This is really happening

What to say about meeting her for the first time?

Well. She is cute as a button. No, she really is. She is slightly wary of us, and the first time we went she got a little shock and turned to stare at Hubby every time he laughed. She's a great player - we spent a whole morning today just on her play mat, toys galore. She reaches for things she wants, and does these funny commando rolls which make me want to add my own "Kapow!" sound effects. All of a sudden, she's rolled to the other side of the mat. She loves crinkly noises and puts everything into her mouth. In her, Bounce has found a true dribble soulmate!

We took Bounce, two days ago. He loved every minute of it. Well, that's not strictly true; he moaned once but it was a fake moan. He was straight away himself - none of his customary feigned or genuine shyness. He found foster dad's jokes hilarious and spent the whole time giggling. He was completely thrilled with the baby, and she seemed to reciprocate his feelings. He covered her with her mat, threw teddies at her, teased her with dangly, jangly toys, and wiggled his toes in her face (apparently her favourite thing!) It was a really fun, special first meeting - we don't really think it could have gone any better for either of them.

Today we had our first 'official' intro session and we spent the morning there. It went well and we had a good time, but it was a bit odd because we spent the whole time just in one room (apart from going into the kitchen for lunch). I am keen to get out for at the least a walk or even just a gander in the garden. Hopefully tomorrow.

At the moment, it still feels like we are getting to know some new friends, and we spent the morning at their house today. Baby doesn't eat much yet, and her napping routine isn't really a routine. These are the main things that I am trying hard not to feel anxious about. Naturally, I'm worrying that she will never, ever learn to eat and will never, ever get into a routine. This is exactly what I didn't want to do, exactly what I didn't want to be like. I have wanted this for such a long time, and I always look back and see how annoying it was that I got uptight about Bounce's developmental stuff when it always turned out to just 'be a phase' (obviously!)

And so this time I really want to enjoy it - all of it. Even if it takes us a few weeks of difficult nights or her not eating very much - I want to just ride that wave and find things within those situations that are special and happy and worth valuing. I don't want a tricky element to colour the whole thing, and I know that that is a tendency I have.

So for now I am working on being relaxed, non-uptight, and optimistic (and yes I'm annoyed with myself that these are things I am having to work for). We're having a baby!!

Waiting

We’ve been waiting an age. Or so it feels, at least. It’s been around seven months now, which, compared to the four we waited last time, feels long. Christmas helped, because December is busy anyway and it was full of subconscious ‘perhaps once all the festivities have finished…perhaps in the new year…’ in the way that these things are. 

There’s lots of that while you wait, isn’t there. ‘Perhaps at their wedding we’ll have a baby…Perhaps I won’t be at work when that change comes into force because I’ll be off with the baby…Perhaps I’ll have to cancel that holiday I’ve just booked because we’ll have just had a baby move in…’ It’s painful but, I think, natural and unavoidable. 

It’s harder when it’s things like ‘I hope we have a baby before they do…by the time they have their baby we will probably have been matched and then we can have play dates…they’re ten years younger than us and are onto baby number four…’ 

Roosevelt was right, I think, when he said that comparison is the thief of joy. 

Waiting is different this time. I didn’t think there would be a “this time.” I thought our go at baby-heartache and difficulty and waiting was over. I thought we’d conceive the rest of our family naturally. I thought we’d got through the tough hand we’d been dealt and that we’d earnt an easier ride this time. I thought wrong. I try not to dwell on the whys and the wherefores. It is like this and we get on. But there is sadness and grief every time I’m reminded of what we want and are yet to have. Of what we may never have. 

I looked after my beautiful niece when my brother and sister in law were in hospital having their baby number two. It was a precious, sad day. New life, family joy, miracles; such joy. But sadness too – I wanted someone else to be looking after Bounce while me and dkjsd were in the hospital having our baby number two. I wanted others to be on tenterhooks waiting to hear our good news and be sent brand-new-straight-from-the-womb baby photos. I wanted to be on to baby number two before my younger brother. I want, I want, I want; grief and sadness often expose the most self-centred parts of my heart. And then my brother named the baby after me, for all the most emotional and humbling and surprising reasons. 

And yet, we are hopeful. We do have hope. We have a wonderful boy. We are awaiting a match with a baby and we are hopeful that this baby will bring joy and happiness and laughter that will fill us to overflowing, just like what happened with Bounce. And I am waiting now, in this season, in a strange place. A place I’ve been before, and disliked before, but now, looking back, am desperately glad I was in. If things had gone my way I wouldn’t have been there. But I am mightily pleased that I didn’t get my way. 

