Fall Out

2 weeks ago my husband and I left our children to go out of town for 3 nights.  He had to go on business and thought I might enjoy the break, time to catch up on sleep and laze around.  I jumped at the chance.  It wasn’t until I started preparing to leave that I began to wonder about the effects me leaving would have on Jett.  I have twice been gone overnight, no more than 24 hours, and both of those times my husband stayed with the boys and Jett did just fine.  This time, however, we left Jett with a family member who asked to watch the boys and who we knew wasn’t the best choice.  But we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings so we said yes.  I knew it was not the best choice but tried to push my misgivings out of the way by telling myself that any stress endured would quickly dissipate upon our return.  I was wrong, and not in a good way.

I don’t want to go into details because I believe this caretaker did their best, but despite my best efforts to prepare her and the boys for my departure I daily received phone calls where she plainly, and frustratingly, admitted that she could not handle the boys – but when you’re a thousand miles away what do you do?  I tried to get help to relieve her but the 3 people I tried were unable to provide assistance.

It has been two weeks and Jett is still struggling.  I half joke that he has Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  He has been peeing and pooping in his underwear, things he has NEVER done even when he first potty trained, and he is so upset when it happens.  I just let him stay in diapers one day because he cried and begged me to.  He has been hitting me and has been biting Michael, he actually drew blood today.  He did those things when we first brought him home but he hasn’t done that in more than a year.  He is not sleeping at night or during nap time.  And he throws terrible tantrums over nothing, he will just throw himself on the ground and I even saw him bang his head on our concrete floor, something else he hasn’t done since the first couple of months we had him home.

As I was preparing to leave I was trying to prepare myself for what I would find when I got home, and I didn’t expect anything like this.  I thought maybe some eating and sleeping issues (which reminds we, when we got back he had lost weight – his pants literally will not stay up anymore – it makes me want to cry) but I did not expect the regression to the hitting, biting, and tantrums including head banging.  He also does not want me to leave with him his beloved babysitter either.  The day before we went on vacation I had our babysitter over to watch the boys while I did all my last minute preparations around the house.  Even though I was here the boys were perfectly happy to play with her and let me be.  Now, Jett clings to me and cries for me not to even put him down…  Lastly, Jett will no longer tell me that he loves me.

Michael starts Mother’s Day Out in about 2 weeks and I think the 1 on 1 time with Jett will help.  And I am going to try to not leave him with sitters for a while.

I know that it is recommended that couples get away and common wisdom is that what’s good for the parents is good for the kids.  But I have to say, adopted kids are different.  Now I’m not saying that parents of adopted children should never go on vacation, but I knew Jett wasn’t ready.  And I knew that the caretaker was the wrong choice.  People don’t understand how a child from a background like Jett, institutionalized for the first 14 months of his life and then the next 6 months figuring out his new life, are different.  You can’t treat them like normal kids and expect them to rebound like normal kids.  And I guess that’s my problem, I knew Jett would struggle with me being gone but I just expected him to rebound and he just doesn’t have the coping skills to do that just yet.

I love being able to come on here and talk all about how amazing Jett is, and this post doesn’t change that.  But I want to be honest with our journey.

I probably feel most… shameful… about the fact that I knew Jett wasn’t going into the best situation for him and I, who am supposed to be his advocate and protector, didn’t do my job.  I didn’t want to over-react.  And I get weary of the conversations trying to explain what Jett might go through as a result of his circumstances and the trying to convince people of something they don’t agree with.  Before adoption I too thought that it was because these kids were treated differently they acted differently because no one expected anything more.  At an adoption conference I attended Dr. Karyn Purvis changed my world when she explained how the brain chemistry of a child, like Jett, who is from a hard place is completely different from the brain chemistry of a child, like Michael, who has known since he was born that he was precious and loved and who has never been neglected or had to worry about basic needs.  I certainly wasn’t exposed to this type of thinking before Jett and most others aren’t either.  We have to look at these kids differently, have different expectations (not lower expectations), and respond appropriately.  Here is a short clip of Dr. Purvis introducing this issue.

So we have some work to do with Jett to get him back on track.  Unfortunately we are going on vacation again, we leave Saturday and I think it is only going to make the issue worse and once again I am at a loss as to what to do to fix it. Well meaning family is telling me, again, not to worry about it, that he will be fine but my heart tells me otherwise.  I know that we are going on vacation for the boys, it is their trip, but the timing is all wrong.  I do believe Jett will recover from this, I just think it will take a lot of work and more time than we thought.

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