A Love That Grows

I'm constantly amazed by how much the Lord is teaching me and revealing to me as I make this transition into motherhood. He is changing me and molding me, yet again, into a completely new person. In one of my recent posts, I talked about how some of that has been painful and less than pretty. A lot of sin has been brought to the surface during this very sanctifying experience.

But there is this new phenomenon I have been seeing take place over the last two weeks.

When you are going through the adoption process and attending countless classes, conferences and online seminars, you are warned time and again that it is not always "love at first sight" with adoption. That for some families, it takes time to get to a place where you truly feel like a family. God was very gracious to us in that we both fell head over heels with Bradley the moment we saw him. Then that love was confirmed when we finally got our feet on Ethiopian soil to meet him.

Then we got home and the reality of parenting a child from a very hard place set in. It was so much harder than I ever imagined possible. I loved Bradley so much, and I knew that he was my son. But he didn't know that. To him, I was just a lady who had taken him away from all he had ever known. I had to FIGHT SO HARD for his heart. Day by day, minute by minute showing him that I love him, that he is mine. And that those are good things.

And rarely was that love returned. The first several weeks home were mostly trying to get him to stop crying. I have hesitated and wavered back and forth about sharing a lot about this period of our family's life because it is so personal, and it is part of our son's story. But I do feel a sense of obligation to be honest about what adoption really looks like after the airport and behind the pictures. So I am going to use broad strokes here.

Bradley was scared. Everything in his little life had changed. Every single thing. How terrifying for a baby. So every moment of my day was spent teaching him that this is a safe place, that he is loved, that he will always have enough to eat, that he doesn't need to be afraid, that he can stop crying. Please stop crying.

I loved this boy so much, but life did NOT look like I wanted it to.

The Lord sent His Spirit into our home and carried us through those first weeks.

But over the last few weeks I have noticed a shift. It was very subtle at first, but now I am seeing it more and more clearly.

Bradley loves us back.

We have crossed the shaky bridge from being a source of food and cleanliness to being people he truly loves and wants to be with. I see it in the way he reacts when I walk in a room or when Adam comes home from work. He smiles and giggles, lets out a squeal of delight and reaches for us without screaming. When playing, he will randomly crawl into my lap just to give me a hug and then go right back to what he was doing.

He sees us as his mom and dad. He has learned what those words mean, and, more importantly, he has applied them to us. I could collapse on the floor and weep for this. My son sees me they way I have always seen him. The Lord has grown his love for us, and truthfully, He has grown our love for Bradley, too. Each day we feel more and more like a family.

Don't get me wrong. There are still a LOT of hard days. There is still a TON of crying. But the undertone is different. He wants to be consoled, and he wants me to be the one to do that. He wants to play with us, not just sit in our laps or be held.

He is learning what it means to be a family, and it is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Our God is a God of miracles. Truly.

With love,
Baylor

I Need Jesus

I cannot believe that we have been home with Bradley for three months. Being flung headlong into parenthood with a toddler has been more of a learning experience than I ever dreamed possible. My expectations have been tossed out the window, and I am learning more and more each day just how much I HAVE TO hang on to Jesus in order to be a mom.

Bradley has grown and changed so much in these few months with us. This has been such a testimony to the power of God's design for the family unit. Bradley has THRIVED under the love of a mom and a dad. He is learning to trust us as his providers and to come to us for love and comfort. He is gaining independence, too. He crawls and cruises all over the house to play. This is such a miracle to me because when he first came home, he would cry as soon as I put him down. Now, he is able to go from being held to playing and back again. He is eating like a boss, loves bath time and is even starting to interact more with sweet Daisy girl.

Simply put: He is not the same child I brought home from Ethiopia three months ago. The Lord has grafted this boy into our family and rooted him way down deep in our hearts. And each day we see him reciprocate that a little more.

Those are the awesome things.

But there have been some tough things, too.

The Lord is using motherhood to reveal this whole new stockpile of sin that I never knew I had. How fun! He is using this sweet boy to sanctify me and remind me that I NEED Jesus every second of every day.

So often I feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted and lose my patience. It is HARD to be a parent, and it is REALLY HARD to parent a child who has not known you from birth, a child who has lost everything he ever knew, a child who is (rightfully) scared. And the Lord is showing me that I really thought I could do it on my own. I could not have been more wrong. Being a mom has required more grace, patience and love than I ever imagined. But I am so thankful that God is using this beautiful boy to show me these things, that through being Bradley's mom I am learning to lean more on God.

