Getting Ready for Teshale
I'm just trying to get emotionally ready. I am so excited for this all to happen that I feel I need to remind myself that Life is Life, that things do not always go smoothly especially when children are involved, and that my expectations undoubtedly differ greatly from the future reality. Isn't that the way it always is? I pictured hours of rocking Mason in the glider I'd bought for his room, gazing down at his contented face and smooth, yummy-smelling baby skin as he slept peacefully in my arms.
What was the reality? He hated to be rocked; I always had to stand and bounce to calm him as he was almost never contented (in agony those first few months with the milk allergy tearing up his stomach and causing an angry red rash across his cheeks, which almost always smelled like puke because of the reflux.) There was no peace, there was only ever a calm before the storm, which is much less realxing than true peace. And there has never been peace since, with my wonderful, passionate, chatterbox boy who can't sit still and wants to know all the ways of the world already. Much different than my expectations. Much richer, in some ways. No doubt, I am a stronger parent for the challenges that God laid at our feet when he matched us with Mason's unique personality.
So I am trying to be "expectationless" with Teshale, although I do have certain desires. I try to hold loosely to those, and expand my gaze to what may be.
http://www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com/blog?op=view&id=4
I found this great blog, written by the author of "There is No Me Without You", the greatest book I've read so far about Ethiopian adoption (Greene, the author, has four kids from ET and various others).
Here's an interesting excerpt; :
8. HOW WILL I FEEL WHEN I MEET MY NEW CHILD?You’ve studied his or her photo for most of a year; you’ve worn out the disc replaying the nanoseconds of footage. In the film provided by the adoption agency, your child has not screamed or thrown food; he has not stomped his foot and made an angry face; the baby has not twisted away from you to avoid eye contact. In the realm of photo and film and fantasy, the child is clean and polite. The child is tall and strikingly handsome and academically gifted and developmentally on target. Regardless of age, you can tell this child is going to come straight home and begin by tidying up the kitchen and taking out the trash, before going on a bike ride wearing a helmet and observing all traffic laws and hand signals. This child is easily going to make Eagle Scout by 12. In real life, children are sometimes not so clean and polite. They sometimes are quite short and dusty, they may have giardia or head-lice, and and it may be a few years before that academic brilliance presents itself. The child will not know how to ride a bike and, after he learns, he will zig-zag in and out of traffic while you run down the sidewalk screaming and waving your arms.Reactions upon first meeting range from “This is the child of my heart, thank you God,” to (my typical reaction) “If I run away right now and deny everything, can they still make me bring this child to my hotel?” Reactions vary from “That’s her! I’d know her anywhere! That’s really her!!” to “Has there been a mistake? This child is really not as cute as the photo tacked to my refrigerator.”
9. HOW WILL WE MANAGE THE TRIP HOME FROM ETHIOPIA? You’ll be exhausted beyond human endurance. After months of paperwork and anxiety, you’ll have flown 20 or more hours to Addis Ababa to meet your new child; you’ll have taken charge of the child, whose language you don’t speak, whose daily habits and schedule you don’t know, and who may or may not be thrilled to spend time with you; you’ll have flown with this child back across North Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, and the Atlantic Ocean; you’ll have changed planes, had layovers, and endured long lines. You’ll be dead on your feet before you enter your own foyer, lugging the suitcases filled with colorful Ethiopian baskets, ready to begin your new family life. Behaviors that have been displayed by newly-adopted children traveling 20 hours by air have included energetic screaming and kicking and fleeing up and down the aisle, throwing up, throwing food, throwing tantrums, marathon sleeping, entering a trance-like state of sheer panic, and/or excellent dinner manners and calm movie-watching. .Our ten-year-old son Fisseha was thrilled beyond words to be given airplane head-phones; he donned them instantly and enjoyed them greatly for three-quarters of an hour. Then I discovered that the head-phones were not plugged into anything. He was simply enjoying the new head-wear. When I plugged him in, a look of astonishment crossed his face, and the music and static distracted him for a good three hours.Jesse, crossing the ocean by air at age four-and-a-half from Bulgaria, came to believe (we surmised) about two hours into the flight: “This is it. This is America. This is my new life. I have got to get out of here.” He was fleeing up and down the aisles in search of an exit and a fast boat back to Bulgaria. He sat down in the middle of the aisle and rocked back and forth, the orphanage self-soothing scary-looking rock; in my arms, he flailed and screamed and kicked. He kicked the seat in front of us so hard and frequently I feared we’d injure the man. Late in the flight I suddenly remembered: “Benedryl! We were supposed to have given him Benedryl to help him sleep!” As he writhed and flailed and screamed, I got a cap-full of Benedryl between his lips and waited, my arms and back aching, for it to kick in. It kicked in as we were in descent towards Atlanta. We carried his sleeping body off the plane and into immigration, where he slept on the carpet during our wait, and he slept in luggage claim and he slept on the car-ride home and straight into his new life. The good news: you’ll likely not be the only new parents bringing home a terrified Ethiopian child on your international flight. Worst case scenario: you make rueful eye contact across the cabin. Best case scenario: the kids find each other and laugh and whisper and play the card game UNO until the movie starts.
