An Old Wound... Reopened

When Sophie came home we spent a year working with her to heal the wounds that were caused from living in an orphanage.  Part of that healing included a process called "grieving".  Children grieve for many reasons and it comes in many different forms.  One form and in our case was sleep issues.  Every night at 3 a.m. Sophie would wake up and yell the only English word she could say, "Mama!!!"  I would go in and tell her I was still here.  She would roll over and go back to sleep.  We also dealt with night terrors.  Those nights required me to get up and spend an hour rocking her till she actually woke up, settled back down and would go to sleep.  Once this grieving process was finished, I had a baby that was an amazing sleeper and that has been the case till now or should I say till surgery.

Shot using my Canon Rebel With a 50mm lens.  ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/100. Post Processed using Aperture.

I'm not sure what it is but my amazing sleeper is now struggling.  At first I thought it was her age.  It is very common at four to become scared of the dark.  It's not unusual at this age to want a light left on in the hall.  These are requests that Sophie makes but it's more than that and it didn't start till our week spent at Kosair.  We put her to bed.  We leave her door open and the light on.   For hours there is a battle.  She doesn't claim to be scared, she claims she cannot sleep.  She constantly asks me if I will be there to put her to bed.  If I have to work she begs me to come into her room when I get home and tell her I'm home.  She hangs on my leg when I leave and cries and cries, begging me to stay.  After much analyzing, praying and thinking it all through I have come to conclusion that the sterile hospital environment reminded her of a place we had hoped she had long forgotten.  When you ask her about her surgery, she says she can't remember anything about the hospital but there is something there.  I can't put it into words.  It's one of those things that only parents of adoptive children can understand.  You just know when your child is "remembering" and you step in to do whatever you need to do to help with the healing.