I think that I believed that because it took us SO LONG to become parents that everything would go a certain way (and by that I mean MY way) once we got home. But things just didn't. Bradley struggled. We struggled. He cried. I cried. It was so hard. Impossibly hard. And I learned, yet again, that I had imposed my will on God and then gotten upset when everything didn't go the way I thought it should.

I mean, you would think I could learn a lesson by now, right?

I hunkered down into some very appealing self-righteousness, reminding God that we had already done the hard stuff and that now there should only be joy and happiness and rainbows.

But in these recent days and weeks, through seeing so much progress in my son, God has shown me that ANYTHING worth having is worth working your tail off for. And anything worth fighting that hard for will require an ENORMOUS amount of faith in God Almighty. The Lord has shown me that He will most assuredly give me all kinds of things that I just CANNOT HANDLE. Because those things force me to turn away from my own power and back to Him.

And that's the point of it all, right?

For us to lean so heavily on God that when the seemingly impossible happens in our lives all the glory and credit go immediately and inarguably back to Him.

So maybe you just brought home the baby you have prayed over for years and it's not going the way you thought it would. Maybe you are begging God to give you a spouse. Maybe your teenager is going off the rails. Maybe you are fighting for your marriage. Whatever it is, you cannot handle it. You and me? We are weak. But we serve a mighty and powerful God who is sovereign over every tiny detail that has ever existed in the history of time. And He knows you, sees your circumstance and has power over it. And best of all, He loves you. Not the you you are trying to become, but the you you are right now. And He is FOR you. Please cry out to Him. Ask for His strength and mercy. Ask for His guidance and grace. He will answer. It might not look the way you want it to, and you might have to learn some TOUGH things about yourself on the way, but I PROMISE the risk is worth the reward. I promise.

With love,
Baylor

Cocooning and Attachment: What I'm Learning

Bradley has been home almost six weeks now. {PRAISE HANDS!} For almost all of that time we have been in serious cocooning mode. In the adoption world, cocooning is the time period right after a child comes homes and the family really hunkers down in the house and focuses on bonding with their newest addition. Just this week, we have starting making some outings beyond the walls of our home. {MORE PRAISE HANDS!} Today, for example, B and I went on a walk with my friend Rachel and her son. The boys were in strollers, and I am fairly certain I totally dominated the conversation because I was JUST SO HAPPY to be talking to a grown up. Sorry, Rachel.

Still, most of our day is spent in the house, really sticking to a routine while Bradley adjusts to his family. This time of bonding and attachment is so critical to the healthy development of the child, and I wanted to take a moment to talk a little bit about what our experience has been like and what I am learning.

1. It will be harder than you think. You know how when you get sick and are stuck at home for three days, you start to go a little stir crazy? Stretch that out to a month, add a little jet lag and a child who has no clue what just happened. Boom. Seriously though. Give yourself grace to be wholly and completely overwhelmed by what is happening. Our first week home... I mostly felt like I was drowning. The jet lag is insane, and your sweet baby has it, too. Not to mention all of the loss that accompanies him leaving his home country. I felt so over-prepared walking into this. Our agency does a FANTASTIC job educating its families, and I truly felt like I had all of the information. But having the information and putting into practice are two COMPLETELY different things. Cocooning is HARD. You are on all the time, and you are on in a very confined space. So much of attachment rests on immediately responding to your child's needs. It's like being a firefighter. The alarm goes off and you better move fast.

2. Hang in there because it is SO worth it. Yes, you will be exhausted beyond reason. Yes, you will likely feel like you are so far out of your depth. Yes, you will be tempted to give up and say that surely this attachment thing can't be that important. DON'T DO IT. Hang in there. When we we first met Bradley, he would go to anyone who would hold him. He showed no preference whatsoever. But now, after seven weeks (six here + one in Ethiopia) of intense attachment parenting and us meeting all his needs, he turns away from anyone who is not Adam or me. He knows that we are his safe people. Maybe it sounds awful, but the surge of satisfaction I got the first time someone reached for him and he pulled away?? Well, that made everything worth it. Because I know that he knows I am his mom. I am the safest person on the planet. I am the one who feeds him and rocks him to sleep. He did not come to us knowing that. We had to show him. And it took TIME and a lot of hard, hard work. Believe me, I cried a LOT during those first weeks, but I am so glad we stuck with it.

