Falling Apart

Parenting as an adoptive mother is an awesome responsibility. It’s not just society looking over my shoulder. I have women half a world away who will be keenly interested in the well being of their children. I feel the never ceasing weight of parenting another woman’s child, and the weight of my own measureless love for my children.

My daughters are mine through and through, but they were born to other women. This comes with an undeniable compulsion to do everything right. My entire body is a taut guitar string just waiting to snap. Everyday I hold them, nurture them, go to work, cook, and tuck them in at night. There is often an overwhelming sense of frustration that I’m somehow messing it up. When they scream at me that they won’t eat and I remove them from the room, I ask myself is this right? Is it okay to remove them from the table? Is this attachment parenting? When I get calls from the school that one had a 45 minute meltdown and they didn’t know what to do, the pressure builds. I haven’t set them up for success by coaching them through how to help her in times like these. The guilt is astounding every time I make a mistake. I can feel their birth mothers leaning over my shoulder shaking their heads at my ineptitude. How do you reconcile the two mothers? Everyday my back aches from hauling my youngest around as I do household chores. She weighs 32 pounds and I feel every ounce. Every morning, I pick up my oldest for a quiet snuggle before we start the day. My heart bursts with love while my lower back screams in agony, and I wouldn’t change any of it. I sit on the foot of my daughter’s bed feeling the weight and warmth of her sleepy body and her head on my shoulder as she slowly wakes up. It’s my favorite time of day. I close my eyes, stroke her long dark hair, and think about her birth mother. What would her life be like, if she were with her birth mother? Would she wake her gently? Would she get her favorite wonton soup and sticky rice for breakfast? Am I involved enough in her education and her activities? Do I do enough for her? When am I allowed to just call it and take a rest? Do I get to do that?

Both of my daughters have special needs. The youngest requires multiple trips to doctor’s offices, injections, surgeries, 504 plans, school meetings and on and on. I work full time outside the home and my husband’s job requires that he travel a great deal. There are days when full on panic sets in. If my youngest wakes up with a migraine and is throwing up and I have a work deadline, my brain goes into overdrive. What am I going to do? And I think of the ridiculous, like bringing her to work with me and blowing up an air mattress for her to sleep on while I work. Because I have to get it all done. Somehow, I have to meet every deadline, attend every appointment, tend to my sick children, get the laundry done, cook them balanced meals, help with homework, attend school functions, and read them stories at bedtime. Somehow when one needs attention, the other always melts at that exact moment and it’s immediate triage to help both of them and only mommy will do in their minds. So tired.

Societal expectations have not changed much since the 1970’s when women were beginning to enter the workforce in numbers. In 1975 47.4% of mothers with children under the age of 18 were in the workforce; in 2013 that number jumped to 70.3% (United States Department of Labor). In 1960, mothers were the sole or primary breadwinner in 11% of households; that number jumped to 40% in 2012 (United States Department of Labor). Women are still expected to run the household, raise the children and get their career off the ground. These are impossible expectations. But who do I choose to let down? Do I stop fighting for my children to have accommodations in their schools? Do I stop providing nutrition? Do I let them sink or swim with homework? If I quit my job, what do we have to give up to make that possible and is it worth it? Nothing can give or flex or it all falls apart. This doesn't even factor in the increasing anxiety of a government who hates minorities and is slowly but inexorably making their life a living hell. When a politician takes to the public stage and says we can't make our country great with someone else's babies, the danger to my children is very real. How do I keep them safe from these external dangers? How do I arm them to defend themselves when the inevitable happens and another child calls them names, or, worse, beats them up on the playground just because of the way they look? It's real. Two men were shot in Kansas because the shooter made an assumption about their origin and religion. The world is terrifying if you are a minority or raising minority children. Soon we will have a collective PTSD as we jump every time the phone rings in case the news decided to happen on our doorstep. I clutch my children tightly and hold them both and vow to protect them with every fiber of who I am.

The structure I have to build to keep everything functioning is more internal than external. I’m prone to anxiety and I have an overactive amygdala. At the first sign that things are beginning to go wrong, I panic. I start to hyperventilate and my brain starts racing from one thought to another never staying on one thought long enough to work on a solution. I’m perpetually in hyper-drive. The stress has gotten so bad over the years that I gave myself shingles when my oldest was four and my hair fell out in clumps for awhile.

As the children get older, I am learning to take some time away and just regroup. They are eight and four years old. Because my body is in so much pain on a daily basis, I have begun to take 30-45 minutes at the gym working towards increased stamina and upper body strength. I go two days a week and am working on edging a third day into the schedule. My husband has taken to giving me gift cards for massages. I save them up for when I really need them. A woman comes once a month and cleans my house. It’s an expense, but one that is worth every penny. While my children are in their Chinese lessons on Saturdays, I spend time with my friends who are also adoptive moms and have a weekly catharsis. We get each other. We understand the children sleeping in our beds, we understand the difference between a temper tantrum and a meltdown, we understand the pressure of raising our beautiful children who were not born to us. I’m not sure I would survive without these women.

Many people told me to get away, take a break, go on a trip. This works for some. There are plenty of people out there who allow themselves the break. Some of us need a little time to figure it all out. Many people tell me that it’s all going to be fine and that your children grow up just fine in spite of your parenting. And this is true. However, I have no intentions of compounding their already difficult lives by not trying my absolute best to be the exact right mother that they need at any given moment. What I have discovered is that it truly is okay to take a break. Go for a walk, head to the gym, take a girls weekend if possible, take myself to dinner, read a book, watch a movie just for me. It really is okay and it's not selfish. But it's almost impossible. There is a piece of me that feels like I don't deserve a break. I haven't done enough yet. I haven't earned a little bit of peace yet. How can I take a break when my oldest is melting down on the ski slopes? Yes that happened, but not on my watch. I wasn't there to help. Of course, my husband handled it exactly right. I didn't need to be there. Instead, I was meeting with a friend of mine who was helping me figure out my youngest's 504 questions for the meeting next week. I pour over schedules, I make lists, I create plans of action, all to calm the mess. Ultimately, I'm the big mess. I guess I do need a little TLC and better go and claim it cuz this mama is falling apart.