PADS.....Pass it on.....

Sad, Sorry, Depressed But You Don't Tell Anybody - Could it be Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome?


The trip to China was exciting. You stayed in a five-star hotel and even saw fabulous sights like the Great Wall and the palace in Beijing. Your baby was more adorable in person than pictures. You and your husband never felt so thrilled and fulfilled as you held her in your arms on the flight home. Your ten-year quest for a child is finally over, you are a family now and forever. This little one is finally yours!

One month later.

You feel anxious and depressed, but more often, simply overwhelmed. Some mornings you don't get dressed. You don't feel any great love for your child, and you can barely make it through your day. Even your husband doesn't understand. In your deepest, most private moments, you wish you could give your baby back.

Science is just beginning to define "Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome" (PADS), which is not yet a distinct illness recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. PADS can range from a full-blown episode of severe depression that requires hospitalization or just a simple case of the blues that lasts a month or two. The few scientific studies of PADS indicate that over half of adoptive mothers experience it. For example, in 1999 Harriet McCarthy, manager of the Eastern European Adoption Coalition Parent Education and Preparedness, surveyed 165 mothers who had adopted children from Eastern Europe and found that 65% reported post-adoption depression. Other researchers have determined that you are more likely to experience PADS if you adopt from overseas or if your child has special needs.

"PADS is now where post-partum depression in biological mothers was ten years ago," Pamela Kruger, editor of a book by adoptive parents, told the New York Times. "Parents can be blindsided by it. They're expecting... this joyous moment and not expecting to have these feelings."

Doctors often attribute post-partum blues to dramatic hormonal changes that occur after the birth of a baby. However, psychologists often link new mother's depression to the sudden overwhelming demands of an infant and new financial responsibility, as well her loss of professional identity, social networks, and personal freedom. Sometimes depression is simply about not getting enough sleep or time to oneself.

Adoptive mothers experience all these things too. One mother described PADS to author Dr. Karen Foli: "I don't know how you could know how it feels to have somebody so dependent on you at that level 24 hours a day. It's almost like I was suffocating. Like I had someone physically attached to me. I felt awful that this poor little thing had this monster for a mother who wanted to shake her off her leg."

Many adoptive mothers are older and wealthier than typical first moms. They often have established careers and have enjoyed years of freedom from the demands of children. They feel depressed and anxious if they do not "fall in love" with their children immediately. Old negative feelings about miscarriage and infertility often resurface. Adoptive parents who have become friends with their child's birth mothers often feel sorry for their loss and pain - adding to their own depression. Often adoptive parents have been so focused on the goal of getting a child that they did not prepare themselves for caring for a child.

June Bond, a writer for Roots and Wings magazine and the first person to recognize PADS, says that adoptive parents experience a huge letdown within a few weeks after their new child comes home. It is similar to what happens after a wedding, completing a college degree or achieving any other big life goal. "The emotional rush from the attainment of this long-desired goal is exhilarating," she writes. ".Feelings of being 'let down' are common after reaching any major life milestone."

To make matters worse, their child may have problems the new parents did not anticipate. The child may have spent years in an orphanage or foster care, and developed attention-getting or coping behaviors like head-banging, tantrums, inappropriate displays of affection, etc. Even worse, their doctor may diagnose major medical problems like attention-deficit disorder or fetal alcohol syndrome that will require years of special care.

As Bond and other writers have noted, adoptive mothers and fathers often do not feel free to talk about their depression to friends, family or counselors. Those who supported them in their quest to become parents now believe that they are the happiest people in the world. They have attained a higher social status by adopting and becoming parents. Consequently, many sufferers are reluctant to talk about PADS. They may especially avoid counselors at their adoption agency, because they are afraid they may jeopardize the adoption.

If an adopted child develops problems in later childhood or as a teen, parents often look back over their lives to find answers. If they do not understand that PADS is a normal and even predictable crisis, they may feel that they were never good parents from day one and everything is their fault. They do not understand that nearly every new mother or father has feelings of being trapped by their new child, worries whether they did the right thing by having children, and misses the freedom of their youth and life before the demands of parenthood.

