Read an Excerpt
•
chapter 1
the adoption process
In all facets of our lives we have expectations that are shaped by our cultural, societal, and biological worlds. Our expectations help form our vision of the future and enable us to successfully prepare. They are an inescapable, normal part of the way we live our lives.
However, unless we're careful, we can build our expectations on shaky assumptions. Maybe because we're in denial or simply because we don't have sufficient or reliable information about a situation, we create unrealistic expectations that doom us despite our best efforts.
Many adoptive parents don't even realize that our expectations prevent us from seeing that certain possibilities exist. We didn't. And maybe that's not all bad. The truth is, our decision to parent is not entirely rational. If we ever became obsessed with a realistic study of all the difficult things that could "go wrong," many of us would never have followed our hearts' calling. Maybe a certain amount of denial--or faith--is necessary.
Having high expectations and trusting your heart is one thing, but being unprepared is another. This is something echoed by all the experts we spoke with: Adoptive parents who were prepared, who educated themselves, and had ties to support services, were better equipped to deal with the adoption and had less stress and depression.
Let's begin with how we evaluate and perceive ourselves as parents. The parents we spoke with confessed to an assortment of unmet expectations of themselves as parents, imposed from many internal and external forces in their lives. In the pages that follow, we take a look at these unrealistic expectations as they relate to the adoption process; the feeling that you need to be the world's best parents; and parent-to-child attachment issues, which are the least explored yet the most central concern for many adoptive parents. More importantly, we look at how we can use these expectations to fuel changes in our lives.
your expectations of the adoption process
"I will have control over this process."
The adoption process is more about unpredictable, unavoidable, exasperating snafus than about control. So for those of us who enjoy a certain amount of certainty in our lives, adoption can be quite stressful. The preadoptive parent realizes how little control she has, and she tries to compensate by exerting influence over the things she can control, such as gathering the necessary paperwork. One self-professed "control freak" tried unsuccessfully to exert her influence during a very long adoption process that had gone from months to years of waiting. After she had requested numerous documents that kept expiring, the State of Pennsylvania refused to send her additional certified birth certificates without a complete explanation of the purpose of the document request. They were fearful she was selling them to illegal immigrants.
Anger at adoption agency workers and bureaucratic agencies (both abroad and domestic) can surface, as well. Documents get lost, cultural events close courts for weeks, and governments change adoption policies. All of these can cause frustration and a sense that the process is out of your hands. But once the child is placed with you, you believe control returns. Reality soon whispers otherwise.
thoughts from an expert
control
The mother who needs a high sense of control in her life may rush through the adoption process only to find that lack of control exists once the child is home. The mother may have a strong need to show the world she can handle the new situation without admitting to weakness or need. The need for control outweighs the need to ask for help.
June Bond,
executive director of Adoption
Advocacy of South Carolina
Parents often experience a panicky feeling once the child is home and control has been lost--again. You blame yourself. Somehow, you should have known about all this and how you would feel. Yet, you and your life seem totally out of control.
"I have resolved all of my emotional pre-adoption issues."
Infertility can leave traces, small paths in frayed pastures that you think have been left behind. Yet adoption can reopen some of those wounds, and how we react when this happens can impact how we parent and how we feel as a parent. Leftover or unresolved grief can surface unexpectedly when a child is received. Experts agree that those whose goal was parenting, not pregnancy, cope better as parents of a child by adoption.
Veronica struggled with infertility for 5 years. For months on end, her body experienced the bloating, sickness, and emotional roller coaster caused by the infertility drugs. She said, "You feel like you're pregnant, but with no baby at the end." She and her husband, who was in military service, decided to take a 21/2-year break from trying to get pregnant before they adopted--a decision Veronica feels was a healthy one. Yet the effects of the experience lingered. While planning for the baby and the nursery, Veronica shared these feelings:
Everyone kept saying, "Don't let people spend money on you." I think the counselor ingrained this fear in our minds a lot--that the adoption may not happen. I can remember the first time I walked into the baby department alone and started to look for sleepers. I kept thinking that at any minute, when I picked up a sleeper, an alarm was going to go off and repeat: "Infertile woman! Infertile woman!" The sound would warn the public that I had no business here. I was worried that if I touched the baby clothes, I would be told to get out!
thoughts from an expert
infertility
I think a lot goes back to the stages of grieving. Where is the parent in the cycle? There are layers of grief. That grief over the child's needs triggers the grief over infertility, which triggers more grief. You have a part of your body that does not work.
Adoption is the final admission that you're never going to have a baby of your own. It's okay. People go on. Yes, adoption is wonderful, but there is loss. You're mourning things you can't put your finger on. You may be mourning the fact that you adopted a child, and it's not the child you wanted or expected.
Regina Kupecky, L.S.W., coauthor of Adopting the Hurt Child and Parenting the Hurt Child
"The adoption process is complete once my child is placed."
Once your child is home, you believe she is your daughter, or he is your son. In your eyes, there is no difference between the love you feel for this child and the child who would have or did come to you by birth. And this is true. The intensity of the love and the passion you feel toward this child is strong and everlasting. But there is a difference.
Accepting this Forever Child into his Forever Family means that your family has become a Forever Adoptive Family. Generations will be affected by this decision. New extended family in the form of a birthparent may be added to the family tree. Cultural heritage issues of countries around the world may change your diet, your clothing, and your decisions. In-family adoptions or kinship adoptions will change the family dynamics: your grandchild, your son's son, is now simply your son.
