues with which the adoption triad is riddled.  One of them is the feeling of inadequacy.  I will not speak from the birth parent experience for obvious reasons, but I do know from watching children go through intensive attachment therapy, that many adoptees experience some degree of insecurity and inadequacy that they must overcome.  It seems reasonable that being placed for adoption or abandoned by a birth parent might evoke that feeling in a child.  As an adoptive parent, I think some of us will experience that sentiment if we are open to our children’s emotions and ever find ourselves holding our child as s/he cries at night because s/he misses birth mom.  I’ve seen it and it’s heart wrenching.  And as much as we can intellectually know those moments are not about our failures as parents, but about our childrens’ losses, I imagine the mere fact that we cannot take that pain away might engender the feeling of inadequacy.  I know that even strong adoptive parents who are extremely secure in themselves and their parenting often experience, to some degree, the feeling of inadequacy when trying to console a child through his/her grief over a lost birth parent.  So yeah, we have adoption to blame it on in the early months when our children are crying inconsolably and we feel inadequate.  But I don’t think that makes the experience easier.  Not to mention, for many of us who are concerned with attachment disorder, that feeling of deficiency is also laden with the fear of “holy crap, not only am I inadequate, but my inadequacy might render me incapable of preventing my kid from developing RAD or having irreparable emotional damage.”  So it’s still very different, but for me, personally, having Jackson’s adoption to fall back on as a reason for his discontentment never made it more comforting to me as a parent.  An additional consideration is the fact that no matter how much your child seems to dislike you when they are young, or even older, if you birthed that child, you are unlikely to ever hear the dreaded “you’re not my real mom.”  I know we have to prepare ourselves for that as adoptive parents when our kids are angry or feeling their loss, but I imagine it may still elicit that feeling of inadequacy in many of us yet again.

I’m not the most devout believer in the “primal wound” theory, although I come from parents who I think are.  But still, I agree with my mom on many levels that an adopted child has had a fundamental loss that many of that child’s difficult
ies later in life might point back to.  Not that the loss cannot be overcome, or that the child cannot go on to be a totally healthy, well-adjusted individual, but I don’t believe that loss can be replaced.  My mom would tell you that while she raised the spectrum of the easiest to the most difficult bio kids, even the most difficult of us was fundamentally different from raising my most difficult adopted sibling.  We may have looked the same on the surface, but the etiologies of our difficulties were vastly different, and recognizing that makes her more capable of meeting each of our individual needs.  I used to get frustrated with my mom for making the distinction, and I have often thought she overemphasizes adoption when analyzing her children.  I just saw it as my little sister exhibiting rebelliousness the same way I did when I was her age, but my mom saw it as a result of her distrust in adults and authority.  Turned out, my mom was right (damn, I hate it when that happens). 

This was not supposed to be a total downer post.  The purpose of this is not to say one parenting experience is hard and the other is easy.  I don’t know if there is such a thing as easy when it comes to being a parent.  It was not to negate anyone else’s experience.  Truth is, I don’t have the first hand parenting experience for any of my beliefs to be anything more than my own opinion based mostly on 2nd hand experience with a little adoptive parenting experience added to that.  So take that for what it’s worth.  My intention is to highlight the important differences I believe exist between raising bio and adopted kids, and to emphasize that it’s not a bad thing to acknowledge those.  Doing so does not take anything away from either experience.  There are most definitely similarities I see between the two as well.  But I think there’s often a desire to gloss over the differences and magnify the commonalities, and I think that risks making us less sensitive to the unique emotional needs our adopted kids may have.  That said, there is also a risk, on the flip-side, of overemphasizing adoption issues, which can be detrimental as well.  It’s a delicate balancing act, I suppose, and it seems an impossible task to find a happy medium!  Yet another challenge that lies ahead!

I absolutely do NOT believe that adopted kids are permanently damaged or are fundamentally flawed and screwed up for life.  Travis and I chose to build our family through adoption because we believe, wholeheartedly, in the beauty and reward of parenting children who came to us through adoption.  My point is to say that adoption is different, and acknowledging that allows us to recognize and be sensitive to what our children have lost before they came to us.  Doing that makes us more capable of meeting their needs.  And without that recognition, we trivialize our kids’ experiences and we don’t give due credit to the tremendously challenging, yet maximally rewarding process of attachment, which does not happen overnight.  It’s one that takes TIME, PATIENCE, LOVE, FAITH, COMMITMENT, and WORK. 

