starting the international adoption process. I'm worried that i won't bond with an adopted child...

[jennymaxx]

We live in NY. We've been talking seriously about adopting internationally. We have 2 biological kids (girl 7, boy 5) and i'm terrified. i always wanted a big family and always imagined that we'd adopt. I'm terrified. I love kids. mine and those i work with (I run therapeutic theatre groups with kids from many different and troubled backgrounds) But i could use some words of wisdom from women out there who have been thru this. If anyone has adopted who already had kids could tell me a bit about your experience i would sooo appreciate it. One day i'm excited and the next terrified. We already went found and then left one agency which was way too conservative. found another i really like and we're going to an information meeting this week. Thanks. 

[RedOakMomma]

I think you'll be fine. :)

We adopted our daughter from South Korea after having bio children.  I also know many families who have a mix of bio and adopted kids.  The absolute truth is, you just don't know if you're going to fall in love with your adopted child in an instant, or if it will be a longer process of falling in love, or learning to love.  It can happen both ways.  I know that's true to some extent with bio kids, too, though with adopted kids it is somewhat different from the get-go...you don't have that hormone coctail that makes for instant love. 

I think I expected to fall in love instantly.  I didn't.  It's been a long time falling in love, and feeling like her mom.  That doesn't mean it's been bad, though.  Just different.  More challenging at first, for sure. 

Truth be told, I prefer the falling in love process that goes on when I have a baby by birth.  For me, it's easier.  There's no work at all.  But you know how it is....good things, like a loving relationship with a child, are worth working for.  I did have to work to have my relationship with my daughter, and at times it felt unnatural, but the relationship was formed all the same.  And really, it's something special to form this kind of relationship, to build it piece by piece like that.  I'm glad to have experienced it, and I'm glad that, as a parent, my experience hasn't been all the same.  Falling in love with a newborn might be easier, hormones and all, but it's not the only way. :) 

Be realistic in your expectations for yourself and for the child you'll adopt.  You might not feel like an insta-mommy.  You may have to fake it for a while.  Tha'ts okay, though.  Falling in love instantly is okay, too, but don't feel bad if it doesn't happen.

[queenjane]

I have one bio child who is 14. My first adopted son was placed at three weeks of age, and it wasnt difficult at all to bond with him. To me, it feels just like i gave birth to him. The bond with my second adopted son (we havent finalized yet) took longer, and i think in part it was due to his age at placement (nearly 1.5 yrs old), the trauma of his removal from his bfather (he was a sad little boy when he first came!) and the fact that we were having weekly visits with his bparents for the eight months leading up to termination of parental rights. I didnt really feel like "Mom" because another one had that role and i didnt want to step on any toes. But i'll never forget the day, as we got closer to TPR, that he out of the blue came up to me and said "mama!", then a day later he did it again. It was the first time he had called me that, despite my other son calling me mommy...he just never called me anything at all.

I still dont feel 100 percent as close or "bonded" to him as my other son but i know i will.

With my daughter, who was placed in June at age 8...its been more difficult. I think in part it was because we had this fabulous "honeymoon period" for two months before she moved in,that totally set the stage for failure. Despite all my knowledge of adoption issues, i got totally suckered in and did not realize that we were honeymooning, or that she was manipulating me much of that time. And no one bothered to tell me the extent of her emotional issues. So when she moved in and there was lying and sneaky behavior and half hour long tantrums, and food issues, and control issues, and constant fighting with the toddlers...i just wasnt prepared. She presents as a kid that is easy to love, but then the reality of living with her is that she does much to push a person away, by being as irritating as possible. Its been hard for me to feel like bonding with a kid that irritates me 90 percent of the time...MUCH harder than i ever ever expected. At one point, i thought well, i can provide a stable home for this kid for the next ten years...but will i ever truly love her???

But recently she started a new medication and her behavior has been SO much better, which has caused me to be less annoyed and allow room for the fun stuff. I can now envision a time when our bond will be stronger.

For me, the younger the child at placement the easier to bond, but it could also have alot to do with the child's personality as well. The little girl i had for two months as a foster placement (she was a year old), she was not a child who bonded easily which maked bonding TO her that much more difficult. Its really hard to watch a child charm those around her (even at a year old) and yet push you away.

