Leaving the orphanage with a priceless pair of tights

April 5, 2017 by Beth Shepherd

Our daughter spent the first year of her life in a “children’s home” in Armenia, aka an orphanage. All of the children’s homes I visited in Armenia (three in total) were, as orphanages go, “good” homes. The facilities were clean. Children had their own crib or bed. Basic needs were met. Our daughter was well cared for by loving nannies.

But nothing in that orphanage was hers and hers alone. The eight nannies who cared for her, also cared for other children. And whereas in most families a baby can count on the same person feeding, dressing or bathing her, a baby in an orphanage can never be certain who will come soothe her cries, when they will come, and sometimes whether anyone will come at all. Diapers were washed, hung on the line outside to dry, and reused. Blankets, towels, clothing—all shared. Everything our daughter touched or wore, was touched and worn by other babies. I’ve seen pictures of babies who were also adopted from our daughter’s orphanage wearing the same bunny slippers or the same sweater.

I think about this a lot, especially when I see babies being cared for by a mom or a dad, knowing that baby associates comfort and security with seeing the same face over and over again. The familiarity her mom’s arms wrapped tightly around her, how she smells, even the baby’s own scent on her very own blanket. Visceral memories deeply ingrained in our psyche.

As an adoptive mom and a photographer I also think about how the minutiae of infancy is meticulously documented, at least in the U.S. Most moms I know have albums full of pictures showing their baby being held and fed, sleeping in their crib, their first smile, cute outfits they wore. Images reflecting their baby’s life during that formative first year.

These are the kinds of things many kids look back on as they grow up, and ask questions about. What did I look like as a baby? What was my favorite toy? What did I wear?

This is why the day we took our daughter out of the orphanage is forever etched in my mind. I was excited and nervous because our lives were about to change and from this moment forward we would be together as a family. At the same time I felt a deep sadness, knowing we were taking our daughter away from the one place she’d lived and the people who had taken care of her. Imperfect as orphanage life was, it was all she knew.

Other than the memories my daughter has tucked deep inside, there are only a few things we can share with her about her beginnings. We have referral photos and a short video we received from our adoption agency when our daughter was a few months old. There are pictures I took on our first visit to meet her when she was almost six months old. But until she became a member of our family that is all we have, except one precious gift: a pair of tights.

When we picked up our daughter we made sure we had all the clothes we thought she’d need, because her nanny would change her out of whatever she was wearing before bringing her to us. We brought a long-sleeved onesie, cotton pants, a cotton shirt, a sweater, one coat with a hood, a cotton cap, socks and shoes.

We waited on a bench outside the office of the orphanage director. Her nanny dressed her in the baby room and then came down the stairs and and handed her to us. We took a few pictures with the director and then piled into a taxi and headed to Yerevan.

Two hours later, when we reached our apartment in Yerevan and changed our first diaper, we discovered her nanny had also put her in a pair of tights, blue cotton with pictures of buttons and spools of thread woven into the background. I remembered those tights from our “get to know you” visits to the orphanage. Each day when one of her nannies brought her out to us, she was dressed in an adorable outfit. One day she wore a tiny beret, another day she was completely decked out in a white hand-crocheted ensemble, and on yet another she was sporting the cutest bunny slippers. On several occasions her outfit featured the blue tights. But cute as those clothes were, they weren’t hers.

When I look at her tights now, I see a treasure, the one tangible thing she has from her days spent in a children’s home, and the only thing she can literally hold in her hands knowing they were once on her legs when she was a baby. The tights are tiny, only 15-inches long, yet enormous when I reflect on what they stand for. To me those tights are priceless.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

Rock of ages: Celebrating five years together as a family

March 22, 2017 by Beth Shepherd

March 22, 2012. Gyumri, Armenia. Snow lay on the ground and temperatures hovered around freezing. We made our way to the orphanage where our daughter was living. Our daughter. Only moments before she was simply a little girl who lived in an orphanage. Now she was ours and we were hers.

Two days before, we’d stood in an Armenian court of law and made our case as to why we should be this little girl’s parents. Then, on March 22, we went to court again and received the news our adoption was approved. We were a freshly minted family! But even though she met us six months ago and we visited her every day for a week, in our daughter’s brain we were just a couple of nice nannies in the rotating cast of nice nannies she saw on a daily basis. She had no idea what becoming part of a family would mean. And neither did we.