I had to find a way to incorporate this favorite SE Asia tourism slogan.  We first heard it in Thailand, and have recently seen it crop up all over Vietnam tourist spots as well - travel agencies, backpacker bars/restaurants, on T-shirts, etc.  It means something like “similar, but with some big differences.” 

It’s amazing to me how different Shane’ adjustment thus far has been compared to Jackson’s.  They’re not even comparable, actually.  For those who are interested in this adoption topic, I wrote a post awhile back, called “Why AP’s Don’t Talk About the Hard Stuff,” on why I think many new a-parents, myself included, avoid openly discussing how hard it is to be a new parent through adoption.  People are just wrong, IMO, when they try and tell you what you’re experiencing is applicable to all new parents and has nothing to do with adoption versus bio.  Sure, there are many universalities associated with being a new parent (feeling inadequate, isolated, overwhelmed, etc.).  But there are SO MANY glaring differences, as well as subtle ones, that make it so much more challenging to enter a child’s life at 6 months, 10 months, 1 year, etc., rather than starting out with a precious, helpless little blob that eats, cries, poops, and wants/needs to be held close.   Compare that to a 6 month old who knows life already, just not life with YOU.  Who has learned to be rigid and stiff with his posture because he was rarely held.  Who turns outward and refuses to let you hold him normally because the closeness is uncomfortable and unfamiliar.  Who fights taking a bottle from you because he’s not used to being fed while held - he’s only used to having a bottle propped by a blanket in his crib.  Who cannot settle to sleep because the quiet is deafening compared to the overstimulating environment of a loud orphanage (see this post on overstimulation), where babies are crying constantly, and his crib is swung forcefully while he tries to drift off for a nap.  Who shuts down or goes into survival mode when he is removed from the only environment he has known.  Whose body is physically in discomfort because of the scabies he’s had to live with. 

That can’t be the same as becoming a new parent to a baby who has known the sound of my voice since his auditory system developed in the 2nd trimester.  Or one who immediately knows and is calmed by the scent of his mother and father.  Or one who is SO tiny, has NO muscle development, and couldn’t possibly fight you to be held, turn outward, or arch.  Or one who is soothed simply by breastfeeding?  I can’t wait until I can just toss a boob and have that be comforting to a baby!  Seriously.  [As a quick sidenote, I know I'm not supposed to do this (because it could stimulate contractions and bring on premature labor), but I just wanted to see if Shane would be interested in nursing.  So I tried the other day.  The poor kid must've thought I was trying to suffocate him!  I mean, I think my eyes might pop out of my head too if someone shoved one of those in my face, but I had just hoped that MAYBE, he'd take to it quickly and know what to do.  Oh well, we'll have to work on that after I deliver.] 

I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this, but I remember when we came home in the dead of a rough winter with Jackson and I thought it’d be good to get out and meet some moms.  So we joined a Gymboree group.  I actually found the experience more alienating than inclusive because of how much I was struggling with Jack and then would go to our class and see these women who were just effortlessly attached to their babies.  Their issues and concerns were so different from mine.  They were usually things that would make me think to myself “damn, I wish that was all I was stressing about.”  Not that their concerns weren’t valid, but they just seemed so much more benign compared to RAD and other adoption issues.  I so badly wanted an adoptive moms group to surround myself with others who understood my concerns better, but didn’t have that in place here.  I don’t feel like that as much this time around; I’m just happy to be around other moms with little ones.  But as a first time mom, I think that would have made a big difference.

Who knows, maybe I’ll think differently when Belly Baby is born.  It’s not that I’m expecting having a newborn by birth to be easy at all, but by comparison to a crash course in parenting through the adoption of a baby who was ~6 months old, I think it’ll be a world of a difference.   As is always the case, every kid is different, so every parenting experience is different.  And I guess we only have 1 real shot at being a “new” parent, so no one will ever truly know with 100% certainty what difficulties are attributable to what (adoption versus being a new parent). 

