Bringing Haven Home
We cannot believe we are to the part in this journey where we get to bring Haven home! Finally! The real adventure is just beginning. Look at this updated picture we got this morning from our social worker. We praise God for how healthy he looks! He has really chunked up!! We love it!
We leave next Thursday and arrive home on Valentine’s Day around noon. We know that’s in the middle of the day and not very convenient for most of you. But, we would LOVE to have any and all of you be there at the airport to greet us if you can/want to. I think after the airport arrival we will plan on going to eat lunch at Habeneros Mexican Restaurant in Alabaster if any of you would like to join us. We know we are going to be exhausted, but we will need some entertainment to stay awake that afternoon.
That evening we will come home and begin the “cocooning” process. We know this is really weird and different for most of you. So we wanted to explain a little bit of our plans to you. Our plans come from all the 2½ years of training, books, conferences, and people we have talked with that have gone through this process.
Cocooning is a period of time where we basically stay home and teach Haven who his mom and dad are. We will be the ones to feed him every bottle, and we will be the only ones who get to hold him. He has been living at a transition home for the past 4 months having different nannies and nurses caring for him. He has not attached to anyone. So this is a time to teach him to attach to us. We will literally have him attached to us with a baby carrier most of the time. (This will be new and different to me since Story hated those things).
You may think that Haven is so young, he doesn’t need this, but that is not the case. It’s true that the older children are the longer it takes to attach. We have no idea how long this process will take. It could take weeks or maybe even months. We will just have to read Haven and make that call as the weeks pass. Once he has attached well with us, we look forward to introducing him to our extended family and community.
Now, that’s not to say, “please stay away” or “don’t come visit us.” We will want and need you all around. However, we do want you to understand why we won’t be passing him around or offering for you to feed him a bottle. Believe me when I say, this is going to be extremely hard for us. We rely on our community so much. There are going to be nights I’m sure, that we are in tears and wishing we could call one of our mommas to come stay with us and get up with Haven at all hours of the night and feed him and let us rest. There are going to be days where all we want is to have five minutes to hang out with our friends. But this is not about what we want. This is about what Haven needs and what is best for him.
We hope you understand. We hope you trust us. We hope you know how much we love you and need you and want you in our lives. This will just be a season. A short season we pray. And then we’ll be ready to jump back into things and into a “normal” life (whatever that new normal may look like).
Adoption is so beautiful, but it is also really hard. I never want to forget that in order for us to gain a family member, he had to lose the family that created him and was supposed to care for him. That’s a tremendous loss.
This past weekend, I got to attend Created for Care adoption conference in Georgia. One of the speakers was an adult adoptee. She gave me so much insight and wisdom, but one thing she said really stuck with me: “Adoption isn’t just an act. It’s a process.”
So, what can you do for us during this process? We need your prayers. Please pray over our trip: smooth flights, no lost luggage, easy Embassy appointment on the 11th, and no delays in getting his visa (it is supposed to ready the morning of the 13th and we fly out that evening). Pray that the attachment process begins easily even while in Ethiopia. Pray for Story as she enjoys some time with the Davis family, my mom, and adjusts to sharing mom and dad with a baby brother. Pray for Haven. The next few weeks are going to be a whirlwind of taking him away from everything he has ever known and introducing him to a whole new world with new experiences, new smells, new foods, new faces, new family. Pray for his doctors that will be helping us make sure he is as healthy as he can possibly be.
You can also take some time to educate yourself. This is an absurd request. We’ve been trying to educate ourselves for a couple of years now and have never felt more inadequate. However, we know you might have questions. So, please feel free to begin by simply reading the following blog posts about this process.
http://omearasplusone.blogspot.com/2012/09/attachment-and-cocooning-explanation.html
http://www.laurencasper.com/2012/04/04/cocooning-our-journey-of-attachment-with-mareto/
http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/11/02/how-to-be-the-village
http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2012/08/21/the-truth-about-adoption-one-year-later
We are truly overwhelmed by God’s grace and how He has woven our lives together with each of you. Your encouragement and support have held us throughout this long journey and even before that. We will continue to need you even more as we adjust to being a family of 4! We love you all and hope to see your faces on Valentine’s Day!