For some time I’d thought about retrieving a memento from the land upon which her orphanage was built, something we could share with her as she grew up, a physical reminder of her first home and her homeland. A leaf maybe? Or a small rock? When we first met her, it was autumn but still very warm. Gold leaves hung on the trees, shading us as we sat together on a bench in the courtyard of her orphanage. However now it was March, and there was nary a leaf to be found. We decided our treasure would be a small rock.

As we walked across the courtyard to the door of the building in the orphanage where she was living, skating across ice on the pathway, I said to my husband, “Now is the time. Let’s find our rock!” Joel’s eyes scanned the ground around him, covered with snow, and landed on a small rock poking it’s head out from a drift a mere three feet from where we stood. He stepped away from the sidewalk, took two big steps and reached down to pick up the rock, instantly finding himself ankle deep in mud. Who would have guessed—in the dead of winter, despite a blanket of snow and temperatures ducking below zero (F) at night, a slithery soft puddle of mud lurked beneath the surface? Mud dripped from his hands as he held up his prize, and we both belly laughed, a much needed release from the months of angst preceding this moment.

How fitting. A perfect metaphor for the days and years to follow. Fitting because family life is messy. Things rarely go the way you expect. And sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you find yourself stuck in the muck.

Gyumri, Armenia: March 22, 2012

2017: Our family turns five!

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

The last supper {before adoptive parenthood}

March 16, 2017 by Beth Shepherd

Flavors filled my mouth as I tucked the amuse-bouche between my lips, and thoughts of parenthood filled my head. March 15, 2012. Our last supper. The final time we’d share dinner—just the two of us—without a child somewhere in the picture. Here we were, in London, dining at an impossibly elegant Indian restaurant with white linens covering our table, fine wine chilling in a silver ice bucket. Everyone around us was behaving in a very civilized manner, this being an upscale London restaurant after all, and no children as far as my eyes I could see. I couldn’t help but wonder. Would we ever enjoy an meal like this again?

Without a doubt, becoming a parent is one of life’s biggest game-changers. There are countless ways in which one’s life will be irrevocably altered. For us, in a mere 12 hours we’d board a plane bound for Armenia. And parenthood. I can’t tell you how much my mind mulled this fact over as I rolled each delicious morsel of food around in my mouth, listening to the clink of crystal wine glasses in the background accompanied by polite, subdued conversation.

What would it be like, sharing meals with an infant? A toddler? Would she be a picky eater? Enjoy the vegetables I lovingly grew in our tiny backyard garden? Food, whether cooked and served by my own hand or ordered at a restaurant was, for me, one of life’s greatest pleasures. At home, I spent a lot of time choosing which dishes we would eat and then cooking them. I found it exciting to explore new global cuisines. Reading about food, growing food, going out to eat, cooking at home…I loved it all!

Might my epicurean inclinations go the way of the dodo, along with private toilet time, gown-up music and Disney-free movies? What will become of my foodie self? Whenever I queried friends about what I should do B.P. (before parenthood), their advice was nearly universal. Watch movies—in—a movie theater! Go—out—for dinner at fancy restaurants! As we dined I was consumed by ruminations such as these, weighty as each of the five impeccably arranged courses laid out before us.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

A girl, a yellow dress and Adoptive Families annual cover photo contest

December 13, 2016 by Beth Shepherd

Guess whose photo was featured in the November online issue of Adoptive Families Magazine? I am thrilled and honored to share my photo, one of eight winners chosen out of ~1000 entries, for their 2016 Cover Photo Contest!

I discovered Adoptive Families magazine when we first started our adoption journey. I was so happy to find a magazine for “my tribe.” Each month was filled with articles, many written by adoptive parents, on all kinds of things adoption-related such as establishing healthy interactions with birth families, integrating a new child into your home, navigating transracial issues, bonding with your child, country information for international adoption or how to survive the wait. A treasure trove of resources and networks!

The magazine often features photo contests for Mother’s and Father’s Day, kids and pet, seasonal holidays. This year I decided to enter. My photo, of our daughter spinning in her yellow dress is not one of my crispest images, the light is blown-out in places and the background certainly isn’t as dreamy as other shots I’ve taken. But, to me, this photo speaks volumes to who my daughter is–always a girl in motion, a girl who finds great joy in a “fancy” dress.

