You know it’s going to be interesting when your counsellor starts the sentence with “the therapist in me hates to say this, but…”
Last week, we had a quick cancellation appointment appointment after I asked for help. In that appointment I just kind of downloaded all the crap that seemed to take over (i.e. brother-in-law who completely lacked compassion and adoption frustrations).
While, this week we had our regularly scheduled appointment where we really talked about our families and our efforts to have open and honest relationships with them. You know, real relationships that matter. Between her, Mr. MPB and I, we had an interesting conversation, and it all started when she said the therapist in me hates to say this, but it really is time for you to start building an armor around you to protect you from your family. I’m paraphrasing now, but essentially, the discuss was about rather then giving my family the ability to slam the door in my face, I need to start closing the door to protect me and building myself a little suite of armor to be able to withstand their seemingly endless supply of insensitivity. I do not need to slam it shut, but I do need to accept that the relationship is what it is, and I cannot change them.
We talked about the recent and most obvious example of Mr. MPB’s brother. We opened up to him and his wife about our losses. We shared everything. In turn, they shared nothing and were rather hurtful in the way they told us their news. We opened ourselves up, we wanted a better relationship, and instead we are left feeling alone and hurt, as if all our words and tears fell on closed eyes and ears. We are hurt by their insensitivity, but more so we are hurt because we feel like they never actually listed to us.
We also discussed a much more complicated example – the relationship between my Dad and I and the very clear difference of what I want it to be and what it actually is. She noted that one of my biggest struggles with this relationship is that I keep trying and hoping to have the father I had for the first 14 years of my life – the one I remember and clearly long for. The one who loved and adored me and my siblings and would do anything for us. So, for years I’ve kept making excuses for him, hoping that that version of him will return. And at the same time I’ve kept letting his insensitivity hurt me – each time he has driven through our city and doesn’t stop to visit, or each time he chooses to spend time with another sibling over me, etc. And, with that, for years, I have continued to relieve the grief of losing not just my mom and sister, but also my very family, including the father that I admired. I have held onto the idea that maybe he’ll change, because he changed once, so maybe he’ll change again back into the Dad that I remember. But clearly that isn’t happening and whenever I expect that it will, I’m just left hurting. (And it’s only taken me 17 years to start figuring this out).
But here’s the thing, as much as I’m struggling to actually do it, I realize that need to start doing it for myself, my marriage and our future children. We even discussed a few practical ideas on what we will discuss when we see our family in order to maintain safe conversations: other family members lives and news, world news, the price of oil, the weather, etc. The focus of the conversation will not be on the details of our lives. I will not try to get them to take an interest, as they tend not to ask (like most people, they do not bring up our miscarriages or ask about real adoption information – people don’t know what to say and don’t realize saying nothing at all is the absolute worst). Maybe one day they will express an interest, maybe they wont, but either way it’s off limits right now to protect my heart from being let down and hurt again.
Honestly, part of me is really sad – is it really acceptable to accept that our families continually let us down? Something about that feels wrong. Really, shouldn’t our families want to do better and want to have meaningful relationships with us? By building an armor and closing the door before my family slams it in my face, part of me feels like I’m giving up. And I’m afraid of the potential consequences – if I stop calling and visiting as much, what if my Dad doesn’t make more of an effort, does that mean we will never see each other? If we don’t put aside our hurt with Mr. MPB’s brother and just move on, what will our relationship with them look like in 5 years? So, all of this has me feeling rather sad, depressed and scared that this is our reality. Yet, I know it’s a necessity, and I know this helps put us on the right path forward.
But, I have to add that this is only part of our path forward. The other part is focusing our efforts on the relationships in our lives that do matter. Such as our friends that give back to us in a meaningful way deserve more of our love and compassion. And, we also have the opportunity to build new relationships, particularly in our local adoption community. We need and want to focus on building and creating our chosen family that is understanding and supportive of our all our lives experiences, the good and the not so good.
I realize now I’ve just written another version of the letter to my family that I wrote last week. Ops. If you made it this far, I commend you.
But, there is one big noteworthy difference between last week and today: I think with some effort I’m actually going to be able to accept these relationships for what they are and in turn maybe be just a little bit happier in my own life. Today I feel more at peace with this path forward.
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About a month ago I shared our initial 10 thoughts/worries/fears about our impending home study. Now that we are officially in the process, I thought I’d revisit the list and summarize my feelings on each one of the items.
How clean should our house be? Do you show your house just as clean as it is daily, for better or worse? Or do you clean inside and outside of every single cupboard and have the world’s cleanest storage room and garage ever? Do I refold and organize every article of clothing in our closet so our closet looks pretty, or do I leave it like it actually is?
