Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Adoption Conference
The first weekend of September, James and I attended a great conference with a dozen other couples seeking to learn more about all things adoption. It was an amazing experience that opened our minds and hearts to this beautiful opportunity.
One neat occurrence was that James's dad got to come be involved on the "Adoptee Panel" on Saturday afternoon. He and three other people adopted as babies were able to talk about their various experiences. The variety of stories was great, but the common theme was LOVE. Adoptions works because LOVE has all power to make life beautiful.
There were two things I learned during the conference that especially stood out.
1) There's a difference between "bond" and "attachment." Lee Raby, Assistant Professor with the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah, shared an insightful presentation about how infants gain the capacity to form an attachment to a caregiver at about 6 to 9 months of age and not before. While the adults will certainly form a "bond" very early on, a baby's need to simply survive and grow in its first 6 months takes all precedence of its cognition to recognize much else. It's around 6 months that a baby's brain finally associates specific adults with specific behaviors, and babies will then attach to their primary caregivers because of the "rhythms of interactions" they've finally attached to those caregivers.
This means two important things to me: First, a birth mom doesn't have to feel guilty that separating from her child is breaking some unrepairable connection for this new human she's brought to earth. Her own bond will suffer a brave separation, but the baby will not be harmed in any way during the transfer from one adult to another. While still the hardest decision a mom could ever make, this does offer some comfort that her choice is not affecting her child's ability to trust and make connections to the couple she places her baby with.
And second, an adoptive parent doesn't need to feel guilty that they're unable to offer some significantly profound connection to a baby that didn't come from their combined biology. They can be the best caregivers they know how, and their child will form the attachment a healthy child makes at around 6 months old to them because they have been the trusted providers of baby's every need, and baby will recognize that.
Recognition is different from attachment. A baby may recognize sounds outside the womb that it encountered inside the womb, but it still has no frame of reference for how to make sense of those sensations. The important connection made at 6 to 9 months is that they now recognize that there's a base of all learning, a frame with which to make sense of all that comes next. The attachment a baby is making at 6 to 9 months is essentially the baby saying, "Ohhhh, I get it. These two people have been bringing me the food, the comfort, the clean diaper.... Now I can make sense of everything else because I am safe. I am attached to this origin, and now I can compare everything else to this home base. This is my safe zone for recognizing the rest of the world."
What an exciting opportunity to build a loving world setting for a new human! No matter how they arrive on the planet, our constant love and attention will set them up for success in making all the relationships for the rest of their lives.
2) An open adoption almost always helps both the child and birth mother have healthier progress in life. When adoptions are closed and/or very limited information is available between families, children experience a measure of identity loss as well as a tendency to fantasize about their "what if?" scenarios. Real life can never compare to "how it might've been" when questions remain unanswered. Same for birth moms. They generally have a sincere desire to know how their child is doing in another family's home, that they're safe and healthy, that they didn't doom their child to an unknowable life. The birth parents might tend to fantasize on the other end of the spectrum—what horrors might be happening while I'm in the dark over here, knowing nothing about my child's situation.
Overall, my impression is that open adoption offers more healing than it opens up drama. My initial worry about open adoption was having to co-parent with another outside entity, and I didn't know how I'd feel about that, how I'd handle their input and suggestions. But I came to realize that for the most part, birth parents know that the arrangement is what it is, and they come around for special occasions, for when the family enters "vacation mode," and so it's not in the daily parenting decisions and family interactions that birth parents are really involved. Their reaction to how I parent won't be hanging over me every choice I make.
Open adoption is more about having the big picture and being a big family, not about our way versus theirs. That was very helpful in my development in this whole process. It makes me even more excited to one day be matched with someone who recognizes in us a beautiful story they want to add a life to, and we will love her forever for that.
One neat occurrence was that James's dad got to come be involved on the "Adoptee Panel" on Saturday afternoon. He and three other people adopted as babies were able to talk about their various experiences. The variety of stories was great, but the common theme was LOVE. Adoptions works because LOVE has all power to make life beautiful.
There were two things I learned during the conference that especially stood out.
1) There's a difference between "bond" and "attachment." Lee Raby, Assistant Professor with the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah, shared an insightful presentation about how infants gain the capacity to form an attachment to a caregiver at about 6 to 9 months of age and not before. While the adults will certainly form a "bond" very early on, a baby's need to simply survive and grow in its first 6 months takes all precedence of its cognition to recognize much else. It's around 6 months that a baby's brain finally associates specific adults with specific behaviors, and babies will then attach to their primary caregivers because of the "rhythms of interactions" they've finally attached to those caregivers.