Most of what I’ve written applies to only Jackson, as Shane has been a MUCH different baby with an extremely different type of adjustment.  He actually is easy, by comparison to Jackson.  I attribute some of it to the our very gradual transition with him entering our lives, better care at his orphanage, the absence of physical discomfort (ie: scabies, eczema, etc.), but I really think it’s largely due to his nature.  Shane is just such a gentle, easy-going kid with a mellow disposition.

I remember feeling so defeated every night when we’d try to put Jackson down for bed.  We DREADED bedtime with him because each and every night was an epic battle, and it was exhausting, both physically and emotionally.  Plus, we lived in total fear of Jackson waking up because once he did, the battle started all over again.  Sometimes it would take 1.5-2 hours to get him down at night.  He’s never been a kid you could just lay down and expect to fall asleep on his own.  And naps?  No such thing.  I also remember noticing how every other baby looked when held by his/her mom - their arms thrown over their parent’s shoulders, face resting on her shoulder…natural, comfortable, relaxed.  It KILLED me that people took that position for granted.  I would’ve died to feel my baby’s body melt into mine when I held him.  Instead, every muscle in Jackson’s body was on high alert when I picked him up - he was tense, he’d place his elbow in my chest, throat, or wherever in order to not have to feel close to me or look at me when I held him.  It was so sad for me, as a new mom, that my baby preferred being put down and playing independently to being held and interacted with for a long time.  We were SO ecstatic the first time he actually crawled TOWARDS us!  For the first several months, his little muscles were so fixed and rigid you couldn’t passively move his limbs if you wanted to.  I had MANY concerns that his rigidity was pathologic and not just attachment-related, which I now know is not the case. 

Shane, on the other hand, is so much easier.  Even when he cries, it’s a newborn sounding cry with a relatively easy to operate “off” switch.  He loves to be held, and is comfortable and easy to hold.  Putting him to bed involves feeding him his bottle, making eye contact, a few gentle strokes on his cheek, then putting a passifier in his mouth, and laying him down in his crib.  That’s it!!  Actually, he doesn’t even require a bottle to be put down to bed.  He wakes up for an occasional bottle at night, but goes right back down.  Lately, he’s been sleeping restlessly at night, I think because of the jetlag. 
But all it takes is me reaching out to touch his skin, or putting his cheek against mine, and he’s reassured enough to drift off again.  And he naps!  His body is flexible with normal tone, not rigid.  Best of all, I am not afraid of him. 

There’s the fact that Shane is a very different little person than Jackson combined with the fact that, although we’re far from experienced, we’re not exactly new parents anymore either.  It’s just been easier this time around.  Thank GOD!  Seriously though, it’s funny how things work out.  I don’t feel like we could have had a tougher intro to parenting than we did with Jackson.  But because of Jackson, I think we can be better parents to Shane and appreciate all the little things we may have taken for granted had we not worked so hard for them with Jack.  If our sons had come to us in the reverse order, I think we’d be exhausted, frustrated, bewildered, and overwhelmed to have a hard baby after an easy one.  Not that we weren’t overwhelmed as it was, but it’s somehow different when it’s your first baby.  I wouldn’t change either of my kids for the world, and I’m so thankful they came to us just as they did.  I absolutely love Jackson and the wild man he is, his fun-loving personality, his intelligence and sense of humor, the way he challenges us, and how rewarding that makes him to parent.  I am also so grateful for Shane’s laid back nature, inherently content disposition, his cute little babbling, the way he craves affection, and his sweet personality.

Well, we’re here in HCMC to get Shane’s medical report and passport.  Things have been busy, to say the least, over the last 2 days!  As I said in my last post, we expected Shane would grieve.  We just didn’t know how much, or what form his grief would take.  We have just been hoping it wouldn’t be as severe as Jackson’s, since the transition wasn’t cold turkey.  After Jackson’s initial stage of utter shock, his eczema flared like like nothing I’ve ever seen, he screamed 20 hours a day, never slept, would not allow us to console him, and was just miserable.  It was pretty awful for the first few weeks. 

