Yes, I'm ready for motherhood

Yesterday, after talking about where we were at with the adoption, a friend turned to me and said: 'So you could be a mother in a few months?' to which I replied, yes, that looks like the way things are going. And then he asked me a question that floored me:

'And are you really ready, I mean, ready to be a mother?'

I bluffed my answer, as I always do when put on the spot, mumbling something about workshops and reading and all the cerebral stuff that isn't really parenting at all. And then I went away and thought about it....for a long time.

There's a particularly pernicious assumption that pregnancy is the only initiation to parenthood, that by growing a child within you, you gain access to a secret world of motherhood that outsiders cannot enter. I would have to say I think this is a fallacy. Over the years of supporting pregnant women, I have urged many, many clients to consider more than what colour they are going to paint the nursery or whether their new Bugaboo will fit up the stairs. I have written articles on the spiritual transitions we make in our lives, parenthood being one of the biggest, and how we need time to reflect and rituals that validate these. I have written about keeping a journal, spending time in nature connecting with the elements, creating rituals that both challenge and expand our understanding and consciousness. Over the years, I have been saddened that we live in such a capitalist culture we've lost sight of the sacred, the journeys and paths we forge through life, the challenges we overcome, and the way everything can be magic if we choose to make it so. In fact, one of the reasons I became so jaded in my work with pregnant women was because I just got tired of hearing about the fact the extension wouldn't be finished on the house in time, the nursery a couple wanted to send their unborn child to was already getting booked up, they had to buy a new car/kitchen/bigger pair of jeans...

Conversation with each new couple seemed to be increasingly devoid of the real questions of parenting: will my child be happy? how can I support their spiritual and emotional growth? what challenges will having a child put on our relationship and how can I prepare for that? what are the best foods I can feed my child? what steps can I take to ensure that I get the support I need? who will I want to be a mentor for my child? what values do I want my child to grow up with? how can I make time to adjust to the enormous changes new parenthood brings? what will be the effect on my lifestyle/friendships/daily activities and am I ready to make those changes? will my heart explode with this new capacity for love? will society support me in my new life as a parent? or will I find myself marginalised, suddenly less important than I was as a worker bee? who am I and what kind of a parent will I be?

Now, I could be wrong, but most people I know who come to adoption do so after trying for their own biological children. (This assumption was, however, challenged in our adoption workshops when 4 of the 8 couples already had birth children and wanted to adopt for altruistic reasons, but on the whole, I think this situation is rarer than the former.) With any number of medical interventions now being touted as a miraculous way of cheating nature - from IVF to surrogacy - these years of fertility treatment can stretch endlessly. During this time, couples are faced with some of the biggest challenges of their lives. Unable to fulfil their most basic, primal need - to procreate - they battle with an increasing sense of their own failure. This either brings couples together or it pushes them apart. Those that make it through this first set of lion’s jaws, and come out battered, bruised but still clutching each other’s hands, are ready for the next set.
In between this, there is the endless barrage of (sometime well-meaning but sometimes not) conversations, everywhere from the dinner party to the water cooler:

“When are you two going to hurry up and have children?”
“God, you’re sensible putting it off, things are just so stressful with kids.”
“I guess you’re putting your career first.” (Thanks Daily Mail)
“I know a couple who tried for years and then got pregnant when they went on holiday/relaxed/started the adoption process/gave up work/moved house/took up swimming/ate more nuts…” (you know the bag - delete as appropriate)

Couples that survive this tend to get tougher skins, are more able to laugh at themselves and learn, over time, to let the little things go. They become resilient, amazingly so, and ready to face the next challenge.
Then the adoption process starts, and they are subjected to a level of intrusion no ordinary parent would expect to undergo. Are we suitable parents? Why? In what ways? Doesn’t this, that or the other from our past stand against us? No? Prove it. On and on, the searching, scraping, digging away at our pasts and what has brought us to where we are today. Not for the faint-hearted but certainly something that helps us grow in other ways than just a pregnant belly. How do we parent a child with unique needs, with a chequered past? What might those needs be? What skills will we bring to the table? How do we cope with the fact our child will not be our biological child, but a unique individual with a unique identity?

