[JillnChris]

YES! Yes I am sad that I didn't get to spend every minute with Eva from birth to 8 months. I think because she is almost 2 years old and NOT a baby anymore I am really mourning the "baby time" that I didn't get to have with her. I find myself just wantint to hold her and rock her the way I used to. I think this is very normal.
My instincts tell me that it would be a good thing to talk about this with her when she is older. That way if she has any feelings about it she will feel comfortable talking about them with me.
I am interested to read the replies here.

[2forus]

I definitely wish that I had been able to be a part all of my kids life from day one like I was with my bio. You do miss out on some things because you are an adoptive parent, but in a way I almost think that it makes you cherish every minute that much more. Even at two I tell my two adoptive kids that I was sad when I had to leave them after I visited them and I was sad that I didn't get to spend their first Christmas with them. I think the more open and honest we are the more they will respond to it. JMO

[bethy724]

You can still rock your baby at 2 years old!!! Heck I find myself rocking my 4 year old in church (guess I look like a freak) I tell my son he is not a baby but will always be MY baby even when he is taller than me & can't stand me.

[brink]

I didn't feel that way with our first, domestic adoption. Though at twelve days old, she felt much more like a little "stranger" than the typical getting to know your bio newborn in those first days. The love is there, but the "knowing" takes a little more time. I didn't miss going through labor again, but rather was in just as much awe that we could be given another mother's child to love and call our own as I was at seeing our bios in those first moments of life. I did try to nurse her with a suplimental system, which wasn't very successful nutritionally. I was glad I tried, and realize now I wasn't given as much info as I could have been told to make that work.

Our boys from Guatemala both came home at four years, after waiting 18mo and 14 mo for their homecomings. Knowing there were much older children at the orphanage, we honestly didn't consider that we were adopting an older child. Sounds naive, but at that point, with three bios and one domestic (ages 15-7 by then), we weren't asking for the baby experience again. Since it was our choice, I just didn't think much about what we had missed, though there was always the curiosity of what they were like as they grew to that point and what their lives were like at the orphanage. We did have a lot of answers through continued contact and photos in their Life Books.

When our last two daughters' adoptions took even longer than the boys' (two years and more for either one), and they came home at 10 1/2yrs and 11yrs, I've been well aware that we missed out on a significant part of their childhood. But once again, we chose them because they were older and needed families, so we knew what we were "sacrificing" in terms of not being more part of their childhoods. I recently looked at their Life Books, and was reminded how much they experienced without us. But again, we have photos of their time in the same orphanage, photos from other APs with kids from the same home, continued contact with the director in Guatemala, and many friends we keep in touch with. I do feel blessed to know as much as we do from those sources, knowing other APs have so much less information about their child's early life. And the great thing about adopting older children who remember their time in Guatemala, after all that we missed, is they can tell you about it, share their feelings about it all. I love that part about adopting older kids. My biggest prayer is that the girls feel as much a part of our family when they leave home in the future, and don't count the years we had with all our other kids, the photos and memories, and feel any less a part of us because their time will have been shorter. I sometimes catch our newest daughter looking over family albums and wonder if she isn't feeling the loss of time with us. Of course, I treasure the earliest photos we have of all four, the boys as very young infants, the girls as young toddlers, their first photos at the time of placement in the orphanage. A friend reminded me to have those out as I do some childhood photos of our other kids. Even though they weren't home yet, it's good for them to see their own photos as young children placed around the house. We talk now and then about how much I would have loved to have them home, hold them, kiss those sweet little faces at that age. We all just recognize that God's plan for them was to spend those years in Guatemala and to come home when they did, even though we don't understand the purpose of them not being with us until they were older. As others have said, they would not be the people they are today, if we had raised them. I value what their caregivers did for them, what they know and remember about their first country, their memories of times spent with friends there. All four were in the same orphanage at one time. How could we have ever known, that as we were leaving with our first, three others behind those doors would be waiting for us to return for them, one day? If I had known, how could I have ever walked away? When we went for our second son, DH met our first Guatemalan daughter, but it was still only my dream to return for a girl. And when we went for her, we both met our last daughter, knowing we were in process for her and were leaving her behind. Thankfully, she wasn't told until her paperwork was further through the process. I treasure that they were once all there together, even if it never means as much to them as it does to me. I have photos that include all of them, and no one but God ever knew that they would all one day be here together again, as brothers and sisters. I marvel at how and why God has blessed us in such a way! Mostly, we're too busy "dealing" to spend much time thinking about our losses. We're working hard and praying we meet our goals with this second wave of kiddos!

