Transitioning Home as a Newly Adoptive Family

Are you planning to adopt or have you recently adopted? If so, you need to listen to this discussion about what to expect during the first few weeks or months you are home! Our guests are Michelle Kennedy and Deborah Artis. Michelle Kennedy has been a social worker with Methodist Home for Children for 27 years. She has direct care experience in residential and foster care services and has been working with youth and families in the foster-to-adopt process since 2005. Deborah Artis is a social worker and the Senior Program Director of foster care, adoption, and post-adoption with Children’s Home Society, where she has worked for 30 years.

In this episode, we cover:
Adopting a Newborn

• What are some common emotions when adopting a newborn?
• What are some common stresses when adopting a newborn?
• How may the revocation period affect the transition to new adoptive parenting?
• Expectations of extended family during this transition period.
• How do the stresses of newly adopted families differ from a family that gives birth to their child?
• How does the pre-adoption process affect this transition to new parenthood?
• What are some feelings that come up about birth parents after the baby comes home?
• Handling grief of the birth family.
• Realities of open adoptions.
• Feeling like the presence of a birth mom makes the adoptive mom less of a “real” mom.
• The balance of power shifting from the expectant/birth mom to the adoptive mom.
• How much of your child’s “story” should you share?
• How can infertility struggles impact the transition period?

Adopting a Child Past Infancy

• What are some common emotions when adopting a child from foster care or through international adoption?
• What are some common stresses when adopting a child past infancy?
• Integrating the new child into a family with other kids.
• How to help your child and you settle into becoming a new family.

Post Adoption Depression

• What is post-adoption depression?
• What are the symptoms?
• Blocked care.
• How can post-adoption depression impact parenting?
• How common is post-adoption depression?
• Can fathers also have post-adoption depression?
• Who is at risk for post-adoption depression? Are there ways to predict which people are more prone to post-adoption depression?
• What are some steps to take to prevent post-adoption depression?
• What should you do if you think you are suffering from post-adoption depression?

Additional Resources:

• 4 Tried and True Tips for a Smooth Transition Home with Adopted Kids
• Transitioning Home with Your Newly Adopted Baby 

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome everyone. This is Creating a Family. Talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. Welcome back to our regulars, and we're going to send out a special hello and thank you for joining us to our newbies. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am the host of this show, as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org, today we're going to be talking about transitioning home as a newly adopted family. We will be talking with Michelle Kennedy. She has been with Methodist Home for Children for 27 years. She has direct care experience in residential and foster care services, and has been working with youth and families in the foster to adopt process since 2005 we will also be talking with Deborah Artis. She is the Senior Program Director of foster care, adoption and post adoption with Children's Home Society, where she has worked for 30 years. Prior to that, she worked in foster care and adoption for a public child welfare agency. Welcome Deborah and Michelle to Creating a Family.

Unknown Speaker  1:05  
Thank you. Morning.

Dawn Davenport  1:06  
All right, you know, this is a topic that it's interesting. I think that we spend a lot of time when we're talking with fostering. We spend a lot of time when we're talking about adopting older kids. We don't spend as much time talking about the transition home for when we're adopting a newborn. So today we're going to break this show into three sections. One, transitioning home when you adopt a newborn, then transitioning home when you adopt a child past infancy, and that can be through either adopting, through foster care or international adoption. And then the last part, we're going to be spending some time talking about post adoption depression, or post adoption anxiety, again, a topic we don't talk enough about. So let's begin with adopting a newborn. Now, Deborah, I know you have more experience in this area, so I'm going to direct more of my questions to you. So we think in terms of adopting a newborn, people have usually been waiting for a while. Now it's possible, of course, to adopt a newborn through foster care, but that is unusual. Usually you have been fostering this child for a while before adoption becomes an option. So we're really primarily focusing on private infant newborn adoption. We think in terms of the fact that people have waited for years, oftentimes they have oftentimes struggled to conceive. This is only a positive. This is the culmination of all their dreams. What could possibly be a challenge when transitioning?

Speaker 1  2:36  
I think, for families that are bringing newborns into their family. It is exciting. It's thrilling. Yet there's anxiety. You know, there's the unknowns. The process itself, as you said, can be lengthy. So they've been waiting for months or years or years, and all of a sudden you get this call, and in 30 seconds, your life can change. So what next? So all the wheels start to turn at that point. So there's mixed emotions, that excitement, that thrillness. They're going to be a parent, yet, what am I going to do with this little one? You know, when will they get here? What will be all of the background information, and what will I need? So there could be some anxiety there as well. Yeah, and

Dawn Davenport  3:25  
that catches people by surprise. How do you think the revocation period, that's the period of time between placement in the of the newborn into the adoptive family home, and the time that the at this point the parents expectant parents no longer expectant, but the birth parents have to change their mind, and that period, the length of time, varies significantly depending on the state. How may this revocation period affect the transition for the new adoptive parents?

