Parenting Through the Storm
By An Adopt4Life Community Parent
When my husband sends me a text about our children, he always ends with a tornado emoji. At first I thought it was hilarious, but I quickly came to feel it really was an accurate representation of our little family.
We waited a long time to be parents:
Eleven years of infertility.
A year to do our home study and PRIDE training.
Four years to find our children.
It was at a small Adoption Resource Exchange conference, that I didn’t even want to attend, that we finally found them. Our kids. They were the last two pages in the binder, and as soon as I saw their faces, I knew that they were meant to be ours.
Fast-forward a few months, and we got the request to see our home study. After that, more waiting, as the Children’s Aid Society in our prospective kids’ region went on strike. And then finally, on very beautiful May afternoon, we learned that we had finally been chosen.
To say that the visiting period was a whirlwind would be an understatement. My husband and I are both teachers, so the last two months of the school year often feel like a race to the finish line. Add to that getting our house ready for the arrival of two children, taking multiple trips to a city an hour away from our own and trying to navigate the range of emotions that come with sudden parenthood… well, you get the picture.
Our family was fortunate to have an entire summer to bond. We got off to a good start. But as soon as school began, we learned quickly that we weren’t fully prepared to parent two children with trauma histories.
Our daughter tantrumed non-stop for the first six months of the school year. Just thinking about all the screaming and crying at that time still rocks me to my core. Our son, who was eight at the time, did a lot of pre-adoption counselling, because he had such extreme behaviours in their foster home. But because our daughter was so talkative, her workers didn’t feel that it was necessary for her. With so many unprocessed feelings inside, she wasn’t fully ready to transition to a permanent home, so we ended up with a little girl in deep mourning. Since she couldn’t verbalize things, she would just scream.
The first six months of parenting were very dark for me. I discovered that I had post-adoption depression and my anxiety went through the roof. I tried my best to hold it together for the children’s sake, but it was so difficult. I am blessed that I found organizations like Adopt4Life and the Adoption Council of Ontario that helped me navigate all the new issues that we had to face as a new family.
To say that my 35 weeks of parental leave went by quickly would be an understatement. As soon as the date for my return to work got closer, our daughter’s tantrums ramped up, as did my anxiety. Even with the support of our group of therapists, social worker, church, family and friends, returning to teaching was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.
Becoming a family with two children with tumultuous pasts took much longer than 35 weeks. Knowing that my parental leave was about to end, when everything still felt so new, was an extra stressor in an already very difficult situation. Thirty-five weeks was not enough time to properly heal our children’s wounds, without causing more hurt by returning to work and triggering their fear of abandonment. In retrospect, I am certain that having had the full 52 weeks non-adoptive parents get would have given us the opportunity to make much more headway with the attachment needs of our children.
I hope that with the advocacy work our adoption community is doing, the powers-that-be will realize the importance of extending parental leave to adoptive parents to a full year. Our kids come to us with so many layers of issues. If we had more time to dedicate, not only to attachment but to their healing, it would give our families a far more solid foundation.
Having experienced how rapidly 35 weeks passes when you’re trying to settle children with trauma into your home, I believe that recognizing the needs of adoptive families and their children is not only equitable, but critical.
The opinions expressed in blogs posted reflect their author and do not represent any official stance of Adopt4Life. We respect the diversity of opinions within the adoption, kinship and customary care community and hope that these posts will stimulate meaningful conversations. Our #timetoattach campaign continues with the aim to adapt public policy to introduce 15 weeks of parental leave (attachment leave) for adoptive parents and kin and customary caregivers. As we, along with Western University and the Adoption Council of Canada, have worked to bring awareness to this important support required for families and children, it has been so important to share the real experiences of parents and their children as they sought to form healthy and lasting attachments. Find out how to share your story.