This particular dress comes with a great story that I’d like to share. My daughter received the dress as a gift when we visited the yard sale of a friend. I’d heard about the sale the week prior and thought it might be a fun distraction on a rainy Saturday morning. After we got there, we poked around on the table outside, laden with all sorts of trinkets and finds. But it was rainy, cold and windy so it wasn’t long before we went inside to see what they had there.

Almost immediately my daughter found her first gem, and ecstatically held up a pair of red clip-on earrings from the 1960s: Can I have these Mama? I said yes and she put them on. They were her first pair of dress-up earrings and she paraded around the living room of their house, showing them off to any and everyone whose attention she could capture.

That’s when Suzanne, whose home we were visiting, asked if she could take my daughter back to their bedroom to show her something. Soon after, my child appeared–a vision in yellow tulle. The dress had been Suzanne’s, made for her by her mother about 50 years ago. It fit my daughter to a t, and she was over the moon. We brought it home and she got dressed up in her earrings, her lovely yellow dress and sparkly red shoes. We put on some music and she spun around in circles, because this yellow dress is also a fabulous “spinny dress.” In that moment my daughter was in her own little world. She felt happy–and special–this dress was chosen for her.

Since that day, the yellow dress has taken the top spot when a fancy dress is required…or even when it’s not (like when her much beloved babysitter comes over). My heart warms whenever I see her in it. Not many little girls get to wear handmade dresses these days, and certainly not a dress as divine as this one.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

Interested in domestic or international adoption? Are you an adoptive family? You can read more great articles in Adoptive Families Magazine by subscribing here.

What I remember about waiting to meet my daughter at the orphanage

October 21, 2016 by Beth Shepherd

As an adoptive parent, meeting the child who might become your child, is an epic moment. There’s no way to describe the feeling, built from years of yearning, anticipation and uncertainty. And I had already experienced this moment before. Twice. Two times, yet no child. So you can imagine—this journey—half-way around the world to visit yet another baby at an orphanage, was fraught with tension. What if this child had additional medical conditions beyond the scope of what we felt we could manage? What if we encountered paperwork snafus and were unable to register our intent to adopt this child? What if it all fell through in the end?

You might think we were just overly nervous first-time prospective parents. Certainly this was true. I don’t know a single adoptive parent who doesn’t worry about the same questions we worried about. But in our case, there was an additional albatross around our necks. We’d been in this exact place in the process before, and knew meeting a child might not turn out the way we’d hoped. Because, for us, it hadn’t.

In fact when we visited Armenia’s Ministry of Justice department to file the necessary paperwork to meet this baby, the head of the department, Mr. S, shook his head and uttered, “Ohhh…Shepherds” in his deep baritone voice. This was our third visit to his office. Three times, because on our second trip to Armenia to meet the previous child, we found out that one of us would have to come back—one month later. Unbelievably, the child we’d hoped to register our intent to adopt on that trip, was not yet “off the database” meaning available for adoption by families outside the country.

These circumstances set the tone for the day and our moods. Pensive. Anxious.

I remember how I felt when my husband and I sat in that room, five years ago, like it was yesterday. I remember the couch, covered with a white, fringed throw, soft cushions, like my grandmother’s sofa. I remember looking around the room, memorizing every detail. The closet that stood ajar, every angle off, like a scene from a Dr. Suess’s book.

The floor, weathered from thousands of steps back and forth through this same room, where we sat. Waiting. Outside the window, the sun was shining, but I couldn’t stop thinking about life inside, the life a child would have if this were their “forever home.”

By this time I’d already been on the receiving end of hate mail on my blog, from people—one in particular—who felt non-Armenian families had no business adopting an Armenian child and taking that child from their birth family, culture, and country. I understand this and truly believe the first choice should always be to keep families together, whenever possible. But sometimes circumstances are such that it’s simply not possible, not for the immediate family and sometimes not even for the extended family. Angry commenters claimed children were “better off” remaining in the country of their birth, even if it meant they’d grow up in an orphanage.

This orphanage, along with the other two I’ve seen in Armenia, is run by caring people. The buildings and furniture might not be in the best shape but the orphanages are clean and tidy. Children have their own beds. Diapers, while in short supply, are changed regularly as are the children’s clothes. Nannies give the kids attention, as best they can, given the number of children in their care. I know they form attachments, especially to some of the children, and I can only imagine how heartbreaking it must be when children they’ve cared for leave. But I also know how much they want each of these kids to find a home, because no matter how good an orphanage may be, it is still an orphanage.