Speaker 1  3:56  
I see parents struggling some with that, in that they want to attach. They want to bond. They want to say, This is my child. But in another breath, they know that they have that revocation period and that possibly a birth parent could change their mind, and that would be a whole different situation for them. So is we're encouraging them to connect, to bond, to start that bonding process, to love on that little one, yet be a little bit pull back, because we still have that time frame to work with birth parents to ensure that this is the right decision for them.

Dawn Davenport  4:36  
It's like having one foot in and one foot out. How much do I attach to this infant because it's this infant is not mine. That is a discomforting feeling.

Speaker 1  4:46  
And you often have pre adopted parents say that out loud, you know, I don't know what to do. You know, I really, really. You can see in their faces, you can see how they hold the infant, that they're connected. Thing yet is a little bit hesitant. I don't want to put all my love 100% and then so I often say to pre adopt the parents, no matter the time frame that this little one is in your life or this challenge in your life, know that you're making the world a difference. So you want to give them all you got for that period of time, because they will always hold that within their souls and their hearts,

Dawn Davenport  5:25  
yeah, yeah. That's a beautiful way to say it into a good mindset to have. You know, the newborn period is a time where extended family is often involved, regardless of how the child comes into the family the expectations. A lot of times, we have prepared the adoptive parents, and we encourage them to talk with their parents, the extended family, but often the extended family doesn't have the same information that the adoptive family has, and their expectations can be different, and they could be sending different messages. How do you see the extended family well meaning as they might be that their presence can either add to the stress or relieve the stress? You're

Speaker 1  6:11  
certainly right. Don bringing a newborn into a family and having an extended family that may or may not know that a pre adopted family even started the process. Often, families may not share, you know, parents may not share that they're in that process because they don't want to get the questions, When is the baby coming? How long have you been waiting? And the calls all the time saying, Have you gotten the baby yet? You know, so often they don't involve the extended family until they're in the process and the baby has actually arrived in the home. What I often say to prospective adopted families is identify your very close village, whether that be your parents, a sister, a brother, a close, close friend, two or three people that you can talk to and share with during this transition period, during the revocation period, so that you have someone to vent with. You have someone to share your happiness with, yet you're not sharing it with the world. You know at this point, you're not sharing it until you get ready to but preparing your extended family and those that are closest to you that you know that you're going to need their support within that first couple of days or two weeks or a month while you're walking through this process, share it with them and have those conversations. But also, on the other hand, keep it hush hush for a little bit to give you and your your immediate family an opportunity to absorb what's happening.

Dawn Davenport  7:43  
And we see that oftentimes, extended family hasn't had the education surrounding open adoption or the fact that there is a revocation period for a length of time, and they're not supportive of either of those. They haven't thought about it. So how much should you share with your close circle who the people you're going to be relying on for that first week or two while you're getting your parenting sea legs under you? How much should you share with them about that role and what you've agreed to and why you've agreed to from the open adoption standpoint, our

Speaker 1  8:22  
recommendation is just enough. It's like on a need to know basis, you know, when we place older children as well as infants, you give individuals the information they need to know to assist you, whether that's your extended family, whether that's a doctor or a community person that may see you out with a stroller and has never seen you with one before, give them the information that they need, but not enough information to be invasive or to feel invasive. Often, folks that have not been exposed to adoption have not been exposed to children in foster care, they have a lot of questions. The education piece is so tremendous. It's a lot of questions, why would someone do that? Yeah, why would a birth parent release their child for the purpose of adoption? What's wrong with the baby? You know? So giving them enough information so that you get the assistance that you need and the support you need, but yet, keeping your story, your story, and that baby story, their story, until they're ready to share and you're ready to share, and

Dawn Davenport  9:33  
recognizing that you can't until so it's tempting when you're having an infant that is non verbal and doesn't recognize anything that's going on, to share more at that point about their background then they would feel comfortable sharing when they are five or 12 or 16, but what you've said when they are two days old or six days old to the neighbor who tells them. Cousin who tells another neighbor it's not your story, and could come back to haunt that 16 year old in ways that you haven't anticipated.

Speaker 1  10:07  
Most certainly, and we often caution in our society today, social media is strong, so we talk about pictures and allowing people to take pictures early on in the process, or posting pictures to your social media sites you know as well, but holding your privacy close to your heart until you're ready to share and when it's time, you will know when the time is right.