3. Food is a big deal. HUGE. We are now at the point where we are allowing family to interact with Bradley if he initiates it, but we are still the only ones to feed him. Our plan is to keep it this way for a long time. As in months. It will be the very last thing we let go of, and that is a long way off. My advice would be to not let anyone else feed your child anything at all. Food is a huge source of comfort, and that needs to come from mom and dad.

4. Ask for help from your spouse. If you are like me, then perhaps you sauntered into motherhood believing that you could do it all. I was in for a rude awakening. I have visions of myself being instantly awesome. Suffice it to say, that was not the case. Ha! Motherhood has kicked my behind! And I have been working on allowing myself to really lean on Adam. When B is awake all night, we take hour long shifts till he's back down. If Adam comes home from work and it has been a really rough day, I say, "Tag!" I am lucky enough to be married to a fellow who loves being a dad and all that accompanies it, and I do not know what I would do without him. Scratch that. I do know. I would hide in the shower and cry. So allow yourself to share the weight of it all.

5. Let your friends help. Our precious, precious friends set up a meal schedule for us when we got home with Bradley. I don't think I cooked dinner for a month. Seriously. It was one of the most wonderful things anyone could have done for us. I could throw myself at their feet for all of the deliciousness that paraded through this house for WEEKS after we got home. It was such an enormous relief to not have to think about juggling a very needy baby with cooking. And along these lines, please eat off of paper plates for a while so you don't have to fool with dishes. It took us about a week o make the change. It was revolutionary.

6. Celebrate the victories. There will be many. Some big and some teeny tiny. Acknowledge them all. Baby took a nap? Hooray! Baby ate lunch? Hooray! Baby only cried for two hours last night instead of three? Hooray! Baby is all of a sudden pulling to stand? HOORAY! Baby reaches for you when he's upset? Hooray! You get what I'm saying. Those first weeks home are tough, but you will watch your child change so fast right in front of you. He will put on weight, smile more, reach for you, start playing, catch up on milestones. All so quickly. Soak it up and know that he is making these strides because he is in a loving family. Your family.

7. Parent through Christ. This is by FAR the most important piece. All the trainings. All the books. All the online courses and seminars. All the conferences. Without the grace of Jesus Christ on a day by day and minute by minute basis, all of it would be for naught. There have been many days and countless moments when Jesus was the only thing that kept me on my feet. Trust that He called you to this, that He has a beautiful story for you and your precious babe. Press in and press on, and always lean (or if you're like me, throw yourself) on Him.

There is a lot more I could say on this, and I hope to have time soon for a Part II. But for now, the babe is asleep, so I am going to head that way, too.

With love,
Baylor

Peaks and Valleys

Peaks and valleys.

That has been my answer to all of the wonderful people in my life asking how things are going with Bradley. And it is so true. There are days when I feel on top of the world, like I can totally do this mom thing. Then there are days when I feel like I just cannot get anything right, like I have NO business being a mom.

After LOTS of education and research over three years, Adam and I decided that we were committed to one month of really intense attachment parenting with our little man. Here's what that looked like: we were the only ones to hold him, feed him, touch him, change him, bathe him, comfort him. We were holding him all the time, lots of intense eye contact, almost always at least one hand on him, responding to cries immediately. In doing this, we had a very specific goal. We wanted Bradley to understand what it means to have parents, and we wanted him to fully recognize that WE are his parents, the safest and most loving people in his world.

This led to a lot of peaks and a lot of valleys.

As the days went by, we were getting more smiles and even some laughs. We were watching him start to reach for us and REALLY prefer to be held at all times (my arms muscles are getting ripped). We also got to watch him make HUGE strides in his development.

But there were a LOT of moments in that first month home that left me feeling like I would never, could never be the mom I wanted to be. Moms tell you that they know their children's different cries. I didn't. Some days, he was inconsolable, only wanting to be held while he cried. It was so hard.

So much of this is related to grief. Yes, Bradley joined our family forever when we walked out of the orphanage gates, but he also lost his home and the women who had loved him and cared for him. I cannot imagine how confused and hurt he must have been, wondering what happened to all of the familiar faces he had come to know. And to now have this woman who clearly doesn't know what she is doing.

Adoption is a beautiful, redemptive and impossibly hard thing.

Week four was particularly tough. It was Adam's first week back at work, and I was finally on my own. I was doing the very thing I had begged God to let me do, AND IT WAS SO MUCH HARDER THAN I EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE.

But there is God's grace again. Carrying me through and reminding me that I cannot be the mom I want to be without Him right at the center.

