The possibility of fostering

So, our SW came round this lunchtime to talk to us about the kind of children we'd like to adopt. She brought round some more profiles, not of children we could adopt as they'd already been placed, but to give us an idea of the kinds of children they have on the waiting list. I asked for no photos any more else it feels like some kind of dating site, and horrible and weird. She agreed, and had decided no photos anyway. I always feel that I look completely utterly different in photos to how I really am, and photos pack so much punch, so I'd prefer to get to know our child through who they are, rather than what they look like. We discussed the possibility of adopting a child around 6-12 months, as our LA has a lot of children this age to place. We thought this was interesting when we first started with them, as we had imagined we'd adopt an older child. But it seems that information has filtered in, and here we are hoping that's the match we'll get. Our SW talked about 'concurrency' - when a baby is fostered with us from birth with a view to future adoption. It sounded good until we got to the reality that the baby would need to be seeing their birth mum and/or dad regularly - up to 7 times a week - to build an attachment. And that it might turn out that their birth mum gets to keep them, so after 6-12 months of loving and nurturing a child, we'd lose them. Our SW pointed out that often foster carers lose them with the knowledge that they might well be going somewhere that's not entirely safe and quite probably not emotionally stable. Oh lordy, that was too much to contemplate, and the fact we'd have to live with that unknown for the first year of our child's life seemed slightly too terrifying to process. But we haven't ruled it out.

Our SW also asked us 'where we were on not having a birth child'. I guess I'd put the heebie-jeebies up them by talking about babies. It's a difficult one to answer. Where are you ever on the reality of not carrying your own child? It doesn't just go away, and I'm not under any illusions that I'll just wake up one day and feel hunky dorey about it. I understand that they want to know that you have processed at least some of the emotions around it though, to be in a secure place to be able to bring up a child with their own losses to cope with. So I answered honestly and said I just wanted to be a mother and wasn't too hung up now on how that happened. I also have seen so many mothers struggling with newborns - exhausted physically and emotionally and their lives turned upside down - to not have too much of a rosy picture of the perfect newborn. What I hoped I conveyed in my rambling is that R and I have visions of a child still partially in arms, not quite a toddler, so that we have a little bit of that baby time. It has, as I've mentioned, fully surprised me how strong this feeling is for me. And, I noted, for R too, who spoke of carrying our child in a papoose. All these years of researching and writing about attachment parenting make me yearn for some of the key experiences of it: babywearing, bed-sharing, child-led weaning etc.

And then...back full circle to the feeling that we should let expectations go and leap into it with open arms. I lay in bed this morning and silently communicated with our future child...come to us, make yourself known in any way so we can sense that you are coming. I've even wished these last few days that someone - some Divine intervention - would come along and remove all decision making. Like in the old days when you might open your front door and find a baby on the doorstep... There's so much to think about, so much to take into consideration. I honestly, and perhaps stupidly, hadn't predicted this stage at all. But our LA has so many children to place, they want to get the match exactly right, so it makes sense I suppose.

A misty, cold day here today. The horizon is blurred with mist from the sea. We have so many jobs to do around the house before our child moves in, perhaps a wait whilst our SW searches is a good thing.