We explore, we excavate, we reflect, we question. We wonder at the parenting we received. We wonder who we are, why we are the way we are. We dig to the very depths of our souls. And we come out of it with a stronger sense of self. Maybe a little battered and bruised in places but with a better understanding of how to deal with batterings and bruisings.

There are the practical sides of parenting: the feeding, routines, nappy-changes, night-time disturbances and soothing, that most of us will have to learn and make up as we go along, but what parent doesn’t?  There’s no rule book for that stuff and an adoptive parent, like a biological one, will have to rely heavily on instinct.

So, in answer to the question (and I know this is a long answer!), I would say: YES. A resounding YES. I would even go so far as to say that as an adoptive mother, I am even better equipped to parent than my biological neighbour.

For all adoptive parents out there, don’t forget that you have the skills, the knowledge, the intuition and the incredible capacity for love that are requisites for parenting, however convoluted your journey is to get there.
Thank you for reading. Now I can step down off my soap-box ;)

Please help me fight discrimimation against adoptive mothers!

Here's something a little shocking:

Researching our financial options for impending parenthood, I discovered that as a SELF-EMPLOYED ADOPTIVE MOTHER I do not receive statutory adoption pay. Discriminatory? Very. See below for very cross letter I sent my MP (his name actually is Norman, I didn't make that up). Working pregnant women, by law, receive statutory maternity pay regardless of whether they are employed through a company or self-employed.

There are several things you can help me do as my friends - sign this petition (not mine but one I came across) and/or cut and paste your own version of the below letter to email to your MP. I know that's asking a lot and I don't expect you to send a letter/email if you don't have time, but any help getting this issue raised in public consciousness would be very helpful. I can see a placard-waving few months coming on here!

Just to give you an idea of where things stand at present, this is the current response to questions about this discrimination:
"As you are aware maternity benefits are primarily provided to protect the health and safety of the pregnant women and new mother when she has given birth... Statutory Adoption Pay is not available to the self-employed. The Government did carefully consider the position of self-employed parents when SAP was introduced but it was considered that the costs of setting up and administering a scheme similar to maternity allowance would be disproportionate to the numbers involved." (my italics)

Right. Well, thanks. Those 'numbers involved' currently include me, and I won't take it lying down. So any help you can give would be gratefully received!

MY ANGRY EMAIL TO MP:

Dear Norman,

I am writing to you because my husband and I are in the process of adopting and researching our financial options. Today I discovered that as a self-employed individual, I am not eligible for statutory adoption pay. This seems to be a shocking discrimination. Working pregnant women, by law, have access to statutory maternity pay regardless of whether they are employed through a company or self employed. Why are adoptive mothers discriminated against like this? Women who go on to adopt often do so after years of trying for their own biological family. Consider how it must feel then, that after years of failing to conceive, they are at a distinct financial disadvantage to women who get pregnant and have their own child.

Surely the work we do is just as valuable as biological mothers? In fact, it could be argued it is more so. We are providing a secure and safe home environment for seriously disadvantaged children. If we did not adopt these children, it would fall to the state to provide for them financially and bring them up until they are 18. These are children who have suffered more trauma and separation in their early lives than most of us will experience in a lifetime. To enable them to go on to live secure, happy and fulfilling lives, they need the best start in their adoptive families as possible. These children need adoptive parents who are able to devote time to help them adjust, who can be there as they cope with some of the attachment issues common to adoptive youngsters.

To deny a self-employed woman statutory adoption pay, so that she has to jeopardise the health and happiness of her child and return to work, seems thoughtless at best and, frankly, downright dangerous. If we are to give these children the best chance after rocky beginnings, we need to support those who will be dedicated to their care: their parents. Discriminating against self employed adoptive parents, and making them feel like lower class citizens without rights, does not achieve this.