10. WHAT IF THINGS GET REALLY DIFFICULT WITH MY NEW CHILD AFTER WE ARRIVE HOME? Things can get really hard. The demands of a baby, young child, or older child may far outweigh your earlier estimate of what you could handle. You may find yourself blinded by fatigue, bleary-eyed with regret and confusion. You may hear the word “Mom” more often than human ears can withstand. There’s a sort of “buyer’s remorse” that can kick in, after you bring this precious and long-awaited child home. You wouldn’t be the first to wonder, “WHAT was I THINKING?” I’ve written elsewhere about post-adoption panic, which hit me hard after Jesse’s adoption in 1999.Part of what was hard about it, for me, was that I’d never heard of it. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I reached the conclusion that what was wrong with me was that I had ruined my life and the life of my family permanently, and there was no escape, and it was all my fault, and it would never get better. It’s really hard to think rationally when you’re in this state.
The good news is that, in most cases, these can be the disharmonious opening notes of a love story. An out-of-synch beginning is not predictive of the parent/child relationship. My tips for getting through a rocky and nauseating depression after the arrival of your child:(1) Take really good care of yourself; do whatever it takes to get enough sleep, including spending the night at a friend’s, including arranging for naps. Nothing else will work if you’re sleep-deprived.(2) Make yourself eat and shower and exercise. (3) Get help. Hire help if you need to. While a babysitter is there, sleep or exercise or read or eat.(4) Put Feelings on a back-burner. This is not the time for Feelings. If you could express your feelings right now, you’d be saying things like, “Oh my God, I must have lost my mind to think that I can handle this, to think that I wanted a child like this. I’ll never manage to raise this child; I’m way way way way over my head. I’ll never spend time with my spouse or friends again; my older children are going to waste away in profound neglect; my career is finished. I am completely and utterly trapped.” You see? What’s the point of expressing all that right now? Just put Feelings to sleep. Instead, live a material life. Wake, dress, eat, walk. Let your hands and words mother the new child, don’t order Feelings into action. (5) Pick up something to read that carries you away. I’ve found that reading about Paleolithic art engenders deep calm and a sense of remove. There’s something about studying 40,000 year old cave painting that makes you feel you can survive the sound of your new child’s voice the next morning.(6) Let yourself off the hook. This is not your fault. You’ve done a grand thing—you’ve gone out into the world in search of a child and, despite every obstacle over tens of thousands of miles, you’ve brought the child home. You’re exhausted. This is all really hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. You’re doing fine. Just rest up, find something to laugh about, and give Feelings the month off.
What was the reality? He hated to be rocked; I always had to stand and bounce to calm him as he was almost never contented (in agony those first few months with the milk allergy tearing up his stomach and causing an angry red rash across his cheeks, which almost always smelled like puke because of the reflux.) There was no peace, there was only ever a calm before the storm, which is much less realxing than true peace. And there has never been peace since, with my wonderful, passionate, chatterbox boy who can't sit still and wants to know all the ways of the world already. Much different than my expectations. Much richer, in some ways. No doubt, I am a stronger parent for the challenges that God laid at our feet when he matched us with Mason's unique personality.
So I am trying to be "expectationless" with Teshale, although I do have certain desires. I try to hold loosely to those, and expand my gaze to what may be.
http://www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com/blog?op=view&id=4
I found this great blog, written by the author of "There is No Me Without You", the greatest book I've read so far about Ethiopian adoption (Greene, the author, has four kids from ET and various others).
Here's an interesting excerpt; :
8. HOW WILL I FEEL WHEN I MEET MY NEW CHILD?You’ve studied his or her photo for most of a year; you’ve worn out the disc replaying the nanoseconds of footage. In the film provided by the adoption agency, your child has not screamed or thrown food; he has not stomped his foot and made an angry face; the baby has not twisted away from you to avoid eye contact. In the realm of photo and film and fantasy, the child is clean and polite. The child is tall and strikingly handsome and academically gifted and developmentally on target. Regardless of age, you can tell this child is going to come straight home and begin by tidying up the kitchen and taking out the trash, before going on a bike ride wearing a helmet and observing all traffic laws and hand signals. This child is easily going to make Eagle Scout by 12. In real life, children are sometimes not so clean and polite. They sometimes are quite short and dusty, they may have giardia or head-lice, and and it may be a few years before that academic brilliance presents itself. The child will not know how to ride a bike and, after he learns, he will zig-zag in and out of traffic while you run down the sidewalk screaming and waving your arms.Reactions upon first meeting range from “This is the child of my heart, thank you God,” to (my typical reaction) “If I run away right now and deny everything, can they still make me bring this child to my hotel?” Reactions vary from “That’s her! I’d know her anywhere! That’s really her!!” to “Has there been a mistake? This child is really not as cute as the photo tacked to my refrigerator.”