I stared at the desk, where the head nurse sat, a cup of tea abandoned, notebooks sitting off to the side, notebooks where she kept records of the children, their height and weight, any illnesses they had, little details. While I waited I thought about all the details we westerners log, the pictures we take, the celebrations we hold as we keep tabs on our kids’ development: when they held their head up by themselves or roll over for the first time, how old they were when they got their first tooth or haircut, when they said ‘Mama’ for the first time. I thought about how a child in an orphanage might never know any of these details, might not have a single photo of themselves as a baby. I thought about how these kids would reach milestones that might be barely noticed and rarely remembered, that they might never have a single keepsake or memento from these “firsts.”

Sitting in this room, taking it all in, I was really struck by how this could change the course of an entire life and create challenges, some that may never be overcome, memories they can’t fully express that might haunt them and influence their personality, habits, relationships, their ability to bond.

We waited a long time before a nanny appeared at the door, holding a baby. I sprang from the couch. Our translator walked over to the nanny and I could tell from her gestures and demeanor, something was wrong. In staccato Armenian words I did not understand she spoke with the nanny who then turned and left with the baby. What had just happened we asked? Our translator explained. She brought the wrong baby.

I wilted with despair even as we were assured that our baby did indeed exist. We paced the floor, waited and waited. At long last another nanny appeared at the door, holding a different baby. And in mere moments, there she was, in our arms for the first time.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

Driving to meet our daughter: Two men, two women, a taxi and a flat tire

October 13, 2016 by Beth Shepherd

You know you’re going somewhere when you find yourself in the back of a taxi bombing down an exceedingly bumpy two-lane highway at speeds exceeding 100 mph. And five years ago, we were in fact going somewhere important as we sped north on the road that connects Yerevan, Amenia to Gyumri. My husband and I were headed to meet the baby girl we hoped to adopt. Little did we know this would become the taxi ride we’d never forget.

We sat in the back of the taxi, watching the autumn scenery out our window. Hillsides in shades of gold, 13,419 foot Mount Aragats looming to the east, snow already coating its steep slopes, herds of sheep, cows and the occasional shepherd.

Our driver appeared to be in his forties, slim, dark haired with an aquiline nose and pleasant, unassuming face. I’m pretty sure he’d been driving a taxi since he was old enough for his legs to reach the pedals.

As the crow flies, the distance from Yerevan to Gyumri is roughly 75 miles, but because of the road conditions it can take up to two hours to go from one city to another.

Armenian taxi drivers know this route like the back of their hands. Ours swerved this way and that to avoid potholes. It’s very unusual to find seat belts in Armenian taxis, and ours did not have any. So that meant whenever we hit a bump or landed in a pothole we’d find ourselves airborne, like we were riding a mechanical bull at the rodeo, heads clonking hard against the ceiling of the taxi. By the end of the ride, my husband joked his spine was two inches shorter.

We’d been on the road about an hour when I heard a high pitched whine coming from the rear, followed by a thwakety-thwak as the car careened unevenly towards the median. Our translator asked the driver what was happening, and with an anxious look he pulled the car off to the side of the road. Cars flew by us as he stepped out. Flat tire.

So there we were, stuck on the side of the road, surrounded by an empty wind-swept valley. No villages. No gas stations. I silently crossed my fingers hoping the driver had a spare road-worthy enough to take us the rest of the way to our destination. We’d already missed the first day of visitation because the orphanage director was out of town.

Sure enough he did. Fiften minutes later, he had the spare on and we piled back into the taxi to continu on our journey. Another hour passed, uneventfully, until we reached the outskirts of Gyumri.

Gyumri is a city with roughly 122,000 residents, still reeling following a devastating earthquake in 1988. 25,000 people lost their lives in that disaster. Box cars provided as “temporary” housing nearly three decades ago are still being used today.

