It's the Unknowns That Make This So Hard

Other possible titles for this blog post: "He's a Survivor" or "Well, THAT Was a Disaster!"

*Disclaimer: This post has been in the back of my head for a while now and I hesitated writing it because 1. I don't want to sound whiny and give the impression that I regret this or am ungrateful that we finally brought Asher home, and 2. I didn't want a dozen comments and emails saying "Hang in there, kid. " Actually, that phrase itself has kind of become like nails on a chalkboard to me. It is usually said with very kind intentions, and I know that, but a good portion of the time it is said by someone who simply doesn't know what to say, which I know can be awkward for the person saying it as well. So, for the meantime, I am writing this mostly for my own sake, as therapy. Remember, this blog serves firstly as my own journal so I don't forget what this journey is really like. So, if you read it and have been through or are currently going through this bonding process, and feel you have words of wisdom to help me, by all means please email me. If you have never dealt with this situation, but just want to tell me to "hang in there," I appreciate the sentiment, but would rather you just pray for me and leave it at that. I am not a kitten dangling from a tree branch. Yes, the sun will come out tomorrow, but at the moment it is 3 a.m., and I have been up for two hours and now have a sweaty 20

month old with horribly stinky breath sleeping on top of me as I type. "Hang in there" doesn't actually help a lot right now. Thank you for understanding.*

Ok, so that was probably the longest disclaimer ever to preface a post. I hope reading this will help to give some insight into my thought process here, and you will forgive me if my preface was grumpy. Let me start by saying that I am still so glad to have Asher here. Any new child comes with labor pains. This one is no different. People keep asking "How's it going?" I struggle with the answer. I feel like what they want me to say is how warm and fuzzy and magical it is to have all my children under one roof at last. They want to know that

this was the best Christmas ever and that Asher was a wonderful Christmas present and that this family, like the end of a dramatic movie, has been tied up neatly with a pretty bow and a sappy song and all is just swell. Well... it's not. That's not to say that it won't be some day, but we are just beginning the hard part. How do you say that politely to passers by who just want the happy answer? I usually just smile and say "Well, it's going. We're very glad to have him home."

I have used this statement countless times in the past 10 days (have to remind myself we've still only been home 10 days) that my experience thus far has been like the most difficult parts of a newborn and the most difficult parts of a toddler all rolled into one, without many of the redeeming qualities of either. Anyone who has had a child can tell you that there are parts of every developmental stage that make you want to pull your hair out, but then there are also benefits to each stage that balance it out. For instance, a newborn is completely dependent on you. They don't know what's what, and they cry a lot and you're not always sure why or how to stop it. They rarely let you get a lot of sleep at night, which usually makes me want to lose my cool. However, newborns are cute and soft and tiny and cuddly. They are easily portable and they snuggle up to you and nap on your chest and make cutesy baby gurgly noises and it makes me forget all the frustration of that lack of sleep. As for the crying, it may make any mother frazzled at some point, but 99% of the time, it's quelled by one of a handful of things and most of the time (and I say this with firsthand knowledge that sometimes there are colicky or fussy babies who won't calm down no matter how hard you try) they will calm

down when either fed, changed, held, burped, etc. The trying parts are frustrating, but you learn how to read your baby's cues and you both learn from each other how to cope.

Then comes the toddler phase. Again, definite benefits and definite frustrations. Benjamin is the perfect example. Now that he is nearly two, he can talk up a storm, and he can understand much more of what we tell him. He is more independent and can entertain himself when needed. He is much bigger, but he can walk well enough that he doesn't need to be carried all over. However, with that independence comes a newfound free will and stubbornness. With those new verbal skills comes the word "no!" With the balance and ambulatory skills comes the ability to run away from Mommy. All normal and natural things. All signs of growth and progress, just as we were made to do, but once again pros and cons to the stage as far as what Mommy has to work with.

Asher, however, though just three months younger than Benjamin, is a completely different case. Like a newborn, he can't speak to tell us what he wants. He cries a lot and we are still trying to figure out his needs and how to address them. He doesn't sleep well at night, which makes for a physically and  emotionally depleted Mommy who still has to care for him when he's up being a toddler, as well as remember to maintain the family operations and give adequate love and attention to the other four people in this house. Unlike a newborn, he is not tiny and cuddly in that same way, and most of the time when he cries, he doesn't want to be held tight and rocked back and forth. He will fight it, in fact, some of the time.

