Guest Post: A's Attachment Journey

It's no secret that my "bff" is Leigh, another first-time mom through adoption. She is not only one of my very best friends, but a mom that I deeply respect. She brought her son "A" home from Ethiopia last summer, and this is her cocooning story: 

Spring 2011- after they got their referral!

Before coming home with our son I had done all the research on attachment and cocooning.  I figured we would cocoon for 3 months and be good to go. It wasn't until I met my son that I saw how deeply impacted he had been by all the losses in his young life.  We landed back home on June 18th, 2011 as first time parents to the most precious little 4 1/2 year old on the planet (I'm his mama, I can brag like that ;) ).  We settled into our little world of cocooning and I realized that my sweet son was terrified.  Not of us but of the world around him, he had lost everything again and this time he had lost more than ever.  Adoption is beautiful but it is born of pain and loss, that is hard for every child not matter the age. He was so unsure and he needed us to be the constant in his life.  I realized how big our job as his parents was truly going to be.  Thankfully, he did trust us fairly quickly but it's because he only saw us, we were the only ones to meet his needs, the only ones to comfort him when he was sad or afraid and we kept a very consistent schedule.  He desperately needed to know what was coming and changes in his routine were not welcomed in the beginning.




Now that we have been home for 9 months he does much better when we have to adapt to whatever life throws at us but it's because he knows we are going to be there.  We give him plenty of warning when we know things are going to be out of our ordinary life so he can be prepared.  We were the only ones to offer him food, give him baths, put him to bed, cuddle him when he fell down or was grieving the loss of Ethiopia.  Now he comes to us to meet his needs, he knows that we are Mommy and Daddy.  Mommy and Daddy were just our names for so long but now we are his people, we are truly Mommy and Daddy to him.  That took work and effort to make happen, we had to guard his heart from having lots of people be part of our little circle at first.  Our little guy was always very overwhelmed by lots of people and still is, he doesn't like people he doesn't know to get all in his business.

We know people have gotten their feelings hurt because they love him and want to love on him but they are strangers to him, while we know that they would never harm our son, he doesn't know that.  He is allowed to have that voice and as his parents we feel it's our duty to encourage that sense of stranger danger.  He does warm up to people and he now has a great and appropriate relationship with several family members.  We are thankful that these people patiently waited as we helped our son start to heal and attach to us.

Cocooning and attachment are hard work,  it is intentional parenting on a daily basis.  For 2 1/2 months our son slept with us in our bed, during the night he would reach to see if we were still there.  For 3 1/2 months after that I slept in his bed with him, he would wake up scared and cuddle up to me or ask me to rub his back when he couldn't fall back asleep.  I missed "my normal sleep" but I was able to meet a need that my sweet boy desperately needed met.  Now he is a wonderful sleeper, he sleeps in his bed alone without any fears that Mommy and Daddy will be gone when he wakes.  He is now comfortable enough to yell for us in the night if he does wake up scared or needs something.  He can depend on us because we have proved to him that we will do what it takes.

 I don't say all this to brag or say we did a perfect job, I know we have not.  What we have done is battle for our son's heart with the Lord as our guide.  We are selfish people who sometimes just wanted to leave him home with a babysitter because we had lost our "normal carefree lifestyle" and we missed it.  My husband came home from work many times to a crying mama in the kitchen because it was just too overwhelming and felt like such a massive responsibility.  I had plenty of moments where I questioned what God was thinking when He asked me, a very imperfect 24 year old to be the mom of his beautiful but wounded preschooler. But God was there, He carried us through the hard times.  He called us to this journey and He has been faithful.  We have watched as He heals our son's heart.  We are the lucky ones that get to watch redemption in our house on a daily basis.

Our family has been together for a little over 9 months and we are reaping some beautiful fruit from our cocooning process and from dutifully guarding his heart from too much too soon.  We don't regret our cocooning or how we still protect our son, the only times in parenting that we do look back and regret are the times that we did not go with our guts and were less guarded than we should have been. Thankfully our God is bigger than our failures and He gives us more chances to step up and do what we need to do for our precious son. Attachment takes work but when given the proper time, dedication and reliance on the Lord, the end results are breathtaking.

Thank you Leigh for being so open about your heart during this process. Feel free to check out her blog here.