We are trucking on with mostly good days and a spattering of bad days, we only had to call daddy home from work once. It is hard to know what is causing the bad days, they are both a result and the cause of bad sleep. An over tired baby is a sure recipe for a grieving baby. Although many things about her meltdowns are the same, one big thing is diffrent most of the time she will cling to me when she is sad where as in the begining she was fighting me off. I guess it is like an adult where you move from denial to anger then sadness, I think we are leaving the anger stage with her more and more it seems to be just a deep sorrow. There are still moments where she would rather not be snuggled, but they are becoming less and less. I think we can say that she is offically reached anxious attachment to me as well at this point.

I thought now would be a good time for a little disclaimer. This blog is written with the adoptive parent as the main audience. I guess I don't take the time to explain what these terms are that I use when we describe our families progress, mainly because I assume you all read the same books I did and you know where we are at. In case this is your first fore into the world of international adoption let me just say that in the over all picture when you step out the the moment every single thing we are experiencing is completely normal. I guess along the way I forgot to let the readers know that, and also to let them know that we were prepared for this and we also immediately recognized Elora's journey to us for what it is, grieving, normal 18 month old grieving. When I say we were prepared also we did our very best but one can never really be prepared to see your child in so much pain and the complete feelings of helplessness that come with this type of pain. I will also say that although things we have been through the past few weeks have been hard, they are by no means the hardest thing I have ever done, it does rank in the top ten, but waiting for her was a thousand times harder. If some poor misinformed person told you that adoption was the easy way to have a baby then they were very, very wrong, but I would say that that caring, birthing and rearing a newborn is a similar level of hard although completely different. The frankness you read here is not for sympathy for us or her but simply to pay it forward and tell it how it is for those who are travelling along behind me. I would not have been ready for this with out those in front of me. We love our girl to the moon and back and she is an amazing, brave, joyful girl who we are in love with. Its just that I only get about one half hour a week for this blog and I thought I would focus on the educational stuff for the moms in waiting and not the prose and praise for my adorable family. There are a million other blogs about cute families, and although we are a very cute family, that's just not what this blog is about.