I'm having a hard time.
I want to start by disclaiming that I am entirely sleep deprived – never a good emotional state for me as those closest to me can attest. I could not wind down last night and I ended up sleeping only two hours. It’s been very very difficult to process this day and yesterday on two hours of sleep; but I will try here because I feel the need to filter it out of my brain for a while lest it continue to torment me. I am sitting here trying not to wake Matt from his nap by stifling my sobs. Not good.
I also want to make clear that our little one didn’t sleep well last night either. We learned this as we were leaving the orphanage late this morning. Maybe he and I have some similar sensory issues – overstimulation has never been easy for me to process (raging introvert that I am). Nicholai is only 10 months old and he lives in an institution. Overstimulation will be difficult for him right now as well; if not, like me (a homegrown kid), always. I don’t imagine I will be outgrowing this difficultly so late in life!
I am not attaching to him. It makes me tearful to even type that. I’m having a duplicitous emotional versus cognitive experience of this. The feeling/mom part of my psyche is overwhelmed and devastated and terrified and angry with myself. The cognitive/psychologist side of my brain is morbidly fascinated by what I am experiencing and how discrepant it is from Matt’s experience.
We left this morning after breakfast with P & B at 8a to drive the 2 hours north to NT and see Nicholai. On the drive over, I was feeling ‘nervous’. I asked Matt a number of times if he was feeling nervous (a clue I missed entirely that I was feeling vulnerable and needing validation). He said no. He was just feeling excited. It did cross my mind in wonder that I was not feeling the same excitement.
When we got there, I was terrified. I hate to admit it, but I was relieved that he was running late for our play date because he was being fed his morning snack. I was talking it up with our interpreter (Angie, whom is fantastic) about life in Russia, Ekat, NT, etc. Nicholai was brought in and handed to me a little after 10a. Angie translated that he was feeling tired because he had just eaten. He looked exhausted and puffy eyed so I wondered aloud if he might be feeling sick since they told us that he had a slight fever as we were leaving the baby house last night. He was more subdued today, snuggly, and eye rubbing. But, given that he was sniffly and sleepy, he was remarkably well behaved! He’s just not a fussy baby – which sadly may be a learned, institutional behavior. I don’t know.
Holding him, I was acutely aware of how uncomfortable I felt. I wanted to hand him over to Matt more, I was awkwardly attune to the orphanage care providers walking through the room, I felt insecure about the language barrier, and I started feeling physically nauseated. In my agitated state, I had to put effort into negating some of my more critical thoughts (which I will keep to myself here because it feels important that I work through this unpleasant dynamic privately). In the meantime, Matt was enjoying himself and his time with Nicholai. He was using phrases like papa, your daddy, my son. He seems to be having a fairly smooth process adjusting to this dynamic and he has been tremendously understanding/forgiving of my struggle. He’s a gentle adhesive morphing the three of us together right now. I would be losing my mind if he weren’t here with me, praying with me, urging me to be gently in tuned to my experience.
I think it’s important to note that this attachment issue is entirely mine. Nicholai is definitely showing a preference for Matt (he LOVES his daddy, and we really do have some great pictures and videos of the two of them interacting). It may be a chicken/egg question, but I do feel that my tension is likely the cause of his; though it is also likely that we are playing off each other right now.
Since Nicholai was tired and seemed to be feeling sick with a cold, it was mutually decided that Matt and I would head back to Ekat after our morning play session (a few hours early) and return tomorrow morning to give him time to regroup and settle down a little before our final visit.
Oh, the irony. I could not have gotten out of that baby house quickly enough. It was a terrible feeling for me to have. It felt selfish and cruel – but, it was so intense and palpable in the moment, I could hardly tolerate it. On the drive back to Ekat it struck me that I am severely grieving for my child’s mother (or birth mother, first mother, Russian mother, biological mother – whatever you feel most comfortable with). Right now, she is more his mother than I am, so it feels unnatural to attach a disclaimer to her title. She had 35 weeks (+10 months) to grow him into and under her heart. I have had 35 hours. In my heart, he has a mother and I am imposing. Please don’t try to talk me out of this feeling – it would be cruel and invalidating to dishonor my reality just yet, especially if you have not experienced it yourself.
