Psychologist Visit & Bienestar Meeting

Last week the psychologist that works at FANA, and has worked with Julieth since she was a baby, came to visit us at El Refugio, her name is Jenny. Jenny was the person that would be with Julieth when we Skyped with her too, so we knew of her already. Jenny was also the person that helped get Julieth all pretty for her presentation to us and she led (or actually Julieth led her) down the hall to meet us, so Jenny knows Julieth quite well. We were so impressed by her last week and during Julieth's presentation. Backtrack just a bit, when I went for Z in Kazakhstan, one of the major things that I liked about that program was that I was able to slowly bond with her. I visited her for 2 hours each morning and 2 hours each afternoon in her orphanage, we did this for 1.5 months. When I was able to take custody of her, she had some knowledge then of me and somewhat trusted me. She would look forward to my visits each day. This is something that is different in the Colombian adoption program, when you travel here, you meet your child right away, sometimes within hours of landing, and you take custody of your child. In speaking to attachment & stranger danger, I fretted this process. So, back to our presentation day. When they brought Julieth in, Jenny helped her transition from clenching to Jenny's hands, to interacting with us to slowly leaving the room. We noticed this all. So, last week when Jenny visited us, we spoke with her about this, and she was so spot on! She talked about attachment, bonding, a child's brain, child development, instutional living, stranger danger, failure to thrive, transitional object from the orphanage to the child's new home (which they sent Julieth to us with her favorite Baby Doll from the Orphanage / FANA because of this very reason!) After talking with Jenny, we felt even better about the care at FANA. Jenny knows of Julieth and her history. She has worked with her on many levels, one of the ways was through music, so Julieth lights up now when she hears music and likes to boogie. :) Love that! The best part of all, when J saw Jenny, and throughout our entire interview with her, Julieth didn't want to even look at her. She clung to me! She knew! You could tell she was worried that Jenny may take her with back to FANA. You could just sense her worry and anxiety, and although we didn't like that, it was great to see that she had already, after just 1 week, started to really attach to us! This week we also had our meeting with Bienestar, they are the organization to protect the rights of children here in Colombia. We met at FANA and our Defender of Minors was there as well as our Attorney. The interview went very well. They asked about our history, intentions, how we learned of Julieth, how bonding was going, what our plans for her future were, etc. We were so worried for Julieth in this as we wondered how she would do going back to FANA. All in all, she did ok. She stayed near to Mommy, Daddy and Z, but she wasn't freaking out. She snuggled mommy and said Hola to some of the ladies at FANA. Everytime we go there, or meet a new person, we are more and more encouraged and impressed. The ladies really do care! It is an amazing orphanage. That said, it is still an orphanage, where kids will never know the love, security and stabililty of a family, but at least, while they are there, they are being taken care of by loving souls. We see this in Julieth on so many levels and are so thankful to the women of FANA!