Dawn Davenport  10:35  
Something that takes a lot of adoptive parents by surprise is the conflicting feelings that they have about the birth parents once the child comes into their home, and often feelings of intense sadness, sharing some of the sadness, are feeling that they have something and their their life is changing in a way that is so exciting, and Yet they see birth parents who are struggling, understandably, and it's a very it's they have very conflicted feelings about that. What can you say to adoptive parents after the child is placed in their home? How they feel about birth parents? It's

Speaker 1  11:15  
natural and it's healthy. You have one person in your life that connects you to another set of people, whether you know them, whether it's an open adoption, it's a closed adoption, that little one that came into your life has someone that is connected to them, that is now connected to you in some way. So it's healthy to have that level of empathy. It's healthy to understand that the birth parents may be struggling emotionally with their decision to make this decision of releasing this child for adoption that's in the best interest of the child and them, in many cases, so it's healthy to have that and to hold that because at that point, it connects you to that child in a different way. It gives you that ability to say to them, your birth parents chose a decision that changed your lives, changed our lives and changed theirs, and we will always all be connected in one way or the other. So it's healthy in my mind, that they can feel what that might feel like for a birth parent.

Dawn Davenport  12:26  
And yet, the other thing that often comes up is that the realities of open adoption become very real for some families, the idea of the realization that in some ways they are sharing this child, and that's a hard feeling that adoptive parents sometimes feel, and we hear from some in our community, a feeling like the presence of a birth mother somehow makes the adoptive mom not the real mom, or less of a real mom. And that's an uncomfortable feeling,

Speaker 1  12:56  
it is. And I think for particularly adoptive moms,

Dawn Davenport  13:00  
we hear it more for adoptive moms and dads. For sure, we hear it more for adoptive

Speaker 1  13:04  
mom than we do dads, and particularly for adoptive moms, having that connection, having that fear. You know that this child may want to know who their real mom is at some point, and what that might be like for them, what that search process may be like for them? Will they discount me because I didn't carry them, you know, in my belly? So I think those feelings are real, and it's talking about them, having conversations about them, having those go to people that you can have those conversations with and again, it's a lot around education, and it's a lot around understanding what that will look like in the future as the child grows older.

Dawn Davenport  13:51  
Do you see that this feeling, the fear that the birth mom will supplant me as the real mom? Do you see that that dissipates usually as the child ages,

Speaker 1  14:02  
I think it goes and it comes. I think it dissipates as the child grows from that infancy up through that 1012, 13, and then, you know, we always encourage our adoptive parents to openly talk about adoption. Adoption is not a secret. It shouldn't be a secret. Children should know from day one how they entered a family, whether that's birth or whether that's through adoption. So as those questions start to come up from children, I think that anxiety may rise a little bit more when they start to ask, What did my birth mom look like? You know? Why did my birth mom make this decision? And as they move into teenage years and early adult and young adult years and start to think about, will they search, will they want to know? So I think that it goes and comes, it will dissipate. And then as the children grow older and start to ask more questions, it will come back. But at that point. In my experience, most adopted families are settled, they feel secure. They have that bonding in place, and they've had those conversations, hopefully with the children, so the children feel comfortable and say, This is my mom. She may not be my birth mom, but this is mama, and

Dawn Davenport  15:21  
one of the advantages of openness is that the child doesn't have to wonder what their birth mom looks like, what her interests were, why she made the decision to place, and they don't have to go through a search. So it's the family grows together. And that ability, I think it takes some of the fear away from adoptive parents. And actually, some of the research has indicated that as well, that the greater degree of openness makes the adoptive parents feel more secure. We say we are doing it for the children, which, of course, we are, but in fact, the adoptive parents also benefit,

Speaker 1  16:01  
yes, and there are so many more resources out there now than we had 30 years ago when I first came into child welfare, so many publications and child books and tools that that parents can naturally start to have those conversations with children, and it makes it so much easier.

