thank you so much for all your sweet and very encouraging comments on my last post. i am always blessed and humbled by your care and support. big hugs to you all! :)
and, phew! i feel lots better and more normal after reading that lots of you also worried about motherhood. i don't know if the fact that our road to parenthood has been so long has helped or hurt us as we prepare to really enter this next season of life as parents...but ready or not, here we come! (soon, i hope!)
okay, so i have a confession to make. perhaps one of the reasons i'm so worried is because of this...
confession: i *love* reading and have read a dozen or so books this summer -- a good mix of books for tutoring, books for pleasure, books for professional development, and books for bible study. but, none, zilch, zero, zippo have been about adoption or parenting.
i accept all your gasping and finger pointing.
i don't know what it is, but i just haven't wanted to read anything...i checked out several books from the library, skimmed through them, and tried to read in earnest, but just couldn't get into it.
maybe i wasn't nesting yet? maybe the thought of it freaked me out because it made the reality of becoming parents more real?
i don't know.
but, i'm ready now. really. i promise i'll do my homework. jinjjah! (that's korean for "really," and peter and i use it all the time when we REALLY mean "really.")
so, here's where i need your help. what *one* book/article/website would you recommend that's been the most helpful to you as you prepared for your little one?
any and all suggestions are welcome!
p.s. i know, i'm such a nut. now, that school's starting in three days and my whole entire free summer is gone, i ask for reading suggestions. go figure!
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Hello Choi Mama! Thanks for stopping my my bog!
ReplyDeleteI don't judge you at all, for not reading about adoption. I am sure that it s pretty much on your mind 24/7, so the last thing you probably feel like doing is cracking open an adoption book when you are trying to relax. I am sure that you follow some adoption blogs already, but I have a few favorites. I will send you the links if you are interested. Let me know. I find that the adoptive parents who write about attachment issues and their own issues with bonding and adjusting are brave and they keep it real. I have two favorites. Why don't I just send you the links right now? M'kay?
A Bushel and a Peck: This family has adopted from Ethiopia and China. The mama writes from her heart and she is talented and REAL. They had major attachment issues with baby girl, but they all pulled through and are doing fabulous! Here is the link:
http://keirajoy07.blogspot.com/
Somewhere Beautiful: This family adopted from China. Their sweet girl had a terrible time when she came home. She was scared, and tramatized but she is now, with lots of love, their perfect little girl. I love how the mama writes with such honesty and she is such an advocate for her girl.
http://somewhere-beautiful.blogspot.com/2010/08/backtracking-to-july-4th.html
There are my 2 cents. Let me know what you think.
I’d suggest “Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child.” This is actually the only hard-core, hands on adoption parenting book I’ve read, and I wish I read it before placement. To be honest, I was feeling really sorry for myself a few weeks ago – having raised a biological child I was mourning the fact that there are so fewer resources out there for helping internationally adoptive families get to normalcy than there are for bio families/kids placed at birth. This book is the closest thing I’ve found to a roadmap. Some parts of it were really hard to read, and others I’m taking with a grain of salt (some of the exercises seem rather silly). Also, it may be somewhat slanted to older children raised in orphanages, but does include the experience of Korean fostered babies too. But the biggest thing this book does (I still haven’t finished) is to remind me again what a huge trauma it is for a baby to be placed with a family overseas, and that can take months and months to see improvement on. It help reset my expectations. I hope this isn’t too discouraging, and I can say that at about the 3 mo mark we did see huge changes in behavior and personality start to come through, which is so wonderful. The book is about 400 pages long – a good read for the plane even, just something to start you thinking on this stuff.
ReplyDeleteI don’t blame you for not reading. I really held off on buying a lot of baby clothes, choosing a name, etc because somewhere deep down I was still trying to guard myself from being completely crushed if the adoption fell through. Plus, I was never a parenting book type gal – our first was a fairly easy kid and honestly I wanted to spend my free time doing something besides parenting!
Excellent website on attachment...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.a4everfamily.org/
I didn't read adoption books before my first child came home. Maybe I should have, but I was more focused on what to feed my baby, and what was developmentally appropriate, and things like that. So I was reading "What to Expect in the First Year."
ReplyDeleteBut I have just finished reading "Twenty things every adopted child wishes their adoptive parents knew." And I found this helpful. Overwhelming at times, but helpful too. I don't know if I was ready to read it when I first became a mom, but I'm glad now that I have read it.
I second "Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child" by Patty Cogan. And you should read one normal parenting book. I read at least 20 adoption/attachment books but when Ben came home I had no idea what to do with a baby!
ReplyDeleteYou know, I cannot recall a single thing I read before Spencer came home?! I'm sure I must have read something though, right?! Hmmm... maybe not?? Do fiction books on adoption count?! Oh wait! I read "A love like no other" and "I wish for you a beautiful life" I read parts of some of the adoption parenting books, but more-so after we came home... when I needed specific guidance. And I love the site grace linked to above.
ReplyDelete