One thing that surprised me in adopting, is that i thought i would have a hard time not breastfeeding but having to bottle feed...but that was a complete nonissue. My older son never had a bottle, nursed to age 3.5. I used to think moms who bottlefed who claimed they were "just as bonded" to their babies were lying, or just didnt know the difference. But after bottlefeeding my adopted newborn, i realized what a nonissue it was and i never looked at bottlefeeding moms the same way again. We did "bottlenurse" (holding while feeding, didnt prop bottles, fed on demand, etc) and it was funny because my son didnt even realize he COULD hold his own bottles until he was about 15 months and a very independant year old foster daughter moved in (she wouldnt let me hold her while she ate.) That was when he, by choice, weaned from bottlenursing.

[jennymaxx]

thank you so much for your honesty and words of encouragement

[jennymaxx]

i don't know if i could handle not bonding and falling head over heels in love with a child i would be calling my own. I trust that it would eventually happen, but getting there might be incredibly painful. You have both given me pause. I was hoping to hear what the people at the agencies say. "of course you'll fall in love! everyone does!" Tomorrow night we go to an information session. i guess i will just have to stay open to this process and to my own process. thank you again for taking the time to respond. 

[RedOakMomma]

Some people DO fall in love right away, but if an agency (or especially your social worker assigned to you) say that "everyone does," then they're not being honest.

It's a dirty little secret in adption, I think.  The adoptive moms I know certainly haven't felt open about it, and when they did finally break down or confess that things weren't going as smoothly as they thought they would, it was said with shame.  That saddens me.  It's so common to feel this way.  People need to be more open about it, and social workers need to prepare parents for it.  There are many different ways to fall in love, and there are many paths emotions can take in the adoption process.  Expecting parents to be head-over-heels about a child placed in their midst is unreasonable...especially in international adoption, when the child is mourning the loss of a family or nanny, the loss of all things familiar (sounds, smells, language, homes), and both children and parents are likely worn out and jetlagged.

Like I said...it's a unique process that is worth experiencing, worth working for, but it's not always the fall-in-love fairy tale that Brangelina & the media make it out to be.  

[tiffani]

I don't think Brangelina make it out to be any certain way -- I noticed that they never said much about their 3 year old, Pax, just that he was a handful, adjusting to life in a family, etc, while being very positive about him overall... I suspect that they try to be fairly private about the negative stuff, because their kids will have the opportunity to read every word that was written about them at some point. I respect that, but you're right, it gives the impression that everything is perfect in Brangelinaland, when we all know the truth, ha ha...

We just arrived home about two months ago with our two little ones from Uganda. They were 16 mos and about 3.5 when we took them into our family, and we stayed for a month with them in a little apartment in Kampala, Uganda. While my husband was still there, and we were all so flipping exhausted from some crazy travel to get there in time for court, plus jet lag, plus suddenly parenting 4 kids, plus the struggle of getting and preparing food, worrying about money, etc... then to have a 3.5 year old who was really out to test our patience -- it was really difficult, and we met in the living room wide awake at 3 am several times after exhaustedly falling asleep once he stopped screaming in our arms around 9 pm, to sort of look at each other with these "what the hell were we thinking!!??!!" faces. Neither of us ever said anything to the other until things started to settle down, and bonding started to really happen -- of course we loved these kids right from the first picture, but the reality, once you have them in your care, is that they are just kids, and kids are hard sometimes.

My daughter, who was 16 mos, was easy as pie, and that actually made it a little harder for Zachary, I think -- she was so easy, and attached so quickly, and wasn't trying to constantly piss us off, and she is so cute and funny and just a joy, generally speaking, that we both silently thought "if we were here just adopting her, this would be so much easier!" But you know what? It just happens. You are entrusted with this child's care, and you can't help but think about their history, which gives you a lot of sympathy for them, and they have their hard moments, yes, but for the most part, our son is a delightful kid, and we all love him dearly. I don't yet have the same intense connection with them that I have with my bio kids -- my bio son in particular, was a very hard kid to raise, and he is so extremely sensitive, and I swear I have developed a psychic connection with him, because I just needed to be that in tune with him at all moments of the day. I am fiercely protective of him, because he struggles so much, but I don't feel that way about any of my other kids, bio or adopted. You love your children in a way that fits each of them -- they're all unique, and they all have different needs. I, of course, LOVE my bio daughter as much as my son, but she is so much more secure and independent, she hasn't needed me to be plugged into her emotions 24/7, and she isn't misunderstood and doesn't have a hard time socially, etc, etc, etc. I am glad that the two kids we adopted seem to be much more emotionally stable (go figure!) because I don't think I have it in me to go through that all again!! of course I would if necessary, but I deal with their freakouts in a totally different way than with my bio son (when he was younger) because they are freaking out for different reasons, they have different emotions behind their freakouts, and they are just different kids and respond better to different parenting. Correction: my son didn't really respond to any parenting when he was freaking out, he just had to lose it and get through it, while the younger two who have just come home, even though they don't speak english, are far more responsive to my telling them to stop freaking out, and explaining how to ask for what you need, for me to explain the logic behind why we can't do this or that... at first, before Zachary spoke any english, the language barrier was hard -- really, really hard. But now, he seems to enjoy my explanations -- he's a very curious kid and wants to get along the same way the rest of us do -- he's working very hard to acclimate, to say the least. So if I stop and calmly explain things, he actually listens, whereas my bio son never did, he just flipped his lid for a while.

