Clarification, Apologies & Gratitude

*Disclaimer – this is a bit lengthy but important. If you don’t have time to read it all now, please make the effort at some point to read it in its entirety. Thanks!!*

I often forget that not everyone reading our blog is familiar with the unique challenges adoptive parents of institutionalized children face. When Norm & I were in the homestudy phase of our adoption journey, we needed to complete Hague Training, which includes specific courses to help prepare adoptive parents as much as possible for these potential trials. The topics we studied included – but certainly were not limited to - medical issues often seen in international adoption, the psychological impact these children face when leaving the only home they may have ever known, and social issues of the country we decided to adopt from (i.e., the prevalence of smoking & drinking during pregnancy in many Eastern European countries), just to name a few.

Perhaps the most detailed subject we tackled was - and realistically may be for awhile - bonding and attachment. Bonding is best described as trust, and attachment as affection. I will NEVER profess myself to be a bonding/attachment expert but I will say this…I took this part of our Hague Training very seriously. Extremely seriously. And I continue to research the topic for one reason – to try to do right by my son. He deserves no less. Let me explain…

Most infants between 2-6 months old start bonding & attaching with their parents through daily interactions with them. Their parents greet them with smiles, make prolonged eye contact, hold and cuddle them, rock them to sleep, take care of their daily needs, and make happy noises to/with them. Their cries are answered, their bellies are full. They are made to feel safe, loved and valued. The child is able to study and memorize their parents’ facial features, since that is the face they see filled with love each morning they wake up, and each night before they fall asleep. It is the same face that feeds and clothes them, changes their dirty diapers, and bathes them.

Would you like to know how my son spent his first 6 months of life? Lying in a hospital crib alone, continuously being poked, prodded and studied by numerous doctors and nurses trying to find resolution to some potentially significant medical concerns. To them, he was an orphaned patient. Not their child, not a distant relative, not even a friend’s child. I would like to think they took the time to comfort him when he was scared, hungry, cold, or sleepy, though I doubt this was the case. There were other sick children to care for, other patients to tend to, most likely their own family waiting for them at home.

Being in a hospital is far less desirable then being in an orphanage. Ilya was not only waiting for resolution to his medical concerns, he was also waiting for a spot to open in an orphanage in the Moscow region. When that day finally came in September 2007, Ilya was taken from the only environment he had ever known, and thrust into a totally new situation. He now shared a room, clothing, shoes, toys, mealtime, playtime, naps, bedtime, 2 caregivers and 4 tutors with a minimum of 8 other children. His nutrition was barely adequate and while his needs were being met, that too was barely sufficient.

Fast forward another 6 months to March 2008, and now the poor boy has 2 strangers visiting him for a couple hours each day for 4 days, disrupting the schedule he had just settled in to. They’re speaking a language he doesn’t understand, taking him from his friends and caregivers to play with him in a way he had never been played with before. He gets a small taste of what it’s like to receive a parent’s love. He’s rocked to sleep, he gets undivided individual attention, hugs and kisses. He hears “I love you” perhaps for the first time. Then *POOF* just as quickly as these mysterious strangers appear, they’re gone. 4 days of getting to know us, and then he’s suddenly abandoned all over again, just like when he was left at the hospital after he was born.

Fast forward 2 months to May 2008, and these strangers appear out of the blue again. He seems to remember them, and seems happy to see them, but he is a little hesitant. Is that because he was thinking to himself “How long are they going to stick around this time?” Well, the news for Ilya is that we were sticking around Moscow for 3 weeks…BUT we’re also uprooting him once more and taking him from the only true “home” he’s ever had. So, not only do we disappear for awhile, now we’re whisking him away to a life so vastly different than anything he’s ever known. We know it’s in his best interest, that he’ll always be safe and loved, but he doesn’t. Not yet at least.

All he knows is that he’s missing his favorite caregiver Tatiana, he may be missing his friends, he doesn’t understand what we’re saying to him. Just over a week ago, we stuck him in a cylindrical tube that was 35,000+ feet in the air for nearly 11 hours. He’s now sleeping in a new room by himself, eating strange new food, wearing different clothes every day. While this may not seem like much to you, consider that he used to sleep in a room with at least 8 other kids. At the same hour each & every day, he received the same exact meal as he did the day before. There was no variety. He wore the same clothes for a few days at a time. Maybe even longer. He was sponge bathed and had never been immersed in water until we came along. So many changes for such a little boy.

