Trauma

Well, those of you who know me personally know that last week was full of crisis and trauma.  My week started out in a 2 day crisis response class.  Unfortunately crisis response is part of my job.  It seems like every year at least one district out of my office deals with the death of a student.  As a school social worker, I go into schools when asked to provide supports to the students and staff.  I do find it fulfilling to ensure that students have a safe place to talk about their friend, their memories and their feelings.  Well, who would have guessed that one of the communities that my office serves would have a major crisis on Monday.  I am thankful that no children were hurt, but a sheriff's officer was killed and the shooter was later killed by police.  This is a very small close knit community.  Unknown to me until Tuesday morning a co-worker was directly impacted by the incident.  Tuesday was spent supporting my co-worker/friend.  It is so hard to see this friend go through this pain and know that there is little that can be done or said to make her or her family feel less guilt about what happened.  Then as I was driving to work on Friday morning, my mom called to say my dad was in the ER!  Needless to say I turned around and headed to the hospital about an hour away.  Thankfully, my dad is fine.  He was released early in the afternoon on Friday and is now getting further evaluation and testing by his general doctor. 

So, all this crisis and trauma has made me think about about adoption.  How much do the children being adopted understand what is happening and how traumatic is it for them.  They are taken away from the orphanage.  No matter how bad the orphanages seem to us, it is the only home they know.  They are use to specific care givers who they will never see again.  They are handed over to people who speak a different language that they don't understand, invade their space and immediately start exposing them to new things.  Just when things are starting to settle a little.....they have to go on an airplane and travel for a LONG time.  Not understanding where they are going or what is waiting for them.  No wonder many of the children don't sleep on the trip home.  I can't image how overwhelmed these little ones must feel.  I have read about how many kids who have lived in orphanages having sensory overload issues when in new places or around too many people....I understood that concept, but I didn't quite get it how huge it might be.  So, I can say that although last week was horrible and stressful, it gave me some "ah ha" big light bulb moments. 

Hope

I would describe myself as being usually optimistic.  There are some areas where my skeptic side comes out, but usually that is due to either past history or knowledge of the specific issue.  Trust me, being a social worker I have seen or heard about almost anything you can and can't imagine.  Yet, after having my MSW degree for almost 9 years (doesn't seem like it has been that long) I still am able to maintain hope.  Hope in the kids and families that I work with.  Hope that one day our system will improve and help to keep kids safe.  Hope that people will make good choices for themselves, their children, our country and the world.

This started to make me think about adoption.  I have many hopes for my adoption.  I am anxious to meet the child that I will adopt.  I'm anxious to do so many things with the child I will adopt.  But at what point do waiting parents give up hope....what is the "deal breaker" in the process.  I hope that everyone who chooses to go on this journey understands that there is a lot of waiting and anticipation.  Waiting can be very difficult at times and I know of other waiting parents who are reaching that point of loosing hope.   So, I began to wonder at what point might I start to loose hope.  I don't know the answer to that right now.  I know that for me the most difficult part of waiting is not being in control....not just of the adoption, but more in the area of making changes in my life.  It's not that I want to make any major life changes...I love my job, I'm not ready to move and I still don't have the desire to get married.....It's more that the control of making a change is not as easy right now because of being a waiting parent.  It is a feeling of being stuck.  I really dislike this feeling.....so, how do I change this feeling, can I change it.  I'm not sure on those answers either.  But I am really trying to process through them (it might be time to pull out the book Man's Search for Meaning, it helps me to look at things from a different perspective).  I still have hope and remain positive about this journey, but know that there may be a day when I won't.  So, I guess my question to go out to the blog universe is how do you maintain hope through this journey.  What tools do you use to manage the ups and downs of being a waiting parent?