Many of you know that we adopted a child from Haiti who came home March '98. He unfortunately is at a home for troubled youth. He is doing well but is going to stay there where he is safe and in a restricted environment until he ages out.
He gets to come home three days each Christmas although this year and last year we were able to get him for two extra days.
We adopted him when adoption were taking only six months. It actually unfortunately took us 17 months to get our paperwork together though because we lived in England at the time and papers had to be sent to Chicago and back several times before going to Haiti. I always wonder if it would have made a difference if we could have had our paperwork ready much faster. Maybe if he'd come home at almost four instead of almost 5 he would have attached better. I don't know. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered.
The thing is, when we picked our twins, they were only 20 months old. We picked them that young hoping that "babies" could bond better. Funny thing is, they are past 4 1/2 now and nowhere near ready to come home so they will probably come home older than Jeff did. However, they do have an attachment to their caregiver and to each other so maybe they will attach to us okay. Also, we are smarter about attachment issues and better at separating the behavior from the child than we were then.
I play the "what if" game concerning Jeff wayyyyy too often. I doubt I'm the only one who does that. Maybe if I'd hugged him more and punished him less... Maybe if he'd been younger... Maybe if ... etc etc.
Well, I'm rambling and all I was really going to do was post pictures of our first Haitian child.
