What Happens in a Month

A little over a month has passed since we returned from China with Emily on December 8, 2005. Yet the process of adopting Emily continues long after our return. As a result, we'll continue, albeit more sporadically, posting updates to the blog while we also update our photo album and our "Red Thread" adoption Web site. I don't know when we'll finally determine that the process of adopting Emily has been completed. For Sydney, the process continued until we received Sydney's Virginia certificate of foreign birth, about a year and a half after we returned from China.

The Chinese adoption adventure is only one of several phases of the adoption process. Once we received Emily in Wuhan, we initiated the process of bonding. Getting an adopted child to bond to his or her adoptive parents is vitally important to the child's continued development. At Emily's age, signs of bonding include a healthy (but not paranoid) fear of strangers and becoming upset when the adoptive parents leave. We have not yet left Emily for any length of time, as we only two days ago saw signs that she is beginning to trust us over strangers. Since receiving Emily, she has willingly gone to strangers as quickly as to us. On the first day we received her, she did not cry about being in our arms. Sydney, on the other hand, distrusted us immediately and started wailing a few minutes after we received her.

We think that Emily's experience in foster care was very positive, in that she was likely treated like royalty, seldom touching the ground. A result, perhaps, of this treatment is her willingness to go to anyone in hopes they'll pick her up and hold her. So her attachment to us seemed initially built upon our willingness to hold, feed, and play with her -- not our role as parents. So we've looked for signs that attachment was becoming more emotional, stronger, more deeply embedded, based on the bonds that emerge between parents and children. And only recently have we started seeing signs of true parent-child attachment. That's a good sign, one we thought we'd see a little sooner.

In the meantime, the last few days have been marked by Emily's ability to walk on her own! Yesterday and today have been the first days that Emily has been able to walk several steps over open ground unaided. She's doing great and progressing rapidly, so I think we now must face the fact that she's graduated from infant to toddler!

Emily and Sydney are also just beginning to really enjoy playing together. The last couple of weeks have introduced sisterly companionship to the two girls. This companionship will surely become strong ties of love and friendship, but right now they are simply accepting each other as playmates. An important development seems to be their ability to start disagreeing without bursting into tears, whining, or otherwise loudly expressing displeasure. While they do not disagree quietly, they are beginning to be able to disagree without loudly involving Mommy and Daddy. And Mommy and Daddy welcome this development!

On the paperwork front, we are currently collecting paperwork required by our adoption agency to follow up our adoption. In a few weeks we'll schedule our post-placement visits from our social worker, and as soon as we receive Emily's official Certificate of United States Citizenship from the U.S. government, we'll be able to start processing requests for Emily's American passport and social security card. We're in the middle of completing medical tests to determine Emily's immunity to childhood diseases; in turn, these results will inform us which American vaccinations she needs to either boost or replace the Chinese vaccinations she received while in foster care.

I should point out that Christmas at our house was quite the blowout this year! We celebrated our first Christmas as a complete family (that's right - Emily is our last) with fanfare and hoopla! Emily and Sydney sat on Santa's lap for photos (Sydney sat, Emily wailed), my parents along with my sister and her husband (expecting my parents' third grandchild, a grandson, in late March) came to visit, and we visited with other friends and family to introduce everyone to Emily and Emily to everyone. What a fantastic, exhausting, and joyous occasion for us all!

Tomorrow begins our return to our pre-Emily schedule:

• I'll be teaching an in-class/online hybrid course here in Northern Virginia starting Tuesday, teaching two classes in Richmond on Thursday nights, working on many different Web sites, and working as assistant program director for the University of Richmond School of Continuing Studies here in Northern Virginia.
• Deborah will be returning to the office full-time, traveling around the country with her employer beginning two weekends from now, and taking Syndey to and from school.
• Sydney will return to her preschool two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, giving us all much-needed breaks from what have become increasingly inquisitive and demanding questions about everything under the sun!
• Emily will be at home with me while Deborah's in the office, and we'll work to develop a schedule in which I can maximize my work time and minimize our screaming and crying time (mine and Emily's!).

Thanks for taking this journey with us. We'll try to update the blog fairly frequently, perhaps every week or so, to let you all know what's happening in our continuing adoption adventure.