Dawn Davenport  16:23  
Amen, the books are so much better that we have now. And let me put in a plug creating a family has curated a list of the best of the best adoption books, and it's broken out by type of adoption and age of the child, so you can find books that are directly specific to your type of adoption, and the age of your child, both at the time of adoption, but at the age of the child that your child is now that you are reading this book to them, one of the things that we want our adoptive parents to understand is the shift of the power, the balance of power between pre adoption and post adoption, or post pre placement, and then post placement during the pregnancy, the expectant mom is the one who makes the decision of who is going to raise her child, whether she is going to actually go through with this placement. I say expectant mom, it's often expectant sometimes it is the expectant couple as well. But after the child is placed and the revocation period is over, then the balance shifts to the adoptive parents. And while this is how it should be, it is still something that I think adoptive parents need to be aware of. Do you agree with that? Deborah,

Speaker 1  17:38  
I certainly do. I think in the beginning of a placement, as you said, that shifting of power, our pre adoptive parents don't know what to do. They have to rely on someone else making that decision, whether that's the birth parent or whether that's the agency that may have physical and legal custody of the child at that time. You know. So they are depending on others and holding others and having to make phone calls when a decision has to be made about a medical care or anything else that goes on with the child to make sure that they're making the right decision. So it can become a little anxiety written during that time, but I think you can see families start to breathe once that revocation period is over, and they start to give more ownership, as you can say, they start to take on that role and start to invest more. Because you can tell that some families are holding back in making decisions or wanting to make decisions, and they want to make a decision that someone else may not agree with, you know, so it does become challenging a little bit, but it all works out in the end. I

Dawn Davenport  18:49  
also want adoptive parents to remember when the balance of power was not in their favor, when when somebody else and how powerless they often felt, and give that compassion, let that knowledge and that remembrance give them empathy and compassion for what the birth parents are going through now that they they don't have the choice and and this particularly comes into promises that we have made before The placement that the birth parents feel, and are often tell us that they are very cognizant, and they feel like they have to walk on eggshells and be extra good so that the adoptive parents will honor the things that they have promised. And I think it is very important for adoptive parents to try to remember back to when they felt helpless and they felt that all the power belonged to someone else, and use that to inform how the decisions they make and how they how they move forward. And my last question when we talk about the transitioning home, when you are adopting a newborn. Okay is so often our adoptive parents have gone through infertility struggles prior to adopting. Not everyone, but many have. How does struggling with your fertility and trying for years to conceive and the the sadness and the grief and the and the loss that accompanies infertility? How does that impact this transition period?

Speaker 1  20:24  
It could vary. All families are not identical. They all do not respond in the same way. I think when families are struggling with infertility issues, is loss, you know? Is this going to be another possible loss during that revocation period, am I going to experience the loss of this child as I've lost other children or not gained the access to have birth children? So I think all of this is evolving around emotion and loss issues, grief and loss issues. So one important thing is communication. Is talking about it is to have those conversations. To have those conversations, not only with your small village and your network of support that you have, but with your case worker, with your agency that you're working with. Allow others to help, allow others to hear, allow yourself to express your emotions and not hold them in as if they don't exist because they do, and that can impact the bonding experience with a child that comes into your life if you're struggling and if you're afraid, and those grief and loss issues are taking over your thought processes. You know, it can impact how you bond with this infant coming into your life, which is major. When a child is placed with you, we do so many activities around this bonding piece, the smell, you know, taking blankets to the hospital before the baby is discharged so that the baby can have your smell in those blankets. So when they're discharged to you, they're already somewhat familiar with you and your smell and your touch and your voice, if you get the opportunity to visit prior to discharge. So knowing that infertility issues are real, it's okay to talk about it. We need to communicate. We need to talk about it. We need to put the things in place that you need. As a pre adoptive parent, it is no judgment, none, no judgment whatsoever. We need you to communicate with us so that we can help you to have this process be seamless.

Dawn Davenport  22:43  
Let me pause here for a moment to make sure you know about our weekend wisdom podcast. It drops on Saturday and it is a short podcast 510 minutes max, where we answer your questions. So we need your questions. Please send us any questions you might have to info at creating a family.org in the ray line. You could put question, you could put weekend wisdom, or, honestly, you don't have to put anything, if it's a question that's going to wind its way to me, and we will address it on our next upcoming weekend wisdom. Now, back to the show. Okay, now we're going to move to transitioning home when adopting a child past infancy. And as I mentioned, this happens either through adopting a child from foster care or through international adoption. Michelle, now we get to bring you in to talk some about this topic. What are some of the common emotions that adoptive parents feel when adopting a child from foster care or international adoption?