So whatever it is you're doing, know that God can be right there with you if you let him. I am learning each day what a weak vessel I am. A true jar of clay. But all of this points me right back to Jesus, reminding me of my deep and desperate need for Him.

Love,
Baylor

But Then You Get Home

For the last 3+ years, our life has been full of paperwork and classes and reading and forms and fingerprints and WAITING. And then it was full of travel and court and embassy and the longest day ever to get from Ethiopia to Birmingham. And it was all so hard...

But then you get home.

And there is a tiny person in your house. THE PERSON you have prayed over and begged God to bring to you. The one you have dreamed of for years. He lives in your house.

And in that moment, you realize that you have NO IDEA what you are doing! Ha!

Oh, the last three weeks have been wonderful. We have watched our son (you know, the one who lives in our house now) absolutely blossom. He is growing in all directions. He is making up his losses in leaps and bounds. In three weeks, he has gone from slow crawling to speed racing to pulling to stand to taking very shaky steps with our help. IN THREE WEEKS. He is laughing and smiling. He is playing. He loves his swimming pool and bath time. He is not too sure about his dog (although she really wants to be his best friend). He is gaining confidence. He is not scared anymore.

This brings me back to the whole I have no idea what I'm doing part.

I don't. I have never been a mom before. Everything I know about being a mother I am learning from my one year old completely on the fly. I haven't successfully raised a herd of children. I am just working on the one who's been with me since mid-July.

And that is my point. Bradley has made all of these gains with a mom who is a total novice. It does not take any expertise to love a child. And that is what adoption is. It is choosing to love the beautiful child God has placed into your family.

So you might feel like you don't have what it takes to adopt, like you wouldn't know what to do. Let me set your mind at ease. You don't and you won't. But Christ does, and maybe He is nudging you, asking you to step out in faith and say yes to adopting a child. It is an awesome and radical thing. And I still cannot believe that God asked us to do this. Surely we are among the least qualified, but He is greater.

Yes, there have been moments that have seemed impossibly difficult. Moments when I felt sure that Bradley deserved a better mom than I could ever be. But God brought us together. He brought this child into our family in the most incredible way, and I love him. So I can and will, through God's strength, fight through those moments. And if the Lord is tugging at your life and asking you to adopt, then He will do the same for you.

With love,
Baylor

A Letter to Our Friends and Family

Dearest friends and family, 

I cannot believe that we are finally at the place where this letter is necessary. We are so close to bringing Bradley home, and we have been and continue to be so humbled by God’s grace in our lives through each of you and the critical role you have played in getting to this place. You have prayed for us, loved us, sacrificed your time and resources for us, and we could never find enough words to tell you how deeply grateful we are for each of you. 

The Lord has blessed us with an unusually adoption-savvy family and circle of friends, and that is such a gift for us and for our boy. As we approach bringing him home (HOME!), we want to explain a little bit about how we are hoping to handle his transition from an orphanage in Ethiopia to a family in Birmingham. This will be an enormous change for him, and while we are so excited, we are also starting to feel the weight of responsibility that comes with being parents, particularly being parents to an adopted child. 

While we are not sharing our son’s story up until the time he was matched with us, we can tell you that the orphanage he will leave this week has been his home for a long time. For that reason, we are going to have to be extremely intentional in our first weeks and months at home. Bradley will not just be learning that we are his mom and dad; he will be learning what a mom and a dad actually are. We will be his first consistent caregivers. Because of that, our parenting will have to look different for a while. For the first few months home, Adam and I will need to be the only ones who hold, feed, bathe and change Bradley. We need to teach him that we are his people and that we will always be there. As he becomes ready, we are going to start widening our net, allowing others to hold him, etc. 

We are making this decision after countless hours of education and research. It pains me to write this because I want each of you to hold him and kiss him and love him right away, but we have to do what is best for him. We still want you to come visit. Please come visit! We want to see you and be in the know about what is going on with you and your families.  We cherish each of you and the role you have played in our adoption story. You have helped us grow our family, and there is just no way to thank you enough for that. 

With love, 

Adam and Baylor 

Just Like Your Dad

If you have ever met my family, then you know I am the spitting image of my mother. Seriously. We look EXACTLY alike. It's kind of strange. We are often stared at when we are out in public. Once, when I was young, I thought I saw a picture of myself in my grandmother's house, and I asked my mom, "Where was this taken? I don't remember this." It was a picture of her. Yup. That's right. We look so much alike that I couldn't even tell us apart. And you know what? 