Yet after the public nature of adoption, after the exhausting years of infertility, after the years of wondering if this child will be yours, your first reaction may be to disappear into the folds of society. To silently, gratefully, and blissfully become one of the everyday American families that blend seamlessly into a nondescript family unit.
Yet there will be questions in your child's mind, and in a later chapter we'll speak to the points of vulnerability that arise in your child's life . . . the teacher who asks the child to write his family tree or the Mother's Day card made at school. You need to be prepared for these questions that may have been just under the surface and now have arisen with enough strength to be spoken.
Martha, a 52-year-old adoptive mother, confessed she was caught off guard when her 8-year-old son began commenting on his place in the family:
Yesterday, I was taking Collin to his karate class and he said something about feeling like we wanted to get rid of him. He said, "I was in the pantry listening to you talk." I said, "Collin! I never said anything like that. What are you talking about?" He said, "Well, I have a real mom if you don't want to keep me." I said, "That's not true at all. You're our real son. People come to families in different ways. Daddy and I weren't a family, but we met each other and got married, and then your sister wasn't a part of our family until she was born. Then you came into our family. You were born to somebody else, but you are a permanent family member. You're forever." He's heard that before: Forever Family Member.
He is processing adoption information. He thinks about it sometimes and then forgets about it. He thinks about it again. It concerns me a little bit that he doesn't feel as secure in his home and situation. But we really try to let him know.
I'm not sure where it's coming from. It's hard to pursue an idea with him because he'll say, "I don't want to talk about it." Or he just doesn't know. I left it hoping that I had reassured him. Then we talk about adoption or read a book about a duck that was really a swan, the Ugly Duckling story. He loves that story, the Ugly Duckling. So we got a couple different versions of it and read it to him.
We really try to embrace it that way and not pour it on him, "Oh, you're adopted." We try to do it low-key, to just make it part of his life story.
Part of our family identity now is being an adoptive family. Ideally, it should be natural and ongoing, but also, a conscious choice in everyday life. Martha, a warm, articulate, caring mother, loves Collin dearly and tries to be the best parent she knows how to be. Yet there are times when the topic of adoption needs to be opened up and feelings discussed. It wasn't always like this; adoption's history is full of secrets and sealed documents.
Today's environment is turning toward understanding more about the child's needs and using those needs as a guide. We also know that there are resources in the adoption community that have the answers.
common reactions to unmet expectations
Our feelings about these unmet expectations shape the way we respond, either through "knee-jerk" defense mechanisms or by more positive coping strategies that help us process the feelings and transform them. The coping strategies we present are fluid--they are commonly associated with many of the unmet expectation we discuss in this and other chapters.
Perhaps you'll see some of your own reactions in the defense mechanisms discussed here. If you are using your ways to cope, consider the alternatives we present to get you where you need to go. Sometimes our reactions to emotional distress are helpful in the short-term because they protect us from immediate harm. But in the long run, these defenses can actually make a situation worse or stop us from taking steps toward feeling good about our situation.
We want to stress one overall point: These feelings are normal and not uncommon. Expert upon expert agrees that stress, depression, ambivalence, and anger are emotions they see frequently, and part of the assistance they offer to parents is to help them realize these feelings are normal.
withdrawal
You may find yourself shutting down or escaping into a world of silence, too exhausted or panicked to do much else. Friends' calls may go unanswered. Responsibilities as a parent may be neglected. One mother confessed that during her 2 months of depression, she had little recollection of what she did. She only knew that her husband had assumed care of their child.
Withdrawal occurs because of the secrets in your heart. They're too much for you to think about and too much to share, so you become isolated by shame.
Withdrawal can be effective if it is short-lived and helps us regroup. Many people find that "alone" time is necessary to fight stress. However, there is a difference between this regrouping time and continued withdrawal due to guilt and shame.
thoughts from an expert
normalizing post-adoption emotions
The emotional reactions I see from parents run the whole gamut from absolute, utter delight to people who are very circumspect. It really depends on the expectations of the family. We often think of challenges in families with special needs children. But I think there clearly are problems in terms of maternal bonding in reasonably healthy children. It's like having a birth child: One's expectations sometimes aren't met. This may happen a little more frequently in adopting families since there may be unresolved issues that existed prior to the child coming into the family. Some of the transition of the child into the family brings out a lot of issues that haven't been dealt with in the past. Those issues can include infertility--the grief and loss associated with being unable to have your own birthchild.
These are higher-risk kids, so the reality of the situation is often quite different than the parents' expectations. Everyone who has children has fantasies about their kids. I think a lot of families expect their child to immediately love them and be like the toddler that they had 5 years ago or that their sister or a friend down the road has.
A lot of these kids come with behaviors that are unexpected, and without putting those behaviors and additional needs in context, a parent can feel real disappointment.
We do get families that come into our clinic and say, "We've got a problem. We need to talk about this. This isn't what we expected. This is behavior that is way outside what we consider normal, both from our own personal responses and from my child's response." Then we have other families who are stoic and say everything is going fine and it's really not a problem.
For some families, we'll advise, "You know, we see behaviors that could be somewhat problematic and these are things that we think you should do." They'll answer, "Oh no. No, this is just fine." They're in denial--a lot of people are initially in denial. I think that's a normal response. As time moves on, people usually come to the realization that maybe things really aren't going all that well.
The child is a mirror of the parent's success or failure. So if the child is having a problem that relates to mom or dad feeling inadequate as a parent, we try to take the blame away.
Dana Johnson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics, director of the Neonatology Division, and director of the International Adoption Clinic,
University of Minnesota
anger