Speaker 2  23:52  
I think a lot of the emotions families are feeling are, is this child going to like me? Are they going to like us? Are we going to bond? Because, like you guys said earlier, there's just a lot of unknowns of what those relationships are going to look like until you meet and spend time together, and this is with kids that are coming from foster care into an adoptive placement, or internationally, those are some of the big ones,

Dawn Davenport  24:18  
and also the what are we going to see from this child? What type of behaviors is this child going to express? Am I up for it? Are we as a family up for it? How will the children who are already in my family adjust to this child, all those feelings, there are so many, because this child comes with a past. This child comes with a life experiences, and the reality is no child, regardless of whether they end up in foster care or they end up in a child welfare institution or orphanage abroad, none of this happens when everything is going hunky dory, something has gone significantly wrong that this child has been exposed to for this child to be removed from their home and. So all of those are fear and excitement too. I guess we should mention that there's usually has been a wait in a period of time. Sometimes in foster care, the child has lived with you, oftentimes, the child has lived with you. So the transition took place before, when the child was placed with you as a foster child. But it's also possible to adopt a child that is legally free in foster care. In fact, there's about 100,000 kids in the United States currently waiting for their forever family, so there are many children who are waiting in need homes. All right, that was my plug for that. So what are some of the common stresses that you see families struggling with in that transition period when the child first enters your home.

Speaker 2  25:46  
A lot of it is behavior management, Behavior Management supports in school, especially for kids you know that have maybe an IEP, or if they have some disabilities, the mental health piece is crucial, making sure that kids continue or start therapy. You know, we encourage our families to whatever the services your kid is getting keep it going. You know, just because you're adopting doesn't mean those services should or need to stop Amen. You know, so, and that's that's really important, because at the end of the day when you adopt, especially when you are adopting a child out of foster care, you know, you have a whole team of providers, right? You've got your agency that you're working with, you've got social workers, you've got therapists, you've got, hopefully, you have, like, school support, you have guardian ad litem sometimes that are involved. And when you adopt, those people step away, even if you do post adoption services, you're not going to have all those providers come into your home once a month for your child and family team meeting. Yeah. So whatever, whatever resources and services that the families have in place, we always tell them, keep them going. You know, don't discharge them, don't, you know, not take them to those appointments because they're put in place for a reason. So that would be my biggest thing. And then behavior management is, you know, whatever you have in your home now, like, as far as you know, we're big on structured environment, making sure kids have structure and consistency, and sticking with daily routines and schedules, and, you know things that they can count on every day, you don't want to change that up either. You know

Dawn Davenport  27:25  
predictability is so important, right? When everything else in your life is being turned upside down from the child's perspective, being able to predict what's going to be happening next is such a gift. So I'm so glad you mentioned that some children go through a honeymoon period, and then some don't, and the families were hoping that they would get a break to begin with. And some come in flying all their behavior. Shall we say? Why do some kids, though, do have a period where they're very compliant and trying very hard to not show their true selves and be on their very, very best behavior

Speaker 2  28:04  
well. And, you know, Deborah can can chime in too. But what I've seen is there are kids that truly want to be part of your family. They want to be adopted, and they will do whatever they need to do to get that at the end of the day, they will follow your rules. They will, you know, try to be people pleasers, you know, all of that. But then you have some kids that are going to test you. Do they really love me the way they say they love me? Or do they really want me like they say they want me? So they're going to test and test and test. And we see that a lot, and that's where a lot of times we have to push pause on some of our adoptions. And, you know, talk with the families and like, look, this is what we think is happening. So let's get some things in place. You know, whether you're doing more supervision with the family. You're increasing therapy. You might be bringing intensive in home, into the home. I see that a lot kids will test to say, and they're not going to say that, but this is what their actions are showing. I

Dawn Davenport  29:14  
was gonna say actions are how we know their language is most children, their language is behavior. Yeah, Deborah, do you see that as well?

Speaker 1  29:22  
I certainly do. I agree 100% with Michelle. We have children that want to be in family, so they fear that they're not going to be accepted. It's like any relationship we enter into. When we were dating our first boyfriend, we probably was on our best behavior, and these kids do the same thing. They go in being on their best behavior because they want to be accepted. They want a family. They may have experienced several disruptions from previous placements, and they're trying to turn that around. They want to be in a family. They want to be loved. But also. As Michelle said, you will have those little Spitfires that will go in day one. And I say to families, that's what you want. You want to see that you want to start out the way you can hold out. Yeah.

Dawn Davenport  30:11  
Well, also we also as adults, we need people in this world who are the Spitfires and so, yeah, that's a great adult that's in the making.

Speaker 1  30:21  
Yes, one of my favorite readings is raising the spirit at Chow.

Dawn Davenport  30:24  
It's one of my favorite books as well.

Speaker 1  30:27  
I share that with lots of people, even you know folks in my family, we want to be able to help people, help these kids. We need that spirit. We need those big fires. They're our next presidents, they're our next governors. They're our next politicians, our next social workers, you know, so you don't want to discard that, you just want to channel it in a different way. So our kids that are coming into families want to be in families. In most cases, they just don't know how.