Experts like Bond and Foli tell parents who are experiencing post-adoption depression to get involved with other adoptive parents on the Internet. You can safely share your story with others in the same spot. If your depression lasts for more than a few months, seek professional help. If you are going back over your child's past to figure out what went wrong, don't be too hard on yourself. Post-Adoption Depression is a naturally occurring period of becoming parents

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I wanted to share the above article with people to spread the word.  Adoptive Parents do not get enough understanding for going through the same symptoms as bio moms.  
Nothing in the adoption prepares you for any of this, agencies are non existent after the adoption is complete.
Awareness can only be made the extraordinary AP in the world !
 

Some Good Moments........

So the specialists tell you to log down the good times and not focus on the bad...here are a few great things we have learned and done in the 6 weeks home:

Bath Time is a blast...they love it.  Noah was hesitant at first and now it's his favorite time.  Jack thinks its fun and even hands me his hands and feet to wash.  They especially love when I rinse by pouring the water over their heads ! 

Brushing our Teeth...or better known as ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (make toothbrush motion with hand).  Jack imitates this to a tee and Noah makes the ahhhhhhh sound.  Noah can fight a bit on the actual reason we are brushing, which is not to eat the toothbrush, but it gets done.
Jack will let me brush every single tooth without issue (thank god) and loves to rinse ! 
We are working on the spitting out, but we aren't there yet. Oh well...small steps.

Eating.......well- let's just not go there right now.

The boys LOVE to be outside and I can't blame them for that. They got so little chance for it in Russia between the snow and all the rules of what they can and can't do.  Besides, who the heck stands stuffed animals in the snow? and Why? 
ok, ok, I'll stop.   But they are playing with their outside wagons, picking up rocks, digging in the dirt and being generally boys.

When we do go the playground, the swings and the slides are their favorite parts. Mine too !

The stress is a lot. Some days are good, some are bad, some are better and some are worse. But we take them one day at a time and pray they will all get good soon.

Sadly there are a few people in our lives we have had to shut the door on because they are the ones that believe everything is fixed with "love".  HA !  I was under that impression too, then I was struck into reality.
Love helps in nuture and nature, but it doesn't help PTSD, RAD, FAS, etc...and all the gamut of issues these children have been exposed to and have the potential for.

I pray that we keep collecting "good" memories, but I am very sad to have to "shut" people out of my life when a support network is the most important thing a person needs right now.

On another happy note, the boys are sleeping well at night. Very few "wake ups" and usually just for a few minutes.  I do thinkk it helps that they are in their room together, although we did seperate them in bed now.
Jack kept waking Noah up for no reason. He felt "I'm awake, everyone should be awake.." and that method wasn't working, so Jack Jack got his own bed early.

Rain tomorrow and Friday, so we will have to find some indoor activities.  I have removed 50% of their toys, in hopes that we can start to concentrate on a few things and play with them rather than throwing toys all over the house with no purpose.  I guess we can try what the specialists say, which is to limit the toys.

Its hard when you have such radically different children at developmental stages who both need the same kind of care and attention.  Its even harder with little support for you as a mom.

If you love some one unconditionally and with your whole heart, than you will do what is best for them not you..... 
(That's what "love" is....not hugs and kisses.)

Beware the Ides of March...........

I am up since 2:30am, battling strep throat and sadness.  It was a tough few weeks with Noah's new hunger strike.  I took the antibiotic and pain med with Codeine in it but the narcotic seems to have the adverse affect- here I am day 2 wide awake in the middle of the night !.....

So here we are, about 5- 6weeks into parenthood and being a family.  Some things are going well - others not so much.  But It is what we expected I suppose and we are trying to do what we can. Patience was never one of my strongest suits.