Our driver tell the translator he hasn’t been to Gyumri in years, which quickly becomes obvious to us that as he pulls the taxi over to ask first one and then two people for directions to the orphanage. We stop a third time to ask a police office who stares blankly when our translator tells him the name of the orphanage. So instead we drive in aimless circles, passing by the same statues, the same town square until we finally arrive at a corner the translator recognizes. Gingerly, our driver edges the taxi around several crater-sized potholes before pulling off the road beside a stone wall painted with faintly visible scenes of mountains and people, painted by children. A turquoise blue door opens to a driveway where a small scraggly brown and white dog greets us. We have arrived.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

What if I’d never adopted? Three ways being a mom changed my life

August 17, 2016 by Beth Shepherd

What if I’d never adopted? This is a question I’ve asked myself on more than one occasion, usually after a really tough day with my kid or when I hear my kid-free friends are embarking on some exotic vacation. First I feel envious, then I feel conflicted. I chose this path, right? Not only chose but struggled mightily even when the forces seemed against us. I chose to become a mom when I was well past the age most people become parents, old even by standards in the world of adoption where people opt for single parenthood or decide to adopt after experiencing years of infertility. I was, and I am, at the age when most people want to travel the world, immerse themselves in new hobbies, and hang out more with friends without the “inconvenience” of a child. Hiking in the Himalayan Mountains? Sipping Sauvignon blanc at a bistro in Paris? A quiet weekend at home with my husband? Sounds pretty fantastic until I consider tossing my five-year-old into the mix.

What was I thinking does indeed cross my mind when someone asks: “Have you done the math?” which I’ve been asked on more than one occasion, like somehow it never dawned on me that I’m 10-20 years older than most of the mamas with kids my daughter’s age. In hindsight, I confess many of the scenarios I envisioned will not be possible, at least until our daughter is older and maybe never (though I try to banish the thought) because of some of her personal hurdles. Taking a cruise down the Rhone River with a kid who gets antsy five minutes into a car ride may not be the best idea. Biking through Burgundy? Well, first she has to learn to ride and then what to do with her while we’re putting down a few glasses of Pinot?

Yes, I know lots of families travel all over the world with kids in tow, pursue new hobbies while their toddler sleeps and squeeze in the occasional date night. But part of being an older parent means most of our relatives who might watch our child while we go off on a romantic weekend are gone. School schedules preclude lengthy excursions and it might not be long before hobbies compete with homework.

This said, I frequently take stock of things I’ve done (and do!), places I’ve gone, and people who are my close friends and realize most of it came about because we chose to become parents.

Travel: We made six trips to Armenia with lengthy stopovers in Paris, Amsterdam, and London. How many people go to Armenia, right? Not to mention those travels were the reason I started Pampers and Pakhlava in the first place–thank you Wanderlust and Lipstick! And we still travel, albeit to less far-flug locales and many times with less-than-favorable results (Go the F**k to Sleep! Sorry Mom.)
Friends: Many of my friendships in Seattle and beyond exist because—and only because—I decided to become a mom. Had I not walked down the path to motherhood, I never would have sought out the moms group in my neighborhood. I started going to the monthly Mom’s Night Out a couple years before I officially obtained the mom title. Although the founding group has long since disbanded, there are a few of us who still relish that night each month when we head out to Central Cinema, order adult beverages and eat too much popcorn. A number of my friendships are with other adoptive moms. We’ve bonded over stories of our journeys and some of the unique challenges our kids face. I have friends who hoped to adopt and then didn’t, mom-friends in general and close friends who are not moms and never will be. But most of the moms I know, I know because I became one.
Hobbies: I’ve always loved taking pictures. Along with gardening, birds and being out in nature, photography is one of the hobbies that sustains me. But I would not be one of the Mamas with Cameras if I wasn’t a mama myself. I have learned so much from these women. They challenged me to try a 365 Project, answer my many random questions, and are an ever-constant source of inspiration. Just like Mom’s Night Out, I was a regular at their monthly meet-ups before we adopted our daughter. I remember how hard it was, at the end of each meeting, when moms would pass around photos of their kids at a time when being a mom was just a glint in my eye.

Would my life be equally rich had I not become a parent? I’m absolutely sure it would be, different of course, but I know there would be outlets for my passions, close friends and activities I love. I would travel, though it’s unlikely Armenia would have been on my itinerary. But I definitely would not be the person I am now, which is why—for better or worse—I’m grateful this is the direction I chose when I came to the fork in the road.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

New world, new life: Our daughter’s first moments in the U.S.

April 8, 2016 by Beth Shepherd

When I was growing up, we would talk about relatives who came from “the old country.” I have often tried to picture what it may have been like for them to leave behind the country of their birth and come to the U.S. to start a new life.

Once familiar sounds, smells and sites become memories. Saying goodbye to friends and family, you might never see again. Having very little, if anything, that once was yours–clothing, furniture, mementos, treasured belongings. For adults, abandoning a job, your livelihood.

