Adoption Awareness

I love Lydia...she is my world, but honestly life as an adoptive mother is not all rosey. Lydia can be extremely difficult. She has mood swings and she makes getting any sleep difficult. Since I've gotten home from China I average between 3-4 hours of sleep a night. Some nights I get less, thankfully some nights I get more. I am not a perfect mom. I get sick, I get tired, I get frustrated, I get angry. Lydia came to me with a personality, with likes and dislikes, with her own attitudes and opinions. And those opinions sometimes conflict with mine. Though I must admit, I am one of the lucky moms. Some of the moms I know have children who maliciously bite them, who kick and scream, who self mutilate by tearing out their own hair. Lydia has none of these problems but it's still tough. I am so far behind on EVERYTHING it's disgusting. I feel pressure from family, from friends, and from work. I try to be supermom, but honestly I just can't. I cry. I cry more than I like to admit because I sometimes feel like I'm a failure because I have trouble juggling life as a Mom/Wife/Daughter/Friend/Director/Teacher and every other hat I wear. The reason I'm telling you all this is because sometimes we adoptive moms are so happy we make it seem easy and fairytaleish and it's not always that way. In the last couple of months there have been 2 China babies whose mothers allegedly shook them. One baby is blind, deaf and paralyzed from the incident...the other is dead. I don't know these women...I don't know their specific circumstances...but I do know this: if you're too tired or too angry or too frustrated you have the power to put her in her crib or playard and then walk away and clear your head and then return to the situation later when you are fresh. I have, and I'm not ashamed. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to make the choice to walk away. I love Lydia...she is my world. I am sure those children were their mommies world too. Please don't shatter a world or a life...walk away. Don't shake a baby.