Noah, who came home as the best eater I have ever seen. Ate more than his brother and in some cases more than me also.  A day after we returned from CHOP (just to give a timeline) Feb 18, he just stopped eating. Nothing.  Nada. Zilch.  I have run the gamut of guilt, sadness and anger because the doctors are stressing how important it is for him to put on weight.
   We went to his pediatrician and he gave him an antibiotic for an ear infection and some respiratory stuff- hoping in 2-3 days he would eat again and it was just that he didn't feel well.  No Luck. HE said give it 2-3 days. He is subsiding on Ensure Plus (upgraded from Pediasure due to the extra calories).  He will take a yogurt, 1/2 PC cheese, or some mashed Gerber fruit.  That's it. 
   He was getting better wit the food hoarding in his mouth and now has regressed back to that again.  He still does not like to chew anything (didn't from day one either).
    I called CHOP in Mays Landing to get in with a GI, Nutrition Specialist and see where we can go from here.
I have researched eating disorders and it it sounds a lot life FAED "Food Avoidance Eating Disorder" and it stems from Depression or anxiety.  Although I don't really see signs of depression, I can see some anxiety. 
Just the anxiety of getting thru a meal is exhausting, sad and daunting for mom...I am sure it is for him too.

It's been hard.  Jack has been eating - although with the occasional get in the mood not to. I really don't worry about the once or twice he doesn't want to eat, b/c over all he eats well.  He is bonding well too, althought he still gets jealous when I show Noah attention. Sibling rivalry is gonna be expected though.

I am back to limited Grandparents visits. They are not following the rules and it is very upsetting.  I cannot accept that they are just Old and Don't get it, and I won't accept it.  Unfortunately they have to be banned from the home until they decided to "get it".   The stress is really getting to me from outsiders and the judgers that think they know all about PI (Post Institutional) children b/c they popped out and raised a few bio kids of their own.
I feel very disrespected by those that won't abide or want to judge.   They are a select few, but they are there none the less and when they are supposed to be close to you it hurts more.  The disrepect is that I could not possibly know what I am talking about and that the books, therapists, and specialists have nothing to do with it.

This is a time where we APs are overwhelmed, questioning everything, trying to bond and be loved, trying to communicate, and trying to become a family.  Some ignornant, uneducated, disrespectful people make comments about our methods, tactics, or rules are unwarranted, unwelcome and frankly just plain selfish and mean.

Comments from people who spend very little time with me or my boys, even though everyone was told they can come over just follow the rules....amazing how that group thinned out.

I have beat myself up mentally, I am emotionally and physically exhausted from trying every single method to get Noah to eat--seriously...NAME IT, I TRIED IT !!!

Over 2 Weeks......Researched every web site, talked to parents, talked to doctors, tried 1) Ignore 2) plead/ make 7 different foods  3) leave him in booster 4) rewards  5) remove rewards (punishment)  6) forced  7) back to ignore and give in. --AGAIN...name the method-- nothing.  And for those who want to offer the advice for the 10th time...he hates McDonalds and won't drink Milkshakes either. Believe me I have tried even though I have been told 50x that it works...nothing.   Jack Gobbled it - Noah could not be bothered.

   So Joe and I are fairly convinced that this is why he is so small and underweight.  We believe he did this in the Baby home as well, but they are obviously just gonna put in him the hospital when he gets sick (which he did many times) and not gonna spend $3 bottle on Ensure to get him to consume calories like we are trying to.
   On Another note: He sleeps, He plays...No communication or even an attempt at a communication.         Hoping the EI helps, should start soon (waiting for the therapists to schedule 1st appt. )

We also are joining a study group with U oF DE for INTL ADOPTEDS children.  Called "Parent Infant Care Taker Project"   Helps with Social/Emotional Developement and/or Cognitive/Lang. Development.
It takes about 4-5 mo to go thru the study and they come to our home.  We hope it helps, we are willing to give anything a try because family support just is not here for us with regards to these issues.

   This is really really difficult, and I hope and pray that this will pass to.  Unfortunately I don't see it getting better anywhere, anytime soon. It's been since about Feb 18th now...like a SWITCH...BOOM......CLICK, stopped eating.   He already is microcephalic and this is making it even worse, which stresses me out so much more.
     Wish the Parenting Experts would read about his medicals and PI kids before giving more unsolicited advice that focuses mainly on "it must be you".  

  Thank you to all the AP that I know will respond and understand...and to my true friends that are there to simply support me and not judge me. 

Glad I could get this off my chest and Please pray that this gets better and Noah decides he wants to eat someday, or al least drink 3 full Ensures a day without a battle.

To all the Parents that have never adopted a child internationally.........you don't know everything there is to know and NO--these are not just "normal" children that need to be treated as such.  Again if you can't understand it then just respect it without judging.

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."



— Marilyn Monroe