First few days: Survival

Our very first day home started off magical, all four children watched each other in wonderment as they played and took turns showing N around the house. He loved his room and thankfully thought Jonah was a great big teddy bear of a dog. We tried to keep things low key and relaxed as possible and offered food and drinks to help keep him regulated.

Then we hit hour four and N was done. He no longer wanted to play, he hated any food we offered him and our youngest realized she no longer was the baby and began rebelling. Praise God our two older ones were able to occupy themselves while Gene and I took turns struggling it out upstairs. The next two days were filled with screaming, crying, pouting, grief and sadness. I think there may have been a time or two us adults felt lost and joined in our children's tears. We tried desperately to meet N where he is and continue to set limits in love while allowing him to express his emotions.

You see when a child is an Orphan, they loose thier voice. They don't cry very often because there was no one there to hold them and comfort them. they don't say how they feel because it really doesn't matter and if they have a problem they just deal with it through physical means. We wanted N to find his voice, even if that was (and can still be) a screaming crying voice.

He has lost so many people in his life, he lost his country, his people, his language, his food, the smells and everything familiar in one long plane ride. We did our very best to ease the transition through my extra time in Ethiopia, doing bonding exercises and trying the best we could to meet his needs immediately. But this is only a drop in the bucket in the attachment dance we were doing and the loss he is experiencing.

Our new son has not experienced real boundaries in the past year and a half he lived in care and so being part of a family with loving limits has been hard. Then to add on to that jet lag and lack of communication makes these first few days hard and I mean hard.

We know one day it will get better and we know we love our son and are so very thankful for him. Life right now is know as survival. We are all just surviving, taking one hour at a time, one melt down, one tear at a time. Adoption is not for the faint of heart nor the weak in heart but it is an amazing thing.