For the past few weeks, we’ve encountered some bumps in the road when it comes to night sleep. I thought that when Desta turned one, all the up at night three and four times would be over.
A few weeks back Desta was told a fantastical story about snakes. Unfortunately for all parties concerned, the fun prank of putting a pretend plastic snake on Desta’s neck turned into something quite a bit more.
Night terrors. All out, screaming, body shaking, sweating profusely night terrors.
For three nights in a row, Matt and I took turns (well, mostly Matt was up!) rocking, singing and praying over our Little D.
It subsided after a week of intense bedtime routine, which included new blankets, lights on, lullabies played and permission to sleep in her rocking chair if she woke up.
It was hard, so hard to see Desta go through all this. As I explained to the guilty “fake snake” parties, we don’t know what Desta had to deal with the first few months of her life. Maybe she encountered a snake as a very small baby. Science tell us that memories are imprinted in our minds forever. It broke our hearts to see our little girl so afraid. I cannot explain to you how horrible it was to hold her tight and hear her continue to cry out in fear.
While this was going on, I didn’t want to blog about it. I am still very mindful of what I write on this blog and the impact it will have our children in years to come.
But it’s part of our adoption story. Part of our family’s story. See, our story involves pockets of time we will never know about. There are gaps in our family history. I wish to God I could fill in all those blanks this side of eternity but I can’t.
I can love my baby girl, I can hold her, rock her, sing peace over her. I can assure her that she will be part of our family forever and ever. I can tell her that even though there are things in this world that make me shudder and quake and sweat, that we have a God who watches over us and loves us with a love that is never ending, always present and filled with peace.
Now we’ve left night terrors but have entered just plain ‘old screaming out for Mom and Dad in the middle of the night. If you run into me, please disregard the large dark circle under my eyes. I will sleep when my kids are 60!
I was born in Jos, Nigeria many years ago. I spent the next nineteen years living in Liberia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.