This part 3 is intended to cover my Post-Partum Depression/Post Adoption Depression, Termination of Parental Rights, Application to Adopt, and finally experiencing motherhood with Charlotte. Part 4 will be about the adoption finalization.
Introducing her to family and friends - September 2013
We decided to travel to Denver in early September to introduce Charlotte to family and friends since nobody had met her yet. Flying on a plane with two babies is no joke. It was an incredibly exhausting trip, but it was always wonderful to travel home. I’m not going to really rehash the visit, you can read about it here. I did leave a couple of things out though, mostly because I couldn’t see it as clearly then, as I can now.
We went on a double date night with Mikael and Che and left both babies with my childhood friend, Raeann. While we were at dinner, Charlotte cried the entire time, unless Raeann was singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Cooper remained in Charlotte’s line of sight. Chris and I desperately needed the time away from the kids, since we hadn’t been on a date night since before Cooper had been born. I felt guilty for leaving both my children, but when I learned that Charlotte had cried the whole time, it made me feel angry that going on a date would never really be the same for us. We would always worry about the kids. We would always feel guilty for leaving them. It was the first time I really asked myself, why did I choose this? How could I have willingly chose this?
I was blind to Charlotte’s needs. Here she was around 9 months old, at the peak of stranger danger and I left her with strangers. It didn’t matter that I knew and trusted the person, it only mattered that she didn’t know this person. Add to the fact that the last time she had flown on plane, she was ultimately left with strangers and then never saw her family again. She must have been terrified at having flown on a plane and left with strangers yet again. I did not recognize any of this at the time.
She was very, very attached to Chris during the entire visit. She seemed to get anxious if he wasn’t near her.
We asked the foster mother that we not see her while we were in town and we chose not to visit my sister in prison either. I told Chris before we left California that I didn’t think I could do it. I needed to start feeling like her mom and that wouldn’t happen if I kept sharing her with other women who also felt like her mom.
Slipping into darkness
When we got back home, Charlotte began opening up a little more. I look at the pictures now and I can see how much more confident she was that we weren’t going anywhere. At that time I still didn’t feel anything, I just felt very robotic going through the motions. Not even when she looked at me like this (WHY didn’t my husband get all of my face??!):
Right on the mark when we returned from Colorado, Cooper hit the dreaded 4/5 month wakeful. This is a particularly hellish month-long period of a cranky, non-sleeping baby. I was finally starting to adjust to what little sleep pattern I had, getting 3-5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. And then BOOM! He.stopped.sleeping. At all. Naps, bedtime, ever.
My sleep deprivation got worse. I didn’t think it was possible, but it happened. I was also putting in close to 50 hours a week at work. I felt tremendous pressure being the sole earner in our family. I viewed it as no room for error in my career because my family depended on my paycheck. Work was the closest thing to a constant in my life, something that was familiar. I poured myself into it and when I got home I was so exhausted I wanted to do what was easy – parent Cooper. For bedtime, out of necessity I put Cooper down (nursing) and Chris put Charlotte down. The less time I spent with her, the less connected I felt. The less connected I felt, the less time I wanted to spend with her.
I was literally burning the candle at both ends. There were small moments of ease and happiness – those I captured on the blog. Mostly I was too tired and too drained to see anything but the unpleasant parts. I was drowning. I became irrationally angry and jealous of Chris because he got to be the stay-at-home parent when I was supposed to be the one who would do that for our family. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want to actually stay home, only that I didn’t have a choice to stay at home. And I was confounded at how easily he loved Charlotte and how much she adored him. Not because I didn’t want them to have that bond, but because I also wanted to feel those things for her.
I was supposed to be loving my niece like a daughter and I all I felt was emptiness, numbness. I got angry about it. I was so angry that my sister was the one who got to experience pregnancy with my daughter, and worst of all she had been careless during pregnancy. I mourned the loss of never getting to feel Charlotte inside of me; of never having taken a pregnancy test with her, and not even knowing how my sister learned she was pregnant; of not having the big ultrasound and learning if she was a boy or a girl and healthy. I was angry that I had no idea what her birth stats were because I wasn’t there and so they weren’t committed to memory. I didn’t know when she first smiled or first laughed or first rolled over. I missed out on so much of her life. I just felt this incredible sense of grief over everything I had missed with her.
These feelings were thrown in my face at Charlotte’s well baby visit on September 17, 2008. The forms requested ‘mother’s history’, and stats of the baby at birth. I had to scratch out and write ‘birth mother’ on the form. I’m lucky I knew my sister’s history because so many adoptive mothers do not, but it was another moment that reinforced Charlotte wasn’t actually mine. Not in the way Cooper was and those forms made me feel less than. I was fighting to feel like her mother and I realized I would be faced with these types of situations for the rest of my life. And I suddenly just hated the whole mess.
