The day after we returned home…

…it sunk in. What sunk in, you ask? Exactly how much I sucked at being a parent, that’s what. This is going to be a long post, so it won’t hurt my feelings if you just skip it. It’s a combination of things I’m writing now and parts of journaling (the very first of my entire life) that I’ve done over the past two weeks. It’s very important to me that our lives aren’t all about Ed and I and that we don’t view everything from just our perspectives, and the following may make it sound that way. However, this is my transition and my truth and this is how I felt, and that’s all there is to it.

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     Shortly before we finally left to pick up our son, another adoptive mom who traveled with us and I were discussing “adoption amnesia” – you know, that thing that happens to so many people who have a rough go of it pre-adoption day, but suddenly forget all those months of waiting, heartache, and gut-wrenching concern for the child they have yet to meet just as soon as they have their baby home? I said I’d never have adoption amnesia (we just so happen to be one of those families who had a rough go b/c of a HUGE travel delay). After I gave it some thought, I came to the conclusion that I won’t have adoption amnesia per se, because I rarely let go of anything entirely (just ask my husband – I have a memory like an elephant), but I fully realize that my vivid memories of those painful nine months will indeed fade with time and that eventually, I really won’t remember so intensely how much they sucked. (‘Cause they did…they sucked really, really badly. I have so much empathy for the families waiting for I600 approval b/c I know just how much being forced to wait longer than necessary blows the big one.)   

     And like those memories, I know that the memories of the adjustment period will also fade with time. Don’t misunderstand me; these memories don’t suck at all, but this certainly isn’t the easiest time my life.  Because of that, I’m writing about them now, before they start to fade, because I want to be honest about them, and it’s hard to be honest about something that you don’t even remember that well.

     My husband and I had an incredible, life-altering experience in Vietnam. I know I wrote about it on my travel blog, and I know it probably sounds silly and cheesy, but it’s the truth. Looking back, I know there were several reasons for this; the most important one has always been obvious (adopting our son).  While we were there, I felt like all of my previous worries about parenting in general, and parenting an adopted child, were wasted thoughts because I really was much better at it than I had expected. In fact, I kind of impressed myself sometimes. There were a few occasions where I even thought to myself, “Damn. Good job, Laura, you’re kicking some ass and taking names.” At one point, even my husband looked at me and said, “You’re really good at this.” And I thought, “Uh, yeah, check me out, I ru-ule.”

And then we came home.

     I could just end there, but that would of course spare you a ridiculously long blog post. It’s very important for me to live up to my mom’s accusation of “being wordy,” so I’ll just keep writing.

     So, where was I? Oh yes, we came home. For a little background, we experienced sleeping issues from hell while in VN (and we continue to experience them now). And by “we,” I mean our son. And therefore, as a result, my husband and I did, too. On a good night, my husband and I each got four hours of sleep. Despite this, I ran on a full tank of adrenaline that never seemed to empty and I woke up every morning ready for a new adventure. By the time we boarded the plane to come home, I was starting to drag a little. Neither of us was able to sleep on any of the flights home (we had to stay up with the baby), so we arrived home over 30 hours after leaving VN thoroughly exhausted. Because of a little ”luggage issue” (another post entirely), it was well after midnight by the time we got home. And then we continued our sleeping issues from hell, with a littlecrap-load of added jetlag for the little man, which made said sleeping issues from hell worse. I didn’t even have jetlag; I had I’m-so-f’ing-tired-I-could-sleep-all-day-and-all-night-lag.

     So we were both very exhausted, but I was really, really exhausted. As in, I was falling asleep at the kitchen counter with a fork in my mouth while trying to eat (and if you know me, there ain’t nothin’ in this world that gets in the way of meal time, so this was really, really serious). Lest you think I’m a total wus, I do have a few issues that make this sort of sleep deprivation very unhealthy and more detrimental than they would be to a “normal” person.

     I tell you all of this to put things in a little context. Being that tired certainly didn’t make the adjustment any easier, but that’s not the reason it has been hard for me, either. We came home, I was tired, and then reality sunk it. And that’s when it got scary for me. That’s when I realized why I did so well in Vietnam. There were a few things, actually, that gave me a false sense of confidence and a very incorrect perception of skill and ability. One was that my husband and I were together 24 hours a day, so I was never alone with the baby. Well, that’s an exaggeration. I was alone for an hour here or an hour there, but mostly those would happen after he was asleep.  We were a brand new family of three, functioning as one unit the entire time. Don’t get me wrong, we faced some tough times, but we faced them as a team. I realized that now, I might have to deal with something that I’m so unfamiliar with and I might just have to do it while Ed was in a meeting with a client across town. And then what? The other reason was that nobody in Vietnam had any expectations of me. Actually, I think most of the locals had pretty low expectations of us as adoptive parents. And that was great. I mean, if everyone just assumed that my husband and I were total jackasses that were screwing up left and right, then how could I mess up to the point where it was really obvious to myself that I sucked at it? People were telling us what to do all day long, and I loved it. Really. I’m not being sarcastic. If someone wasn’t telling me “Pants, socks for baby. Baby cold” (I still maintain that baby ain’t cold when it’s 95 degrees out, but I didn’t argue the point then, and I’m not going to now), then someone else was rushing over to snatch him up if he was crying and I couldn’t console him. I was one of those strange APs who looked around the restaurant, desperately searching for a nice lady to come take the baby while I ate, because he preferred to hear her speak Vietnamese than to have me awkwardly shove some nasty veal and tomato version of Vietnamese baby food into his mouth, anyway (and I really like to eat, and it’s hard to eat with a baby, no?).

     So we came home, and it dawned on me that at some point, I was going to actually have to take care of Mattix alone. Alone! The thought made me head spin and my stomach ache.  How the hell was I going to do that without my husband there?  I’m the most independent person I know (sometimes to a fault), and here I was, freaking out about having to be alone with my child. As if that wasn’t bad enough, over the following few days, I realized that everyone around me just assumed that because we had been waiting for this amazing little baby to come home for nine months, I knew exactly what to do with him.

     Furthermore, apparently I looked like I was a lot better at everything than I actually was. And that’s not what I was aiming for at all. Trust me, if you can’t tell, I’m struck with the brutal honesty curse. I’m not one of those people trying to put on the old dog and pony show, so I was in no way trying to appear to have my shit together, because I didn’t. At all. This may all sound minor, but what it resulted in was an overwhelming amount of fear, frustration, and anxiety. I wanted someone, anyone, to just look at me and understand me. I had so many feelings that I couldn’t sort through.  I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to get into bed (partly because I was so overwhelmed, and partly because I seriously just wanted to sleep) and stay there for a week. But I couldn’t, because this unbelievably precious little person who was experiencing a huge amount of trauma needed to me take care of him. But I felt like I couldn’t really do that, either, because I didn’t even know what to do.

     There’s more – lots more – and the majority of it is written. I’ll post it tomorrow, because like usual, the length is out of control.  Once again, I don’t want you to assume that I’m depressing and gloomy. I’m just trying to write these feelings down because I don’t want them to get lost in the really great ones, and trust me, there are SO many, like today when Mattix gave his Glow Worm a kiss. Tomorrow’s post should wrap up the current solemnity for at least the next week.