edited to add: As I was thinking more about this, maybe what moms sometimes think of mostly as grief, might also be a mother's guilt (though unfounded in our cases). I wonder if as mothers, we don't feel guilty for not being there for our child from their very beginning. Only a mother knows the kind of love that takes the blame for needs we can't meet or hurts we can't stop in our child's life, and the guilt we take on for the mistakes we make along the way. It makes me wonder when Mary, the mother of Jesus "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart", if she kept them to herself because she knew Joseph was never going to understand her mother's heart. But as I fold the 5th load of laundry today, consider the rages we went through occasionally with the girls as they adjusted to having a mom who told them what to do, think of the efforts I go to with the school to make certain the girls receive the services they need, love them at their older ages, in the many ways a mother loves, wanting only the reward of seeing them become their best (OK, a little thank you now and then and a smile would be nice)...maybe I'm doing some things to "make up" for our lost time together. I have less time and had less history to show them the depth of my love for them, but since they are older, we can talk out more deep, emotional issues of their hearts. What a privelege to be on this journey of challenges and blessings.

[Clare'sMom]

Becca you have no idea how much this has been on my mind today!

My daughter will be home in a few weeks (YYYIIIPPPEEE) she is 14, not months... years.
I am in very few of her memories. I don't know the true reason she has a scar on her forhead, I don't know when she took her first step, or what was her first word, or what she did on her first day of school.... I have missed everything...
A very dear friend told me something that made me feel a bit better...
Her First Mother had her past, I have her furture.....
And what a Furture that is going to be!!!
Ann

P.S... She LOVES To Be Rocked :-)

[robandjulie]

Jorge's 2nd birthday is coming up which is one year since we met him. He came home just before his 20 month date. This weekend as he was laughing and being so cute I was vividly reminded of how sweet and little he was at our first meeting (at age 1) and how he had that same smile and twinkle then; and then I thought of the hundreds of days that we didn't get to spend together and I was so sad for that time. I'm forever grateful that he had a wonderful life with his foster family and that we still have frequent (weekly) contact with them so we have a window into that time; but I wish there was a way to have had both.

And, yes, he wouldn't be who he is without that time with them, but he'd still be pretty darn wonderful I suspect. And I can't help thinking maybe he would have learned to eat a single vegetable of any kind... But we're together now and as Clare'sMom said, we have the whole future.

And, yes, we do have a bio DD so I know how precious and wonderful that whole baby stage is and wish we could have experienced that with Jorge or at least had it all on video or something.... I absolutely adored that stage with DD (every beautiful nightmare day) and our nursing relationship until she was 18 mos and I had hoped to nurse Jorge if he'd come home before a year, but he came home at 19 mos which seemed awfully late to start that.

[ERAmy]

I can understand why people do. But no, I dont grieve for the time lost.
Im not a huge fan of the newborn stage. I did it twice obviously with my sons. I dont feel that made me closer to them than I am to Nora.

[Travelkid]

YES! Jamie came home at 7 1/2 months and is my one and only child. I love every milestone with him, however we did get to visit him at 3 months and at 7 months. I greived profusly everytime I left Guatemala after a visit and often wonder about the times I missed.

This being said, I feel VERY fortunate that we brought him home when we did. Our journey was nothing compared to the situation in Guatemala now.

[Mindybeth6]

This was very, very hard for me. Our son was 4 when we were going t hrough Mikayla's adoption, he was actually 3 when we started it and from the moment Mikayla was born until the moment she came home I was constantly thinking about all the milestones and memories I had with Alec that I would never have with Mikayla. As each month went by it became harder and harder and yes, I still think about it and yes, I still grieve for those times. Like you, we live our life happily and I am so busy I don't have time to sit and think of it all! But I will never forget. And I am forever thankful for the visit trip we took when she was 2.5 months old. We took over 1000 pictures and lots of video that somehow helps fill in the gap from birth to her coming home. It was not quite in the middle but sort of. So I am very thankful for those memories, although they were short-lived. BUt yes, milsetones, holidays (1st Christmas and Thanksgiving) will always be missed. She wasn't here! Her brother was for those times in his life. And I worry a lot about how she will feel when she is old enough to realize that her brother is bio and she is not.