Dawn Davenport  30:58  
And that's our job is to help them learn how let me say that we have interviewed the author twice of raising your spirited child, so you can go back and search in our archives and find those. I also have found it as the mother of a spirited child, I found it to be an immensely helpful book some of the challenges for international adoption that adds some of the additional complexities in this transition period is, first of all, language the child often comes in, in fact, very often comes in without speaking English. So a couple of things to do to help transition there is, create as much visual as you can charades works. Google Translate works. But I would also encourage, if at all possible, and it usually is possible, if you do some searching, find an adult that speaks the child's language to come. Either you bring the child there, preferably, the translator would come to your home. Most of the time, in my experience, there is no charge. Go to your church, your synagogue, your mosque, go to a community group, if you live in a large enough area where there is a community from that country, and ask to allow your child to actually be heard during this transition period. Just imagine how terrifying it would be to be not able to express anything during this time. An additional challenge for international adoption is, as Michelle said, usually, if you're adopting from foster care, that child is coming with a team. There are therapies in place, there are social workers that were assigned to help guide you, and the child has already been in school. So the hope would be that if the child needs an IEP that is already set up. None of that is there when you adopt internationally. So that transition period is complicated because you're having to find the therapist, although we encourage people to do that ahead of time, but you don't really know the true needs of the child. You have to get the child in school. You have to find all the additional supports that this child might need. So all of that is on you, and you need to allocate that time and go in expecting it. Any other thoughts? Michelle with international that some of the unique challenges when we're transitioning a child adopted internationally into our home,

Speaker 2  33:16  
really, the only thing I would just suggest is just do a lot of research, you know, research, and find a support group or a resource group that you can connect with to kind of feel out what other families are doing. Probably you're going to see those services in bigger, you know, metropolitan areas versus something more rural. But you know, everything's online, right? You can do research and do support groups online. There's trainings. I would recommend do a lot of trainings for countries you know that maybe offer it for the kids that you're receiving children from. But, yeah, I would just do a lot of education.

Dawn Davenport  33:55  
You know what we sometimes hear from families who, in specific, adopt through foster care, and this is regardless of whether they have been the foster parents for the child and then they are adopting after the child has actually lived with them for a year, two years, or whether they are adopting a legally free child. So the child is coming in as a pre adoptive placement, not a foster placement. One of the things we hear from them during this transition period, or particular transition really, after the adoption is finalized, is that they feel very alone, that they have had a lot of support. The agency has provided good agencies, and both of you are with great agencies. Good agencies provide a lot of support, and then they feel that the adoption is finalized. Everybody leaves now the therapy, hopefully they're keeping in place, but they there's still some of their support network has left. Deborah thoughts on this and what to talk to parents and to help them through that period, that feeling,

Speaker 1  34:54  
yes, I think continue, as Michelle was saying earlier, to. Continue that connection to the organization. Hopefully, the parents have built a support system within their communities, whether that's virtual. So many things are virtual now, so their support groups for everything that you can possibly think of that you can join on a virtually basis, and probably every night to the week, if you choose to do so, so doing that research and being prepared, and hopefully a lot of that research has has been done even prior to the child entering your home, so that you can extend upon that. What I would like to say is that post adoption take advantage of your post adoption services that may be available in your state. Do your research. We know that the state of North Carolina provide post adoption services for any family that has a decree of adoption, and

Dawn Davenport  35:51  
every state, I think, does at this point, and so, you know,

Speaker 1  35:55  
reach out to your post adoption services again. There's no judgment, I think often, our families that choose to grow their family through adoption feel that they should be better than and that they must live up to these expectations. Parenting is parenting and it's tough. You know, parenting is tough, and we all need support. We all need services in place so taking advantage of every possible service that is out there and sharing what you need, so that your agency and the post adoption agencies can give you that support and guide you with referrals and homework. If that's what you need, whatever is needed, it's about asking for help and not feeling guilty, not feeling judged, just ask for help.

Dawn Davenport  36:46  
Yeah, because you won't be judged. You're doing the hard work of parenting. And parenting kids who have experienced trauma and loss before they come to your family is hard work. You will not be judged. Let's spend just a little time talking about integrating the new child into your family. If you have other kids in the family, one of the predictors of an adoption dissolution is conflict between children who are already in the family and the new child coming in. So I think it behooves us to pay particular attention to integrating and transitioning the child in with the other children in the family. Michelle, do you have some thoughts on the importance of that and tips for how to do that?