I am still reeling from the shock of my discovery and want to reach as many people as possible so we can fight against this blatant and unacceptable discrimination. I hope I can count on your support in bringing this to light in parliament. We must act to change the law.

will he smile?

Long time no write, but for good reason. We've been in a whirlwind getting all the paperwork ready to go out to panel members. Our SW, bless her, is possibly one of the most disorganised people I've come across. This upsets my mother-in-law who thinks she should pull her socks up a bit, but as I said yesterday, I'd prefer our SW to be compassionate, aware, kind and fun than uber organised (though a combination of both would be nice). And that's exactly the kind of person we got. However, the last week has made me reconsider that just slightly, as we got a call on Friday saying she'd forgotten we needed to fill in an eight question C9 form, and she needed it by Monday. This was after many other calls saying did we have this or could we look through our notes for that... The week was spent frantically trying to track things down from relevant authorities. We had a pretty jam-packed weekend lined up, hosting workshops and driving up to Kent. So I spent five hours working on the C9 form on Friday, finally getting it finished by bedtime. The C9 is really an adoptive couple's chance to say who they really are, what makes them tick, why they're suitable parenting material, so it was a pretty big deal. Eleven pages later and I think I got my message across. Then our SW called saying she needed to interview two of our friends before Monday. Bless them, our good friends K and B gave up their Sundays to separately meet with the SW. Talk about eleventh hour stuff! But now the forms are all in, and we haven't had a phone call asking for anything else...yet.

In the midst of all this, we've been getting wildly excited about our little boy. As the days go by, he becomes more and more real to us, the sense of him being part of our life more and more vivid. What I still can't get my head around, no matter how hard I try, is what it will be like to 'meet' our son - not a wide-eyed newborn but a little man with experiences of life already. Mine will not be the first face he gazes at. He will already have faces and voices that mean a great deal to him, and we will be taking him away from those people he has gradually come to love and trust. A more extraordinary set-up for motherhood I cannot think of.

My uncle and his wife adopted a little girl from China and he told me about when they arrived at the orphanage to meet their daughter, alongside many other western couples. The babies were unceremoniously distributed to the waiting couples and most began to cry fiercely. Here they were, separated from the only carers (however limited their care) they had ever known, and handed to a pair of nervous, pale strangers speaking a foreign language. Imagine too the adoptive mothers and fathers, fraught from years of infertility, unsure how to comfort or even hold an infant, paranoid that everyone's watching them fail at this very first step - what a traumatic start to a new life for them all. My uncle's wife recalls breaking down in tears in the airport toilets as they waited for their flight home with their new daughter. Their little girl would not be comforted, was distraught and terrified, and my uncle's wife was trying to change her nappy in a cramped toilet. All the little clothes she had brought to dress her daughter in got soaked in wee and a Chinese woman walking past tutted loudly and began to rebuke this struggling, helpless new mother in Chinese. Ugh, I still shudder when I hear this story, despite the fact that all three are now doing well many years later, and are a happy and flourishing little family.

At least for us, our little boy will be with experienced foster carers who will know to introduce things slowly. I have been lucky enough to care for lots of babies in my life, so the practical stuff won't be too nerve-wracking. What is nerve-wracking though is the moment we meet as a family. What if he cries? What if he is nervous or afraid of us? I know that the foster carers will prepare him as best they can for our first visit and he will have seen the DVD of us that our LA has integrated as part of the process. But you know how you want it all to be perfect? And how everything, just every single thing of the last six years, is hinged on that one moment - the HELLO, the becoming parents moment. So I just don't know quite what I'd do if he burst into tears!
Please, please, powers that be, divine intervention, whatever, if you grant me one wish, let it be that our son looks at us and smiles...

The top ten things I can do because I'm not pregnant!