It seems Shane is dealing with his depression by sleeping about 16 out of the 24 hours a day.  When he is awake, he’s much fussier than usual, and seems to stare off into space just to check out from time to time.  The first night with him was shocking because he slept through the night (awoke for 1 bottle), and then continued his every 2 hour nap schedule through the next day.  I think the longest period of time he was awake yesterday was a 2 hour block, and his shortest nap was 2 hours!  Although he’s totally precious when he sleeps, it’s really heartbreaking to watch him go through this.  Here he is, doing his thing (sleeping) in my sling, and then hangin’ with his daddy:

Last night things changed.  He woke up fussing about every 1.5-2 hours, but was generally pretty easy to put back down.  However, the 4 of us are all snuggled up in a bed together, and at one point in the night, Shane woke-up and Travis and I both got up with him (I tried to console him before the crying woke up Jack, and Trav made his bottle).  We left Jackson, the wildest tosser & turner, in bed alone.  We heard the THUMP from the bathroom, then the tears came!  It took us about 1.5 hours to get both babies back to sleep!

One thing that complicates the picture of Shane’s fussiness is this pattern of straining we’ve been seeing.  He’s TOTALLY constipated, to a really painful degree, and I think some of his outbursts of fussing are related to that.  We had to pull the old Q-tip move yesterday, and that relieved him for a little while.  We have a sneaking suspicion that he’s lactose intolerant, and additionally, I am pretty sure the orphanage uses Dielac formula for all the babies there.  Yet, since we never made his bottles when we visited (we only fed them to him once Ngoc or Nho had made them), we took the head nanny’s word when she told us after the G&R to feed him Similac Advanced.  So I’m pretty sure we also just changed his formula cold turkey, and that probably didn’t help any!  Either way, when we get home we’ll switch him to Similac’s lactose-free formula and hopefully the tummy problems will resolve.

Today, we had our first few hours of just fun playtime with Shane, like we used to when we would visited him at his orphanage - he laughed, was content, made great eye contact, and was babbling away to us.  I’m hoping we start seeing more and more of that shining through.  I know he won’t be himself for awhile, but I am hopeful that his cute little personality will start breaking through the grief.

Jackson is doing pretty well on day 3 as a big brother.  There are times Jackson clearly doesn’t want one of us holding Shane, and it really kills me to hear his little voice saying “mama, mama, mama” to get my attention.  We’re trying to always have 1 parent devoted to Jackson at all times right now, and then when Shane is sleeping, to both be giving him as much 2 on 1 attention as we can.  Also, as expected, he’s taken quite a liking to all Shane’s things.  His new favorite toy is Shane’s glow worm.  And surprise - he also likes a binky, all of the sudden!  He’s also just learned the terrible word “MINE!”

Jackson has also taken to wearing my sling around.  He’s got his own style with it and likes to shove his baby dolls, or his panda bear beanie baby, Manchu, inside it:

Since Shane naps pretty much all the time right now, it’s been really easy to get them down together.  Here are the boys napping together ye
sterday:

Here they are as I write this post:

We said goodbye to Hoi An this morning, hopped on a plane, and are now in HCMC again.  We’ll be here until we’ve completed Shane’s medical visit and gotten his Vietnamese passport.  At that point, we’ll fly to Hanoi to submit all his paperwork to the Embassy.  They require a 48 hour hold before they will allow you to have your visa interview.  Most likely, we won’t be able to get our paperwork to them until close to the end of this week, and since they’re closed for MLK Day on Monday, we won’t be able to fly home until the middle of next week (Tuesday or Wednesday).  That means we either have 6 days in Hanoi, OR, we take a weekend trip somewhere…like, oh, say…Sapa?!!  We haven’t decided yet if we’re going to try and head up there - the trip involves an overnight train, which might be painful.  I know we’ll kick ourselves and be bored out of our minds if we’re in Hanoi AGAIN this trip for that long.  But I’m worried we’ll kick ourselves once we’re stuck on an overnight train with our 2 unpredictable babies.  We’ll see.  It’s the 1 place in Vietnam we’ve never ever been, but have ALWAYS wanted to go - it’s up in the mountains, on the border with China, and is really well-known for the ethnic minorities who live there and produce gorgeous dyes and textiles.  There’s also a peak there we’d love to climb, but we’ll have to save that for another year! 