that was quite a tangent, sorry...

in a nutshell, you will never regret adopting. You will fall in love with your adopted child, it just may look different from how it happened with your bio kids. It is amazing and wonderful, and hard all at once, just like raising bio kids. Do you not ever have days when you wish them all away? maybe that's just me. :) When things were really hard at first with Zachary Marvin, during one quiet moment when he had finally fallen asleep, I wondered about what it would be like if we just stood up and said "we can't do this, sorry" and it was awful, and that was when it hit me that he was my kid, no matter what, and that I *wanted* it that way. They are amazing kids, so much fun, and our lives are infinitely enriched by having them in our family. It is hard for all of us at times, but we are all glad they are part of us now, and none of us would change it for the world -- I could use a break now and again, but hey, that's nothing new!!

[Whistler]

We adopted a domestic newborn and I bonded instantly. Before that we had two bios and I bonded instantly with the second and had to work at bonding with the first (I still have to work at it... she is a tough customer sometimes!)  This summer when we get our little Ethiopian girlie, I wonder the exact same thing.  How will we bond?  Will she be scared? clingy? affectionate? aloof?

I go from excited to terrified to impatient  to thinking I am freaking nuts to try to parent four children under the age of six.

I think long term everything will be okay.

Mostly I share this because you're not alone and I think these feelings are fairly normal.  :)

[marsupial-mom]

I can only tell you my experience. I'm a foster-adoptive mom. I don't have any bio children. And we haven't adopted any yet; hoping to adopt our current foster child.

Our first placement was an older infant. I bonded right away. He was such a pleasure and it was super easy to attach. The second placement, the one we have now, took longer. He was a newborn when we brought him home and since he slept all the time it took a while to see his personality and develop a bond. I remember conversations with my mother where I told her through tears that I worried I was a bad mom.  I had a hard time with the lack of sleep since he needed special round-the-clock care. And I had a hard time adjusting to the lack of freedom of having a newborn. (All the while, I still loved holding him while he slept. I loved reading to hime. And I loved the morning rituals of putting him on my chest for tummy time.)

The attachment came. It took a couple months but it did come. That whole "cycle of needs" thing they teach you about in foster parent training is real. Just keep meeting his needs and you'll develop a bond. Our attachment to each other has just grown and grown and grown. I am so in love with him today! So so so in love! He's fantastic!

So, my advice is that you'll probably feel a strong bond right away. But if you don't, you shouldn't worry because it will probably come. Just give it time.

[RedOakMomma]

tiffani, you're totally right...I don't know Brangelina personally, so I can't say it's their fault. :)  I mean more that the media circus around them makes it look so easy, and in the interviews I've seen with them, they seemed to focus on all that was rosy, not at all on what was difficult.  And not just celebrity adoptions, either....all adoptions.

And I wouldn't say "you'll never regret adopting."  I know parents, good kind people, that do.  Likewise, I've met a few bio parents that would probably say they regret having kids.  It's ugly and uncommon, but it happens.  I don't think they'd wish the kids out of existence...just that they think they (all) might have been happier had they followed a different path. 

[aclee]

We adopted one at birth, one at 3 month and now are working to bring home a little girl who is 2 or 2.5 in age.  I am concerned about attachment, and I've done this twice before.  With our newborn I did nothing, it just happened.  With out 3 months old, he had significant special needs, and that combined with his outright refusal to breast feed (which I had worked SO hard at) and he was just an extremely irritable and high need baby.  I had some PAD, and all that combined meant 2 months after he was home, I loved him, but the attachment was very different.  At that point I did some more direct attachment work, and honest I still feel like I work at it.  He is a DADDY'S BOY...and that's hard for me to deal with.  My first son is not at all. I think that he's just at an age where he prefers the parent that's not at home because of the novelty, but I blame that on a lack of attachment when in reality, I know he is firmly attached...it's just a blow to my Mama's Ego I think :)

Our Social worker made a good point about toddler attachment.  She said that without the basis of infancy behind you in which to form a loving bond, being handed a 2-5 year old on it's own, it's harder to attach.  Kids that age can have some behaviors that are not that lovable.  One family she worked with said the child was not attaching.  He was tantruming and testing them constantly.  She asked if his behavior was any different from how their biological child behaved at the same age.  When they thought about it...no he was acting the same!  So I think it's hard when they have behaviors in this age range anyway to know if they are fighting attachment, or if they are just being 3! 

