I started writing about meeting Amanda, who was two years old when she came home to us from South Korea, in my last post.


The things I had really worried about, such as her being inconsolable or her pitching a huge fit about the car seat or her and Maggie fighting over me, etc. never happened. In fact we went from the airport to a restaurant (we were three hours from home and needed to feed everyone) and as she sat in the high chair and played and ate, it was as if she had always been with us. The waitress asked how long we had had the girls for, and it sounded nuts to say that we had had Maggie for 15 months and Amanda for two hours!

But while none of my biggest fears came to be, we did have some unexpected bumps, too. She was petrified of Josh for a good two weeks and only wanted me, which was very tiring for me and very sad for Josh, who really wanted another Daddy's girl. It was really tough when he would try to talk to her or (heaven forbid) touch her and she would shrink away and cry. Luckily it did not take her too long to decide that dads seemed to be a whole lot of fun.

Overall, things went much better than we expected, and yet it was all very emotional. We worried about her on the trip, and we worried about her adjustment and all that she was going through. I got tired and frustrated at times with her extreme clingy-ness in the early days and Josh was really sad that she would not let him touch her. She also was a very picky eater (only wanted rice) for quite a while, and sleeping was tough because she could only fall asleep if I was right there, but she would not sleep in our bed because she was so afraid of Josh.

After the first few weeks Amanda really settled in, and realized how great it was to have a Daddy. She laughs now and doesn't believe us when we tell her she was afraid of him when she first came. She started to try new foods and she got less scared of new people and less anxious about me gradually over the first few months. It probably took a good nine months or so though for her to really feel securely attached. It seemed like forever that anytime Josh backed the car out of the garage for me with the kids in it, she would cry in fear that they were going to take off without me.

Amanda also had a lot of health concerns. She came home from Korea with a laundry list of diagnosed "special needs", and there was quite a bit of stress surrounding getting her to a list of doctors to get several different issues checked out (which involved lots of testing of multiple varieties).

I am happy to say though that her health has been excellent. She has not needed any of the surgeries we were told she would. She does not have any of the permanent delays we were told she did. Her adjustment and attachment went really well, and I was grateful to be prepared for some of the issues we did face. Now, she is a wonderful, smart, affectionate, securely-attached little girl, who adores her mom and her dad, almost as much as she adores her Maggie.

Amanda's adoption was very different from Maggie's, however the roller coaster of emotions was definitely still there. We had different worries, different stresses and different joys, but at the end of the process we were once again blessed with a beautiful daughter.