Speaking of climbing peaks…2 of my little brothers successfully summitted Mt. Kilimanjaro a few days ago and just got home from Africa yesterday, safe and sound!  I am really proud of them!  Thanks to all of you who supported their charity climb and wished them luck on their adventure.

These past 24 hours have felt like the Christmas we missed!  We went from stressing about debt, worrying about Travis’ medical education, feeling burned out, freaking out about Travis and Jackson having to fly back and leave me in Vietnam, super pregnant, to complete Shane’s adoption on my own…to getting what we thought was the most incredible news yesterday with the i600 approval, then finding out Hillary won NH primaries, both of which were then topped by a phone call from our in-country agency contact this morning telling us we have Shane’s G&R scheduled for TOMORROW morning at 9am!!!  Oh. My. Gosh.  What a crazy string of good news for us.

Our agency has 8 families who were issued i600 approvals yesterday, and while we would have loved to share the G&R day with those families, having ours this week means the difference between completing Shane’s adoption together and flying home as a family versus me having to get the Power of Attorney and staying in-country to complete it by myself so Travis can fly back with Jackson in time for his exams.  So, if all goes smoothly from here on out, we will have our G&R tomorrow, then fly to HCMC Sunday to take care of Shane’s passport and medical, then head up to Hanoi on Thursday of next week to submit our paperwork to the Embassy, then wait the mandatory 48 hours for the visa interview.  Unfortunately, President’s Day falls on Monday, so we probably won’t get out until the Tuesday or Wed. after that IF ALL GOES ACCORDINGLY.  The important part is, no one has to worry about me traveling 33 weeks pregnant by myself; I’ll be with my boys.  All of ‘em!

Today was strangely bittersweet.  We visited Shane’s orphanage one last time.  When we decided to travel on our own to Vietnam, prior to i600 approval, we never imagined we’d end up volunteering for a month at our son’s orphanage!  And while the visits are exhausting, and we have gotten slightly burned out on trying to keep Jackson content each day we do the 1:15 drive to and from Shane’s orphanage, it has been an incredible opportunity.  From a bonding perspective with Shane, definitely incredible.  To ease Jackson into having a new baby around, also a great thing.  But there was also tremendous personal reward for us in connecting with Shane’s nannies, growing to know and love the other babies with whom our son has “grown-up” thus far, and being able to reach out to their waiting families to offer updates on all the milestones we watched their babies meet, share pictures and tidbits about each of their personalities, etc.

I do think we’ve made lifelong friendships with other families whose babies have lived with Shane all this time, and those relationships, I hope, will provide something from which our children will derive as much benefit in the future as we parents have in the present.  Saying goodbye to the nannies and the other babies was difficult, and Travis and I left the orphanage today feeling such a range of intense emotions.  I am so happy a few of Shane’s little buddies will be leaving the orphanage next week, and so sad that the others are still waiting on i600’s.  I also felt so sad for the nannies today, who were genuinely happy for us, but so sad to hear several of their babies are leaving them. 

These women have given SO MUCH of themselves to care for our babies!  I worked in daycare the year before I started medical school, and let me tell ya, that is one of the hardest jobs with the highest rates of burn out.  But these women do it for 10 times as many babies, day in and day out.  They sleep there, they eat there, they spend almost every waking moment changing babies, washing babies, feeding babies, singing to babies, soothing babies, playing with babies.  They truly truly love each and every one of them.  Here’s Shane with the 2 nannies, Nho and Ngoc, with whom we’ve spent nearly everyday for the past month or so (I promise this will be the last time you see him in this Christmas outfit;):

It is SO exciting that the next time we see Shane, we won’t be leaving him after just a few hours.  He’ll be with us forever now.  Here is one last parting gift from Nho to Shane and us.  Is this voice not the most comforting sound you’ve ever heard?!

My last shout out goes to my friend Emily, who has been such an awesome friend throughout our adoption journeys.  She has been at the other end of all the changes and crap, and has stayed strong and supportive of others who have received good news while she received the crappy news.  There are SO FEW people in the world who are able to be genuinely happy for others, even in the face of really sour news for themselves, but Emily is just that kind of person.  She has been waiting AGES for travel (already 6+ months I think), has been skipped, leap-frogged (by many, us included), had to watch her baby grow through photo updates, and we’re now just praying she gets her approval and her precious little girl home before Tet.  This family deserves some good news more than anyone! 