[tiffani]

you're right, ROM, never say never, but it is far more rare for a parent to feel regret (aside from the momentary "why can't I just live on a tropical beach foraging for coconuts?" feeling that we all feel when things get rough) about adopting than it is for parents to feel like overall it was a wonderful decision to bring the child into their family.  That's the usual feeling, unless of course your child has significant special needs that you didn't know about (especially RAD or FAS), and even then, most families don't regret adopting. It certainly can take time to attach though, to grow to love your child, especially in the face of testing behavior, which is totally normal. I think some people also, even subconsciously, expect the children to behave better than the average kid at the same age, after all the struggle the parents went through to get them home. It's an ugly expectation, and needs to be eradicated from the adoptive parents mindset, but I think it's hard not to feel that way a little, unless the martyr mother role comes easily to you. I was surprised to hear my subconscious whispering that to me about our son, especially given the financial strain we're under as a result of their adoption -- well... as a result of poor planning for their adoption... I was thinking about all the adoption-related expenses we've acquired over the years that weren't directly a part of their adoption, and it was whopping. Ugandan adoption isn't expensive, by international adoption standards, but we had a long journey full of expensive dead ends, having to move across the world suddenly, etc, all for the sole purpose of bringing these two home. Consciously I know it's ridiculous to expect different behavior from them because of our sacrifices, but stress is stress, and when it builds, it's hard not to focus a little of it on the kid who is pinching, biting, spitting and hitting you because you're out of bananas. but then they make it to the toilet without dribbling down their leg and look up at you proudly, give you an enthusiastic thumbs up and say "Gooda Jobba Mama!" and your heart melts and it's all worth it.

[alwayslearning66]

I'm a "never wanted to birth, always wanted to adopt if I ever managed to mature enough to be a parent" parent :)  Our first came from another country, orphanage, at 3.5 and was behind by 1-2 years. In international adoption, this in some ways made it easier to attach. She accepted a sippy cup as a bottle, she spoke little of her native language beyond what I learned to communicate with a toddler, and loved to be in my Mayan wrap. So to me, she was a "baby". Yes she walked around, could do much on her won (too much) and yes I never had the comparison of a birth child. It was very hard work, but those moments of connection are what got us through the hard stuff. And I very much appreciate those who said in earlier posts that that is adoption's little dirty secret- attaching can be very hard. I will also say it can be hard won, the same way you can feel (in an imagination stretch) when you train for a race or practice for whatever difficult hobby or career you've had in your life.

I've also read that some birth parents have a hard time attaching to their birth kids, even the most educated and supported. You go through the motions, rely on family and friends, and hope for the best. An adoptive mom I have enormous respect for who adopted 3 sets of "older" siblings over the years from the same country (non-English speaking), did everything she could to physically connect. They did things like read stories with the kids' head in their laps and helped with baths. Whatever the kids would accept, they did. Adoptive Families magazine is a good way to wet your appetite and sift through what the experts say.

We're now with our first foster placement who came at 3.5 firmly attached to the dog in the previous placement. Now, 9 months down the road, he's finally allowing himself to talk about his birth mom and dad in ways that we were expecting from the get go. This makes me sad to think of the amnesia our older daughter went through to leap the language barrier. She remembers nothing of her baby home, even though I quickly made a video of it along with still photos of her with favorite care givers. My point is, many children just want to assimilate and will also go through the paces simply to belong. I'm expecting a bumpy adolescence from her.

I can't elaborate more since there is a child waking up, but I will say it is totally worth it in my experience! If you are asking these questions, you will likely be a good parent of an adopted child. It's the parents that live a quiet fantasy who worry me. Oh, don't forget the book with a title like, Attachment and Bonding in Adoption. We got most of this info from our excellent agency for our international experience, but it's nice to have it staring me in the face from my bookshelf to remind me that I'm not just a "bad" mom when the times get tough.