Over the years of trying to conceive, and then choosing adoption, it is easy to focus on the negatives. In fact, our SW asked us the other day 'where we were on not having our own kids'. Not an easy question to answer, but interestingly, we'd just come back from a happy and relaxed week away with my pregnant friend and felt pretty chilled about the whole thing. I've spent most of my working life either researching pregnancy and birth, or supporting pregnant and birthing women and new mums. It's not without a sense of irony that I glance up at bookshelves heaving with books on natural birth and breastfeeding (though I've now, with a sense of release, donated these to my pregnant friend). However, adoption it is, so I see no point in dwelling on what might have been. This morning at my yoga class, I was suddenly struck by all the things I could do that pregnant women can't, such as:

1). Get really physically fit for motherhood. No struggling with a post-birth body that's stretched and torn and tired, and with leaky and aching breasts. In fact, I can enjoy my runs and bend in all sorts of complicated poses in yoga with a sense of freedom.
2). Share feeds with my husband. We've discussed shifts in the night, and taking it in turns throughout the day. Whilst breastfeeding is something I am passionate about, I can still see the benefits of not having to deal with sore and swollen breasts, constant feeding, mastitis, cracked nipples, or feeling like a milk machine. This is purely selfish as I know that breast milk is the best food for babies, but hey, today I'm looking at the positives!
3). Be able to travel where I want, when I want. Not that I'm thinking of jetting off to Barbados (but can I, Mr Bank Manager, please?!) but the fact I can if I want to, right up to until the 'due date' feels good.
4). Eat whatever I want. Soft cheeses and sushi anyone?
5). Not be beholden to the swing and sway of my hormones. As women, we are biologically programmed to release certain hormones at certain points in our lives, and new motherhood is when we are awash with them to help us bond, feed and connect with our babies. So I'm hoping that those good hormones will kick in (I've read that they're released simply by being around a baby) but of course I won't be entirely governed by them in the run up, fractious, tearful and unable to think clearly.
6). I can work however and whenever I like. I work from home so my hours are flexible anyway, but the fact I'm not sitting at my desk with fluid retention and an aching back is surely a bonus.
7). No physical pregnancy strain. Old back problems not triggered by carrying a bump around. No fluid retention, morning sickness, back ache, pelvic pain, urinary problems, aching joints, stretch marks etc. etc. Of course, I know not every pregnant woman suffers from these things but through my work, I've seen quite a few who do!
8). Sleep as much as I possibly can right up until the 'due date'. No tossing and turning trying to get comfortable or getting up 100 times in the night to have a wee. No night-time frets about the birth.
9). Though I was actually looking forward to giving birth, for the sake of my new perspective, I'll add in that I don't have to make birth plans, worry that caregivers won't stick to them, worry that some unforeseen circumstances will unravel everything I'd hoped for, or fret about medical complications. I believe in healthy birth but you know, at least I don't have to worry that I'd have to eat my words and the last decade of saying that!
10). Celebrate our panel day and other summer festivities with a few drinks. Not that I'm much of a drinker, but I can if I want to! So I might plan a night out with friends after panel and get a bit tiddly just because, well, I can!

So there are my top ten reasons why I'm pleased to be adopting and not pregnant right now - the silver lining to our situation...

Matching panel in October?! No, please, no!!!

Trying, and failing, to concentrate on anything other than adoption. I can't stop thinking about our little boy, about what he's doing now, about everything that has happened to him so far. At home today with deadlines pressing down on me from all sides but unable to stop myself from opening my emails and looking at the photos of him...again...and again...and again. Each time makes my heart do a little flutter. It is still all so unreal whilst simultaneously being the most exciting time ever. I can't quite believe it's all happening and I'm sure that's a feeling I'll carry with me right up until he is here, at home, with us. SWs, both his and ours, are off on holidays during July and August so I'm trying not to think too much about those delays. Our SW told us yesterday that the only matching panel date she could get was October. Our hearts literally sank but she's said she will do all she can to find a window, a cancellation. Because if we have to wait until October I think I will just gnaw off my hand or something. Again, the waiting game.

