Bonding

I posted twice today so make sure you scroll down and see the other post too. Now onto this one….When Oksana first came home we struggled to bond with her. In all of the books you read while preparing to adopt a child they will tell you over and over again that your child might have trouble bonding, but there are few places where you will learn that the parents sometimes have trouble too. Looking back I’m not surprised. Her behaviors were not conducive to making someone fall in love with her, that’s for sure! Over time though we all started to settle in and things got better and better until we could honestly say that we had most definitely bonded with her.

I remember sharing this with someone who said “Bonding is something that is ongoing. It is measured in years not months.” I thought to myself “Well she doesn’t know us. We are definitely bonded.” Because I’m an expert on bonding, right?! HA! This week I have learned something. Bonding is ongoing and it is fragile, it is measured in years and not months. Let me explain. I think that we definitely fell in love and bonded with Oksana. After the horrible first few months we had we were almost euphoric in our feelings for her. She actually became our easiest child. We’ve truly enjoyed her.....and then we moved.

Oh goodness it has been an interesting week. Oksana has been whining, clingy, overly dramatic, and just pushing every button she can find on us in general. Seriously, we understand all of the psychology behind this. I’m sure it is stressful for her to move twice in a year when she had hardly ever even left the same room her whole life. I’m sure she was making sure we weren’t leaving her. I’m sure she realizes that we have been so incredibly busy unpacking and doing all of the other things that need to be done to a new house that we have not hardly had any time to give her the attention she is accustomed to. Knowing all of that doesn’t make the day to day dealing with it any easier.

I feel a rift in what I stupidly thought was a rock solid bond. I am realizing how fragile that bond is and that it will take YEARS to form the bond that I thought we had. It’s making me seriously reconsider some things for our future. First of all, we definitely want to adopt again, there is no question about that, but the when and the how are WAY up in the air right now. Our intention was to bring our kids with us overseas. I see now that change of that sort would not be at all good for Oksana or our relationship with her. Leaving her with someone else will not be an option. Again, the bond thing, the last thing we need to do is leave her to bond with someone else. We were so sure we would be going overseas again, and maybe we will in the future but no way right now. So basically we are waiting to see what God does. If he drops a domestic opportunity, or any other sort of opportunity that doesn’t involve travel, in our laps we will certainly take it. If not we will wait for His green light to go but the light is not green now as we expected it to be. So much for the best laid plans!