Our house is generally pretty clean. We have a cleaner come once every 2 weeks who takes care of the grit and grime. We cook almost daily and value a clean kitchen for health reasons. Our weaknesses are that neither of us love to hang up our clothing or make our bed on a daily basis. We made an effort to make our bed and put away our clothing and called it good enough. I did make Mr. MPB move some furniture around in the days leading up to the first visit, but that was to change the layout of a room that was happening regardless of the home study.
And, just as most people told me, our social worker didn’t really care about the cleanliness of our house. She did not open any cupboards or closets. He didn’t go into our garage. She did not look for dust bunnies (or Sadie fur balls) under the couch. She also did not even go into our storage room. We did mention that once there are kids in the house we will put child locks on the kitchen cupboards to prevent them accessing any cleaning chemicals. But as we discussed, that’s something that most parents do, not just adoptive parents and she stated that clearly we do not need to do that at this point but once we have a child who is mobile.
How do you deal with a 90lbs dog? She “greets” visitors to our house with a howl that is reminiscent of a wolf. She’s big and black which for some people means she’s scary. While she is nice, we have no way to guarantee that she won’t jump or act up in some way. How do you bribe a dog to be perfectly behaved? Is it even possible?
We did not bribe or drug our dog. Although, I did love the suggestion of Benadryl, and will absolutely keep this handy for the future – I can see many instances where it would be useful. We decided not to even put her in her x-pen because we decided to let her be who she is. We decided to embrace the approach that the social worker will either like us for who we are or not and that includes our dog. When we spoke to the social worker on the phone we let her know that our dog will bark when she arrives and will be excited for the first 10 minutes of her visit but then she will be pretty chill after that. And, guess what, our dog did just that and spent most of the visit sitting on the her mat in the living room as we chatted away. At one point, she presumably just got bored with us and went to the other room to nap in peace and quite. Ultimately, she was wonderful.
What if we don’t like our assigned social worker?
So, we really liked her! We seemed to click and we enjoyed our conversations with her. It is always a bit odd to talk about your sex life and your finances with a nearly perfect stranger, but we just embraced it as a necessity and got on with it. All was good.
Will the deaths of my mom and sister impact our ability to adopt?
Nope, as it turns out most people have experienced some sort of death in their family or other tragic event. We did talk about it and it turns out I came through it all pretty well, and more than anything she marvelled at the fact that I am pretty normal. I should also point out that she was just as interested to her about Mr. MPB’s family who experienced the death of his grandparents in the last few years.
What would have been an issue is if either of us had experienced sexual or physical abuse at any point in our lives. That was something she asked more than once, and we saw a lot in the paper work. So, thankfully (for many reasons) this is not something we had to deal with.
Will the fact that we have chosen to make our home in a city away from our parents and family impact our desirability as adoptive parents?
This did not seem to phase her. She liked that we have our own family traditions around holidays (i.e. cooking epic meals at Christmas and thanksgiving, visiting with friends during the holidays, etc.). She wanted to know how often we see our out of town family – how often we visit them and they visit us. As with all of our answers we were honest that it depends on the year and what’s going on in ours and their lives. As part of the process she did speak with some of our family and family who were references, and it was pretty clear that we have a support system in place. Those who live here will support us no-matter what, and our family would also be here in a flash if we were ever in need.
How will they view our decision for me not to be working full time?
This did not seem to be an issue either way. Obviously we can afford to live without my full time income, and I am doing some consulting so it wasn’t really a concern. She was more interested in how I’m filling my days and what I am doing – volunteering, reading, cooking, etc.
Will the fact that we’ve spoken with a counsellor through our losses been seen as a good thing or a bad thing?
This is absolutely viewed as a positive because it demonstrates a willingness to seek help to solve difficult circumstances. In fact, she said that it’s a negative if you have not talked to a counsellor in our life.
With the exception of the little green rocking chair, will it matter that our house is virtually void of anything children? Should we purchase a crib or a stroller? I’m not ready too just yet, but maybe it would be worth it to make our house look a bit more baby friendly.
Again, an absolute non-issue. It turns out that most people going through infertility/RPL do not have baby friendly / baby ready homes. She saw that the room is painted and ready with very few things in it. But other than that she wasn’t worried about anything.
How much detail do we go into when we discuss our recurrent pregnancy loss? Do we mention the details of our third loss?
We discussed it all. We discussed how number 3 was my hardest, and number 4 was the hardest for Mr. MPB. We told her everything, including our decision to terminate for medical reasons. We told her about our trip to a specialist out of the country. We were honest about everything.
Are we good enough? I really think we are, so I’m trying very hard not to dwell on any self-doubt.
At one point I actually asked her if we were passing. She smiled, laughed and said absolutely we have nothing to worry about.
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