My story is not that different from many others. When I was in my early 40s I went through two unsuccessful in vitro fertilization attempts and that was after several years of trying to get pregnant. The difficult decision at the time was to adopt or not have any children. I always wanted to be a mother, so we decided to try the public adoption route with Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services which is in Cleveland, Ohio. We did explore other options as well but settled on working with them. After nearly two years, we were told there may be a child for us, with my then-husband. It is a very long story regarding what happened next, but the shorter version is we ended up with two boys who were half-brothers, one who was just over two and the other was three days old. This all took place one month before my 45th birthday. But it took another full 15 months of well, to be honest, difficult times before the adoption of both boys was finalized.
The Early Years
During that time and beyond, we sought out a number of therapists for our older son because we thought he had attachment issues. We found a good attachment therapist who taught us how to hold him very tight until he couldn’t take it any longer. I don’t think that worked. And after spending some time withy another child psychologist, she thought his emotional outbursts and anxiety when in large groups or when overstimulated may stem from being born with some drugs in his system or genetically connected.
To this day at 25, he still suffers from emotional/anxiety and depression concerns. Over the years we had him tested for ADHD which was confirmed. But we really never received a good clinical answer regarding his at time difficult emotional state of being. I would say that his emotional outbursts occurred about 25% of the time. The rest of the time he was a very verbal, bright and charming child. He was a bit physically delayed early on because his foster parents were an older couple who didn’t take him anywhere. It only took him about 2 months of going to parks and climbing on playground equipment to catch up.
Our Younger Son’s Concerns
He was 3 days old when we took him home, he luckily did not have drugs in his system when born. I forgot to mention that both boys were born while their birth mother was in prison, or more accurately she was taken to a nearby hospital while in prison to give birth. He grew up without too many difficulties except for some speech concerns. He was slow to talk and had some lisps. We took him to a speech therapist and within a year or less he was doing fine. We later learned he had some processing issues after we had him fully tested by an educational therapist. This effected his ability to read at a decent pace. And to also comprehend all that he read quickly. Luckily we lived in a good school district that provided accommodations for both boys growing up. It wasn’t until by accident that they met their birth half older sisters and then a few years later also by accident meeting their birth mother did all hell break loose with our younger child. But that is a story for another day!
The point in giving you this glimpse of reality is that adoption is wrought with complications. But that can also be true with birth children. So you never know what is going to happen for sure, but I do believe genetics play a strong role in the development of people. We knew some about their birth mother and maternal grandmother. Both had a history of depression and their birth mother serious substance abuse use. But that was all we learned. They had different birth fathers and we never found out who they were. When you adopt, especially more so from a public adoption system where most likely the birth parents had chemical dependency issues and also psychological problems.
Be Diligent!
There is more of a risk when you don’t have details about birth parents. The main piece of advise is be diligent as your adopted child is growing up. Check out anything you see that may seem out of the typical with at first your pediatrician and if needed a child psychologist. This is of course true for birth children but I believe in more so with adopted children when you don’t have any or little genetic history.
Not everyone deals with such a complex process and situation, some are lucky, but I don’t think it is a good idea to sugar coat it all. Having birth children can be fraught with issues so adoption is just a different animal.
More on what happened after the early years in another blog post. In the meantime, I am here to help in any way I can no matter what your circumstance with your adoption experience. Text me at 440-823-2653 or email me at robyn@lifecoachingbyrobyn.com
Be well