Adoption Loss – A Follow Up

It’s been almost two months since we lost Baby K, after only having him in our family for one day. I think all 3 of us have been touched and changed in some way by his loss.

Ava went through a very rough patch after his loss. She was clearly angry and confused and took it out on everyone around her, physically. We went through a very rough patch where she kicked, bit, pushed and hit anyone that was the same size as her or smaller. At one point she was having multiple times out’s at school for her bullish behaviour and I was really concerned by the impact of her behaviour on her best friend as he seemed to be her favourite target for taking out her anger and her grief. But following the advice of my therapist, our social worker and Ava’s school teacher, we decided it would be best to simply ride it out, give her lost of encouragement and positive reinforcement and talk openly with her about Baby K, what had happened to him and why he wasn’t there any more. She loves looking at his photo’s and still refers to him as her baby and as herself as a big sister, but the violent behaviour has dissipated and she is back to her old, happy go lucky, sweet self.

Walter seems to be handling fine. It was a horrible situation for him, but he is far less emotional than I am, so he doesn’t seemed to have needed to grieve the loss in anyway because he hand’t allowed himself to get emotionally attached just yet. He was, and I think, still is, confused by the train of events that led up to Baby K’s loss but he has accepted the situation for what it is.

As for me, I guess I’m ok. It still hurts for me to look at photo’s of Baby K and talking about it still makes my eyes burn with unshed tears. I often wonder where he is, if he’s ok, if he’s being cared for, nurtured and loved and for me that’s difficult. I struggle with the not knowing. Ava’s struggle with our adoption loss was very hard for me, I really struggle with feelings of frustration over her acting out versus deep sadness over the obvious pain she was in.  Like Walter, I’m also still confused by the train of events that led to Baby K’s loss but unlike Walter, I am struggling to accept how everything has turned out.

There are days when the pain loosing Baby K and my deep yearning for another child are so intense that I physically ache on the inside. Yesterday was just such a day. I read Robyn’s Wordless Wednesday post yesterday morning and was so touched by the beauty of her photo’s, by the obviously strong bond between her children that my heart ached for the remainder of the day.

Knowing with each passing day, week, month, Ava gets older and older and the gap between her and her would be sibling grows wider and wider and the chance for that kind of bond grows smaller and smaller makes me so sad and so frustrated. At some point, if we still haven’t had our second placement, we may just remove ourselves from the waiting list because I’m now in my 40’s and don’t see myself raising another baby when I’m 45 and Ava is 8.

So yes, it’s been a tough few months emotionally but we’re ok. We’re still hoping, praying, believing in our second placement, that somewhere out there is the perfect little soul destined to complete our family but only time will tell.

As a side note – ironically it’s almost 3 years to the day that we received the devastating news of our imminent 7th miscarriage, perhaps this also is playing into my melancholy mood at the moment.

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