Attunement!

God in all of His wonders did something AMAZING when He created us humans.  He thought of every detail, and wired each detail within us with a purpose.  I love the miracle of life, and the sacred gift of a growing life inside a protected tummy.  Sooooooo AMAZING.  I love the fact that God knew how tough delivery could be and how tough the early days of having a precious new one can be, that God orchestrated our body and mind for such a time.  When a woman gives birth, she gets a surge of cortisol (which is a hormone) in her body which helps with many things, one of which is for her to attune to her new baby's needs.  It is a miraculous thing, our bodies, or the hormones in our bodies, preparing us and helping us to be mommies.

This information was highlighted for me at the TBRI training.

Sadly, when we adopt our precious jewels we don't get this surge of cortisol.  Adoption is God's plan B, God's plan A being that all precious jewels stay with their birth families.  Sadly but realistically, attunement and attachment with our adopted jewels is typically a "process," one that can sometimes take days, to months, to years.  It can take months for us to like, and feel connected to our adopted jewels; the process is different for everyone.  The gift and beauty of attunement is knowing what our babies and children need, and then meeting the need.  Without the knowing, it is more difficult to meet the need.  (Although yes it does not always happen in some biological births, because of numerous different reasons). 

I have adopted several times, and I can clearly identify the times I have been immediately attunded and attached to my new jewels.  With two of our precious jewels, my attunement and attachment to both of them took literal years.  It was not an easy process.  No matter how much I willed myself, it still took time.  No matter how horrible I felt about not feeling attached to them and not even really liking them that much at times, it still took time.  No matter how much I prayed, it still took time.  Granted the praying helped, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, I was able to get to the place of feeling attuned and attached to my two precious children.  I don't think I would have gotten there on my own because my own reality is that I'm horribly flawed and in my flawedness I have plenty of ugly.

Now on the other 3 occasions, I would have to say that attachment and attunement happened immediately - it was not a process.

Adopting Jase a year (14 months) ago has been amazing and awesome - he is such a sweet jewel and is such a sacred gift.  We really are all so in love with him.  Having given birth now almost 9 months ago, my understanding of attachment and attunement has increased because everything is so fresh in my mind.  Well let me tell you that I can honestly say that I felt just as attunded and attached to Jase, as I did to our sweet Lillyana. 

Having walked what I did with our 2 of our adopted precious jewels, I don't take attunement and attachment for granted.  And my only explanation is that God gifted this instead attunement and attachment to me.  And I consider this a GIFT, a gift that I'm so completely, beyond words, thankful for.

I am also so completely thankful for the 2 weeks that I had with Jase in China, me being intentional in EVERY POSSIBLE way in building our attachment to each other.  We also for the first time with not adopting a baby, had ourselves more together and we truly parented him from day one with a connection focus.

We as adoptive moms and parents often beat ourselves up when "we" don't feel attached to our new children.  The reality is that God didn't ordain our bodies and minds for adoption, and so there should be no guilt in our "process" of us attaching to our new children.

I've said this before, I do think that having a connection focused parenting approach is not only a good idea but is required for this process (of mutual attachment).  I also think that a sensory rich and attachment rich environment is also crucial and necessary, and that an investment parenting approach where our primary focus is felt safely and attachment are equally required (not just suggested).

We need to yes educate ourselves about trauma and it's impact on the brain and our new children's consequential way of being.  We need to re-evaluate our parenting and make sure that we are connection focused and not correction focused (we often need to get over ourselves and our need for control).  We need to take an honest look at ourselves and our natural way of relating (our attachment style) and make sure that we are securely attached adults who are fully ready to enter into our children's trauma and walk them through it, making sure to be naturally nurturing and not dismissive parents.  We need to prepare our lives to be simplified for perhaps a long season, as our adopted kiddos needs need to be primary for a while and we need to be investing and pouring into our new jewels; we need to be ready to literally caccoon.  As Dr. Purvis says, "you either pay now or you pay later.  However later you will be paying with interest, it being accrued against your child."

The other thing we can do for ourselves in the absence of cortisol is to do things that increase our compassion for our new children, which should include begging our Father that He bind our hearts with our new children.

The adoption attachment and adjustment journey can be very difficult, and we need to as parents be ready for anything.  So with that we need to be ready to have our spiritual armor on, and our knee pads on hand at all times.  We need to also be attuned to the Holy Spirit, and His help and leadings as we parent and attach to our new children (And them to us).  On my own I would have failed miserably, although yes still did, and yes still do.  But my Father took (and still takes) my failings and performs miracles out of even them.

THANK YOU FATHER that you somehow deemed me worthy to be the mom to each one of my  jewels.  Often I feel so undeserving and so unworthy, and in those moments I know that it is not about me but all about you.  THANK YOU for that you see me completely different, and that in your eyes I am holy and precious, as are each one of my children to you.


Note:  I am using the word attachment here under it's original meaning, as the definition of attachment truly has changed and expanded within the last 10 years.  Connected might be a better word instead of attachment.