Our child?

A mixed bag of feelings today. Our social worker and her colleague came over to do my 'Adult Attachment Interview' - basically a set of questions which assesses how I 'attach' to other people based on my early experiences. I had a sense I was being sacharrine sweet, but there really was nothing bad I could say about my early years. I was lucky enough to be born into a loving family and felt fully supported and loved by my mum, dad, sister and, later, brother. It's a good thing really, I wouldn't want them to go away thinking 'lord, we've got a right one here'. And R and I learnt early on not to treat any line of questioning as a kind of therapy, because it all comes back and nips you on the bum. Not least because a lot of what we've said in all our meetings has been recorded on a dictaphone and will, as our social worker told us, be repeated back to us verbatim at panel. Later on, in my teens, things got a little more complex but they've already covered that in great detail (trying to come up with reasons why you behaved a certain way or did a certain thing in your teens feels nigh-on impossible - as our friend going through the same process said, does 'I was young and stupid' count?).

The real news is that our social worker brought a photo and some information about the little boy they have in mind for us. It's amazing that it's suddenly real. I looked at his face and was surprised that I didn't immediately go 'that's my son', but I suppose I shouldn't have expected that. I just keep picking up the picture - and now I have it beside me at the computer - and saying 'hello', trying to get a feel for him. My heart is gradually coming round to the fact he might be our little boy. It's an old photo, he's about 15 months now, and he's smiling, cheeky chappy. There's signs of foetal alcohol syndrome, which we knew about, although so far he's developing well and the paedetrician is pleased with his progress. I guess I expected to know instantly or something. But I've read elsewhere that it's a slow burn, a slow learn and growth, this way of becoming parents. R is on his way home now and I can't wait to share it all with him, to sit here and talk about how it all feels. Here he is now...