On the toddler front, he is funny and friendly and playful and he can walk and feed himself (and feed his hair too), and make some of his needs and wants known, but he lacks the typical verbal skills for this age (because of a number of reasons) and he throws tantrums on regular intervals. If they weren't so constant, they'd almost be humorous. He reminds me of one of those old fashioned toys that have a small figure standing on a base, and their shape is made with beads and string. There's a button on the bottom of the base, and when you push the button up, it loosens the string, making the figure on top collapse. When you let go, the string tightens, and the figure stands again. (Did I just lose you all?) When Asher throws his fits, it goes in

three steps. 1. Stick out bottom lip and begin loudly crying (Fake crying. No tears. All for show.) 2. Throw head back and close eyes for emphasis. 3. Press the button and flop down on the floor on your back like a limp noodle. Now, my other kids can throw some doozies of a tantrum when given the chance. I have dealt with many a cranky kid before, but the difference here is that it is still all too new with Asher and there are too many unknowns for me to know exactly how to respond. This makes it infinitely more difficult. Why is he crying? What does he want, and is it what he really needs? Should I respond as I would to my other kids? Is this the result of some trauma in his past, or merely a ploy to test boundaries in his new life? Is my response helping him to learn to trust me and obey, or to manipulate and act inappropriately? 

We had to do ten hours of parent training as part of the requirements for this adoption. Ten hours of online videos ranging from basic

introductory adoption info that we'd been over at least three times before that, to a very brief history of China itself, to a few actually applicable pieces of info. However, I liken it to the dozen marriage books that were thrown our way within the month or so before our wedding. 1. With so many other things going on, who has time to read a dozen books? And 2. To me, though some of those books give good insight and advice, many times it feels to me like training for the hypothetical. Maybe it's info on a situation that you will actually need to face, and if so, great! You're "prepared." But many times, you don't go through things exactly as the book says you will, and if you're like me, you will become paranoid and begin to apply the diagnoses and advice to situations that aren't necessarily broken, which then does make them worse. Likewise, I haven't read a dozen parenting books. I have read a handful by this point, but I haven't read all that many. Maybe you're thinking I should. Maybe once again I am shooting myself in the foot by not reading them. Well, thanks for the thought. Send me a book that explains at this point how to find time, with four children and a house I can't seem to keep up with and the sleep deprivation, to sit and read more than a page without falling asleep. And I say this as one who has always enjoyed reading. Truly. I love books and would love to read more, but i have resigned myself to the fact that for this season of life, as long as I can manage to fit in my Quiet Time, that will have to do for books at the moment.

Back to the patent training though, one thing they mentioned, and I have been struggling with, is that since these kids never had normal infant development, you are to "take them back" to infancy. I won't go into all the details why here, but if you think about how much infants learn about security and love and attachment from all that cuddling they usually get, and how it all affects brain development, which it absolutely does, then you can understand that an infant who never had that type of care lacks the same development. No matter how good the care was that Asher received, he still didn't have a mother to hold him at that ideal 12" distance and make eye contact and regulate breathing and heartbeat and teach him to trust and send those brain  chemicals that calm and soothe and allow him to trust and grow. He never had that. Once again, when I think of Benjamin, who spent the better part of his first six months physically tied to me in that Moby wrap, and Asher, who lay in a crib or bouncer for all that time, the difference is like night and day.

But how do you go about treating a 20 month old like an infant without reinforcing bad habits too? This is what stumps me constantly. I mean, he weighs over 25 lbs and is terrifically wiggly. So, wrapping him up in the Moby all day isn't practical. Plus, when Benjamin was in it, it was winter in Virginia. We are in Florida now. Not really anxious to wear a heater (but if I thought it would help, I would do it).

Sleeping has been another issue. I have never been one to have my kids sleep in my bed. In fact, it's one of my iron clad rules that no one besides Mommy and Daddy sleep in my bed. I know some of my readers are

big supporters of co-sleeping, and if it works for you, that's great. For us though, it doesn't go over well. We found out the hard way that no one sleeps as well when we're in the same bed, or room for that matter. I keep my newborns in a bassinet next to my bed for several months in the beginning. They have to be there for feeding and nighttime soothing, but I am always relieved (though momentarily emotional and sad) to have them start sleeping in their own bedroom. Asher obviously slept in the room with us in the hotels in China. And because we were in a hotel and I am always conscious of who is sharing our walls, if he would cry in the night, I would bring him in the bed with me to comfort and quiet him. We tried to get him to sleep in the crib as much as possible, but he still was in the bed a lot. He flails around like crazy when he's not solidly out, and he cries in his sleep a lot still. It is impossible to rest with him in the bed. Period. And it is very difficult to be an adequately patient and compassionate Mommy when you go three weeks with an average of three hours of sleep per night. Scientific fact.

