I have several people asking how Annabelle is doing and
appreciate your patience for my response.
Since we are bonding, I have not had many moments to be able to sit down
and write. First, I want to say how imperative
it was for us to have read The Connected Child by Dr. Purvis. If you are in the adoption process and Dr.
Purvis is having a seminar near you RUN don’t walk!! Going to Dr. Purvis’
weekend seminar changed
our parenting completely even with the boys before we got Annabelle.
With that being said, it’s important for us to treat
Annabelle like a newborn from the day we get her. The orphanage was still giving her a bottle,
so I gave her bottles, burped her and kept her close to me at all times just
like I would have my boys when we got home from the hospital. For the first few days anytime I would walk
away even to go to the bathroom she would shut down and cry. (If you noticed
the picture from her sign language post you would notice that the bathroom has
a clear wall around it so she could still see me even when I went) Shutting
down is when she curls up into a ball, clinches her hands and just sobs. The whole concept of a family and having a
mother is foreign to her. At first, she
looked at me like a fun care giver that likes to play with her. Over these few days she has learned that I
console her when she’s sad, pick her up when she falls, laughs with her, cries
with her and am her biggest fan.
Here’s what I’ve learned about her: On the first day, she
discovered the bath tub. They don’t have
these in the orphanage and she was in heaven!
She would brush her hand through the water and pull it up like “WHOA
what is this?!” She would notice her
fingers getting crinkled and her eyes would get big. On day 1 she laughed for
the first time in her bath. This child
would stay in the bathtub all day long if I let her. So far we are taking at least 3 baths a day
just sitting in the water and playing.
She LOVES to color and play with stickers. Also, from day 1 she took to her Mulan doll
and we use the doll to play scenarios like doctor, nap time, eating etc. It has helped her see what we do from day to
day. She LOVES my ergo carrier. She sings so loudly when we walk down the
street and is as happy as a lark. It
took her a while to get use to the stroller but yesterday she finally rode in
it as long as I was pushing her. My back
was very appreciative! One of her care
givers told me she was mostly potty trained and gave me the Chinese phrases to
use so she could go to the bathroom with us.
I wrote those down but knew that I wasn’t going to push that at
all. I changed her diapers like I did my
babies and anytime she had a dirty diaper, I could tell she would look at me to
see if I was disappointed. I praised her
and showed her it was not a big deal. I
did take her to the potty to see if she was interested. We treated it like a game. She would sit on it and just look at me then
we would get off. We did that several
times just for fun. Yesterday (day 4)
when she was having one of her baths she started making a poopy face (you know
the one I’m talking about!) I picked her up and said “LaPapa” which is poopoo
in Chinese and she repeated it back to me.
I took her over to the potty and she went!!! We had a big poo poo celebration in the
bathroom!! She was so proud of herself
as were we. Also, when we got her she
weighed 22 pounds. That put her in the
3% for her age and weight. In the
orphanage they gave her congee (like oatmeal) and bottles. This child can EAT! She will eat 4-5 fruit pouches each meal, 2
cups of mashed potatoes (we learned on day 1 she likes KFC mashed potatoes) and
yogurt. The orphanage said she drinks
120ml of formula twice a day. With us, she
is drinking 300ml THREE times a day. I’m
VERY happy to report on day 4 when we weighed her she gained TWO pounds
YIPPIE!!!!!
To all you future adoptive dads: (and some moms) It’s
important to know that most children bond with one parent first. That wasn’t the case with our little group
because the other two boys bonded with both parents. In our case, Annabelle was terrified of
Jeremy. He’s the big, scary white dude
with a scratchy face. (she wipes her mouth every time she kisses his cheek
LOL) For those of you who know Jeremy
well, you know what an amazing father he is.
He’s incredibly involved, gets up with the boys at night, fixes
breakfast, lunches, dinners, coaches their sports teams and loves them with all
of his being. I watched as his heart
broke the first couple of days seeing his daughter reject him. He loves her so much and wants so bad to
protect, love and cherish her. She won’t
have any part of it. (Sounds familiar
with our relationship with God doesn’t it?)
He has learned to just sit back and let her observe him. We’ve been told through our training that
this is very normal and is not long term for her to be like this with him. She has to learn to trust him and that takes
time. What is working for us is this:
She will let him feed her, dress her, and play with her as long as she is in my
lap. I make it a point for her to
witness me kissing him, holding his hand and telling him how much I love
him. She is slowly warming up to
him. I’m sharing with you so that the
future adoptive parents can read this and understand that everything will be ok
and not take the process personally.
Another barrier we had was getting her to sleep. For the first night we were like new born
parents all over again. She didn’t sleep
much at all and ended up running a fever from crying off and on throughout the
night. We gave her a warm bath plus Motrin
and the fever went away. The second
night she went to sleep in her crib without a hitch and slept for 12 hours
straight. The 3rd night she
screamed, kicked and punched when I put her in her crib. I would hold her, rock her, sing to her and
try everything I could think of under the sun but nothing worked. She eventually laid down and I played with
her hair while singing before she fell asleep.
Yesterday, we had more bonding and I was dreading the bed time scenario again. I couldn’t figure out why this was happening. Finally, last night a light bulb went
off. She didn’t want to go to sleep
because she wanted to play. Now,
normally I would put my foot down and say no play time because we are going to
sleep but this situation calls for different strategies. In her little head she is thinking if she
goes to sleep this will all go away tomorrow.
She’s terrified that she will have to go back. The first couple of days she mourned wanting
to go back. Understanding that first
makes me feel so good that she loves us enough that she doesn’t want to leave
and second I am now able to figure out how to fix it. We walked around the room talking about our
toys. I showed her suitcase FULL of
bows, clothes and toys telling her these belong to you. She pulled out a few shirts with the biggest
smile on her face. We walked into the
bathroom, pulled out a few bath toys and took them with us to bed. She laid in the crib and started crying again
until I started talking to her. I
explained that we are her forever family.
We are not going anywhere. YOU are coming home with US! You are now a
Cartwright and will forever be one of us.
Now, my brain tells me she has NO idea what I was saying but my heart
said of course she does. She just stared
at me while I talked to her and got calm (fists OPEN) and fell asleep while I
sang to her.
In our adoption process I believe it is so important to
share the good, bad and ugly. I want to
encourage all of you who are in the process or are considering adoption. It’s not an easy route but what path is? This journey is not about our little
family. It is about giving our heavenly
Father the glory in the mission he chose us for. I am very honored to have each of you become
a part of this with us and use our experiences to grow His kingdom. We will need you when we get home and helping
you understand is vital. I pray
everything we post will encourage and uplift you.
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