Empty Nest . . . almost.

17 years ago, we adopted a little baby girl.
Our natural children were 8 and 10. Needless to say this little baby was well and truly loved. I remember my mom saying to me once when she had visited, "No one in this family walks by that baby without kissing her!"
We took her into our hearts our home, and our family. Her birth mom a courageous lady was quietly in the background, and for 17 years she has never been far from my thoughts.
I know that it was the hardest thing and in some cases the most selfless thing a person can do to give up their child.I think there is a notion out there that all birthmothers that give up their children are bad. That might be the case for some, when their desires or addictions come before the life they have created. In this case, it was the opposite. 17 year olds birthmom wanted her child to have the family she could not give her at the time.
Since then BM has gone on to make a family every bit as good as the family she wished for her first born daughter, but that was much later after she had put her needs aside and gave 17 year old what she needed from birth.
For this reason, I have always felt like we were raising this child not just for us, but for her birthmom who entrusted her child to us.
17 year old grew up knowing she was adopted, we told her before she could talk, and many times thereafter. One of the first times we told her she said, "I am not opted I am ________". We always told that story to her as she grew.

It was around age 3 when she was not talking yet that I began to worry for her. She screamed in frustration at not being able to be understood. I want to write here that her twos and threes were a trying time, but it turns out all her stages were trying times. 17 year old learned how to cope in most situations. Her language gradually developed, albeit with a few of her own made up words, or backwards words, and we carryied on loving and enjoying the vivacious crazy little child she was. We navigated the difficult side of her like a team. She had four completely devoted people helping her, pushing her, teaching her, loving her. her Dad, myself and her older brother and sister.

I didnt know it then, but Marlo had Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. I hesitate to mention this here or anywhere, because I fear the chance of her birthmom ever reading this post. Her birthmom knows, and lives with the shame and devastation that her youthful partying caused. I love this birthmom, and I know that she did nothing more than many other people in the world have done. But in her case it effected her child. I know she has come to some kind of acceptance and forgiveness for her part in this, and I only wish that for her. We all make mistakes and some of them effect others, but there is forgiveness and moving on.

Having said that. It has been 17 years and many times I have wondered at the decision that we made to adopt her and how dramatically it has changed our lives from what they would have been. She has been difficult to raise. I have put all my energy into being her 'external brain" and have advocated tirelessly for her in school, and any other area she was involved in.
During her childhood, she was a fun loving, crazy kid. During her teenage an obsessive bent towards fitting in and not letting anyone know she was different developed. This is common for any teenager I suppose, but in 17 year olds case, she had the exterior goods, but did not have the ability to compete on a level with her peers acedemically, socially, or in friendships.
I watched with a tightening knot in my heart from grade 8 onwards as the gap became larger between how her freinds were functioning and how she was.
She became glued to the computer as her only outlet. She was a brillant writer, but if you spoke to her she couldnt always comprehend what you were saying. If we wrote it to her, she was able to.
It is a common trait in FASD individuals that they will have gaps in their abilities and even excel in areas that seem beyond their overall intelligence. It is a confusing and frustrating brain damage, because it has commonalities from person to person, but each person is a unique blend of strengths and weaknesses.
17 year old wrote copiously about her feelings in the evening before she would go to bed, but if you asked her what a person on the phone said, she was unable to relay the message.
She was unable to pick up social cues from her girlfriends, unable to initiate friendships, so as the give and take of friendship became more important, she began to lose one by one the simple friendships she enjoyed in elementary school.