Now, if I were truly treating him like an infant, I would never let my three week old baby cry all that much when going to sleep, but then again, all my three week olds were nursing, and so soothing them to sleep usually didn't take all that much effort. My 20 month olds though, well, they can cry it out. Don't gasp at me just yet, fellow adoptive parents who have already survived this and know the training says don't let them cry it out. I am lost here. It just isn't practical for me to spend three hours a night holding him and giving him a bottle (Yes, he still takes a bottle. Another thing to deal with) hoping he will fall asleep solidly enough to let me set him down in the crib that's four feet from my bed. And in fact, the more time he's here and learns those bedtime cues, the more he fights to stay awake so he can cry when I set him in his bed. This brings us to tonight. We had already started letting him fuss a little to go to sleep. We found that he stayed up longer, thus getting less sleep, and slept more fitfully, when we tried the whole cuddling until you fall asleep approach. So, he gets that stinkin bottle, cuddle time during that, then a song, we pray, and he gets the little lovey blankie thing he has sort of attached himself to, and I set him in the crib, leave the closet light on, and leave the room with the door mostly closed. He fusses for about 10 - 15 minutes, but then is out and sleeps generally until about 5 a.m. or so. He has been napping for the past two days in the room with Benjamin. Again, he fusses, but he's not alone. They babble at each other for a while, and then eventually they both fall asleep.

The problem arises when he wakes in the night before it's actually wake up time. Usually, up until this night, I would take him in the bed with me to calm him down (also because at 2 a.m. one is typically too tired to stand and rock those 25+ lbs in one's arms). But when he woke up at 1:00 this morning, after I had only been asleep for two hours myself, I was in no mood to let him spend the rest of the night in my bed. So, I made a decision that turned out to be a disaster. I decided to calm him down and put him back in his bed and let him fuss again until he went to sleep. Only, he didn't go back to sleep. He carried on for what was a painfully Lon amount of time. Once again, we didn't leave him alone. We were just a few feet away. We kept talking him through it, assuring him that we were here, but it was time to sleep. We may as well have told Annie that turtles don't really come in then color purple. It didn't make a difference. He worked himself into such a state that I eventually had to cave in and rescue him from the situation of my own making. Great. Now I just reinforced that if he screams long enough, Mommy will give him what he wants. I then spent the next 30 minutes standing next to his bed, rocking him back and forth in my arms, sweating buckets because I had selected flannel pajama pants on a not so cold night, waiting for him to drift off so I could put him in bed. Once again, he never fully gave up and let himself sleep solidly. Every time he sensed the downward motion of

going into the bed, he resumed the wailing. After a while I just couldn't handle it anymore and we both got back in my bed. I put down a leakproof pad under where he lay so he wouldn't have a leaky diaper (preventative) on my mattress, and literally spent the rest of the night, until 7:30 a.m. laying here as he flopped around fitfully in his sleep, rearranging his position to make sure he was on the pad and away from Daddy, (hey, at least someone was getting some semblance of sleep) and typing this post on the iPod. Now THAT was a disaster!

I watched a video online with Karen Purvis, a renowned adoption expert and researcher. In this video, she speaks about the percentage of children in orphanages who don't even survive the first year there. So many die of despair alone. Her point was that, if our child is alive and with us today, it is proof of the fact that he is a survivor. He has developed some skills and tactics, tools of his own to get his needs met and to keep himself alive this long. She speaks about how many children adopt a higher pitched voice than usual for their age so that they cannot be ignored. In my opinion, Asher subscribed to the whole philosophy that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." He is such a funny little charmer that he found ways to get what he wanted, and it must have worked much of the time. If his normal cute friendliness wasn't enough to earn him a snack or a trip to the nurses' office or something, he employed the wailing tantrum. If he could keep it up long enough, surely they would give him what he wanted, right? You do what you have to do to survive, and though his basic need were usually being met, he didn't know for sure that they would continue to be met.

So here we are. Still just a few weeks together and he still doesn't know that I am not another ayi. That Mommy is different from a nanny. That this house isn't just another temporary stop, but his home. And he is pulling every trick out to see what it will get him. "Can I manipulate this situation too?" But then there is the fact that he has dealt with great trauma and loss and that typically these come to light at night because his guard is down in his sleep, and the grieving becomes harder to suppress. He fights bedtime just as many kids do, but it is partially because many of his nightmares actually happened. Once again, I am left to decipher what part this plays in the puzzle versus where we should enforce the training of proper sleep habits, and it's always harder when I haven't slept either.

So, that's all. No neat ending here. This post, like this entire process, is a work in progress, and we are feeling our way through it on a minute by minute basis. I wish I had answers. I wish I had a magic wand. I wish more than ever that kids came with gauges on their foreheads that told you what they need. But they don't, and this is going to take a lot more work to figure out. This process will not be quick or painless. So, if you see me out and about, looking zombie-fied and sleep deprived, just don't look at me like you're sure things are falling into place perfectly. Understand that it will be a long road we have to travel to healing and true attachment, and please continue to pray for us all, especially for Asher as he sorts out the painful things and realizes that we are tying to prevent his little heart from hurting even more.