Having children was not the best thing to have ever happened to me. I was being devoured by the immense loss in all areas of my life. The loss of intimacy with my husband and the long conversations I could no longer have because of exhaustion. The loss of Cooper being my first baby and not really getting to experience much of only having him. The loss of myself as an individual. I felt desolate and utterly alone.
That same day we got news that the Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) would happen on October 20, 2008. I cannot describe how conflicted I felt about hearing that news. It was a sense of relief that we would really make it permanent. It was an excitement that perhaps with the passing of that date, Charlotte would finally feel like mine. It was fright at suddenly realizing that my choice to be her mother was even more real. It was absolute heartbreak for my sister who would be losing her daughter forever.
Contact with my sister – Sept/Oct 2008
My sister sent me another letter dated September 12, 2013. She thanked me for all the support I was giving her and in a strange switching of roles, she offered me sympathy for how incredibly hard my life had become with suddenly having two children. She explained that was why she never asked for my help. She didn’t want to burden me knowing I was about to have my first baby. I learned that with a small dose of serendipity that my dad had been the one to take my sister home from the hospital after she had Charlotte.
She told me more about her life with drugs and that she had used meth her entire pregnancy with Charlotte. I was still angry that she had done so, but for the first time I could understand a little more as to why she couldn’t stop. That part of her life is so deeply personal, that I cannot share it here. Just know that it speaks volumes that I could understand why she would use drugs during pregnancy. Again I felt like I had failed as a big sister. I should have called her during her pregnancy. I should have reached out to her. Maybe it would have made a difference. Probably not. I rationally know that, but part of me just wants to believe that if she wouldn’t have been so scared, and so alone that maybe, just maybe, I could have helped Charlotte before she was born.
I also learned that you can get married in prison. She and her husband were both in prison when they got married to each other. She spoke so highly of him and was clearly in love with him. I couldn’t help but be happy for her. I have no idea if they are still together today, but I surely hope they have continued to find solace in one another. My sister deserves to be happy. (I mention this because once they were both released, they went on to have a baby together—my sister’s fourth and final child, who was placed with my first cousins.)
I sent her another letter congratulating her and sent her more pictures. I also asked her about her feelings on TPR.
In a letter dated September 27, 2008, my sister told me that she needed to let me adopt because that’s what is best for Charlotte because she couldn’t give Charlotte what she deserves or what she needs. She said Charlotte deserved a better life than what she started her out with and that Charlotte is my daughter now. She was ready to start accepting that. My sister gave me permission to adopt her daughter. My daughter. I didn’t know how to accept that she was ready for me to be Charlotte’s mom before I was.
I sent another letter and more pictures, and added money to her account.
In a letter dated October 9, 2008, my sister told me that she was so happy she could give Charlotte both a mom and dad. She helped calm my fears that she or someone else would come take Charlotte away from me. She insisted that Charlotte deserved to be left with us and it would be selfish of her to take Charlotte from a family who loves her so much.
Termination of Parental Rights – October 20, 2008
It was suddenly real after we learned that TPR had been granted and that Charlotte was legally released for adoption. I was conflicted all over again. I wanted to be excited because it meant one step closer to permanency, but also felt so sad for my sister. She didn’t even fight TPR because really, what were her chances anyhow?
I was starting to feel like a fraud. I didn’t feel like Charlotte was my daughter, but I was applying to ask for her to be my daughter. Chris felt like she was his daughter and I couldn’t relate to him on that. I just didn’t feel like I fit anywhere. As part of being a new supervisor at work, I was required to go through training with a consultant. He called me an interloper being a young female in a management. That wasn’t my first experience with sexism and ageism in my career, but it was the absolute wrong point in my life to experience it again.
I had more in common with moms of twins, but I didn’t actually have twins. My two children were at two different stages.
I was starting to feel crazy. I depleted myself by taking care of everyone else. I had visions of leaving for work one morning and then just never coming home. I thought that if I just left my life would be better. Those thoughts quickly derailed into visions of physically hurting Chris and both my children. It made rational sense to me at the time because I knew that if I just didn’t have children, my life would be better. I was suddenly terrified to be left alone with the kids.
