The months that followed.....

We had a dream that everything would be perfect. Here we were swooping in and rescuing this little boy from an orphanage, and of course he would be so grateful that he would love us automatically. But as we learned about attachment disorder, we had to let go of that dream and realize that wasn't how it was going to be.
---Mother of an adopted Russian boy, taken from Becoming a Family, Lark Eshleman, Ph.D.


So, honeymooning is something we refer to as when you are in the "new" stages. The first months of your marriage, the first months of a new job, and the first months of having a new baby. The first months with the Baby home were great....ok so you have those moments when they cry and you can't figure it out, just like biological children. My husband stayed home with her for a whole year. Meeting her needs, taking care of her, when I arrived home from work, I took the role of caregiver. She seemed to be sick all of the time. We were constantly at the physician's each week. It seemed like she was unable to form an immune system. So here's the condensed version, she ended up having aspiration pneumonia three times. She has since had her adenoids and tonsils out which has made a vast improvement. While, we would like to think that was all the problem. Babies that experience stress, get sick quicker. Lark Eshleman states in her studies that, " Chronic stress affects the body's immune system, so adoptive children may be at risk for disorders like allergies, asthma, eczema, or seborrhea."
So, here's the first thing I would have done differently. I would have kept her environment restricted. I would have made a routine schedule, and stuck to it. Eliminating the big parties and introduction to people so that her stress level and security could have be established early on.
I know that this is hard for family members who shared your joy of adoption, and want this baby to "take" to them instantly. To treat attachment disorder, one must offer a constant environment of safety, with loving parents. Their brains, even at ten months, are programmed to react to the environment. If you read my previous posting, you can see that development of trust, allows them to correctly react to the environment or you.
At the seminar I just attended they said that for each year your children is in an orphange or foster care, it takes three years to undo the "attachment". Oh, boy.l So besides making a schedule with consistant routines and behaviors, I would have done cohabitational sleeping rather than trying to get her to sleep in her own crib, over and over. We were given a "sound maker" that plays calming music and played it with her nighttime routine, however, it should have been combined with sleeping next to me, so that when heard she could have associated the sound with me.
I will continue on tomorrow, with more experiences and things that I have learned.