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Rochester Local

Give It Six Months: A Story of Post-Adoption Depression

adoption, adoption perspectives, adoptive mom, adoptive parent, anger, coping mechanisms, depression, domestic adoption, emotional eating, emotions, exercise, family dynamics, food battles, grief, guilt, identity crisis, infertility, international adoption, postadoption care, postadoption depression, postpartum depression, sadness, self-care, sleep deprivation, social worker, toddler adoption, trauma, weight gain

I can tell you exactly how long it’s been since we brought him home.  I know exact dates because of the regularity of social worker visits.  We brought a 3-year-old boy into our family last year. Life was hard.  Things were not pretty.  I was not myself.  I felt like I was floundering.  My identity was lost. 

It hit me the hardest the day I walked out of Costco with two bulk packages of disposable diapers, another massive box of wipes, rolls of paper towels, paper napkins, bulk bags of sugar, and frozen pizzas, along with a box of spinach that I knew would end up being thrown away, smelly and unused.

I looked at my cart and wondered who I had become.  And I started to grieve.

Now, you need to understand that before this fourth child, my identity had largely featured environmentalism, cloth diapering, and other eco-friendly practices, as well as whole-hearted attempts at organic and healthy eating.  But a child from an orphanage brought concerns of intestinal viruses and parasites, so disposable diapering was easier for sanitary reasons. This child attempted to control the only two things he can: eating and sleeping.  Mealtimes had become either a battle or a waved white flag, so I was doing whatever I could to make cooking “easy.”  My identity as a homeschooler started to tank, as I balanced the needs of my new 3-year-old with the educational needs of my other children.  So there I stood in Costco, faced with the fact that I was filling up landfills and shoveling in massive amounts of carbs.

Let’s talk about unhealthy coping mechanisms, shall we? Post-adoption weight gain is a thing.  I promise you.  If the stress eating during the adoption process and the paperwork doesn’t get you, watching your child go through loss after loss and struggle for control will.  15 pounds, right there.  

Having experienced both birth and adoption twice, I have to acknowledge that there are unique learning curves to each.  

With birth, it takes about three months to get yourself sorted out (at least, it did for me.)  Your breasts are starting to function normally, your internal organs have rearranged themselves back to their pre-partum arrangement, and you’ve either lost some of the baby weight or have given up and started living in leggings and sweatpants.  You know how your baby cries and why he cries and when he cries.  In fact, you make it your business to know EVERYTHING about your baby.  When did your baby last stool?  What is her weight?  Is she meeting percentiles?  You are exhausted from sleep deprivation, so you are able to sleep whenever and wherever.  Until the baby cries.

With adoption, it’s not so cut and dry.  We are just as exhausted.  Our son fights sleeping, because he’s not able to control his environment when he sleeps.  We are daily faced with the very weight of how much we don’t know about our son and how much we will never know, as there is a language barrier for our family.  We look forward to hearing our son cry, because that is a sign that he is beginning to feel like crying will cause someone to meet his needs, after so many years where his needs went unheard.  The firsts that we experience with him aren’t so much firsts that would typically be celebrated.  We get “first time not being afraid of finger paint.”  “First time understanding that if mommy leaves a room, she will come back.”  “First time using his words to communicate that he is incredibly angry with me.” In some cases malnourishment has happened, and we give up ever trying to meet the growth percentile and only hope that our child will be somewhere ON the chart.  

Post-Adoption blues or depression is just as real as postpartum depression. 

It’s different, though, in that adoptive moms have waited for so long and worked so hard for something we wanted so badly.  It will take us by surprise when we experience feelings of guilt, anger, or “us vs. them.”  You’ll feel guilt or a feeling of “I don’t deserve this” when you consider the pain that your child’s family of origin is experiencing. When your child doesn’t meet your preconceived expectations, you feel confusion and sadness.  And then guilt for even having expectations to begin with.  You begin to isolate yourself.  After talking to a lot of friends about this issue, the common thread I’ve heard is that “no one will understand” or that “nobody wants to understand anything but the happy parts of adoption.”  The second thread that I’ve heard is “Even much later, I wonder if we’re at ‘normal’ yet.  And I hope for better.”  “I constantly wonder if this is adoption related or if it’s just normal behavior and I’m analyzing it all too much.” 

Here are some recommendations for how to handle postadoption blues or depression.

1. Seek help.  

Do not hesitate to seek a professional counselor or therapist.  Postadoption depression is normal. Adoption is always born of great loss. There will be secondary trauma as you help your child heal from this very life-altering circumstance. 

2. Self-care.  

An unhealthy reliance on food for emotional satisfaction was a major factor for almost all of the moms I interviewed for this post.  Begin to take care of yourself physically.  Make exercise and healthy eating mandatory.  Make hobbies that you used to enjoy mandatory as well.  Cling to them, and you’ll find that you’ll feel a little like yourself again.  Do you like to paint or draw?  Make time for your art.  Listening to music or dancing can be very cathartic. 

3. Find a friend who’s been there and share honestly, but discriminate as to whom you are sharing your feelings with.  

Not everyone needs to hear every detail of your story or your child’s story.  However, there’s something about dragging disorder, chaos, and brokenness out into the open.  The power is drained from the ugliness, and you find that people are actually supporting you and are behind you, lifting you up.  

4. Acknowledge that adoption doesn’t cure everything.  

If adoption happened due to infertility, it cures childlessness, yes, but there still may be residual emotions about infertility. 

5. Give it time.  

The best advice I’ve ever heard about postadoption depression or postadoption blues is “Give it six months before you start to analyze and worry about everything.”  This has been one of the most profound truths I’ve ever received.  And true to my friend’s words, I started to round the bend at six months.  Our spinach was not getting thrown away every week, although we still consume more pizza than absolutely necessary.  I started to exercise once again, and some of the pounds slowly came off.  We reincorporated some of our old habits that made us who we are as a family.  And our little guy is starting to open up to us.  It just is taking time.

 
The above post is a compilation of both my own thoughts as well as six wonderful adoptive mothers who have volunteered very personal information about postadoption blues or depression.  I have changed their wording and omitted names, to maintain their privacy.

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