I stumbled across Dooce’s blog – a woman who was hospitalized for post-partum depression and blogged about it. After reading through her experience, I read through post after post on PPD message boards. I read on the adoption message boards about Post Adoption Depression, similar to PPD. I found another adoptive mother, Kirsten, who had a similar story to mine and I could finally feel like I belonged somewhere. Although Chris was well aware of my struggles because he and I talked about them frequently, I finally told him I thought I needed help. He encouraged me to talk to a therapist. With encouragement from two of my very dear friends, Che and Heather, I finally realized that asking for help did not mean I had failed. It took me almost 2 weeks to make the phone call. Chris pushed me by telling me, “I’ve been the strong one because that’s who you needed me to be, but I need you back. I miss you. I miss us.”
Contact with my sister
I had only sent a short letter back to my sister because I wasn’t up to dealing with anything more on my plate. She sent a letter to me dated, October 26, 2008. I found out she was going in front of the parole board in the middle of November. Learning that she would at some point be released in the near future worried me. I felt like I could deal with the reality of an open adoption when it was letter writing. It wouldn’t be just letter writing any more and that was confusing for me. She also asked for money for shoes and a sweatshirt, which we sent.
Healing
In early November 2008, I started seeing a therapist once a week. When I broke down in therapy sobbing during the first visit, my therapist just handed me a box of tissues and told me to take all the time I needed. She then gave me the best advice I’ve ever gotten: Give yourself a break. She told me it was okay to need an adjustment period and that it happens even when a new child joins a family via birth, that it really wasn’t related to adoption at all. She told me my reaction was normal. She explained that bonding was a process of falling in love and that falling in love takes time. She also gave me homework:
- Get sleep. Get sleep any way that I could. Co-sleep if I have to, go to bed at 6 pm, take naps during the weekends, take a vacation day. She said it was highly likely that the lack of sleep was the primary issue for me.
- Take care of me first. There is a reason the airlines tell you to put your oxygen mask on before you help anyone else, including your children. She told me I needed to come up with an exercise plan, even if it was just taking a 20 min walk at lunch time and make sure I was eating enough food and drinking enough water.
- Choose to love Charlotte. Spend alone time with her where I didn’t have Cooper competing for my attention. Get more skin to skin contact. Hold her, feed her, care for her. Truly be her mom and stop worrying about not feeling like her mom.
- Find a babysitter and go on a date. Reconnect with my husband. Be his partner again.
- Put limits on work.
I started having twice a week sessions with a Life/Health Coach where I developed exercise, meditation and food plans. I would update him on my progress and we would celebrate the small successes. I started co-sleeping full time with Cooper and moved him into our room. I took a 3 hour nap every day I had off work. I limited my hours to 40 hours a week by asking to have more experienced people moved into my group—people I didn’t have to spend so much time mentoring.
Chris and I found a babysitter and went to my company holiday party. Cooper was in his stranger-danger phase and was screaming when we left him with my friend. He cried for 2 hours, but she never called us because she knew I was in therapy and needed the night out.
![Thums Holiday Party[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Lc3xpTnPPWThlSxiNLPlIXgCaoICaavU-3uoo69o6v7ZSOyk1hBf8ICUixrpYSVwaknDevGP6hI-HbJG0Tr3a-DtPaYyXU0muiNTZV4DC3X44cRcZ8aFs_AibL0cn0q6QfwcXQwBDNU/s1600-h/Thums%252520Holiday%252520Party%25255B4%25255D%25255B4%25255D.jpg "Thums Holiday Party[4]")
Everyday I made a choice to love Charlotte. A choice to be her mom. I spent more time with her. We started alternating nights between us and the kids. Sometimes this meant I ultimately had to put both kids to bed, but it also meant that I was finally in a nurturing role with Charlotte. I took her out shopping with me, alone, without Cooper. Everyone told me my daughter was beautiful, and that she had my eyes. I looked for things that made me feel connected to her. We have identical pinky toes. We were both fighters. She LOVED when I sang her You are My Sunshine before bed. She mimicked my mannerisms.
I was giving myself time to fall in love and I was allowing myself to enjoy the experience of doing so, rather than being frustrated that I wasn’t already there. I had 4 months of trying to get pregnant with Cooper and then 9 months of feeling him move inside me and preparing for his arrival. I had nearly 4 months with him, and him alone, after he was born to get to know him and learn how to take care of him. I had 6 weeks to prepare for Charlotte’s arrival. I had 3 full days with her before I went back to work and then an hour an evening with her after she arrived home, and about 20 hours during the weekend with her. I was also busy taking care of another baby. Then there was the adjustment of going from one to two children, and all of the feelings that I shared the title ‘mother’ with two other women. I expected to feel for Charlotte immediately the same thing I felt for Cooper. I had over a year for those feelings to develop for Cooper and therapy helped me see how unreasonable my expectations were for Charlotte.
