How Much to Share

It's been awhile since I posted because I've struggled with how much to share online about our story. It's easy to share with everyone the happy and fun parts of life as an adopted family. Everyone is ready and willing to celebrate with you. Non-Adoptive parents may believe that a child being dropped into your family will take a short adjustment period and then your child will be just like your bio child. Some adoptive parents even just assume everything will smooth out on it's own, "they just need love and time." And sometimes this is true, to some extent, but most times, it's really not. Our children, whether they were in an orphanage for 1 month or 5 years or somewhere in between, have suffered trauma at the separation of their birthparents and neglect from being in an institution. Even the very best orphanage, and there are simply too few of those, the caregiver ratio is nowhere near what it would be in a family setting. It's simply not feasible. Beyond that, the caregiver relationship is not what it is in a family setting. I have met some amazing nannies- who truly do their jobs with their hearts, but they are caring for the children and babies in the way that a teacher at a school would care for a student. They love the children, they want to help them grow, they love what they do, but at the end of the day, they pick up their purse and go home to their own families. The children get "revolving door nannies"- the morning nanny who might be loving and sweet, the afternoon nanny who might have some things going on at home and is disconnected on some days, simply doing her job becuase her mind is on other urgent personal things, and then the night nanny, who gets around to change diapers on schedule rather than by need, and might give a baby a quick cuddle when they get their diaper changed.


In Maddie's orphanage for example, there were 2 nannies working at any given time, and 40 babies under 2. In an 8 hour shift, just one of those nannies would likely have changed 60-80 diapers, made 40 bottles, put escapee children back in their cribs 20 times, washed and folded a few hundred diapers, and probably a few dozen blankets. It doesn't leave much time for holding babies. It's not uncommon for a baby in an orphanage to be in their crib for 20-22 hours a day- if they are lucky, there is a baby in the crib next to them to interact with, but it would be a baby who is suffering the same sort of neglect.


There is certainly blame to place here, but in my opinion, it's not on the orphanages- they are understaffed, underfunded, and often doing the best they can. But this post is not about placing blame. It's about understanding context.


While I have discussed the circumstances of Maddie's orphanage, this post is also not about Maddie. Do we see things in Maddie that are a result of her beginnings in her orphanage? We certainly do, but we have 3 years behind us now of hard work of proactively addressing adoption issues and helping her to learn trust on our part and survivor insticts on Maddie's part that have helped her move beyond some of the earlier difficulties in her life. There will always be some things that linger that forever remind us of her beginnings in life.


But sometimes, it's not so easy. Sometimes, there is simply more. I have read copious books on adoption- some scared the bejeazus out of me- most I am eternally grateful for the information found within their pages. All of them useful because always I can pick something up. I consider myself relatively well read and educated on post institutionalized children, but still, I did not recognize what was going on with Violet until we heard it from a professional- we just knew we felt something was not right.


I want to preface this with, "our Child is not broken"- She is perfect and wonderful and sweet and smiley and funny and charming and loving and smart. She is the same girl she was before last week, but now we can address her challenges in a way that will help us all to become a better family, and help her to feel safer in our family and in the world outside. And I know there will be people who don't understand this, people who don't believe it, people who will say "oh she just needs time and love!" But while we care for our family, if those people choose to not be supportive of us, those people will not be on our short list to visit or to spend time with. It's as simple as that. Our family does come first, and our children do come first. Any parent who would not put their child first is not the kind of parent I want to spend time with.


We found out last week that Violet has Sensory Processing disorder. The severity range of this is wide- some kids can be mildly affected, some can be strongly affected. I have been very lucky to be in contact with a mom whose daughter is what I would say on the more severe end of the spectrum- Violet might be mid to 2/3 through the spectrum of severity, but that's just my rough guess. I really have nothing scientific to base that on, I just know our experiences. She seems to be a "sensory seeking" girl- she wants input, but then she has difficulty knowing what to do with it when she gets it. It makes her life very hard at times- lots of tears, lots of sadness, lots of up and down. As Parents, we are tired. Her big sister adores her above all else in the world, but it's also difficult for her. Most of all, this is about Violet though. SHE is the one who has suffered such tremendous recent loss, and she is the one whose brain has been wired in a wonky way to not know how to deal with the massive stimulous around her.


