This mama always comes back...

We live in such a broken world. A world where innocent children are impacted by poverty, governmental policies, and mothers who are unable to parent for variety of reasons...children needing more medical care than they could provide, mothers who are hardly able to care from themselves, let alone a baby, and mothers who have literally no supports from family, friends, or the community.
My sweet baby is anxiously attached. When I told a dear friend this recently, she remarked that she was told by a international adoption specialist that this is impossible until the child has been in the family for the same length of time that she was in a orphanage. I know this is not correct. I have lived this before. Yao Yao is my second child to display these symptoms, and I have two others escaped them. I have lived the velcro baby, who could not eat, sleep, or play without me. I have watched the velcro baby grow and become attached much more securely. So, I have walked this path before and am wiser for it.
Hannah Yaoyao's sleep continues to be a struggle. It is more than just a 2 year old struggling to fall asleep. Sleep comes so slowly to her, despite our painstaking routine which is followed every night. Once asleep, she will not sleep deeply. Instead, she wakes slightly to feel that I am still next to her. If I am not, it is a sheer panic that overcomes her. She bolts up, crying the most visceral, heartbreaking cry, saying "mama, mama" over and over. She thinks and feels that I am gone...
Every single day, she repeats to herself "mama always come back yao yao". Every.Single.Day. Sometimes she says this so many times a day that I lose count. In saying this, she has shared with me her fear. Her fear that I will not come back. That I will be gone. She has lived this before, perhaps falling asleep and waking up to find her birthmother gone. So she tries to reassure herself that this time will be different. She is trying to trust that I will be different. That I will ALWAYS come back for her. My guess is she will continue to tell herself this until she actually feels that it is true. There is a difference between thinking it and actually feeling it. She doesn't feel it yet. Until she does, I will do my best to help her to live a life where this mama always comes back.