We talk about the U.S. as being the land of opportunity, and for many who left their homeland to start anew, this may have been true. But when I try to imagine undertaking a life-changing journey such as this, the feelings that come up for me are sadness, fear, loss.

Our daughter was 11-months-old when she left everything and everyone she ever knew. Her blue tights, festooned with pictures of buttons, were the only thing she took from the orphanage, her home for the first year of her life. But even though she was just a baby, I am certain her tiny brain held memories of nannies who answered her cries, the lilt of the first language she ever heard, the feel of the crib where she spent most of her days.

Then, on April 8, she left it all. Sixteen hours, two planes and 36 hours of travel later, there she was, the newest citizen in her new world. It was Easter Sunday when we landed and drove to our home. For one little girl, it was the journey of a lifetime.

From an orphanage bed to a tiny cot on an airplane….

…to her own crib in her own room.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

Leap of faith: Our family turns 4

March 22, 2016 by Beth Shepherd

Four years ago we took a huge leap of faith, and on March 22, 2012, a judge in Gyumri, Armenia granted us permission to adopt an 11-month-old girl. With that decision, our long journey to become parents was over. But…another adventure had just begun. When we went to the orphanage to hold her–our daughter now–it’s hard to describe the emotions we felt. Relief that the angst of the past four years was behind us. Elation at finally being parents. Fear because we were–gulp–parents. Now it was our job to keep her alive.

Over the past four years we’ve learned a lot about how to care for a child, our child at least. We’ve also learned a lot about ourselves. We’ve laughed, cried and screamed. There have been awesome days, and days when we feel like this was the stupidest mid-life crisis ever!* Parenthood has been an adventure like no other.

Happy Family Day to us!

It’s all about the journey,

Beth

*Thank you, Megann, for this pearl. Spot on!

And thank you to Weeone Photography for the photo of the three of us!

International Adoption: 10 things I didn’t expect

March 17, 2016 by Beth Shepherd

International Adoption things I didn't expect

Eight years ago, when we decided on international adoption, I had expectations about how things would go. And you know what? To say our adoption journey didn’t go as planned, is an understatement. Here are 10 things I didn’t expect.

We might not get a child: We investigated domestic adoption first, met with a couple adoption attorneys and spoke with one open adoption agency in our city. In each case we were dissuaded from adopting domestically due to our ages and the fact we’d only been married for one year. We were told that birth mothers would be more likely to choose adoptive parents who could demonstrate a long relationship history. I’d also heard several heartbreaking stories of prospective adoptive parents whose adoptions fell through at the last minute, on one occasion several days after they’d taken custody of the child.

So we decided to pursue international adoption. When we started out, I remember saying, “Well, the road might be long, but in the end we’ll be parents.” I’d never known anyone who adopted internationally have an adoption (or even a referral) fall through. Until us. One trip to meet a child with significant special needs who we decided to pass on, one disrupted referral, one referral that never became official, two trips to register a child only to have that adoption fall through ten days before our court trip. We made a total of five trips before we brought home our daughter. Although our story was “a first” for our adoption agency I have now heard a number of stories (all involving different agencies and countries) where adoptions were disrupted, or where the prospective adoptive parents had to travel multiple times before finalizing an adoption and bringing a child home. Which brings me to…

“Scope creep”: Whenever you tackle a home improvement project, everyone warns you it will cost more and take longer than you expect. The same is true for international adoption. Granted, our adoption took MUCH longer than we (or anyone else) expected but, in general, the trend for international adoption is longer wait times and greater expense–in part because you end up needing to renew many of your documents, and your dossier, as you wait–sometimes for more than five years–just to receive a referral.

Creating, and renewing, a dossier costs a lot of money. Our dossier was made up of two dozen documents. Each document needed to be notarized and then apostilled by our secretary of state, to the tune of $25 per document. You can read more about the “ABCs” of apostilles (for any state) here. There were fees to a social worker for our home study, fees to our adoption agency, fees to obtain police and FBI clearance, acquire “vital records” (birth certificate, marriage certificate among others. And there were also fees to apply for permission from our government to adopt.

Any time I hear someone say (to a woman struggling with infertility) “Well…you can always just adopt,” I cringe. There is no such thing as “just adopting.”

Attachment might be difficult: I can’t tell you how many people, including our social worker, told us “Your baby will be less than one-year-old when she comes home. Attachment will go smoothly.” But it didn’t.