9. HOW WILL WE MANAGE THE TRIP HOME FROM ETHIOPIA? You’ll be exhausted beyond human endurance. After months of paperwork and anxiety, you’ll have flown 20 or more hours to Addis Ababa to meet your new child; you’ll have taken charge of the child, whose language you don’t speak, whose daily habits and schedule you don’t know, and who may or may not be thrilled to spend time with you; you’ll have flown with this child back across North Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, and the Atlantic Ocean; you’ll have changed planes, had layovers, and endured long lines. You’ll be dead on your feet before you enter your own foyer, lugging the suitcases filled with colorful Ethiopian baskets, ready to begin your new family life. Behaviors that have been displayed by newly-adopted children traveling 20 hours by air have included energetic screaming and kicking and fleeing up and down the aisle, throwing up, throwing food, throwing tantrums, marathon sleeping, entering a trance-like state of sheer panic, and/or excellent dinner manners and calm movie-watching. .Our ten-year-old son Fisseha was thrilled beyond words to be given airplane head-phones; he donned them instantly and enjoyed them greatly for three-quarters of an hour. Then I discovered that the head-phones were not plugged into anything. He was simply enjoying the new head-wear. When I plugged him in, a look of astonishment crossed his face, and the music and static distracted him for a good three hours.Jesse, crossing the ocean by air at age four-and-a-half from Bulgaria, came to believe (we surmised) about two hours into the flight: “This is it. This is America. This is my new life. I have got to get out of here.” He was fleeing up and down the aisles in search of an exit and a fast boat back to Bulgaria. He sat down in the middle of the aisle and rocked back and forth, the orphanage self-soothing scary-looking rock; in my arms, he flailed and screamed and kicked. He kicked the seat in front of us so hard and frequently I feared we’d injure the man. Late in the flight I suddenly remembered: “Benedryl! We were supposed to have given him Benedryl to help him sleep!” As he writhed and flailed and screamed, I got a cap-full of Benedryl between his lips and waited, my arms and back aching, for it to kick in. It kicked in as we were in descent towards Atlanta. We carried his sleeping body off the plane and into immigration, where he slept on the carpet during our wait, and he slept in luggage claim and he slept on the car-ride home and straight into his new life. The good news: you’ll likely not be the only new parents bringing home a terrified Ethiopian child on your international flight. Worst case scenario: you make rueful eye contact across the cabin. Best case scenario: the kids find each other and laugh and whisper and play the card game UNO until the movie starts.
10. WHAT IF THINGS GET REALLY DIFFICULT WITH MY NEW CHILD AFTER WE ARRIVE HOME? Things can get really hard. The demands of a baby, young child, or older child may far outweigh your earlier estimate of what you could handle. You may find yourself blinded by fatigue, bleary-eyed with regret and confusion. You may hear the word “Mom” more often than human ears can withstand. There’s a sort of “buyer’s remorse” that can kick in, after you bring this precious and long-awaited child home. You wouldn’t be the first to wonder, “WHAT was I THINKING?” I’ve written elsewhere about post-adoption panic, which hit me hard after Jesse’s adoption in 1999.Part of what was hard about it, for me, was that I’d never heard of it. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I reached the conclusion that what was wrong with me was that I had ruined my life and the life of my family permanently, and there was no escape, and it was all my fault, and it would never get better. It’s really hard to think rationally when you’re in this state.
The good news is that, in most cases, these can be the disharmonious opening notes of a love story. An out-of-synch beginning is not predictive of the parent/child relationship. My tips for getting through a rocky and nauseating depression after the arrival of your child:(1) Take really good care of yourself; do whatever it takes to get enough sleep, including spending the night at a friend’s, including arranging for naps. Nothing else will work if you’re sleep-deprived.(2) Make yourself eat and shower and exercise. (3) Get help. Hire help if you need to. While a babysitter is there, sleep or exercise or read or eat.(4) Put Feelings on a back-burner. This is not the time for Feelings. If you could express your feelings right now, you’d be saying things like, “Oh my God, I must have lost my mind to think that I can handle this, to think that I wanted a child like this. I’ll never manage to raise this child; I’m way way way way over my head. I’ll never spend time with my spouse or friends again; my older children are going to waste away in profound neglect; my career is finished. I am completely and utterly trapped.” You see? What’s the point of expressing all that right now? Just put Feelings to sleep. Instead, live a material life. Wake, dress, eat, walk. Let your hands and words mother the new child, don’t order Feelings into action. (5) Pick up something to read that carries you away. I’ve found that reading about Paleolithic art engenders deep calm and a sense of remove. There’s something about studying 40,000 year old cave painting that makes you feel you can survive the sound of your new child’s voice the next morning.(6) Let yourself off the hook. This is not your fault. You’ve done a grand thing—you’ve gone out into the world in search of a child and, despite every obstacle over tens of thousands of miles, you’ve brought the child home. You’re exhausted. This is all really hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. You’re doing fine. Just rest up, find something to laugh about, and give Feelings the month off.
Comments
Teshale is hand-picked for the Warren family by the same hands that put you and Joe together and added Mason to the mix. He's never wrong.