The adoption triangle

Okay, I said I didn't want to look at any more photos of children waiting for adoption. I said that photos made me confused and unable to think straight, they made me wobbly at the knees and tearful and muddled. But today we looked at pictures of 'our little boy'. Still not quite able to type that without putting it in quotation marks. Still not quite able to leap into that amazing world of whole-hearted, total and utter trust. But he's cleared for adoption so there's no muddling at that stage. Potentially, after our panel on 11th July, things could move quite fast. Our SW came round today with all his paperwork. We read about his birth family - things that made our hearts ache and things that made us shudder - and how generations of people can be tangled and destroyed and messed up in ways that seem inconceivable to us in our safe little worlds. We read about the things he liked, how he has gradually, gradually learnt to trust his foster carers and warmed to them (so we're aware of just how disruptive another move will be, new attachments to form - no illusions there), how he burbles and chatters, how he sucks his thumb. All these things make him real, almost tangible. If I sit very still and listen, I can almost hear him and feel him beside me. Soon he will be here.

Reading Stix's account of her fear of bumping into birth family reminds me how entangled and enmeshed we are with the family of our children as adoptive parents. Reading through all 'our son's' birth mum's story made me reflect on what I was doing in my own life when she was caught up in another terrible drama in her life - she exists out there now, maybe pining for her child, maybe angry and lost. Her son - our son - exists out there too. All of us in the triangle of adoption exist in parallel, each is going to change the other's life, but none of us have met yet. Strange, and ultimately - if thought about for too long - mind-boggling.

Have been trying to explain to friends the complexity of where we're at at the moment - how we don't know where we'll be or what we'll be doing over the coming months. That we're going to have to disappear for about a month during introductions and for the first weeks as a family. People keep throwing invites at us to festivals and the like and when we say we're in the middle of adopting they say 'oh, bring the little one along too'. Difficult to explain it's not really like that, that our little boy can't just be carted from one event to another, that he will need time - perhaps a lot of it and perhaps a lifetime of it - to be settled with us, and to attach properly to us. Nigh on impossible to explain that though, people look at us blankly like we're being histrionic and over-protective. Seems the hiding away bit will be good for all of us.

Right now, though, I'm just dreaming. Full of hope and excitement and, I'll admit it, an edge of fear. Hard to believe that after all these years I'm actually going to be a mother.

A personal blessingway...

I'm writing this as a way of not writing the 6000 words I have to hand in at 5pm today as part of my post-grad course. I have written 3000 so it's not total disaster but still kinda nerve-wracking. I come from a long line of self-employed journos and we seem to only be able to work when we're wired on coffee, pulling our hair out and watching the clock eat up the minutes...

Our SW is coming on Thursday to talk more about the little boy she's got in mind. His SW is off on holiday for two weeks on Friday so we need to get in there quickly. I haven't told that many people - some close friends, my sister - but not our parents, as I think if it fell through it would be too much for them. There is another couple, but they're out of county, so it looks like we might be first in line. But then that made me feel sad and guilty for the other couple, probably as excited as we are right now.

At the weekend, my friend's sister and I held her a surprise baby shower. I've never really been hugely into these because they seem a bit grabby and synonymous with our capitalist culture, so we aimed to make it more of a 'blessingway' (though I did notice one card with a pregnant woman on it saying 'Dream...Plan...Shop'. Really? I mean, for f's sake, isn't there more to preparing for parenthood than frickin shopping?!?!). I decorated a little tree with cut out hearts in different colours on which the guests wrote their wishes for her little boy/bump - Love, Abundance, Besos (from the Spanish contingent) etc. I also asked guests to bring along their favourite children's book and there were some absolutely magic memories there! Plus we got her a lovely sling that has lots of different positions, including one for breastfeeding. All in all, a very special day, and it was a treat to see her face when she came in the room!

