Looking Back: Bonding Time in Ethiopia

One of the most common questions that Shea and I get about our time in Ethiopia deals with how quickly/easily/naturally the bonding experience between parent and child went. I think that especially for people who haven't adopted, sometimes it's difficult to understand what this process is like. First off, I am sure that it is completely different for every family. While in Ethiopia, we were able to see about 15 different families come and go with their newly adopted children, and no two situations were alike. So when I talk about our experience, it's not like the "usual" experience, because there is no usual.

For Shea and I, I really believe we were already bonded to Truman Bekalu by the time we met him. Once again, this may be difficult to understand, but as soon as we first saw Truman's picture on May 4th, we felt he was meant to be our son and within minutes he became a part of us. I love this quote by Scott Simon:

"We cannot imagine anything more remarkable and marvelous than having a stranger put into your arms who becomes, in minutes, your flesh, your blood: your life."

While the quote talks about the moment a child is first put in your arms, I believe that Shea and I felt these feelings the moment we first saw Truman's face. So for us, bonding started almost 2 months before we were able to meet our precious boy (though, of course, that moment when we did meet was still the most amazing moment in our lives!)

For Truman, obviously, the transition and bonding was much different. The first day he met us he really didn't look at our faces very much. He appeared pretty overwhelmed just by the change in rooms (I got the impression that the babies at the transition house literally spent all of their time in one room). He mostly just looked around at everything wide-eyed, trying to take it all in. The second day we were able to bring him back to our hotel, and you might remember the video I posted before about our first night together. We were extremely lucky because it really felt as though by morning we had formed a least some kind of bond. Whereas at first he wouldn't really look at us or smile, by morning he would look us right in the eyes and laugh at/with us. It probably didn't hurt that when we got him he seemed pretty hungry (they had all the babies at the transition house on a rigid feeding schedule - 4oz every 2hrs - regardless of if the babies wanted more food than that at a time, which Truman definitely did!) and that we fed him as much as he wanted whenever he wanted it. This was a great recommendation from our international adoption doctor, who told us just to keep feeding Truman whenever he seemed hungry, even if it might seem like an excessive amount of food. It was so important for us to teach Truman that food would be available whenever he needed it, and that we as his parents would always be there to provide for him.

Shea and I also feed extremely lucky about the amount of time we were able to spend in Ethiopia. While in some ways those 5 weeks were the hardest in our lives, in others they were the most invaluable. For those 5 weeks, we literally had no task each day but to take care of our son. We didn't have to do laundry, pay bills, clean the house, etc. - it was just Shea, Truman, and I spending time together. We almost tried to look at it as a "bonding bootcamp". What I mean by that is we really didn't try to "do" too many activities around the city, we just tried to spend time with Truman. For 5 weeks we spent almost everyday just holding Truman or reading to him or going on walks with him. When other people offered to hold Truman while we ate breakfast, we politely declined. We'd repeatedly heard and read how important the first stages of bonding could be, and we wanted to do everything in our power to make sure the process went well. Our baby carriers were also very important in this process. Whenever we went anywhere, we'd just pop Truman in the sling or Ergo and off we were, with our baby held close. I truly feel that those 5 weeks of "bonding bootcamp" made a world of difference for us. By the time we landed in the States, we were an attached family unit.

Here are some pictures from Ethiopia illustrating our family progression:

This is from the second day, which is when we took custody - notice how he wouldn't look at me:

Our third day - he started examining us closely and touching our faces:


By day 4 he already started showing some signs of attaching, like looking for us, playing with us, and interacting more and more with us:

Some photos of our sling/carrier-time:






We are so incredibly thankful of how smoothly our attachment appears to be going (because yes, we definitely realize that this process is ongoing!). At this point in time, Truman is definitely in the "stranger anxiety" phase, and has been known to get upset when people he doesn't know as well try to take him from his parents, which is a good sign!