She’s Attached.

A two word sentence so small. So seemingly meaningless…unless you know our story. It was a powerful sentence, one that brought me to tears last Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. But let me back up a couple weeks before we arrive at this momentous little sentence.

The post before this one talked about a huge step Yaya had made in my opinion with attaching to our family. A couple days later something bigger happened. Yaya has a picture that she loves of herself when she was about 9 months old. We have it in a frame and it is cropped so that you just see her sweet face. It looks like this:

She was playing with this picture and she tapped the neck of the woman holding her and said, “Mama!” She looked at me bright eyed and smiled like she was saying, “There you are Mama holding me!” I quickly corrected her and said, “No baby, that isn’t Mama that is your old Nanny from China.” Which of course she had no idea what I was talking about. I quickly grabbed my computer knowing somehow that this was a big thing about to happen. I pulled up the original picture…

I told Yaya that this was one of her Nannies that took care of her until Mama and Daddy could come get her from China and bring her home. Yaya looked at the photo introspectively and then looked from me to the nanny and pointed at the nanny and signed/said, “Friend?” I thought I would fall off the couch! I exclaimed, “Yes, baby that was a friend!” Then I quickly pulled up a photo of her with a nanny in the second orphanage and she excitedly pointed to that nanny and signed/said , “Friend! Friend! Friend!” I laughed and validated that this nanny was indeed a friend. Then I showed her a Gotcha Day picture of her being handed to me (see center picture of 3 picture story in previous post). Yaya grinned and laughed and pointed to me signing and saying , “Mama! Mama!” So I showed her a couple more pictures of Gotcha Day where she was flailing around and screaming. Yaya pointed to those pictures and started laughing…then she signed, “Angry.” She signed that she looked silly in the photos…which she does if you don’t know how angry she was. But Yaya thought she looked funny behaving so angry.

Friends. Those of you who have followed our story…can I tell you how huge this moment was?! Yaya finally put me in the category of , “Mama”,  and it meant something more than nannies who she designated as only friends.  She didn’t call them Mama’s or me a friend. We clearly had distinct roles and mine was finally more than just a caretaker/friend!!!!! Praise the Lord! Finally!

I had scheduled an attachment therapy session for right before Yaya’s palate surgery. We are done with attachment therapy but we wanted to give her a little boost before surgery. We had our session and the therapist was very impressed with all Yaya’s progress, both emotionally and physically. At the end of a GREAT session I asked the therapist how she felt about what is going on with Yaya and I. I was concerned because we have seen a lot of old anxious behavior return since Eden has been sick (post on that later). I had to hold Eden for like 6 days for hours on end because she was so sick and Yaya clearly didn’t like that much. In those few days she stopped letting me put her to bed and began the crazy behavior we often see with Eric like she is having her arms ripped off if Eric puts her down. The therapist said, “I feel GREAT about what I see. She’s attached… blah blah blah blah” I write the blahs down only to indicate that I have no idea what she said after “she’s attached.” My heart stopped and all sound died down around me and I could hear those words “she’s attached,” echoing over and over in my head. Glory Hallelujah! How long have we worked, my sweet Yaya and I to build a bond that isn’t there that is normally given as a gift at birth to mother and child! How long have we labored and screamed and cried and kicked and struggled to mean something to each other more than “friends”?! For us it was almost 9 months. And in actuality I consider myself lucky. It can take some children years and years to attach and sometimes they never do. We are the lucky ones indeed. What we are seeing in her behavior is termed “regression.” Well clearly. And it is expected in all adopted children. But the main point is that she has formed and attachment to me! Now there are levels of secure attachment and we pray that each day we grow deeper and deeper and that her anxious attachment to Eric morphs into a secure attachment. We know it is coming and we are praising our Lord for it. All the glory to Him who deals in the supernatural. We do the natural…he does the super.

While I’m thinking of it. We are making strides in her gross motor skills! She learned how to jump with both feet of the ground and run two weeks ago! She can navigate small steps by herself (even though I am hovering around her) and that means that she has moved almost into the 24 month range for gross motor! You go girl! At the end of December 2012 they had her at 15-18 months gross motor. After two months of physical therapy (PT) she has gained much! And did I mention she is IN LOVE with her PT therapist. Yaya has even given her a name sign she likes her so much!  We have just begun occupational therapy (OT) for her “oral defensiveness”. Yep that’s a real term. It is why we can’t get her to eat solid food. We have begun by using what is called the Wilbarger protocol. It boils down to this: We brush her all over her body with a soft surgical brush every 90 minutes to two hours and then do joint compressions, while she is awake. It takes about 5 minutes…when she is willing. Which, she is getting more resistant than compliant. But it is supposed to help desensitize her and begin to rewire how she interprets outside stimulus. It somehow will help us get her to eat.

We also had her evaluated for speech. Now obviously she can’t articulate yet but we wanted her to meet her speech therapist before we had to go to her for regular therapy. We got back our evaluation and I was thrilled to see that she was evaluated as a child with no language delay. YAY! Meaning, she understands what people tell her and through sign language can communicate back easily. She was assessed at the 30-33 month range for comprehension and expression (p.s. that is older than she really is…yaya is brilliant!)

So that is the big clinical update on Yaya. Next I will be doing the surgery day report! Stay tuned and keep praying!