[Quesita]

I know that a part of Liana's being is due to the wonderful love that her foster family gave her during the first 13 months of her life. She would be a somewhat different person if she had spent those first 13 months with me. While I do feel a little melancholy about having missed that time, I sometimes enjoy seeing her do little things that are so NOT me.

For example... Liana's foster mom taught me to pat her back (or her belly) to calm her or comfort her. This is not a reflext reaction for me. But at 13 months, Liana would pat MY back when she needed comfort, as a way of letting me know she wanted me to pat her back. Fast forward to the present... Liana pats my back to comfort me!!! And sometimes, she pats other people's backs too! There is a part of her foster family that lives on in her... forever....

[KarynB]

Great topic! We have a bio DD, adopted our middle son (T) at age 3 and our youngest (K) came home at 4.5 months. And I absolutely hear what you are saying! The crazy thing is that before our youngest came home, our middle guy rarely asked any adoption related questions. Once his brother came home, he wanted to know all these details about himself that we were now celebrating with his brother - first solids, first tooth etc. I was really sad sometimes that I just didn't have that info/knowledge of his early years, and it killed me to keep saying "I don't know". I was reminded of how much we missed, and what a monumental effect that has had on the rest of his life.

Over the holidays he told his cousin (also adopted, also 9 yrs) that he couldn't love his birthmother and that she wasn't part of the family because she abandoned him. Ok, well - clearly more work needs to be done! So we had a HUGE conversation (I followed his lead) about why birth mothers (particularily in the developing world) need to make those tough choices, and how it is ok to be sad sometimes about it. And, how it's ok to love both of us - we all have enough room in our hearts to love an infinite amount of people. Anyways...I have lots more to say, but need to turn off the computer (-:

[TerriBB]

Originally Posted by Mindybeth6

Our son was 4 when we were going t hrough Mikayla's adoption, he was actually 3 when we started it and from the moment Mikayla was born until the moment she came home I was constantly thinking about all the milestones and memories I had with Alec that I would never have with Mikayla. As each month went by it became harder and harder and yes, I still think about it and yes, I still grieve for those times.

Mindy, we were almost the same story. I remember the first Christmas, when Flora was only 2 months old...how my arms ached during mass, wanting her home. All of the families who had little ones Flora's age would give me "babytime" each Sunday! Fastforward....now I've got all of those 3 year olds in my pre-k religion class and they are all so precious to me!

I couldn't look at AJ's scrapbooks, where I had the noted all of the "firsts". When we were all home, I did copy his book and made all of the "firsts" with us!

It didn't help that Flora NEVER looked happy in any of the monthly dvds or pictures...she was ALWAYS crying.

[asauer]

I have to say, no I don't have that feeling. We don't have bio children and DS and DD came home at 13 mos. so I don't really know what I was missing. Well, I do, but not on the deep level that you are experiencing. I really just think of those 13 months in the grand scheme of things. What's 13 months in comparison with being their mom and enjoying them for the rest of my (hopefully long) life? Doesn't seem like much when put in that kind of context.

[iwantmybaby]

YES! It really bothers me. What I have to just "give over to God" is not really knowing his past. If I think about it too much I could get really upset. I hate not knowing exactly what it was like for him in the foster home. I do have to focus on the here and now, and the things that are yet to come. I get to do his birthday party this year!!! I don't really have any advice, I can just say that I know where you are coming from.
Tracy

[GuatMommy2Be]

Becca,

Absolutely. Madeline came home at 16 mos as you know so there was a lot of time lost. In fact the other night before bed I kept thinking of the visit I had with her at 11 months old and remembering how I left.... it was SO emotional and made me physically ill. I just got done designing our 2008 album and look back on how itty bitty she was and feel sad for that time even though I was with her. I think or hope this is all normal.

Ashley