A Letter to You

 
Dear Friends and Family-

The day we have longed for is fast approaching. We are shuffling to prepare for travel, and to bring our new daughter home. We wanted to take a minute to share with you "our plan" for transitioning into a family of four.

In a perfect world, babies would be raised by their birth moms and never have to experience the trauma of separation from them. They would be given the gift of knowing their mom's hearbeat, voice, and birth language. With adoption, this is interrupted, or lost for a variety of reasons.....and trust is broken.

Thankfully, there is a window of time where healing can take place for adopted children. In the adoption community this is referred to as "cocooning." You can think of it as "attachment ICU," (which I know my nurse and doctor friends will understand).

Cocooning will look different for every family. During our time of cocooning, we will be going above and beyond to help E attach to our family and to heal....

Soon E will be saying goodbye to the familiar surroundings she has grown accustomed to. We are very confident that she has grown attached to the caregivers at her orphanage. But, when we start parenting E, trauma will again happen in her life as she leaves another caretaker's arms. There will be grieving even from leaving the orphanage she has grown familiar with.

We want to be very sensitive to our little girl. We want to remember the realities of her transitions in life thus far:

-The first part of her life she heard one language and connected to one caregiver.
-Then, she spent one month in a state run orphanage.
-And now, she has has spent 5 months hearing an entirely new language, and bonded yet again with another (or multiple) caregivers.

Next week, she will meet her new parents (us!) and be introduced to yet another language, environment, and family. It is very important that our daughter gets to know me as Mommy, and Nate as Daddy. She needs to see us as her caregivers and establish a strong, healthy bond with us-which will enable her to establish healthy bonds in the future with other members of our family, and our friends. It will also help her to establish healthy boundaries, and solid relationships in her future.

We know you have walked alongside of us through our adoption for nearly 2 years. When we announced our joyous news, you were there with us. When our path began taking many twists, and turns, delays, and more delays, you offered your encouragement, support, prayers, and finances. We are forever grateful for each of you. We know that you, just like us, want E home to her family, and you want your chance to meet her, hold her, play with her, and love her. We know that just like us, however, you want her transition to her forever family to be as positive as it can be. E needs to learn to trust us. And we need your help in doing that.

Through careful consideration we have considered a cocooning plan for our daughter. We want to take into consideration that adoption professionals recommend cocooning for a duration of 3 months. Our plan may change as we see possible new needs arise, or if we feel she is bonding/attaching to us better than expected.

It is important to keep E's world as small as possible. We will be establishing structure, and we will be staying home a lot during this time. We hope to not ever leave her eyesight. You are welcome to text, email, and send cards. I will likely be limiting my phone conversations though, so I can devote more time with the kids.

We want her to know that she will never again have to change her environment, or loved ones. When we feel she is ready, we will gradually go out and about for short times so she doesn't feel overwhelmed. For a time, we will ask you not to hold, kiss, or hug her as she learns that we are her primary caregivers. We would love for you to talk with her, wave, blow kisses, high five. Our desire is for E to learn that we, her parents, will meet her physical and emotional needs.

We also want to share some of what we have learned. Research has shown the benefits of parenting an adopted child according to their "family age" not their biological age. This means she will be rocked, cuddled, fed and soothed much like babies are. We even plan to co-sleep for sometime. We will carry her around with us as much as she likes (and our backs will allow!). Only Nate and myself will provide food, drink, bathing, dressing, etc. All caregiving will be done by us.

We will be limiting the use of the word "no." Discipline during these toddler years will look different..."time in's with mommy" instead of "time outs." Parenting E will look a little different overall.

As you can imagine all of this will not be easy. But we are certain that our investment will be worth it! Our little E is worth all of the hard days ahead. We truly can't wait to get started!




If you want to learn more one of my fellow AGCI adoptive mama has had a series on attachment and bonding, and cocooning. Read it here, here, here, here.

Also, on how to be The Village.