We woke up Christmas morning, and Travis dug out 4 brand new razor blades I’d been in search of for the past 2 weeks (ever since mine went painfully dull).  I was so excited, so Travis responded “don’t say I never got you anything!”  Then Jackson opened up the hotel toothbrush Travis gave him and was so thrilled with it, you’d have thought it was the cool ride-along choo-choo train waiting under the tree at Yiayia and Papa’s house from Santa!  So, yeah.  It was a pretty magical Christmas morning all around;)  Hahaha!  But here’s the really magical part:

These are some pictures from Christmas at Shane’s orphanage.  The boys looked so adorable together, in their matching Christmas outfits from my mom.  I wish she’d been here (or even better, we’d been there!) to see them.  Jackson was all about kisses and gentle touches; he spread the love throughout the orphanage.  He’s really doing well with the babies, and he’s just so cute with Shane.  Shane continues to be such a sweetheart and is so easy going.  Not to jinx anything, but I think we MIGHT actually have a baby who naps!  I can’t even imagine how nice that would be! 

The nannies have really warmed up to us, and again insisted we stay and eat with them on Christmas.  Travis nudged me when I declined the offer, again, and told me we need to stop being rude and accept.  So, we ate.  About 4 hours afterwards, I was puking my guts out.  It was BAD.  It hit me so fast I didn’t even make it to the bathroom for round 1.  I barfed all over our room, then managed to get out onto the balcony, but didn’t have time to yell “bombs away,” or “merry Christmas” to the people on the 1st floor.  Ooops!  I couldn’t keep water down and was retching so forcefully I couldn’t catch my breath.  Sorry for the details (Rach, I know this must be totally grossing you out - you still have that barf phobia, right?!).  For the first time, I was actually a little scared for myself and Belly Baby.  I started worrying about how far we are from a good hospital (we’re several hours away), and wondering if even the best hospital in Vietnam could accommodate a 28.5 weeker.  Travis wasn’t all that worried and did his best to reassure me throughout each round of barfing.  Anyway, it was short-lived, thank God.  I was able to hold liquids down by the middle of the night and was totally better by the next morning…just very sore.  Belly Baby is doing fine - very active - and I never got terribly dehydrated or started having contractions or anything like that, so please don’t worry for us.  I still sort of feel like I was in the gym (which I assure you I was nowhere near!) for 12 hours that day, but my father-in-law treated me to a massage at the spa the next night, and it was heavenly!  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the food itself that did it to me.  It was the warm water they insisted I drink after I ate.  Travis smoothly chucked his without anyone seeing, but I felt like there were eyes on me when they first handed me my glass, so I did drink a little.  When everyone was preoccupied, Travis gave me the “coast is clear” signal, and I did the old pretend-to-take-a-big-swig-and-dump-the-liquid-on-the-cement move.  Needless to say, I might go back to politely declining lunch invitations from now on.  I’m just not sure that bug was worth risking seeming a little rude.

We visited Shane again today, and I have to say, he feels more and more like my baby every time I see him.  As ready as I am for approval and a G&R RIGHT NOW, these almost daily visits are really good for our bonding and transitioning.  Today I got to feed Shane his bottle and he passed out on my shoulder again - nothing sweeter than that!  He’s just SO easy compared to how Jackson was when we met him (and they were the exact same age as far as we know, but Jackson was developmentally much further ahead).  Even on the rare occasion that he becomes discontent in a certain position or gets bored, it takes a simple change of scenery or position and he’s totally happy again.  He is so easy to hold - no arching, no outward turning.  He’s just mellow, and I’m LOVING it.  I think it’s a reflection of the care he’s gotten versus what Jackson got (although Jackson’s nannies undoubtedly loved him too), as well as just a very different personality from Jack.  I think they’ll compliment each other wonderfully and I love that they’re so different - my wild man and my mild man (that was totally lame, but the the best I can do on not much sleep;). 