Her frustration level at life began to heighten and her inability to keep attending school, juggling all the classes, obeying all the rules resulted in us taking her out of a school that just didnt know what to do with her academically. She looked perfectly fine, she acted fine, but books were always forgotten, homework was misunderstood. Communication between myself and the teachers usually took on the form of them telling me that she just needed to apply herself, just needed to listen better. There were a few teachers that kind of got it, but for the most part it looked as if we the parents were indulging a lazy kid.
We knew different. We knew that she spent 3 hours a night doing her homework in the hopes that she wouldnt be embarrased the next day, but after handing it in, a note would come back on it saying, "This is not what I asked you to do".
Testing began, I spent all my time advocating, making appointments, phoning phoning anyone I could. This all culminated in a diagnosis of ARND Alcohol Related Neurodevelopment Disorder.
As we watched 17 year old decend into depression we made the decesion that she would have to make it in life without a graduation. Not possible is the message that our society gives us now. But we knew that she had to find another way to live, to somehow grow to independance.
As I look back now, I can see that my identity was somewhat taken up with the fact that I had a special needs daughter, and I had to make her life work. I do believe that her eventualy resistance to us haveing any involvment in her life was because I was so set on making her life work out.
There came a time in our journey where I had to let go. It was at the time that she against our many warnings etc went to meet a boy she had met on the internet. They became involved and she began even more resistance when we tried to resist this new relationship.
That was year ago, we have cried many tears, had many tense moments and even had a few visits from the police as her temper raged beyond what we could control.
I know from my support group that I am not alone in this. I know that this isnt normal behaviour and having the police come to our home for a swearing hitting teenager was not something that we ever thought we would ever in a million years be part of. It is embarrasing to admit it.

Our home had turned into a battle ground, and many times as I would turn the car into the driveway, I would just want to carry on driving. It is hard to live with someone who hates you but needs you, whom you love as a mother, but whom you do not know how you can get through the next week with let alone the next 3 years.
We needed relief, but she was our daughter and we did our best to give her the parenting and love that she would accept. We began to be thankful for the little things, a work schedule at the local coffee shop, gave us some respite. A week without any major blowups was something to be thankful for.

I dont know what I would have done without my husbands love for our daughter, for his support of me, and for the group of ladies at my support group, all parents of children affected by alcohol in utero. They were invaluable to me as they helped me see that we had been good parents, we had done what we could do, and that their life and family experience mirrored mine. They bore my burdens, put an arm around my shoulders when I cried and laughed with me at the crazy circumstances this disability brings to ones life. Some of them had gone along the road a little farther than me, and I could see that they had regained their hope. I clung to that.

I tried every concievable angle to get help locally for her. There just was nothing available for someone from a private adoption. It is a huge problem, becoming ever more apparent as many families are now dealing with children that they have adopted privatley from overseas that came with unknown problems that are now exibihiting themselves in teenage and early adulthood.

Yesterday, was surreal for me. 17 year old was loading my car with all the contents of her bedroom. Her boyfriend of 19 along with her had rented a basement suite where they are going to live. He is working, but 17 year old had just quite her job because she was positive that everyone was being mean to her there. That is another hallmark of FASD, they cannot connect their actions to the consequences that naturally come about. So when anyone gets mad at them or corrects them it is meanness in their eyes. 17 year old solved this particular problem by quitting a very good job serving coffee at our local Timmy's outlet. I was devastated.

The news that she was moving out initially threw me into a panick. I knew that to try to talk her out of it would result in nothing good. However, I have come back to seeing things in a differnt light. I knew that my husband and I were at our breaking point in regards to living with her day in and day out. I know that we will still be driving her to interviews for yet another job that she thinks will be better than the last. We will be checking her suite to make sure she is taking care of things, as much as she will let us.
This arrangment is so far from my value system, my desires for her, my hope that I have for her future, but it gives us breathing room. She is over the moon with the idea of having her own place. She is nesting and arranging and feeling grownup.
I have learned that nothing ever stays the same for too long in 17 year olds life. So for now, I am going to enjoy the freedom we have in our home now, I am going to enjoy her desire for me to 'see' her placement of furniture, her ideas of where she wants to put a plant etc.
I will help her like crazy to get another job, to help finance this arrangment as we are not able to pay for her half of the suite.
I will be judged by some people for allowing my 17 year old to move in with her boyfriend and condoning it, but these people will not in the least understand what it is like to parent this disability.
I will have a few tears in my pillow at night, because I miss her, I miss her as a little girl, I feel anxiety at having to let go.
But I will try to take this time to rest my shattered nerves, and recouperate and nurture that hope again that I have for all my kids to live successful fulfilling lives