Put yourself in his place. How confused would you be? After only 11 days how easy would it be for you to place trust in, or bond with, these people who so far have a bit of a shady track record in your opinion. They show up, disappear, show up again, and then totally change every aspect of your young life. Yeah, they give you affection, feed you and change your diapers, and you have a lot of fun playing with them but at the end of the day, do you question whether they’ll be there when you wake up the next morning, or are they going to disappear once more? Do you question if you’re going to wake up in the same room tomorrow, or will they cart you off once again to some strange, scary place you’ve never seen and that you’ll have to try once more to adjust to? I have no idea if Ilya has any of these insecurities or not, but even if there is a slight chance he does, we need to address it as soon as possible.

All of these reasons, and many more, are why Norm & I are trying to provide Ilya as much consistency in his schedule as possible. Part of that consistency is helping Ilya understand what “parents” are, and helping him learn to trust and love us. We want him to realize that we will meet all of his needs and he no longer has to depend on multiple groups of people to take care of him. Once Ilya learns to trust us (ie, BOND with us) then he’ll start ATTACHING with us, or truly feeling affectionate towards us.

Institutionalized children especially need time to form attachments to their parents in order to maintain the bonds of trust, achieve full intellectual potential, acquire a conscience, develop relationships with others, claim their identity and gain self-esteem, learn how to regulate feelings, begin their language development, and much more.

With that said, we absolutely want Ilya to feel loved by other family members, and to love them in return. This little guy deserves as many people to care about him as are willing/wanting to. We want him to grow into a happy, friendly, social child. At the same time, though, he needs to learn that he should seek us before seeking attention from just any stranger. Sadly not every person in this world will be looking out for his best interest. So, in order for him to learn to look for that reassurance & approval from us, he must first bond and attach to us.

Okay, still with me here? Good. One last point and then I’ll stop holding you hostage. Norm & I love having his mom here with us. She is a tremendous help in so many ways. She is invaluable to me as I learn how to be a mommy. She’s the one who forces me to eat when I forget (she cooks after all!!), and the one I can have an adult conversation with when Ilya takes a nap and Norm is out of the house. I seek advice from her but she is not “pushy” in her opinions on our parenting decisions. She may not agree with everything, but she doesn’t force it either. When we posted that Ilya seemed to prefer her over us, we wrote that hoping that other adoptive parents and people with more experience in the lines of attachment & bonding would give us some pointers as to whether we needed to work on OUR OWN bonding/attachment with Ilya. Which, thankfully, we have received. We were NOT stating that we didn’t want Ilya to attach to her. I know there were some folks out there alarmed, and perhaps offended, by that one sentence and I apologize. I don’t know…maybe some other family members were put on alert and thought that we didn’t want Ilya to show affection towards you. That is not the case either. Please know this!! No one has said this to me directly but I hope, truly hope, that thought never entered your mind. Given everything that Ilya has been through, and will continue to adjust to, Norm & I need to make sure that we are able to instill in Ilya a sense of trust, comfort and love in us.

Ilya’s earlier preference to Grandma may have bee normal toddler behavior, or may have been testing me & Norm to make sure we’d stick around and not pawn him off to someone else. I honestly don’t know which applies, or if they both do. I can tell you this, the struggle he put up in order to be away from us and with Grandma was very alarming…like his life depended on it. He no longer acts this way, and will happily go from us to Grandma and back again, so I’m thinking he was testing us. Even though things are great now doesn’t mean he won’t test us again in the future in this regard. In fact, I expect him to. What I don’t expect is for Ilya to completely bond/attach with us this week or next, or even next month. This takes time to develop and nurture, and while that takes place Norm & I need to be grateful for and promote any instance that Ilya seeks us out over someone else.

I hope this all makes sense! Sorry for the length, but I thought it was important to explain to everyone. Thanks for sticking with this post! Please, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions leave a comment here or shoot me an email. Thanks!