My first clue something was amiss was when my daughter took the hand of a complete stranger at a park…and walked off. Then she started climbing into the laps of other adults while rejecting us, me in particular. We started to become concerned, in part because her behaviors indicated she was having a difficult time attaching to us, and also because we worried for her safety.

We also made a big mistake in our first weeks together as a family. Our daughter toured around strapped mostly to my husband, a mistake we made because we’d heard adopted kids more frequently reject their father. So we figured we’d offer her more closeness to Dada up front. And it backfired. Because then she had trouble attaching to me (and had a very anxious attachment to him).

We made some other mistakes too. For our first day home, weeks, maybe even months, we should have been the only adults to touch or hold our daughter. Even close family members should have been held at bay until our daughter really caught on to the idea that we were her primary caregivers. We were the ones, the only ones who she should come to for affection. But we have wonderful, supportive, loving family members who we asked to help us out. And boy did we need help, especially that first night home after being up for 36 hours straight, on planes for 16 of those hours, with a 12 hour time difference…and we were sick. In retrospect, we now think we probably should have “manned up,” with a lot of Tylenol and good coffee, and flown solo as parents for awhile, difficult as it would have been.

So how have we worked through all of this? We sought the support of an amazing attachment therapist. I now know our daughter’s struggles with attachment are not atypical for an adopted child, even one adopted as young as our daughter. I also understand that because she had eight nannies who cared for her on rotating shifts, her needs were not immediately met. In her mind, the “moms” could not be trusted to be there when she needed them. Whichever nanny was watching her was certain to leave and be replaced by another. So rejecting the “one you’re with” but charming the one who might be your “mom” next was her way to protect against rejection and assure her someone new was lined up.

And, having sought out medical and psychological professionals, we now also know our daughter has ADHD, which probably explains some of her challenges with snuggling and being held. She simply could not stop moving. The kinds of comfort we wanted to offer, were uncomfortable for her.

In the two years we’ve spent in therapy, our daughter’s attachment to us has strengthened significantly. She knows more about how to be a “family girl,” and is less likely to be inappropriately affectionate with people outside our immediate family and a few trusted caregivers. As a mom, I still worry about the risks she might take as she grows up, but I am more confident we have the tools now to help her make safe choices.

Attachment might be a difficult–for us: Wow. This one really threw me. I’d longed to be a mom and have a child. My husband and I spent years in what turned out to be one of the most difficult journeys to adoptive parenthood I’ve heard of. Here I was with a child. A really cute, smart and charming child. Everyone who met our daughter adored her. How could I not be totally gaga in love with this child–my child? What was wrong with me? I felt so much fear and guilt and anger at myself. Sure, I’d taken the pre-adoption courses, read books and blogs about how attachment is a two-way street yet I never, ever–even for a brief moment–imagined this might happen to me. But it did.

Once again, thank goodness for a good therapist–mine. And a few adoptive mom friends who got it…and maybe had even been there themselves. And my husband–man, what would I do without him? We don’t always see eye to eye, but we are a good team, “a force to be reckoned with” he’s said on more than one occasion. He stood by me when the going was tough. He still does when it is. And sometimes it is.

I admit I am envious of the moms and dads who fell instantly and deeply in love with their child. But now I know it doesn’t happen this way for everyone. Every relationship has its own timeline. So if you find yourself in this boat, know you are not alone. You aren’t the first and won’t be the last mom who’s ever felt this way. Try not to retreat or berate yourself. Reach out for help, because it’s out there. You will get by…with a little help from your friends.

Our child might be different–possibly very different–from us: I am not talking about racial or cultural differences here (though, for many families, these are weighty issues), but personality. Ironically, our daughter looks a LOT like us, me in particular. But our personalities couldn’t be any more different. Both my husband and I are somewhat introverted and quiet. We like solitary pursuits: photography, gardening, astronomy. Our daughter? She is the life of the party! Loud, extremely extroverted, dramatic. She likes–needs–to be around people. She is very active, hyperactive even.

I’m not of the mindset that families need to look and be alike, but I freely admit the differences between us can be a source of frustration and stress. Our differences make it challenging to be the kind of parent I want to be, that I hoped to be. I’ve had to rethink a lot of the things I expected I might do with our daughter, because it’s just not her gig.