We’re getting some really good snuggle time with Shane.  We’ve incorporated the “sniff kiss,” as Nicki calls it, and the nannies get such a kick out of us doing that to the babies.  Shane smiles and giggles each time too.  What’s amazing is that just in the few weeks we’ve been here, Shane’s development has really started to progress.  He can just about hold his head up on his own now, although he’s still a little wobbly when he shifts his gaze.  His posture muscles are much stronger, and I think just being held for the few hours our visits last has really helped with that.  I absolutely HATE leaving him every afternoon, but I’m so grateful for the couple hours a day we do get with him.  I just hope one of these days is our lucky one and that damn approval rolls in already!  And for our fellow families whose babies are roommates with Shane, we passed on your love as best we could, and we’ll continue to do that as long as we’re here. 

Aside from the pictures that we intend to hang on his walls, Jackson’s nursery is just about done.  My creative vision came to fruition (hey, that rhymes!) and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.  We got the jungle vines from Michael’s, the hanging monkeys from the zoo, and the measurement giraffe was a birthday present to Jack from my older sister, Jackson’s Aunt Christy….who, btw, is engaged to be married to Jackson’s soon-to-be Uncle Bill! 

Jackson is a wiggle worm and absolutely DESPISES having to take time out of his busy play schedule to have his diaper changed.  It’s usually SO painful, but now that he has this to look up at, he just lays there signing “monkey,” doing his impression of a monkey’s ”ooh ooh, aah aah,”  and pointing in total amusement!  Here’s what hangs above his changing table:

It’s so cute in the mornings too because he wakes up and talks to that monkey dangling above his crib.  There are several baby monkeys hanging around too (hard to see in these pictures), and he like to give each and every one a kiss “good morning” when Travis lifts him up! 

Jackson’s nursery is not totally complete, but getting there.  I have a few more touches to add, like the valence over the window, the beautiful photographs we bought in Hanoi from a famous Vietnamese photographer, and a few other things for the walls from Vietnam as well. 

Shane’s nursery, on the other hand, has some work to be done!  It’s going to be precious though.  The theme is frogs and bugs, and Travis is going to build a little doc out of recycled wood (the soft, smooth kind) that runs into a “frog pond,” which will look like a big blue pond with padding and stuffing inside (so the babies can roll around on it).  Hard to describe, but trust me, it’ll be adorable.  I’m copying the Children’s Museum on this one!  Here’s a blurry picture of exactly what I’m trying to imitate (except ours will be a smaller version, of course):

Their frog pond has lily pads that are held up by springs, which the babies can lay on and stare at an attached mobile above. 

Our boys’ rooms share a Jack and Jill bathroom, which has a cute ocean theme.  When Belly Baby crashes the party, s/he will share a room with Shane.  I think it’ll work out well.  I anticipate doing the ”family bed” thing for a little while…mostly because I have a feeling Jackson might revert a little when Shane comes home and need the closeness again of sleeping with us.  He still does sleep with us from time to time.  Not every night, but on occasion he just wakes up and wants the closeness, and we’re fine with giving him that snuggle time (actually, I love it!).  Eventually, we hope to get both boys in their cribs…like when Belly Baby comes along and I’m up all night with him/her nursing every 2 hours.  My grandma bought us a bassinet, actually it’s a co-sleeper, which will sit right up against our bed and make that easier.  Plus, we hope that will avoid having huge sleep disruptions for Jack and Shane every time Belly Baby cries to be fed throughout the night.  We’ll see how it all pans out, and we’ll be as flexible as we can to meet our kids’ needs, but that’s the ideal plan. 

I haven’t mentioned nursing much since my post on adoptive breastfeeding.  I was REALLY hoping to nurse Shane, and was 1 week from starting my nursing “protocol,” which consisted of meds to induce lactation, including oral contraceptives.  Ooops, we were a little late on those!  Hahaha.  The problem now lies in the fact that to nurse Shane would likely induce contractions, and possibly premature labor.  So, no-go on that.  My hope is that after we deliver, Shane will take an interest in breastfeeding because he sees Belly Baby doing it, and then I can start nursing him at 8-9 months old.  Better late than never, IMO.  As has always been my nursing philosophy, it’s more important to me (and Shane) from the bonding perspective than the nutritional one.  Who knows, maybe Jackson will want to give it a whirl too.  God knows my boobs have a mind of their own and seem to be anticipating nursing 3 kids…maybe if I actually do it’ll help me shed the weight!