I LOVE that. 

I love that I look just like my mom. She is the woman I admire most in the entire world. I love everything about her. She has a fierce faith and a devoted heart. She loves her God and her family. She is honest and wise, reliable and wholly trustworthy. It is an honor for me to bear such a striking resemblance to her. 

I have always wondered what it would be like to one day look into the face of my daughter and see my own self reflected. More than that, though, I have dreamed of the day when I would look at my son and be able to say things like, "You look just like your dad when you do that." 

And then God called us to this life of adoption. A life that ensures our children will NOT look like us. Part of that has been hard. There is something incredibly unique about seeing yourself in your children. Even now, so much of the discussion that swirls around the children of my dearest friends is focused on determining who the child looks like. Mom or dad? That is not a conversation that will be happening in the Knott household. 

Our perfectly beautiful son does not look like us. 

I thought that would be so hard for me. Not the idea of adopting. I LOVE adoption. Love it more than I could ever attempt to explain to you. I thought it would be hard to never look into the face of my son and think, "Goodness, he looks just like Adam." 

But then God gave me a gift. 

A truth. 

It's not about physical appearance. It's ALL about spiritual appearance. 

You see, I am adopted, too. I have been, through the saving blood of Jesus Christ, adopted into God's family. Permanently. Forever. I don't look a THING like Him. Not one bit. But He has covered me with His grace and mercy. He has washed away my sin and made me white as snow. He has made me His daughter. And I like to think that when I am following His will for my life, He looks at the angels around Him and at Jesus, His Son, and says, "Doesn't she look just like us when she does that?" 

That thought alone pulls me close to tears. And then I realized that I will have THAT opportunity with my own son. I might not be able to look at him and think he physically looks just like his dad, but I am praying and hoping for the day when I can watch him follow God's great plan for his life and think to myself, "You look just like your dad when you do that." 

Because that is what I know his earthly father will model for him. A life that lives fully and wholly sold out to Christ. And in looking like his earthly father, my sweet boy will be living a life that follows his heavenly father. And you know what? I can't think of two souls I would rather have my son imitate.

Do we do that enough? Try to emulate Christ? It is our life's calling. Are we answering? When people look at us, are they thinking we look just like our Heavenly Father? If not, we need to shift our focus. We need to point ourselves and our lives toward Him and ask Him what He desires of our lives. We need to be brave enough to follow Him, whatever the path.  

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Ephesians 5:1-2

Love, 

Baylor 

Adoptive Parenting: Post Adoption Depression

Each month our agency, Lifeline, hosts a Community Night. This is a time when adoptive parents in all stages of the process can come together and listen to a pro speak on different adoption related topics. Adam and I went to the first one back in September. Dr. Jennifer Chambers of the International Adoption Clinic was talking about sleep. Well, on Monday we went to our second Community Night, which focused on Post Adoption Depression. Something I knew very little about.

I called my mom on my way home from work on Monday and told her what we were doing that night, and she was like, "That sounds... fun?" Ha! It might not have been a fun topic, but it was definitely something we needed to learn more about. Post Adoption Depression is not something that people really talk about. We like to see the "gotcha" pictures and the airport pictures and the adoption videos.

But those don't always tell the whole story.

I think one of the most important things to remember is that adoption exists because of sin in the world. Children are not adopted because everything was going great. No. Adoptions are born in some tragic circumstances. And while adoption is a beautiful and glorious picture of redemption, that redemption comes only through loss. It is so difficult to type this, but while we are over here waiting, fretting, begging and pleading for our children to come home, they are probably not thinking the same thing about us. So all of this work and pain and heart ache will eventually result in a beautiful new addition to our family. But that new addition does not get to pick us. We are strangers. Strangers who are taking our children away from anything and everything they have ever known. So, they will probably not instantly look at us with loving eyes and say, "I've been waiting so long. Thank you." Bonding with our children will take time. And that is tough to think about, because we have already spent so much time waiting for them to get here.

One of the things we focused on last night was the reality of expectations that will go unmet and how this can lead to PAD. After all of this waiting to become a family, it is probably really natural to want to feel like a nice, normal family right away. But that might not happen. After dreaming of holding our children and having them reach to us and only us for comfort, we will want those dreams to become a reality. But that might not happen right away. After all of this work on the front end, hours of education, thousands of pages of reading, countless forms and proving to governments that we are fit to be parents, we will want to feel like we are ready and that we are good parents. But we might not feel that way. Our presenter, was all about setting realistic expectations. Things might not be the fairy tale ending we are dreaming of, and that let down can lead to Post Adoption Depression.