Some people will not like us because we adopted internationally: I knew I’d run into well-intentioned–but clueless–people who would ask intrusive questions: Do you know who her real parents are? How much did you pay for her? I expected I’d even occasionally run into uninformed people who might say hurtful things: Why didn’t you adopt from your own country? Aren’t you too old to be the mother of an infant? But what I did not expect were the people who were completely opposed to our adoption, sometimes vehemently so. On my blog, I’ve received my fair share of hate mail. People who say I have no business adopting, or adopting from the country we adopted from, or that I am a despicable person for taking my child from the country of her birth. That if we had left her there, she would have been adopted by someone in her country or taken in by family members. And, if not, that she would have been better off left in the orphanage.

There really won’t be much information about our child’s social and medical history: Much of the time families who adopt internationally receive no information whatsoever about the biological family of the child they are adopting. In some countries, adoptive parents might be told the birth parents names and a few details about why they were unable to care for their child. And there are some countries where prospective parents will meet their child’s biological family. Rarely (though I do know of one country where this is the case) are international adoptions “open” to the extent they are if you adopt domestically (at least in the U.S.).

I think we expected there would be more information. That somehow the medical personnel at the hospital would keep better records. That somehow the staff at the orphanage would divine a fuller picture of the birth family or the circumstances that led to our daughter being placed in a orphanage. That we would receive monthly updates on our child’s progress: her weight, height, head circumference, photos. No one told us that any of this would happen, but we were more hopeful than we probably should have been.

We even conducted a birth family search (a couple years after our daughter came home), with the hope we could find out more about her birth family and potentially develop a relationship with them. In our daughter’s case, her birth mother was not interested in ongoing communication, and although she shared some photographs with us, we found out very little about our daughter’s biological family social and medical history.

Still, I am more fortunate than many parents who adopt internationally. I know the birth mother’s name and how old she was when our daughter was born. I know how many weeks her birth mother was pregnant, a few details about the delivery and that our daughter spent the first three weeks of her life in the hospital. But that’s all I know. When I fill out medical history forms, I can’t answer many of the questions. Did the birth mother smoke, or drink, during pregnancy? Is there history mental illness in her birth family? Did any family members die from hereditary diseases? I do have one piece of medical information that will be important for my daughter to know when she gets older and for that I am grateful.

Adoption is loss: People might say our daughter is “better off” but the truth is, we got to parent this little girl because someone else couldn’t. I know the reasons behind why our daughter’s birth mother was unable to care for her. I know why she wasn’t taken in by her extended family. But I also know they must grieve this loss. I grieve their loss. As much as I wanted to be a mom and international adoption was the route I took, I truly wish there weren’t so many children without homes and families–all over the world.

My daughter will grieve this loss too. She is too young to fully understand the circumstances that resulted in her being placed in an orphanage and then brought half-way around the world to live in our home. As she grows up, I’m certain she will feel many emotions about being adopted. Some of those emotions–I hope–will be happy. That her birth mother chose to complete her pregnancy and place her in an orphanage in the hopes a family might adopt her. That she now has two parents and many extended family members who think she is the bees knees. But I also know she might feel anger and sadness. And those feelings are okay too.

Adoption is a loss for adoptive parents too. People tend to make a big deal about how our adoption was “meant to be,” that kids find the family they were meant to be in and adoptive parents find the child they were meant to parent. But my husband and I are the “last in our line.” When we are gone, there will be no more us–no more of our genetics being carried down through generations. It’s hard not to feel sad about that, to wonder what might have been had we been able to conceive and give birth to a child.

International adoption is a crazy train: If someone had told us how crazy, how insanely crazy adoption would be, I wouldn’t have believed them. That’s the thing about expectations. By definition expectations are “a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future.” I expected our adoption would go fairly smoothly, even if the process took a long time. I expected our bonding as a family would be a walk in the park. Those expectations weren’t very realistic. I know that now and I knew that when we started, but somehow I convinced my brain otherwise.

Adoption builds families: For all its imperfectness, loss, struggle, challenges adoption builds families. Children are raised in a home with a family who is able to care for them and meet their needs. I’ve seen many articles written about this topic where the author ends by saying if given they option, they would do it all over again. Whoo-boy, that’s a tough one because I sure wouldn’t want to relive those crazy train years. Our adoption experience was one that–quite honestly–I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It was long. It was hard. It was expensive. It was emotionally, psychologically and spiritually draining.

But I’ll be darned if what I said at the very beginning isn’t how turned out–for us anyway. In the end, we did become parents and one little girl found her forever home. The path was not straight but there was a path. And love may not have been instantaneous but love grows.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth