The Process Once We Return Home

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)