I continued seeing a therapist once a week for several months. Most of my therapy consisted of cognitive behavior therapy. I never did take medication, but if I hadn’t seen improvement I absolutely would have. It is obvious to me on the blog where I started feeling better. I started being more honest again. I started writing about everything, the good and the bad. I remembered that part of being human is falling down and then getting back up again.
Contact with my sister
My sister sent a letter dated November 10, 2008 acknowledging how difficult this situation was for me as a mother, given the number of roles I was playing. She was again thankful for the love and support we were giving her. She was worried about getting out of prison and being strong enough to stay clean. She again tried to give me comfort about my worries over losing Charlotte. She wrote the most selfless thing: “Even though my instinct tells me to fight for her, it’s not in her best interest. She deserves so much that I can’t give her. I know it’s best for her this way. I thank you for giving her what I couldn’t.” She also gave me the only tidbit I know about Charlotte’s birth father – his name, that Charlotte has three brothers who she looks like, and that he supported the adoption because he, too, wasn’t in a position to provide for Charlotte.
I purposely began sending letters less frequently to my sister. I found myself spending too much time worrying about her feelings, rather than processing my own feelings. I received her next letter dated November 29, 2008. She was thankful that I told Charlotte how much her birth mother loves her. She told me that she would be released right around Cooper’s first birthday and that she was very sad to be spending the holidays in prison.
First Birthday
I got to finally experience a big milestone with Charlotte. Somehow it made up for all things I had already missed. It was a start of a lifetime of milestones with her, ones I would get to be a part of!
My sister sent Charlotte a birthday card and signed it Momma {my sister’s name}. I could appreciate how hard Charlotte’s first birthday was for her, but I got angry that she named herself Momma. And then I got happy. So happy because I realized that I identified myself as Charlotte’s mom. I was her mom and nobody else got to call themselves that. I am her mom.
I received another letter December 31, 2008. She told me she admired me for being able to balance everything. My dad had been so kind to her and visited her in prison. He and our brother were her only visitors she ever had while in prison.
Adoption Process
We filed our application for adoption in early November. Then nothing happened until January. We notified social services about the information we had on the birth father. He refused the paternity test, and the other two possibilities were not a match so they were able to terminate any potential birth father rights by posting a notification for 30 days in the newspaper. We had to go through the entire process all over again. More paperwork, providing our birth/marriage certificate and financial statements, getting physicals, fingerprinted, and background checks. Then in-person interviews, home inspection and classes. It was a long, invasive process with an untold number of delays. In December we were told finalization would be February. In February we were told March. At the end of February we were told April. We were so frustrated, but finally on March 19, 2009, we were told a date and time – May 20, 2009 at 8:30 am.
Final contact with my sister
My sister wrote two final letters before getting out of prison. She told me in the first one, dated February 8, 2009 that she was happy to hear the adoption was moving along because she was hoping it would give her some closure. She apologized for using the title Momma and it’s hard for her to know where she stands. She expressed anxiety about being released and told me she would be released to my mom for parole. The second letter, dated March 1, 2009, expressed her excitement about getting out of prison. She ended the letter by thanking me for being there for her and helping when she needed it.
New Year’s Resolutions 2009
My New Year’s resolutions for 2009 were:
I resolve to care about myself as much as I care about others and not feel guilty about it. This will be very difficult for me, especially now that I have children. By caring about myself I mean: Make time for me either through pampering and/or hobbies, work out at least 3 times a week, eat healthy (but allow some indulgences), do my hair/makeup regularly, keep my wardrobe up-to-date, and be social (a critical part of being happy for me).
I also resolve to let go of control and not feel anxious about it. I tend to like to control my situations and for once everything in my life has some element of being out of my personal control. I think learning to let go will help be a better mother/wife/sister/daughter/friend/boss/employee/person. I think the not feeling anxious will take some practice, but hopefully it will come in time.
I was doing incredibly well in my career. I was recognized by my industry in February 2009 with the Orange County Engineering Council Young Engineer Award for outstanding individual and project achievements.
I stopped going to therapy at the end of March. Cooper was sleeping a little more and going to bed with less effort on our part, which meant Chris and I could spend time together in the evenings. We celebrated our birthdays in April. I was a very happy mother of two.
The light had returned to my life.
[For all the new mothers out there and for all the people who know new mothers, please do me a favor and pay attention to the state of mind of the new mother. I did pretty well at hiding my depression for a long time and I wasted so many months of time I could have been enjoying my children. It’s normal to be overwhelmed and tired and scared. Falling in love is a process and when you adopt, it is a conscious choice to love your child everyday until they finally feel like they are yours. That is normal, but you may need help. Needing help doesn’t mean you are failure, it means you have people who love you.]
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