This means two important things to me: First, a birth mom doesn't have to feel guilty that separating from her child is breaking some unrepairable connection for this new human she's brought to earth. Her own bond will suffer a brave separation, but the baby will not be harmed in any way during the transfer from one adult to another. While still the hardest decision a mom could ever make, this does offer some comfort that her choice is not affecting her child's ability to trust and make connections to the couple she places her baby with.
And second, an adoptive parent doesn't need to feel guilty that they're unable to offer some significantly profound connection to a baby that didn't come from their combined biology. They can be the best caregivers they know how, and their child will form the attachment a healthy child makes at around 6 months old to them because they have been the trusted providers of baby's every need, and baby will recognize that.
Recognition is different from attachment. A baby may recognize sounds outside the womb that it encountered inside the womb, but it still has no frame of reference for how to make sense of those sensations. The important connection made at 6 to 9 months is that they now recognize that there's a base of all learning, a frame with which to make sense of all that comes next. The attachment a baby is making at 6 to 9 months is essentially the baby saying, "Ohhhh, I get it. These two people have been bringing me the food, the comfort, the clean diaper.... Now I can make sense of everything else because I am safe. I am attached to this origin, and now I can compare everything else to this home base. This is my safe zone for recognizing the rest of the world."
What an exciting opportunity to build a loving world setting for a new human! No matter how they arrive on the planet, our constant love and attention will set them up for success in making all the relationships for the rest of their lives.
2) An open adoption almost always helps both the child and birth mother have healthier progress in life. When adoptions are closed and/or very limited information is available between families, children experience a measure of identity loss as well as a tendency to fantasize about their "what if?" scenarios. Real life can never compare to "how it might've been" when questions remain unanswered. Same for birth moms. They generally have a sincere desire to know how their child is doing in another family's home, that they're safe and healthy, that they didn't doom their child to an unknowable life. The birth parents might tend to fantasize on the other end of the spectrum—what horrors might be happening while I'm in the dark over here, knowing nothing about my child's situation.
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| Great discussion over on site of image source. |
Overall, my impression is that open adoption offers more healing than it opens up drama. My initial worry about open adoption was having to co-parent with another outside entity, and I didn't know how I'd feel about that, how I'd handle their input and suggestions. But I came to realize that for the most part, birth parents know that the arrangement is what it is, and they come around for special occasions, for when the family enters "vacation mode," and so it's not in the daily parenting decisions and family interactions that birth parents are really involved. Their reaction to how I parent won't be hanging over me every choice I make.
Open adoption is more about having the big picture and being a big family, not about our way versus theirs. That was very helpful in my development in this whole process. It makes me even more excited to one day be matched with someone who recognizes in us a beautiful story they want to add a life to, and we will love her forever for that.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Save the Date - Friday, March 6, 2015
How happy we are to share the story that combines Miss Fairchild, Sir Cutler, and a lot of tender mercies, faith, and love. Go ahead and browse through the tabs above to discover more about us and our love story. God certainly is an expert author of faith and miracles, and we can't help but feel like our lives, our meeting, our courtship have all been orchestrated with His very-present influence and hand-crafted blessings.
We are so blessed to have found each other and are excited to combine lives and loved ones! We can never forget all the angel family and friends that have supported us to this point in our lives and we're so grateful to celebrate with you!
Our wedding will be Saturday, March 7, 2015. The night before the temple ceremony (Friday the 6th), we want to invite all our loved ones to a reception of spectacular proportions! There will be more popcorn than you've ever seen in your life (you really have to come check it out) and of course great food to eat. We pretty much live for food. Emily practically lives in the kitchen and LOVES it (hence a registry filled with her dream kitchen toys :)), so whenever she throws a party, it's all about the food.
We can't wait to see you all soon!
All our love,
James and Emily
We are so blessed to have found each other and are excited to combine lives and loved ones! We can never forget all the angel family and friends that have supported us to this point in our lives and we're so grateful to celebrate with you!
Our wedding will be Saturday, March 7, 2015. The night before the temple ceremony (Friday the 6th), we want to invite all our loved ones to a reception of spectacular proportions! There will be more popcorn than you've ever seen in your life (you really have to come check it out) and of course great food to eat. We pretty much live for food. Emily practically lives in the kitchen and LOVES it (hence a registry filled with her dream kitchen toys :)), so whenever she throws a party, it's all about the food.
We can't wait to see you all soon!
All our love,
James and Emily
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