Marian adopted 3 children from foster care in the UK. She thought that a loving home would be enough to heal any wounds that the children had. My husband and I tried everything to have children of our own, but nothing worked so we decided to adopt when we were in our mid-thirties. We were living in England at the time and the process was pretty straightforward compared with Australia. In England there are journals and societies representing children ready for adoption. We applied to adopt three children from foster care aged two, five and seven, all from the same family. Once we were approved we were fast-tracked through the procedure and it only took about five months. I felt like a failure when we adopted. Here I was with everything Id ever wanted and I was ready to slit my wrists. While we were waiting, we heard awful stories from other adopting parents. We wondered how these people could be so negative – why couldnt they just be grateful? We were going to love these children so much that there were going to be no problems for us. It turned out to be a nightmare. Advertisement We had to hit the ground running from the moment the children arrived. You dont realise just how much hard work and in-your-face children can be. There had been abuse in the childrens birth family, and they had gone back and forth in foster-care homes. Children dont come from these situations unscathed and they carried some emotional issues with them. One of them didnt want me to be the mummy. One of the others had been so used to looking after the other two that it was very hard for him to let go. There were a lot of control issues which made life a battleground at times. Above all, each of the children was so needy and wanted all of me all of the time. After so many traumatic moves they wanted to be sure that they were going to be loved and were staying with us. I didnt cope with the dramatic changes well – I couldnt sleep and became very depressed. I didnt want the children to know for fear of them feeling rejected again. There was little to no outside support throughout this, apart from the social workers who came to check on us, and I was afraid to mention how hard I was finding it in case they took the children away. We loved those children before we even had them, so to have them taken away would be ten times worse. It was quite a while before one of the social workers said youre depressed and need to go to a doctor. I went to get antidepressants but that was the extent of the help. I wanted much more in the way of support but just didnt get it – there is simply no government money to put into these services. It would have been great if wed had some outside support that wasnt social-work led. It was too intimidating to talk to them. I wanted someone to come in for maybe a month and say, “Having been just you and your husband for however long, you are now going to have to do X day to day,” and to really guide us through it. No one had even informed me that post-adoption depression was very common. Even if Id just known that, I may have felt better. I felt like a failure and so humiliated. Here I was with everything Id ever wanted and I was ready to slit my wrists. I used my family and friends as sounding boards, but its hard enough understanding the problems that your own kids have, let alone the added problems of adopted kids. When you have your own baby, you build up to it, and you usually just have one at a time. We got a hurricane from the moment they came to us. This went on for years and years. We just coped and existed. I actually found the children easier to deal with as they got older, and we now have a very good relationship with them. I dont have regrets about having them, but it could have been a better experience than it was. I live in Australia now, and I agree completely with the argument that adoptions should be easier here. I think having children in long-term foster care is terrible because theres no sense of permanency. Its incredibly difficult to develop a sense of family when you think you are going to be taken away or given back. But I also think both the children and adoptive parents need ongoing, practical support for several years, alongside the social work. You cant just put the children in an adoptive house, stop paying and stop worrying about them and the parents. People cant rely always on their family/friends for support – things happen in peoples lives and they cant always be there to help out, which can be very lonely. As the state governments review making the adoption process easier, I urge them not to ignore the crucial need for ongoing external support. Marian is a guest on Insight, Tuesday at 8.30pm on SBS ONE, in which host Jenny Brockie asks whether local adoptions should be made easier. She speaks to children who have been in foster care, as well as adoptive parents and those trying to adopt, about the challenges they have faced. 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Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 11:50:18 +0000
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