Yesterday we went out for breakfast and it was pretty busy and loud around us- we left just at the beginning of melt down time- just when it was all getting too much for Violet- we had the idea to go for a little hike in a nearby state park. We thought the quiet of the woods would help her feel more balanced and calm after our breakfast out and being surrounded by so many people. About 20 minutes into our hike (she was in the stroller) she just started melting down. It is all stimulus- this time, it was the wide open space, the vastness of it. Remember even spending long periods of time outside is still new for her! She spent almost 2 years almost wholly inside a couple of rooms! So our poor girl was just overwhelmed- we always carry a blanket in the stroller so we flipped the sun shade down, and tossed the blanket over her so she could not see outside the stroller and she was basically in a "cocoon" in the stroller. She calmed down almost immediately from her prior state of crying and thrashing around. She calmed down and was satisfied. We got back to the car, went home, and spent the day inside. I had figured out this technique with Maddie when she was a baby- she would get overstimulated sometimes and if I had her in the ergo, I'd wrap a blanket around the back of her head so it acted like blinders- she could only see me or the sky- it worked every time to calm her down.


This is just one example. We have overstimulating experiences almost daily. If we have a really overstimulating day, it will take her days to come down off her "high" of stress. When we went to CA in January to visit family, it took her a week and a half, and she reverted back to the same things that were happening the week after we came home from China. It was not a good trip and it showed us we cannot travel for awhile. We should have realized.


But more so- we have now been home 3 months with Violet and have just now gotten a diagnosis of SID- I consider myself well read but I feel I did not have the slightest idea about our girl having sensory issues! We felt that there was *something*, something more that was not normal, but I couldn't figure out why. I knew that something about how she reacted to things seemed not right and it's made me nervous since early on, but I did not have a specific way to describe how it was different- it was just *different*. The good news is, now that we have a diagnosis, we will start OT. This is a part of who she is, but the neuron connections can be reprogrammed. We will all be working at this- our whole family- and it may be a year or two before she is really a "regular kid" in the sensory sort of way. In every other way, she is a regular kid- but we all have work to do to help her get to "regular" in the sensory stuff.


I have labored for weeks about what to share on the blog, because this is truly Violet's story.

But I also know that I have benefitted from others blogs when they actually talk about "the tough stuff." Adoption is not all peaches and roses- it's not easy for anyone, although it is immeasurably rewarding. Before, during, now, I would never choose another way to make my family. I cannot imagine that for me, anything could be more special than the way we have met our two amazing brilliant beautiful wonderful children. I will be forever grateful that they are in our lives until my last days. But the truth is- our children have been through neglect and in some cases abuse before joining our families. Our children need greater love and understanding than a child raised in a birth family to overcome and move beyond their starting point in life. They need us to recognize their past and acknowledge their trials AND triumphs. So when other families have boldly blogged about the tougher stuff, I have been eternally grateful because I can learn from them. Maybe if I join the ranks, someone can learn from our experience as well. I will be trying to tread lightly- to share our experiences, while also maintaining some privacy for our daughter. So please bear with me as I figure out exactly where that path is.


Here are some of the signs of Sensory Integration disorder, that we did not know to look out for:
Frequent walking on tip toes
High risk taking/"daring" behavior
Being overly affectionate with others (strangers as well)
little awareness of pain
Fascination with lights, fans, water (water for us)
Unusually high activity level
self injury or aggression
difficulty with transitions

The list above and more can be found at Incredible Horizons.
There is a long list- the ones above are just those that we experienced. We chalked them up to her experience of having lived in an orphanage with all older significantly mentally handicapped older children. Now we know that being in that environment likely was a significant contributor to her SID.

We will start Occupational Therapy with her on Friday. Personally, I am thrilled to have a diagnosis and a plan. She is the same child that she was before we had a diagnosis, but by having a diagnosis, we have a path to a solution and an improvement.

She is still, in every way, our loved, wonderful, sweet, amazing, smart, sassy, funny, and cute little Violet. Her brain is just wired differently, for now.