I’ve been struggling with this concept I’ve been wanting to write about. I’ve stated in almost every article so far I am in no way an expert I just write on my experiences, that is my driving force. I want to explore the ride of raising a child who wasn’t born from me. Typically when you think about this you think adoption, parents seek child, in our case, child found parents. I believe he found us, from the ease of the transition bringing him home to his birthday being my husband and I’s wedding anniversary, I believe he found us.

I truly feel honoured that this little boy found us, that my family and I are the kind of people who would be allowed such a gift. Before he came I was in the zone getting things done and preparing. I didn’t have much time to think about the future, which was a really good thing because the feeling I can only describe as guilt showed up really quick for me right after he came, I was surprised to feel that way. I was elated and guilty, happy and melancholy, calm on the outside and freaking the fuck out on the inside. Basically the Momma in me was at war with the knowledge that the reason we have this sweet little boy is because his birth parents were unable to care for him. As admirable of an action as that is, one can’t help but bear the weight of that realization. Pair that with the understanding that it’s your family who aren’t capable of raising him and that added a whole other layer of guilt of letting this little boy down before he got started. I want to note I logically knew that these were all facts but not my burdens to bear and that this boy was where he belonged, I just couldn’t get my head on board all the way.

I would tell myself over and over again that guilt was a useless feeling that I didn’t have a reason to feel these things, they weren’t mine to feel. I also had to give myself grace because this was a unique situation and I was allowed to take time and process any feelings I had on it. So you can see where the back and forth emotions made it tricky to process. On one hand I needed to give myself the space and patience to process the guilty feelings and on the other hand I knew all along these feelings weren’t actually mine so why the F do I feel them? The answer is because I am human, it’s really that simple. I care so much that I took on those feelings and I knew the answer wasn’t to care less, I just didn’t know what the answer was.

Before initially finding out about him I was learning as much as I could about the power of positive thinking, I am utterly fascinated by the subject. I had no idea back then how valuable what I had learned and would learn would be. I dove into topics like programmed behaviours, breaking negative patterns, negative feedback loops basically anything that could help me understand how my brain was keeping these emotions alive and at the forefront of my mind. Once I grasped a very beginner set of tools I put them to work. A lot of meditation and becoming so aware of my thoughts that I could notice when the guilt would surface and instead of feeling the emotion like I was used to I could go over my checklist and take the emotions power away using APP. When I went over the checklist it would be things like, why do you feel guilt? (Acknowledge) Is this guilt yours? Have you done anything to deserve the guilt? (Process) How productive do you expect to be for this boy while carrying that around?Doesn’t he deserve the healthiest version of you he can get? (Plan). I asked myself these very to the point questions that are specific to my circumstances so that my logic could override the emotion. I had to give myself a speech and eventually I started to believe it. I meditated on how I wanted to feel as if I already felt that way and I told myself the truth of the situation when the guilt reared its ugly head, these two things changed the game for me. Guilt is one of the lower forms of human emotion so once I started to believe the new factual narrative I was telling myself it allowed more positive feelings to flow in. It opened up more room for hope, and possibility and ultimately that my family and I are enough for him. It all came from a place of insecurity, that we wouldn’t be enough for him, that he may always have a hole in his heart. I will do my absolute damnedest to ensure there isn’t one but I could no longer live in a state of worry and guilt. I had to let it go and trust that we are where we were meant to be and he’s here for a reason, we are enough. I never want him to see guilt on my face and think that he put it there, when in fact he brought so much joy and a feeling of completeness, that’s the face I want him to see.

I’m still learning a little everyday and applying what I’ve learned to this specific portion of my life as well as others. I can say it’s been 9 months since he came home and I now no longer feel guilt as an emotion, I am aware of it but it doesn’t plague me anymore. It sneaks in at a random moment and I mentally bat it away at this point, maybe soon it’ll be gone completely, I guess we will see. During this time I was in EMDR therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. The EMDR was dealing with a past trauma regarding my family however I’m confident it helped in this process as well, a lot of stored negative emotions were released in those sessions which made room for even more positive ones.

There’s no way to predict how you would feel in this scenario, someone else going through this exact mirrored life could feel completely different than I did. I would give every single person the same advice, be patient, be kind to yourself and be firm for yourself.

To be continued…