Speaker 2  37:36  
Well, when families first come to us and we know that, you know based on their application or just talking with them if they already have children in the home. One of our first questions is, have you talked about this with the others in your home? You know, whether it's your children that might be like a toddler age, or a kid that you might have that's 15 in the home, and you'd be surprised, no, this is just something that my husband and I have talked about, or, you know, we mentioned it to them, but, you know, we don't really know. Well, you need to talk about it with everybody in the home, really, with everybody in your immediate family. You need to have that discussion, because it affects everybody when you're bringing another child into the home, especially a child that could possibly have some trauma, right? And trauma experiences, because you just don't really know what to expect until you get the child into the home. You can read child profiles all day long, but those aren't always what you're going to see in the home. Do you know what I mean? And so when they come to us and we ask them that question, and if they decide to go through training to, you know, become foster parents, but that's part of the process, is talking with the kids in the home, because there are some unrealistic expectations, you know, because a lot of times we get the sense that we have parents coming to us looking for playmates for their other kids,

Dawn Davenport  39:02  
they're going to be best friends. Yeah, right, right.

Speaker 2  39:05  
And that doesn't always happen. It's great, right? If you have kids that get along really well, and they do become besties, or, you know, and they like to hang out with one another, but sometimes you don't, and you have to handle that head on. Mm, hmm,

Dawn Davenport  39:19  
yeah, absolutely, and that's not the same as asking permission of the child that is listening and incorporating their feelings and accepting the fact that they may have some negative feelings. But I do think it's helpful to share the reason why you are doing this, because there's a reason that you're making this choice too, and so sharing that reason with the children who are already in the home is very important. Let me take a moment to remind you, or to tell you, if you don't know, that creating a family has an online support group. It is a closed, private Facebook group. You can find it. At facebook.com/groups/creating, a family. Or, of course, you could just search for creating a family and Facebook and find it that way. It is a tremendous resource for families. You may be families that are transitioning, as is a topic of this show, but it can be any type of family, either pre or post adoption, pre or post fostering or pre or post kinship care, so please join our group. All right. Now I want to talk about post adoption depression. Someone once called it the dirty secret of adoption. I'm not sure it's the dirty secret, but it is certainly it is something we don't talk enough about, and because we don't talk about it. Enough. Parents who experience it are caught off guard. So Deborah, what is post adoption depression and what are the symptoms? Tell me both.

Speaker 1  40:49  
It's very similar to postpartum. It's the newness of something in your life. It could be anxiety, it could be stress associated with bringing a child into your life and after the adoption is finalized, realizing we do not have those support systems that we had before, we do not have all the resources that we had before. So what do we do now? So I think the symptoms is more of anxiety, some sadness may kind of pop in there as well and say, What do I do next? You know, it's like becoming a new parent. I'm a parent now. I have no other choice. I have to parent. So is those signs and symptoms you could be tired all the time just because of all of the different things that have to take place now that you didn't have to do before you didn't have a commitment to you know you have to go back to work because you've been off for three months with the placement of your child. So just knowing that things are changing, just understanding that your world has changed, and it's a new world for you now, and you have to revamp and decide how you're going to function from day to day to day. And that is final you know, there's no going back. That decree has been issued. This is your kiddo. This is your new family. Now, what do we do?

Dawn Davenport  42:15  
And sometimes there's the fear of, oh my god, what have I done to my family? This isn't what I expected. I've made a big mistake. Or those can all be symptoms, Michelle, can Another symptom of post adoption depression be what we call blocked care?

Speaker 2  42:32  
Sure, yeah. I mean, you know, I'm not a clinician, but there are some families who really struggle moving forward. Once their adoption is finalized, they reach out a lot asking for help. They're asking us to, you know, what do I do? I don't know how to handle this, especially with behaviors. I get a lot of calls about behavior management, because they may have adopted their kiddo when they were young school, age five, six years old, and now this child is 14, and they are really struggling. And so they may have done well up until that point, but now they're at a they've plateaued, and they just they don't know what to do. And so when you're able to reach out and ask for help, then that's huge.

Dawn Davenport  43:17  
Yeah, that's going to be what do you do about it, you can recognize that reaching out right? Yeah, that failure to attach during this transition period is a side effect. Often, I think of post adoption depression. Deborah, how common in your experience is post adoption depression? Much

Speaker 1  43:39  
more common than we probably realize, and that we're discussing research shows that 10 to 30% of individuals that adopt may have some post adoption depression. I think it's very rarely reported or acknowledged or shared, and that we really don't have a clue at how many of our post adoption families are struggling with depression around this, because again, as you said earlier, people feel guilty if they would express that,

Dawn Davenport  44:09  
they also don't feel that they'll be heard, especially if everybody in the family, extended family, is not 100% on board, and that never happens. They're fearful they're going to hear you asked for this. What did you think was going to happen? And they may feel that themselves. I asked for this. I don't have the right to complain, correct,

Speaker 1  44:27  
and I think that's the main piece. We say 10 to 30% but I would think it would be much higher than that, but we don't know, because it's very new to us, having these conversations about post adoption, depression.

