Home... now what?

What great and surreal joy we have to be in our own home with sweet Kira May. Kira fell asleep in my arms about two minutes before we landed in Minneapolis last night. The travel and interrupted sleep finally caught up with her and even the landing, deplaning and being presented to waiting family at the airport didn’t rouse her - neither did her first ride strapped in a car seat, entering our home or putting on pajamas. A good 13 hours of sleep later, she woke up somewhat confused, but content as soon as she knew Dave and I were both present and accounted for.

Our days for the next weeks and months will be dedicated to bonding and establishing a strong attachment with Kira. In this time at home, it is very important for us to take time to “cocoon” and let Kira get used to us and establish routines and practices that let her know she can rely on us. While we are eager for everyone to meet her, we know that our job for the next weeks and months is to establish trust with Dave and I and Kira. This means that we will have extremely limited outings and no visitors for a while. We will reach out when we can see that Kira feels secure in her new environment and can begin to be introduced to others. She has not even seen every room in our house yet. :)

This will be hard for us, too, as we wish we could share her darling scrunchy smile and silly run with everyone, but we are thankful for the advice, counsel and instruction of adoption professionals and other adoptive families about the importance of cocooning at this stage. It won’t be permanent! And we will all be better for it if we dedicate the time and effort to bonding and attaching now.

We are halfway through our first day together and the everyday-ness of life feels so special right now. Thank you for all your love, support, and prayer, friends! We know that it is not in our own strength and volition that the Lord has filled our arms in this amazing way. The Lord has done GREAT things for us and we are FILLED with joy!!

For those interested, here is a great article on why cocooning is so critical: Link to article