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You're Not Alone
Addressing the Common Problem of Post Adoption Depression
By Kelly Burgess
McCarthy should know. She is the mother of three boys adopted from Russia. All three were adopted as older children – two at age 6, one at age 5 – and all presented with severe sensory issues and other special needs. A year after she adopted the first child, who had a serious attachment disorder, she went to her doctor and told him she just couldn't handle it any longer. He started her on antidepressants, which she says helped her quite a bit.
McCarthy's experience, both with post-adoption depression and with trying to find answers for her kids' problems, led her to start the Eastern European Adoption Coalition Inc. (www.eeadopt.net/site/eeac), a Web site devoted to preparing and educating adoptive parents. A few years after she started the site, she ran a survey asking her listserve parents if they had ever experienced post-adoption depression. Of the 150 responses, an overwhelming majority, 71 percent, said they had.
McCarthy points out that there are many factors that can cause post-adoption blues. Usually it's women who are affected, mainly because women are the primary caregivers of children, but she has heard from men who are struggling with this as well. Foli thinks a big part of the problem is that the adoption follows a period of enormous stress for the adoptive parent. This is particularly true for parents who adopted internationally. The process of international adoption is so overwhelming, with paperwork, travel and financial juggling, that often parents don't really have the time to reflect on the fact that they will have a child at the end of this process.
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