With it being National Adoption month I hope to do various post about Adoption. I know this year Larimer County is doing it's first ever National Adoption Day Celebration at the court house. It is really exciting how in recent years adoption has been so mainstreamed. I feel so fortunate every day for my son Cy! I believe VERY strongly in adoption/foster care.
One thing I hope to bring more to light are some things that I found very important and personal to me. Throughout this month I will highlight some of our struggles and wins. We went through extensive training before Cy came home preparing us for how we might feel, attachment, grieving, etc...However, we weren't really prepared for a toddler. Don't get me wrong as the date continually changed I was aware of his age...just not really a toddler. There wasn't much for resources on Toddler Adoption and the Weavers Craft can freak anyone out. I remember reading information on the Internet saying you shouldn't leave your child for 6 months, don't do this and don't do that. I wanted desperately to do the right thing. I literally freaked out and finally called my social worker crying because I just didn't know what to do and they didn't really know how to help as we were the first group to bring Toddlers home from Korea. Her advice, make sure to take care of you and Jeremy. So we did that. We sat down and wrote out what we wanted to do. I lost some people close to me for my decisions as even though we might make those decisions...it doesn't mean they are easy. I mean we kept thinking...shit what do we do!
I know my husband and I felt very lost as everything we read was for babies. I even remember thinking...in training they told us to sit on a yoga ball since the babies would be heavy (to protect our backs) and my son is climbing the kitchen cabinets and running all over the place. Frantically flipping through my resource books I was told to read and really finding nothing. Cy was 22 months when he came home, he wasn't this tiny baby. He was this mobile kid with a voice, opinion and he was moving! I have to be thankful for some friends who had two kids who said if we went from 0 to this we would freak out. I was like thank god I am not crazy because this is insane! Not because we didn't love our son because we were so unprepared.
It is kind of funny but literally around six months it got easier or we just got used to it, who knows. It was literally like stepping outside and everything was crisper. I got it. I am not afraid to share that I went through a little depression or that my family struggled in the beginning. I am not perfect. It wasn't all ice cream and suckers after two weeks. What I feel is important that every adoption is different and I want people to know how you choose to handle the transition doesn't make you a bad person. One piece of advice I can give is to always to what is best for you and your family.
I hope this month to try and post as much information on Toddler Adoption as possible to be a resource for others. Especially now Korean Adoption all children coming home will be toddler or older.
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