Early days of adoption and I hate it

[MyOliveBiscuit]

I’ve wanted to adopt my whole life. I knew my child from his profile as soon as it was read to us anonymously. I’ve cried all the way through the process because I wanted it so much and now he’s here and I hate every second. He’s 5 and can show some challenging behaviour but mostly he’s just a 5 year old. We’re bonding well but I hate my life now. I just make food and drinks and exist entirely for him. I don’t get to eat or shower or think. I’m struggling to sleep. I keep hoping some mistake will come up in an audit and they’ll say we can’t adopt any more. Does it get easier? Do I just hate being a mum?

Early days were awful for us! My lo was so dysregulated and I remember crying just about everyday for a while. I spent weeks trying to get him dressed or even to leave the house. Then things got better and then one day I realised I hadn’t cried for a few days 🙂
I remember great advice from other adopters I knew: break the days down into small chunks, start each day anew and as long as everyone is fed and alive then you are winning!
I remember people saying it would get better and not believing them, but it did. Be kind to yourself and make sure you get some time for you.

Posting in haste so forgive the short reply but just wanted to send a hand hold. I just want to echo others when they say it does get easier over time and absolutely you are in the trenches right now. I think adopting my son in the first few weeks was something akin to a shock response. You can want something so much but your entire life as you know it changing overnight is bound to bring up resentments, fatigue, frustration and at this stage it's unlikely you'll have built up enough of a bond to do more than going through the motions. I know it's not much practical help to say this but I wish someone had told me to forgive myself for having doubts and simply going through the motions in those early days. Even by doing those daily things for him you are showing great care but you may not recognise this right now. I'm not sure if you're still cocooning (not having visitors) but I found once my wider family could visit, some of our social worker visits died down, and I had had a chance to establish some routines that worked for us better as opposed to simply emulating the foster carers routine, things got better. I personally felt poles apart from how I'd felt in the first few days once I'd got to the one month mark. My advice fwiw is don't be afraid to make changes to suit your family. Yes it's important to keep some familiarity but in hindsight I wish I'd trusted my instincts more about what would work better for us once we had him home than feeling I had to get perfect superhuman mum and take on every time aspect of social services advice. I think the feeling you are being monitored doesn't help things. Once you buildup the knowledge of your child, develop more of a bond, are benefitting from your support network more and have had a chance to adjust to the shock factor things really do so improve. If you need any hand holds in these early weeks please don't be afraid to reach out, this forum was a lifesaver for me. You may not know it but you're already doing a brilliant job xxx