Diary of an Adoptive Mom #37

In the 37th entry in our series, our mom looks back at trials and triumphs, and says goodbye.

Of all the diary articles I’ve written for Focus on Adoption magazine over the past six years, this one has proven to be the most challenging of all, because it will be my final diary entry.

The original concept to write these diary entries arose from my own feelings of “I can’t be the only mom out there who is having a really tough time, can I?” I thought there might just be a few others out there who struggled as I do, that there must be other moms who:

• By 9 am, are wondering how the heck we will manage through the next 10 hours or so until the kids go to bed.
• Think we’re going crazy over all the wacky behaviours our children come up with.
• Have moments/hours/days when we wonder, “What was I thinking?”
• Desperately need some way to vent our feelings without fear that someone will think we want “them” to take our kids away, because we don’t.
• Want to know we’re not alone in this madness we call adoptive parenting.

I hoped that looking back on some of our family’s adventures would provide some much needed comic relief for other stressed-out parents, and also help them to see the humour in their own situations; simply having someone to share those bizarre moments with is often enough to keep us from crossing over to the dark side.

Throughout my diary articles, I have shared experiences that were very difficult for me to write about; but the writing has been therapeutic for me and has helped me through some difficult days.

As I read the articles I wrote at the beginning, when Grant and Lynn first came home, I am amazed at how far we have come as a family - and that we survived! It’s really good to look back and remind myself of this.

So why quit? The simplest answer is that it’s become too hard. Sounds like whining, I know, but, of course, there’s more to it than that. I have always been very honest in my articles, but it is becoming more of a challenge to do so while keeping our anonymity. We are having significant, ongoing, never-ending challenges with one of our children and writing publicly about the issues would be enough to violate our family’s confidentiality. It would involve revealing more information than I am comfortable with.

As I sign off on my final diary entry, I want to thank all of you who have followed my diary - my struggles, my triumphs, and everything in between. I’m glad you were there.