It's a funny thing though, her 'blessingway' made me think about the plans I had drawn up for mine - bump painting, making garlands for the birth, gathering together different things friends had drawn strength from during their own labours/early days - from nettle tea to a precious stone etc. It seems a bit odd to have one as an adoptive mum, and I can't quite get away from the idea I'd feel a bit fraudulent. Without a bump to rub, and a birth to prepare for, I think I'd feel a bit of a spanner to be honest! So no 'Dream...Plan...Shop' cards for me, thank GOODNESS!!! On the other hand, as I mentioned in a previous post, I am going to do some kind of little treat for myself to celebrate nearly-motherhood - perhaps going away somewhere quiet and planting a tree; taking out a day to swim and eat good foods and write in my journal; making my own little wishing tree or book for our child; even going away somewhere for a night and having a massage and some reflective time...my own personal blessingway.

The long wait...

Yesterday was a long day. Our SW had called on Friday night about a potential match, and she assured us she would be in touch further to arrange a meeting this week after the longest bank holiday ever! By yesterday morning we were desperate to hear more, trying, and failing, to keep a lid on our excitement. Luckily we had a fashion shoot here at the cottage, with a team of New Yorkers descending with a gold mercedes and a mind-boggling collection of clothes and shoes (have an amusing picture of the dog asleep on a Louis Vuitton clutch surrounded by Jimmy Choos), so that kept us distracted. Nevertheless, between feeding fourteen hungry fashion folks and helping them set up in the rain, we kept the phone near. When the shoot had packed up and gone, it was getting dark. 8pm and still no word from our SW. R had left a message for her, and I'd sent a couple of texts earlier in the day. She'd said she was in a meeting and would call us later. We'd seen her at a local procession over the jubilee weekend and were reminded that for her, we are work, but for us, she holds the key to our future. What a strange balance we have to strike! So I didn't ask her any questions when we bumped in to her as I thought it was important that she has time-off for her family etc.

At 9.30pm we got a text apologising for not being in touch and assuring us she'd call tomorrow. I dropped a couple of stitches in my knitting (making a cardigan for our little one) because I was trying to knit by candlelight and was feeling on tenterhooks! This morning she called. She hasn't been able to get hold of the child's SW yet, so no more news than that she's given us already. She is going to try again today. So again, we are waiting by the phone for news, trying to get a handle on the excitement. No fashion shoot to distract today either! We don't know at the moment if other couples are interested or in line, so we could be getting our hopes up unneccessarily. We're veering between a ridiculously whoop-whoop kind of delight and a nervous kind of fear.

She told us his birth date today and it was a weird thing. In my family we have a long lineage of palendromic birthdays e.g. the fifth day of the fifth month. My grandmother, mother and I all have them. R and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary of meeting on 10/10/10. Our wedding day was 5/5 and two of my bridesmaids have palendromic birthdays. So, when I discovered he too had a palendromic birthday, the same as my late grandmother's, my heart gave a little flutter. I always light a candle on this day to celebrate my grandmother's special day, so unknowingly I was welcoming in a new life too last year. Trying not to be too superstitious about it, but hey, it still feels magic.

News

News, my dears, news. Spoke to our lovely SW today and she revealed that she has a child in mind for us. A little boy, under one. Some other info too and we were so excited we didn't know what to with ourselves. Thinking back to what happened last time, and how attached we got to a name, before we came to realise that we weren't the right family for each other, we tried to keep our excitement in check. But I was beside myself and couldn't think of anything else. So I got my trusty Goddess cards out and pitched a question as I shuffled the cards. 'I'm so excited I don't know what to do with myself, but I'm aware of what happened last time and....I guess I just want some kind of sign, some idea what to do next.'

And the card I pulled? Isis, Goddess of Mothering.
The words? 'Isis comes in to your life to show you it is time for mothering.'
I cried. A lot, leaving drippy stains all down my dress.
SW coming next week to talk further.
Truly, this could be our son.