Dawn Davenport  44:42  
Deborah, who is at risk? Or have you seen that there are some people, some families, that are at higher risk for post adoption? Depression? In other words, are there ways to predict which people may be more prone to it?

Speaker 1  44:54  
There's not. I think those families that we think have it all together have. Will be totally fine. Will be that family that does not and those families that you think will struggle, they move into this process, and they go through it, and they do extremely well. It depends on situations. It's situational. So I don't think we can pinpoint or put our opinion on which family will and which family won't we just have to be accepting, be acknowledging, and also be open and have that conversation open up to talk about it. Michelle,

Dawn Davenport  45:30  
can fathers also have post adoption depression? We normally think of it in terms of moms, but what about the dads?

Speaker 2  45:38  
I mean, we have had some single dads who've adopted, and they, they struggle. You know, the struggle is real for everybody,

Dawn Davenport  45:45  
even non single dads, even dads and married couples.

Speaker 2  45:48  
Oh yeah, for sure. They may not be as emotional, you know, maybe as the moms, but they, they struggle with, you know, am I doing a good enough job? Am I bonding the way that I should be bonding with my child. Should I play more of a role in their life? You know, should I take time off to be with my child? You know, the struggle is there for sure.

Dawn Davenport  46:10  
Yeah. Deborah, what are some steps to take beforehand, to prevent, if possible, post adoption depression, and then, what are some steps you should take if, after hearing this, you feel like you're suffering from post adoption depression.

Speaker 1  46:27  
I think steps to take beforehand is take care of yourself. Do self care. That's one of the major topics in all walks of life right now. Self care. How are we taking care of ourselves? It's like the airplane analogy. You got to put your mask on before you put the mask on someone else, so make sure that you're providing what you need to be healthy, eating healthy. You know, if you have a need to have a therapist involved in your life, take care of yourself, but also give yourself grace. Give yourself time to bond, give yourself the opportunity to make mistakes. You know, none of us are perfect. Parenting is tough. Parenting is a challenge. So you don't have to be perfect. So give yourself grace. Also look at what your expectations are, what you did prior to adding a challenge to your home. 24/7 may not be what you can do with a child in your life. 24/7 so looking at your obligations, do you need to step away from something? Do you need to put something on pause so that you're not over exhausting yourselves, but just also know that you're not alone? You know when you realize that this may be something that you're experiencing, have a conversation. Ask for help, reach out, know that you're not out there by yourself. There are many other people, and it's okay. It's okay not to be okay.

Dawn Davenport  47:55  
Michelle, any final thoughts on things that you should do if you are suffering from post adoption depression, definitely

Speaker 2  48:02  
reach out like Deborah said, It's okay to not be okay. You know, mental health is real health, and you should try to surround yourself with your tribe, with your support group, the people closest to you, who know you, who understand you, who can see and tell like when you're off. You know when you're not doing the typical, normal things that you would do daily. You know, if they see something is off, surround yourself by those people, and hopefully those people will not be afraid to point out to you, you know what's going on. Are you okay? This is not how you would typically handle something or, you know, but definitely surround yourself and support groups are. There are more and more support groups that we're finding for adoptive families. So utilize those, go to those meetings, log on and attend the meeting if they're virtual, but surround yourself with people that you trust and that can support

Dawn Davenport  49:00  
you, and if you have feelings that you might harm the child or harm yourself, tell somebody. If you're partnered, tell your partner, tell your parent, tell your social worker, tell someone, if the feelings are getting extreme, make sure you reach out and let someone know you're going to find help. You're going to find less judgment than you anticipate, because Deborah has pointed out this is more common than people realize, so the professionals in this world are going to be able to help you. So reach out and let somebody know immediately. Well, thank you so much. Deborah Artis and Michelle Kennedy for being with us today to talk about transitioning home as a newly adopted family. We truly appreciate your expertise.

Unknown Speaker  49:51  
Thank you for having me.

Unknown Speaker  49:52  
Yes, thank you.

Dawn Davenport  49:55  
And before you leave, let me encourage you to check out the free course. Courses that we offer thanks to the support of the jockey being Family Foundation, there are 12 courses on there. They really focus more on post adoption or post fostering. In other words, once you are actually raising the child, they're directly relevant to kinship care, foster care or adoptive care. So check them out at Bitly slash, JBf. Support, that's B, i, t, dot, l, y, slash, j, b, f. Support, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai