Dear Family & Friends,
We want to share with you some information that we hope will best equip everyone around our baby to assist us in laying the strongest and healthiest foundation - emotionally, physically and spiritually.
In many ways, our baby will be just like any other baby. However, we have done a great deal of research on bonding and attachment. While many people think a baby doesn’t feel a loss at such a young age- they do. Our baby will know things are different and will most likely recognize their loss.
Attachment between a parent and child occurs over time when a baby has a physical or emotional need and communicates that need. The primary caretaker (usually mom) meets the need and soothes the child. This repeats between a parent and child over and over to create trust within the child for that parent; the baby is hungry, cries in distress, mom feeds & calms the baby - which teaches them that this person is safe and can be trusted. By God’s very design, an emotional foundation is laid in the tiniest of babies, which will affect their learning, conscience, growth and future relationships. The security provided by parents will, ultimately, give children a trust for and empathy towards others.
Children who come home through adoption have experienced interruptions in this typical attachment process. The loss of a biological mother at an early age can be a major trauma on their little hearts. The good news is that we can rebuild that attachment and help them heal from these emotional wounds. When our baby comes home, he/she will be overwhelmed. Everything around them will be new and they will need to learn not just about their new environment, but also about love and family. The best way for us to form a parent/child bond is to be the ones to hold, snuggle, instruct, soothe and feed him/her. As this repeats between us, they will be able to learn that parents are safe to trust and to love deeply. We are, essentially, recreating the newborn/parent connection. Once they start to establish this important bond, they will then be able to branch out to other, healthy relationships.
Our little one will have, what may seem like, a lot of structure, boundaries and close proximity to us. Please know that these decisions are prayerfully and thoughtfully made choices based on immense amounts of research and instruction from trusted adoption mentors. We will be doing what we believe is best to help them heal from those interruptions in attachment as effectively as possible. Why are we telling you all of this? Because you will actually play an awesome and vital role in helping our baby settle in, heal, and lay a foundation for the future. There are a few areas in which you can help us:
The first is to set physical boundaries. It will help us immensely if adults limit what is typically considered normal, physical contact. This will (for a while) include things like holding, excessive hugging and kissing. Adopted children are prone to attaching to anyone and everyone too easily- which hinders the important, primary relationship with parents. Waving, blowing kisses or high fives are perfectly appropriate and welcomed!
Another area is redirecting our baby’s desire to have his physical and emotional needs met by anyone (including strangers) to having us meet them. A child struggling to learn to attach may exhibit indiscriminate affection with people outside of their family unit. It may appear harmless and as if they are “very friendly” but this is actually quite dangerous for the child. To share this is difficult for us because we have snuggled, cared for, fed and loved so many of your children. Please understand that we want nothing more than to have baby Faulk hugged, cuddled and cherished by ALL of you. But until they have a firm understanding of family and primary attachments, we would be so grateful if you direct him/her to us if you see that he/she is seeking out food, affection or comfort.
Please know we are new at this and all babies are different. Our little one may attach right away or it might take months. None of this is written in stone until we bring our little one home and get a feel for everything!
We are incredibly blessed to have so many loved ones around us. We couldn’t ask for better friends and family. Thank you so much for your love and support . If you have any questions please feel free to ask at any time!
Chaske & Tasha
