Messages By: conniekoen

I too adopted 2 children from Ukraine that were 18 mo old at the time.  We have been home for nearly 5 1/2 years now and they will turn 7 next month.  I love these kids and they can be so loving, but I am basically a single mom due to my husband deciding that money is more important than our family.  During the past 5 years, we have discovered that both children have sensory integration disorder, needed speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy.  In the past 3 years we have also needed lots of psychological help for my son too.  He has alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder, and are now testing for asperbers syndrome.  He would throw these rages that would wear out any normal person to a frazzle.  We drive 2 hours from home to get the psychological help he needs because no one in our area knows what to do to help.  I am so tired just from driving.  When we put them into preschool thinking they could use social skills and get friends, I received calls constantly for the past 3 years about things my son was doing that went against the rules, or against their grain in general. This year (kindergarten) we placed him in a school for kids with special needs (for a mere $12,000 a year), but there hasn't been one phone call complaining about anything he does.  I have to drive 23 miles each way to get him there.  They love him there.  There is a 2:1 student teacher ratio and they know how to handle him.  It has been a blessing in deed.  In the process I feel like he has needed so much that I don't give my daughter of the same age what she needs.  They have basically been twins and don't know what to do when they aren't with the other one.  So this has been very hard on her.  She is getting rebellious now because "he gets all of the attention". 

I am so exhausted and now being tested for narcolepsy because I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. 

I just want to make sure that we are doing the right things for my kids.  I have done everything if it was available to me.  I feel lost a lot because no one ever seems to know what to do to really find out what our problems are.  But at the same time I am so tired I get angered very easily, and feel like I am complaining all the time.  My husband just thinks things are fine and doesn't understand why I feel so stressed.  That angers me as well.  I always have to run our household plans as if my husband isn't home.  I can't depend on him for any of the appointments or to watch the children while I leave.  I have to get sitters for nearly everything that I can't take them to.

Our community has many children from Ukraine and there are many of us in the same situation now.  Mainly after the children are becoming on school age.  The people who adopted the older kids had an idea of the behaviors, but thinking we were getting younger ones we thought we would be getting them early enough that we wouldn't have them.  But we have definitely found otherwise.  We have started a local online support group just so we can lean on each other.  That has been nice, but of course not the answer to all of our issues. 

I will share with them this story being on the air.  Maybe we can learn something new.  We just feel like our resources are exhausted.  I wish there was a body scan that we could do to tell us what we have and need to do for it.  If it could just be that simple.

Connie, KY

Mom to 2 Ukrainian children