The Adventures of Adoption and Parenthood

As everyone knows, we are adopting another child from China and it's a lot of drop everything, scramble, wait, drop everything, scramble, wait, etc. It's an emotional roller coaster. A friend of mine is also adopting her second child pretty close to the same time as us and we have been experiencing the same emotions about 2 days apart from one another. For us, we were euphoric when we got our match and frantically completed paperwork and waited .... And I got a little sad looking at Mei Mei's chubby little face and not being able to go get her. Her picture hangs on the wall at work right over one of my monitors. And I look at her sweet face every single day. Then the LOA came in and euphoria returned, and we rearranged schedules to get to our agency to sign it and waited ... And sadness ... and waited ... And sadness ... Then the I800 approval came this week and more euphoria. Giddy highs and depressing lows. During this time, I am in the process of reorgani...

Waiting for Mei Mei is much harder than waiting for Turtle when we got to this stage. With Turtle, we knew we were going to get her in 5 weeks. With Mei Mei the wait is 10 - 14 weeks and no guarantees. I think the wait would be easier if Turtle was not so anxious. I have a lot of friends out there who tell me how normal it is that she is anxious, but frankly, I have a hard time believing that her levels of anxiety are normal. In fact, I think they are probably rather unusual. Last night we were shot from sleep at 3:00 a.m. with shrieks of rage from Turtle. She was fully awake and she was pissed. She was shrieking and kicking and trying to get off of the bed. I held onto her because I was afraid she would hurt herself in the dark. She kept saying that the time was close for her sister to be here and that Spring was only 2 days away. We told her a few months ago that we thought we would get her sister in the Spring, so I think she thinks her sister will be here in 2 days. I wish. So,...

We continue to await updates and government approvals that will get us closer to Mei Mei, but in the meantime, we are working hard to help Turtle with her increasing anxieties. A friend of ours recently told us about a training program that our adoption agency participates in called TBRI (Trust Based Relational Intervention) and we were able to check out a DVD on the topic from our agency's library. If you are interested, their website is http://www.child.tcu.edu/training.asp. It was really enlightening. It helped affirm what we already thought to be true and that is that traditional parenting methods are actually damaging to our littles in the long run. We can get short-term compliance with these methods but in the long-term the damage can be terrible. Time outs - nope; sent to her room - better not; take away her toys - no way; threatening to cancel playdates - indeed no. And of course, I've done all of these things with Turtle. And I'm exhausted. At my wit's end. ...

Dear Turtle: You just turned 5, and what an amazing young lady you are becoming. You have been a joy since we first saw your face. When we received your picture, you were my child from the moment I saw you. I taped your picture to my office wall so I could look at you whenever I wanted. We were able to travel to get you 5 weeks from your referral. Those 5 weeks flew by. We spent the time getting your room ready, organizing the house, buying baby essentials, making travel arrangements and getting visas. When we met you, you didn't cry. You just looked around and sucked your thumb. At 9 months old, you couldn't sit up and you didn't eat any solid foods. After about a week at home, you started to sit up and your first food was baby food bananas. You squealed and kicked your legs in happiness over the bananas. I carried you everywhere for months and months trying to help you bond. It took you about 6 months to trust me enough to finally begin to "tell" me about ...