I lost 12 pounds

Those first few weeks after returning home from China were a blur of tantrums, sleepless nights and jet lag. The physical and emotional toll of the trip really caught up with me. After two days Keith went back to working 12 hours a day 6 days a week. After two weeks the older children went back to school. It was just me and Autumn. All. Day. Long.

Before bringing her home I thought going back to having a 2 year old at home would be a breeze. I did it before, I could do it again, right? WRONG. I sunk into a DEEP depression. What I didn't know before is that postpartum depression happens post adoption too. This leads me to think that it's a reaction to environmental change, not a reaction to hormonal changes like everyone says. 

This is very hard for me to share because a part of me is embarrassed that this was so difficult. The logical part of me says that it's silly to feel embarrassed. It wasn't as though I chose to become depressed, it just sort of.......happened.  It happened in the same way that a person gets hit by a train; fast, hard and without warning. I can remember sitting and staring at a plate of eggs and not being able to physically move myself to eat them. That was the moment. I felt like myself before that moment. That was two days after we got home.

Mentally, I had prepared myself for a really rough time in China. The trip was definitely not easy but, for some reason, I had absolutely no problem handling it. I was never overly emotional and adapted well to sudden changes in plans and long hours in the hotel room with nothing to do. It was all a-okay, no problemo! That's because I knew it was temporary. I thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. What I actually found at the end of the tunnel was darkness.

One day after arriving back in the USA

It wasn't all doom and gloom. We got along well as a new family of five. We went to the playground a lot and Autumn got along really great with her new brother and sister. They spent hours on the trampoline together and laughed a lot.  

The problem was me.  All me. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep and I lived with a huge rock in my stomach all the time. I lost 12 pounds. My feelings of anxiety consumed everything and I could hardly function and could feel nothing else. It was immensely perplexing because I couldn't pinpoint a cause and I had never felt quite like that ever before. 

So overwhelmed with these emotions, I couldn't bond with my new child. In fact, I started to blame her (or my decision to adopt her) for the way I felt. Then I started feeling guilty for blaming her. Then I blamed Keith for letting me go through with adoption. Then I felt guilty for thinking that too. I had a laundry list of negative thoughts, each one followed by guilt. It was a vicious cycle that I couldn't escape. Anxiety. Guilt. Depression. Anxiety. Guilt. Depression. What was happening to me?!

It got to the point where I was having thoughts of hurting myself. I went to the doctor, I got medication for the anxiety but it made me more depressed. I stopped taking the medication. Then, I went to therapy and it changed my life (more on that in a future post.)

Thanks to a lot of hard work, prayer and support from many friends and family members I'm happy to say that I have found my way out of the darkness. This experience has fundamentally changed who I am as a person. I feel different and I view the world differently. I'm not sure if it's a good change or not. Time will tell.

If we lived in the deep south

This last week I was reminded why diversity matters, especially for a family like ours.

We were driving home from a family reunion in Alabama. We stopped at a Sheetz gas station in southern Virginia for a quick dinner. If you've been to a Sheetz it's better than your average gas station food and more like a fast food place. They had some nice little outdoor tables with umbrellas. It was a beautiful evening so we ate outside.

At the table next to us there was a caucasian family with two young children. As we sat there and ate our dinner a little old lady walked by and said to the other family, "you have such beautiful children!" Their table and our table were very close to each other and she had to walk right by us as well. She looked at us, paused, and walked by without saying a word. We even smiled at her and she avoided eye contact. "That was interesting," said Keith.

The way we were sitting she could only see the back of Noah and Allison's heads. She had a perfect view of me and Keith with Autumn sitting on his lap. Perhaps she didn't consider Chinese children to be beautiful. Or maybe, she didn't know what to say because it was something she had never seen before. Maybe she was trying to figure out why we couldn't find any white kids to adopt. There I go assuming negative thought bubbles.

It didn't really offend me and we actually laughed about it afterward. It reminded me to be grateful to live where we live. There's enough diversity in the Baltimore/DC suburbs that, most of the time, people don't behave that way. I imagine that if we lived in the deep south that Autumn would always struggle to fit in. 

For a transracial adoptee, it's extremely important to feel accepted by your community as well as by your family.

All my kids are beautiful.