So I suppose this time is a breathing space. That’s part of what I’m trying to do through all this writing. Take stock and breathe and ride the wave. All those types of things you see on cute little cross stitch banners, cheap notebooks, and millennial postcards pinned to gallery walls. As before, we are trying to enjoy things that will be impossible once the baby comes. We’re booking in evenings out. We’re busy at church loving and serving people and being in community. We’re going away when we can and splashing bits of money on nice things. We’re spending time with God in the mornings, on our own and with Bounce. We got a cat. We’re eating together as a family. We’re waiting. 

On Lulling

We're still very much in a lull.

Are we excited about adding to our family? Yes.

Are we keen to get to panel so that we can start looking forward to getting a match? Yes!

Is it the main thing going on in our lives right now? No... not really, no. 

Which is weird. And we've been trying to work out why this is how we're feeling. I feel a bit guilty about it to be honest; trying to explain it to our social worker earlier on didn't help either because I think I may have inadvertently given the impression that we weren't bothered about being in this process, which is not at all how I actually feel. Some writing is therefore in order, I feel, to help clarify what and why I'm feeling at the moment. 

Last time, we were first time parents. We had dealt with four years of trying to have a baby naturally (I say 'dealt with;' it's not the sort of thing you ever deal with in a concrete way, but you know...) and were pleased to have landed on the adoption process runway. It wasn't a quick decision or something we rushed into; instead it had been on our minds and had been growing in our hearts for a few months as we slowly came to the conclusion that we weren't going to fall pregnant. And then it was all pedal to the metal: home visits, paperwork, courses, medicals, paperwork, phonecall, questionnaires, observations, paperwork, home visits, forms, courses, etc. It wasn't all consuming, but it was consuming. And that was fine. We enjoyed having a focus, being busy with an end point in sight. But this time, partly because the process is different here (more about this in another post), and partly because we have Bounce, and partly because I'm working doing something I really enjoy instead of slogging away as an unhappy teacher; for all these reasons, and probably more, it doesn't feel like it's taking up much space in our lives. 

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

It's possibly healthier. I don't think obsessing about anything is a good thing, whether it's your children, your diet, your job, your house, your bank balance - it's not healthy. Balance is good. And so while I don't think we obsessed about it last time, it probably overtook a little, which was fine, but it's nice to feel this time that we can still pursue other things, and hopefully have more a patient outlook as we wait. 

But then also it feels wrong. We are having a baby. We don't know when, we don't know anything really - but we are having a baby, and this is Big with a capital B. I don't have that excitement bubbling away inside, I don't feel broody really, and Hubby and I don't often talk about it. Surely we should do!? 

It doesn't help that today's home visit was our first in almost a month, and we've not had any homework to complete in that time apart from an online DBS application which takes all of about five minutes. So in the most literal terms, it's taken up next to none of our time over the past four or five weeks. Also I've started a new job, doing some part time work, which has been hectic and busy and really fun, so that's taken up a lot of my thought-life, as well as my spare time. 

And perhaps, finally, it's also to do with others. If my belly were growing big with impending child, it would probably naturally become the focus of lots of conversations. Friends and others asking how I'm doing, checking for updates or scan photos or whatever. But with a prospective adoptive parent, those small-talk conversations which shunt the upcoming baby into the forefront of your mind (if they're not already there!), don't really happen in the same way. Perhaps, with adoption, it's easier for friends and family to forget. Perhaps they asked me how things were going last time we chatted, and they don't feel the need to ask again yet. Perhaps they don't know how much I even *want* to talk about it. Perhaps they don't want to offend, or are fearful of using clumsy language or upsetting me or something. All of these things are fine with me, in fairness. I wouldn't want it to dominate, in any sense; I wouldn't want to sound like a broken record. But perhaps these reasonings do help me to understand more about why it feels like we're in a bit of a 'dry patch.' 

So. Some conclusions: 

 - I'm not obsessed about the adoption: Good Thing

 - I'm excited deep down: Good Thing

 - I have lots of other stuff going on in my life: Good Thing

 - I don't talk to Hubby about it very often: Not a Great Thing - - - do this more

 - I don't pray about it enough: Not a Great Thing - - - do this more

No Mascara Needed

I'm feeling nervous! 

Our two days of adoption course training are nearly upon us, and I'm feeling nervous. Anxious. On edge. 

Not because I don't know what to expect; I do, largely. Although presumably some of the content will have changed since last time we attended the same course, I imagine that a lot of it will be similar. And that's what worrying me. 

Last time, I found the two day course full-on, intense, and a lot to take in. They bombard you with quite a lot of information, which you try to absorb while also sussing out the other attendees and trying to make the most of the chance to make friends with others who are potentially in a similar situation as you. 

