Dear family and friends....

We found this wonderful letter on several sites and wanted to share it with you all.  It very clearly explains our needs as a family unit to those around us.  It's a great tool!  We've personalized it to our specific needs and we'd appreciate it if everyone would take the time to read it.  We're NOT trying to be harsh or keep anyone away -- we simply need this time as a family to help Esther adjust to us and us to her. Hopefully this letter helps you understand the unique needs Esther will have in her first days home. Thank you all in advance for your prayers and support through all of this and as we bring her home! 

Dear Family & Friends,

After over two years of waiting, Esther is finally coming home! We know that each of you receiving this letter has, in some way, supported, loved and prayed for us. Because we know your care for our family, we want to share with you some information that we hope will best equip everyone around Esther to assist us in laying the strongest and healthiest foundation - emotionally, physically and spiritually.

 Very soon, we’ll be starting the process of becoming a new and bigger family.  This is an exciting and scary time for all of us, especially for Esther.  In her short life, our daughter has gone through more changes and life altering experiences than most adults could handle. She's already experienced the loss of a birth family and will soon experience the loss of familiar and comforting caretakers as well as the sights, smells, and language of her birth country. Her world will turn upside down.  She will be disoriented and confused.  She will struggle with feeling safe and secure and lack the ability to trust that we will meet her needs. 

In many ways, Esther will be like the children who entered our family through birth. But there will be a few, initial differences. For years now, we have researched and taken courses dealing with bonding and attachment in children, especially those coming home through adoption from an institutional orphanage setting.

We are confident of this: God's design is PERFECT! His plan for parents and children is a beautiful and meaningful picture of His love for us. Attachment between a parent and child occurs over time when a baby has a physical or emotional need and communicates that need. The primary caretaker (usually mommy) meets the need and soothes the child. This repeats between a parent and child over and over to create trust within the child for that parent; the baby is hungry, cries in distress, mom nurses & calms the baby - which teaches him that this person is safe and can be trusted. By God's very design, an emotional foundation is laid in the tiniest of babies, which will affect their learning, conscience, growth and future relationships. The security provided by parents will, ultimately, give children a trust for and empathy towards others.

Children who come home through adoption have experienced interruptions in this typical attachment process. The loss of a biological mother at an early age can be a major trauma on their little hearts. As Esther's parents and forever family we get to rebuild attachment and help her heal from these emotional wounds. When she comes home, she will be overwhelmed. Everything around her will be new and she will need to learn not just about her new environment, but also about love and family. She has not experienced God's design for a family in an orphanage setting. The best way for us to form a parent/child bond is to be the ones to hold, snuggle, instruct, soothe and feed her. As this repeats between us, she will be able to learn that parents are safe to trust and to love deeply. We are, essentially, recreating the newborn/parent connection. Once she starts to establish this important bond, she will then be able to branch out to other, healthy relationships.

Esther will have what may seem like a lot of structure, boundaries and close proximity to us. Please know that these decisions are prayerfully and thoughtfully made choices based on immense amounts of research and instruction from trusted sources. We will be doing what we believe is best to help her heal from those interruptions in attachment as effectively as possible. Why are we telling you all of this? Because you will actually play an awesome and vital role in helping Esther settle in, heal, and lay a foundation for the future. There are a few areas in which you can help us:

The first is to set physical boundaries. It will help us immensely if adults limit what is typically considered normal, physical contact with Esther. This will (for a while) include things like holding, excessive hugging and kissing. Children from orphanage settings are prone to attach too easily to anyone and everyone - which hinders the important, primary relationship with parents. Waving, blowing kisses, a brief hug or kiss on the cheek while she's in our arms, high fives, a pat on the back or head, etc are perfectly appropriate and welcomed! Esther should know that the people with whom she interacts are our trusted friends.

Another area is redirecting Esther's desire to have her physical and emotional needs met by anyone (including strangers) to having us meet them. Orphans often have so many caretakers that they, as a survival mechanism, become overly charming toward all adults. A child struggling to learn to attach may exhibit indiscriminate affection with people outside of their family unit. It may appear harmless and as if they are "very friendly" but this is actually quite dangerous for the child. To share this is difficult for us because we have snuggled, cared for, fed and loved so many of your children. Please understand that we want nothing more than to have Esther hugged, cuddled and cherished by ALL of you. But until she has a firm understanding of family and primary attachments, we would be grateful if you direct her to us if you see that she is seeking out food, affection or comfort.  

Lastly, for this initial homecoming period, we would ask that disruptions be limited and that we be allowed to choose what our family can handle.  Adopting a toddler is very different from bringing a newborn home from the hospital, but there are some similarities: You want everyone to come to the (hospital) airport/homecoming (we should be home around noon on Sunday the 14th) to see your new child. That is the same. You want the house quiet, calm, low stimulus so the mother and child can rest and bond. That is the same. You want to limit visitors for the first several weeks. That is the same.  We would LOVE for you to come and meet Esther.  We simply ask that before you do so, you call ahead.  Esther will be very fragile in many ways when she comes home, much like a newborn.  So many of you have prayed and loved her from half a world away and we are so excited to have you finally meet her!  She will be incredibly overwhelmed during the first few weeks (or even months) at home and needs to meet people slowly and learn that this is her forever home and family.  Give us a call and let us know when you'll be by so we can plan to have visits be manageable for her well-being.

We are incredibly blessed to have so many loved ones around us. We couldn't ask for a better extended family & circle of friends for our family. Thank you so much for your love and support over the past two years. If you have any questions please feel free to ask at any time! May God bless you as you have blessed us through this journey! Bryan, Jessica and boys