A Little Longer

Well, I decided to keep this blog a little longer. I've realized that even though we have our son home, this adoption is far from over. It feels like our whole family is on a roller coaster, every day is something different. Some days feel great, like this is all right and we are making headway, but some days don't.

Someone sent this list to me after I mentioned having some trouble since being home. Maybe this can help someone else, too. It was written by Melissa Faye Greene, author of There Is No Me Without You... awesome book, I highly recommend it.

10. WHAT IF THINGS GET REALLY DIFFICULT WITH MY NEW CHILD AFTER WE ARRIVE HOME?

Things can get really hard. The demands of a baby, young child, or older child may far outweigh your earlier estimate of what you could handle. You may find yourself blinded by fatigue, bleary-eyed with regret and confusion. You may hear the word “Mom” more often than human ears can withstand. There’s a sort of “buyer’s remorse” that can kick in, after you bring this precious and long-awaited child home. You wouldn’t be the first to wonder, “WHAT was I THINKING?”

I’ve written elsewhere about post-adoption panic (see RECENT ARTICLES), which hit me hard after Jesse’s adoption in 1999.

Part of what was hard about it, for me, was that I’d never heard of it. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I reached the conclusion that what was wrong with me was that I had ruined my life and the life of my family permanently, and there was no escape, and it was all my fault, and it would never get better.

It’s really hard to think rationally when you’re in this state.

In TWO LITTLE GIRLS: A Memoir of Adoption, [NY: Berkley Books, 2006], Theresa Reid writes of despair after the adoption of a second daughter, Lana, a three-year-old from Ukraine:

“I have no patience for this new child, who gets up two or three times during the night, and never sleeps past five-thirty A.M., who is hungry and desperately needs to eat, who asks for food, and then, when I hopefully, lovingly put food before her—even specially prepared food she has eaten happily before—cries and whines and angrily pushes it away. “Nyet!” she shrieks. “Nyyyyyyyeeeettt!” as she shoves it off her tray, kicking and flailing, then slumps in her seat with her head down and cries.”

Reid phones her adoption agency for help (I did the same in 1999), expecting to be offered support. Instead (as I was), she is met with confusion and bewilderment.

“I may be at my wits’ end,” Reid writes of her thoughts after ending that phone conversation, “but I think I can objectively say that this is NOT okay, to put together extremely challenging family constellations and then walk away. I hang up, abandoned, angry…”

The good news is that, in most cases, these can be the disharmonious opening notes of a love story. An out-of-synch beginning is not predictive of the parent/child relationship.

My tips for getting through a rocky and nauseating depression after the arrival of your child:

(1) Take really good care of yourself; do whatever it takes to get enough sleep, including spending the night at a friend’s or arranging a time and place for napping. NOTHING WILL WORK OUT IF YOU ARE SLEEP DEPRIVED.

(2) Make yourself eat and shower and exercise.

(3) Get help. HIRE help if you need to, even if you think you can't afford it. If you feel yourself spiraling into depression, you can't get out of it alone. While a babysitter is there, sleep or exercise or read or eat or go the library or do anything refreshing and pleasant other than caring for this darn child.

(4) Put Feelings on a back-burner. This is not the time for Feelings. If you could express your feelings right now, you’d be saying things like, “Oh my God, I must have lost my mind to think that I can handle this, to think that I wanted a child like this. I’ll never manage to raise this child; I’m way way way way over my head. I’ll never spend time with my spouse or friends again; my older children are going to waste away in profound neglect; my career is finished. I am completely and utterly trapped.” You see? What’s the point of expressing all that right now? Put Feelings in the deep freeze. Live a material life instead: wake, dress, eat, walk. Let your hands and words mother the new child, don't pause to look back, to reflect, or to experience emotions. "Shut up, Emotions," you'll say. "I'll check back with you in six months to see if you've pulled yourselves together. But no whining meanwhile!"

(5) Pick up something to read that carries you away. I’ve found that reading about Paleolithic art engenders deep calm and a sense of remove. There’s something about studying 40,000 year old cave painting that makes you feel you can survive the sound of your new child’s voice the next morning.

(6) Let yourself off the hook. This is not your fault. You’ve done a grand thing—you’ve gone out into the world in search of a child and, despite every obstacle over tens of thousands of miles, you’ve brought the child home. It's all going to work out in time. Meanwhile, you’re exhausted. This is all really hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. You’re doing fine. Just rest up, find something to laugh about, and give Feelings the month off.