Thoughts on bonding -Julia

Oh, my goodness, I don't even know where to begin with this one. I fell in love with Julia's referral picture. I just couldn't wait to get her into my arms. She was 24 months old when we first met her.

Here's a copy of the referral picture. For six weeks while we waited to travel, I would sit and gaze at it, and let me tell you I loved her completely before we ever met her.

Love and bonding are not the same thing in my opinion. I say this because I loved each of my children before I ever met them, both birth and adopted.

My first glimpse of Julia was at the Jinfeng Hotel. Gary and I were haunting the hallway by the elevator because we had been told to wait in our rooms for the babies to arrive. I was so anxious. The day I had dreamed of and anticipated for well over a year was finally here. I was going to meet my precious little girl I had paced the floor of our room and applied my makeup several times and just couldn't sit still any longer. So now we paced the hallway.

The elevator stopped, and four aunties stepped off with four precious little 2 yr old babies. They were all beautiful. They were very very small for 2 yr olds. I felt shaky and trembly. And my voice was shaky as I rushed up to the aunties and said Julia's Chinese name "Jiang Yong Ju??" They smiled and pointed to my precious baby. Tears came to my eyes and I saw her for the first time. She looked like she had just woke up from a nap, her little cheeks were very rosey. And she was shy, not looking at me but keeping her little eyes down. The aunties all went to our translator's room with the babies, each family would be called in to meet their daughter, one at a time.

I will never forget that first meeting. The auntie placed little Jiang Yong Ju into my arms, and the orphanage director told her to love us and told us to love her. I couldn't help hugging her close and giving her a little squeeze and kiss. She looked like she was going to cry and they told us to take her to our room. We gratefully took our precious little bundle to our room and the bonding process began, even though we didn't know it at the time.

Baby Julia was so shy and sweet. We loved her with all our hearts. She would look shyly up at us through her lowered eyelids. I think she could tell right away how much we loved her. She refused to go to the auntie later when she visited our room. Already she preferred us. She never cried or grieved that I could tell, but looking back I know that she was afraid. The amazing thing was that she trusted us, total strangers to take care of her.

Julia still took a bottle, but she was used to taking it in her crib, not being cuddled and fed. So, we never got the close cuddling and eye contact with her that we got with our birth children.

Still, the bonding happened. When she would awaken each morning and after each nap I would lift her out of her little crib and sit in my rocking chair and rock her. She would lie in my arms and we would gaze into each other's eyes and I would sing to her. I would tell her in both English and Chinese that I love her. I remember one day she reached up her little baby hands and patted my face and said softly "Wo ai ni", which means I love you.

We established a routine, and even though she was 2 yrs old I spoonfed her each morning and cuddled her on my lap. We both loved the close contact. Julia stayed near me all day every day. She played quietly nearby while I worked in the house. She even followed me to the bathroom. If I tried to go to the store and leave her with Gary, she cried. And leaving her with anyone else was impossible, she just didn't stop crying the whole time.

I realized we had bonded about 3 months after we got home with Julia. I took her to meet our extended families for the first time. And during the night she woke up, unable to breathe. I was so scared. She looked at me with terror in her little eyes, and I realized how much I loved her. She was trusting me to take care of her, and I would have done anything to help her. I woke up Gary's mom and we boiled some water and sat her over the steam to breathe it in. I thought she had the croup, it was a few years before I realized these episodes were asthma. As soon as the doctor's office opened that next morning I took her in.

During that first year, Julia learned to speak our language. She began to pick up our mannerisms. There was much openness and between us. We would make be looking directly into each others eyes as we taught her things, and as she told us her little experiences. There was no holding back on either side, we clearly belonged to each other. There way no difference between the way we felt about her and the way we felt about our birth children.

Now for my spiritual analogy. Adoption is a perfect picture of our relationship to God. When we accept Jesus, we are adopted into the family of God. Bonding, or identification, occurs when we are open to or completely honest with God, our father. And when we spend time with Him, letting him teach us His language and His ways. As we spend time with Him, in prayer and reading our Bible, we become more like him, just like our children become more like us as they spend time with us. God must love us exactly the same way we love our precious children. Isn't that an eye-opener?? It was for me.