The course covers lots of things, and a particularly impactful element for me was the part that focussed on birth parents, and reasons for children going into care. You look at the reasons children may be removed, and the way the process works. It's to build empathy, to make sure adopters feel for those whose children are taken away from them. This element of the course, its very inclusion in the course materials, is absolutely right and it's good and it's heartbreaking and it's bittersweet. 

And now I've got to face it again, but this time from the point of view not as a newcomer, with no point of reference, but as a mummy with a son who was taken away from another mummy. As a mummy with a son whose life could have been so different. When the course leaders talk about the reasons children are removed from the birth families, how will I not be thinking of Bounce, and his vulnerable start? When they talk about the issues and difficulties faced by birth parents, how do I not think about Bounce's birth parents, and what they mean to him and what they were to him? 

We knew at the outset of this second journey that it would be emotional - because it's beautiful, and exciting, and difficult, and life-changing, yes - but also because it's closer to home now, in a new, different sense. It's a reminder of things that, rightly or wrongly, you forget about in the day to day busyness of mummy-ing and life-ing. It's a reminder of, 'Oh, yeh - Bounce is adopted....his life could have looked so different...I wonder what he would be like if...' aaaand let the sobbing commence. 

So. I will cry. I will not wear mascara. I will take tissues. I will cry, maybe a lot. And that's okay. A deep breath, a quick prayer, a glance at my phone to see Bounce's happy, safe, gorgeous face, a squeeze of Hubby's hand, a nose-blow, and I'll be okay. 

Getting Going...(but not too quickly, please)

It feels, now, like things are really Getting Going. 

We first met with our (now) social worker in the middle of February 2018 (back when we all thought that winter was on its way out...and yet really it has only just left, literally yesterday), and we now have a panel date booked in for July. As second-time adopters, we are able to fast-track to the second stage of the approval process, which means that while we still have to complete the paperwork and checks of Stage One, we are able to do those whilst getting stuck in straight away with the meaty bit -  the home visits and PAR (Prospective Adopter Report) writing of Stage Two. So we've had a few meetings with our social worker, and have so far gone into detail about our family of origin, home and work life, support networks (inexplicably called 'eco-maps'), finances, and employment history (amongst other things).

We were pleased to learn that we were able to fast-track: once you've adopted, there's a lot about the technicalities of the process itself that you don't need to revisit. We know what panel is like and how it works, we understand about things like different options for contact with birth parents. And so being able to get through the process quicker is not a bad thing (even though the process itself really isn't a long affair; our first adoption went from initial registration of interest to Bounce moving in in twelve months). 

But. 

Rewriting our PAR (15,000 words last time)? Fortnightly meetings in our home with our social worker so that she can get to know us? Health and safety checks? All get a big tick from me. Some friends have asked why we have to go through it all again - isn't that just pointless, frustrating: we know what we're doing don't we?? -  which I suppose the two of us probably wondered back at the start. But now, I just feel grateful for this time. For this chance to delve back into our childhoods, to chat about our marriage, to look tentatively into the experiences that have led us back to this point again, a chance to reflect on how our lives have changed since Bounce moved in, and a chance to talk together about what we've learnt and loved and loathed. I'm grateful for this time to pause and savour life as a family of three. 

And really, would I want it to happen any quicker? If things go to plan, we'll go from initial contact to being approved to adopt in five months. And then the waiting for a match begins; last time it was four months. I saw a post thingy the other day about how 'backwards' humans are because our pregnancies last a staggering nine months, but actually I think that's just really, really good. Imagine if you went from no baby to baby just like that - in a week or something. Terrifying! And so that's how I feel: bursting with excitement at times, but also just so, so relieved to have this time to adjust, to get used to the idea of how things might change, to help prepare my heart and my home and little Bounce. 

You may want to remind me of this later in the year.... 😉

Adopting Again

Hello to anyone reading this! At the moment that's just me, but that's fine. I don't mind talking to myself.

So...we're adopting again.

When we adopted our son Bounce a few years ago, one of the things I...regret is too strong a word...one of the things I wish I'd done is to write more during the process: write about the highs and lows, the swinging emotions, the excitement building, the suspense while waiting, and the intensity of the process as a whole. And now - we're doing it all again! So this time, I'm chronicling it. On here, because it's easier and more convenient to type than write, and because this way I'll keep at it. Plus, it might be a good way to connect with other adopters which would be great!

I've decided to keep this blog anonymous for now, partly for my own privacy because we've not told everyone yet that we're adopting again, and partly for Bounce's privacy, and partly to avoid any complications with confidentiality for the new adoption. So I'm having to get creative and think of code names for my husband and my son! I'll reveal (drumroll please) that we live in England, we're both in our 30s, and Bounce is three years old.

And for now, I'll close with memories of Bounce playing sweetly with his baby cousin earlier on today...Aaaand the excitement brews 😌