My main take away from Monday night was that if I start to feel like I am struggling, it is OK to ask for help. I do sometimes feel like the fact that we have wanted this so badly for so long and have worked so hard to make this happen will make me feel like I should just be grateful once it happens and not ever say anything about how hard it might be. I am trying to break down that feeling and let it fall away. The reality is that I will probably struggling. At first, our children might now love me the way I already love them. I have been dreaming of and praying for our family to be united for years. That will probably not be the case for my kids. There is going to be a transition, and it might be (probably will be) a tough one. And if that happens, I need to be humble enough to be honest about it. I will need to push aside feelings of shame and "I asked for this" and "I can't believe I feel this way," and reach out to the beautiful people God has placed in my life.

Someone please remind me of that when we are in the thick of it after our darlings come home!

One book our presenter recommended that I will probably be looking into is The Post-Adoption Blues. If you are adopting, regardless of the phase you are in, check it out. And know that you are not alone!

Love,
Baylor

Adoptive Parenting: Sleep

Our incredible adoption agency is starting to host community gatherings each month covering different topics related to adoptive parenting. Adam and I went to our first one last night, and it was super informative. One of the things I was so grateful for when we started this process was women who faithfully blogged about their adoption journeys and what they learned along the way, so I want to try to return the favor by writing about what I learn at each of these gatherings.

Last night, we listened to Dr. Jennifer Chambers, of the International Adoption Clinic here in Birmingham, teach on what sleep looks like in an adoptive home. If you are adopting internationally, then you have probably heard of Dr. Chambers. She is in pretty much all of the medical videos you have to watch for your Hague training. So it was AWESOME to learn from someone who is such an expert in her field. Beyond that, she and her husband have 2 adopted kiddos, so she was able to give us some very honest true life pictures of what sleeping (or not sleeping) looks like when you are transitioning your internationally adopted child into your home.  She really set my mind at ease.

So here are the notes I managed to take:

-Sleep depravation is one of the most effective tools of torture used during war time. (Seriously, that was one of her first points! I love it.)
-She shared this not to scare us, but to emphasize the importance of sleeping, both for your adopted children and for you. When no one is sleeping, everyone is going crazy.

-Abrupt transitions are the hardest on sleep.

-Try to be flexible with structure.
-Sleep might not look the way you want it to when you bring your kids home.
-Don't be afraid to veer off from your preconceived expectations of how and where and when your child should be sleeping.
-Pick a structure and stick with it long enough to see if it has a chance of working. You might try something new and your child might not like it the first night. Don't assume right away that this
means it will never work. Give it a fair chance. But move on if you see things getting worse.
-It takes approximately THREE MONTHS to fully adjust to sleeping in a new place. (Wow!)

-Jet Lag (Nervous about this one!)
-Give yourself one day to recover for each hour of time difference.
-Get your child out in the morning sun as soon as they are awake. Getting their melanin activated
as soon as possible will help keep them awake so that sleep will come more easily later.
-Minimal outings and visitors. Car rides will put your child to sleep and prevent good sleeping later. Visitors may overstimulate your child.

-Keep an open mind about where you sleep. (This one was huge for me.)
-It is OK if you sleep on the living room floor for a few weeks. Seriously! That may be where your
child is the most comfortable. (This one struck home, because I had a 4 year old foster brother when
I was in middle school, and he used to sleep on the floor all the time. But it was what he was used
to, and it made him feel safe.)
-You might be sleeping in their room for a few months. Night time is scary for adopted children.
-Don't rush transitions. If you sleeping in their room is working, don't abruptly decide that
everything must be fine now and then just move back to your room all of a sudden. Easy
transitions are good. Once you are sleeping separately, a two-way monitor is a great way to be able
to comfort your anxious child from a distance.

-Night time is a GREAT time for attachment. 
-It makes sense if you think about it. Your child is scared or anxious, and YOU are the one providing comfort, cementing your role as the parent.

So, hopefully, you can see why it was a great night! On top of that, we got to see some adoption friends and meet some new ones. Going to classes like this makes me even more ready to get my sweet babies home!

I hope this information helps, and I want to continue to write about the things we are learning, both to share with any other adopting families out there and to have it all in one place when we FINALLY do get back home with our littles.

Sleep well tonight!

Love,
Baylor