We are still waiting for exact travel dates to
come home, but thought it might be time to advise our friends and family of how
we will be proceeding once we return home.
Many of you have heard the term “attachment”
within the context of parenting. For
those of you who have not, here is a short explanation of it as we understand
it with regard to Eli’s situation.
Elijah has been in an orphanage almost all his
life. He has had a number of caregivers
in his short life. First his parents,
then the numerous nanny’s at the orphanage, and now us. While he was at the orphanage, he began to
adapt to many caregivers at once. So as
part of this, he had a difficult time attaching to anyone in particular. As a result, he saw everyone as caregivers
for him, and generally didn’t have a problem accepting care. Translation: he would go to anyone any time
for care. Most children spend their
early years attaching to their parents, and don’t run into a problem such as
this. Generally they will scream or
complain when being left with strangers.
Elijah doesn’t have this type of luxury, so we have to work harder on
this aspect with him.
We had expected that much of this attachment may
be able to be completed while we stayed here in Ethiopia. While he has done quite well with us here, he
has been able to do this in his homeland, there will be other issues once we
return home. He has lost his family
here, he is going to be losing the familiarity of his country (the smells, the
sights, etc). Once home, he will be a
minority (which we have been when we have been in his country), and will need
to adjust to this.
We are learning that this attachment is
lifelong, and will be something we will always have to work on with Elijah,
with the most important time for us in when we first have him home in Canada.
Everything we are saying here, and will say in
this comes from some research into attachment and adoption. We have a number of friends that have gone
through this, and much of the writing of this information is being borrowed
from them and their experiences. (Thanks to those of you who have contributed
your wisdom)
Obviously we will make some mistakes as we
travel this road, but like any parent, we are trying to do what is best for our
son Elijah, and will continue try and do right by him as much as humanly
possible. It will be hard for us to
keep him in “lock-down” as our hearts are to share him, and allow everyone to
love him right away, but that would do Elijah a disservice. We are not teaching or showing him the trust
bond that comes from a Father-son and Mother-son relationship. We are only showing him then that we are
disposable, that we can pass him around from person to person without it
mattering to him.
Elijah has undergone great losses in his short
life, greater losses than most of us will ever experience in our own
lives. When a baby is conceived, they
spend 9 months or so in their mother’s wombs.
They hear her voice, feel her movements, find their nutrition from her,
they know her. They say babies can
recognize a picture of their mother only days after being born. Elijah lost that attachment very early
on. Everything he may have known at that
point, smells, tastes, sights, sounds, were all taken from him in one day. He spent the next 21 months in the orphanage,
again adjusting to the constant change of all these senses. It seems ludicrous, in light of this to expect
that after three weeks, he will have found complete security and trust in a
completely new circumstance. Although,
we have felt that he loves us, and wants to be with us, this does not mean he
is attached to us.
We are watching very closely for signs of
attachment. We feel that he is doing
very well right now, but still reaches for others here at the guesthouse, as
well as for our driver. While this is
not necessarily a negative thing, these can also be signs that he isn’t totally
attached to us. We will continue to
watch for these signs of attachment, and will make decisions that we feel are
in his best interests.
We feel very strongly, that we need Elijah to
know who we are before he knows who anyone else is. It is most important to who he is, and who he
will be, that first and foremost he knows his Daddy and Mommy. That he understands that we are not going to
leave him, forget about him, or abandon him.
Every child deserves to feel the unconditional
love of a parent, and because this is happening to him later in life than
usual, we have to use different tactics than most people would. We have to create a bond that teaches Elijah
to be secure and confident. That he can
go out into the world one day, and enter it feeling confident of who he is, and
where he has come from.
We are planning on spending a month (maybe
longer depending how it goes), when we first arrive home, cocooning with Elijah
in our house. We are doing this to
respect what he has lost, and to allow him to process what he is gaining. We want to give him time to settle in to his
new house and new life. He has to adjust
to different sights, and sounds, smells, feels and tastes.
***We are asking that nobody comes over
uninvited until we inform you all that we are willing to open up our home***
We will let you all know once we are ready to have
visitors, and allow you all to get to know Elijah and love him as we know many
of you already do. We are also asking
that nobody hold or feed Eli until we are ready to allow you. It is this type of intentional way of working
on the attachment process that is vital to his adapting to our family.
We thank-you all for your love and prayers for
us as a family and we ask for you to continue that as we enter this time of
cocooning!!! We love you all so much and can't wait to play with you and spend
time with you as healthy families.
If you have any questions, we would love to
answer them. Thank you for respecting
our decision to work on this attachment process.
Thank you all for understanding.
Sheldon & Hilary (and Elijah)