I am also painfully grieving for myself. It is true. I’m afraid that this is where the rubber hits the road at the emotional intersection of our infertility/losses and my process of becoming a parent. There are so many layers of grief involved here, I’m not sure I know where to start. Right now, I am trying to keep it together in front of everyone for fear that my feelings will communicate that I do not like the baby and do not want to parent him. I, of course, fear that because it’s true right now.
This is not entirely catching me off guard. My trusted inner circle is small and they all have years-long histories with me. I am simply not quick to attach emotionally. I’m a delayed reactor in every sense of the emotional experience. In fact, while I imagine reading this experience will hurt your heart, Mom, I do trust that you (of anyone) will have an ‘ah, yes!’ response to my delay and this struggle to attach to my identity as Nicholai’s mother. What a blessing that I can feel validated by you 10 time zones away without conversation. Sigh.
The darkest and deepest privacy of my experience will, of course, not be voiced here. But the feeling states that I have described are fascinating me regarding the roles of grief and attachment style in the emotional adjustment processes of adoptive parents. I cannot be entirely unique in my post-infertility response to adoptive parenthood (in fact, I know this to be true!). And, naturally, as I tend to cope with overwhelming emotion by retreating into my brain, on the way back to Ekat from NT this morning I was formulating a host of evidence based practice questions regarding just this intersection of emotion and attachment. I will note them and put them on the back burner until I have thoroughly processed this emotionally first. My cognitive coping skills / defense mechanisms are not always healthy and I think they would stifle a remarkable growth opportunity and I certainly feel the need to filter through these attachment difficulties somewhat before we return here to start our lives with Nicholai.
I am stunned by my sense of respite I feel that we will come home alone initially (and, I do fear this feeling will haunt me). I can’t imagine the experience that internationally adoptive parents have through a one-trip process. I have acquired a significantly deeper empathy for the attachment-challenged IA parent like myself! I can’t, however, excuse my own emotional overwhelm trumping my child’s imminent needs for physical and emotional stimulation. It has been desperately difficult to wake up to the ugly reality of my selfishness in this regard. I do hope that somewhere in ‘the meantime’, I will allow him to become my child emotionally. Sometimes it takes a while though and given my unfortunate penchant for deliberate attachment, I don’t know where to place my hope.
I do feel significantly better having written this out.
…A five hour nap and dinner with gentle, similarly overwhelmed friends later...
While I am feeling drained and my anxiety about tomorrow’s visit is returning, I am feeling more settled right now than I did this morning (I can’t imagine feeling less settled!) I am trying to focus on forgiving myself my raw and unpleasant humanity. In every way this is a process that I cannot control, desperate though my want is. I will sleep tonight – with the help of Tylenol PM! And, I will take tomorrow as it comes.
I do feel sad that this will be our last visit to him – tearful again. I don’t want to leave here, but I can’t get home soon enough. My process of becoming a mother in a physical/legal sense (wretchedly difficult though it has been) pales in comparison to my process of becoming a mother emotionally. Strange as it may sound, I do thank God for this experience – not because I’m an emotional masochist, but because I want to access a healthier version of myself as a mother on behalf of my son. I think he deeply deserves it and in the end, I will be a better person for enduring it.
It isn’t my intention to deter potential adoptive parents from this path to parenthood. I would like to say/believe that my intentions in posting this are entirely noble and focused on educating those on the supportive outskirts of the adoption process. That would be dishonest and pretentious. Reality is I’m posting this because I hope to feel surrounded and lifted up by the people who know me, love me, relate to me.
If you can offer that to me, I thank you in advance – humbly and gratefully.
cm
Well, that wraps up our retrospective posts. You are as caught up as we are!
