Homecoming...

Oh my goodness gracious me...there are no words to adequately describe the enormous joy, incredulity and wonder of the last ten days. Meeting LO for the first time, I had expected to cry from the depths of my soul (with attempts to rein it in for his sake of course!) but instead I felt calm and centred, a magical feeling of 'there you are'. He is our son, and just as we dreamt him. So many evenings, driving back from the foster carers', we have looked at one another in wonder. We couldn't love him any more than we do. We couldn't have visioned a more perfect and incredible being to bring into our lives. He's amazing. He laughs from his belly, his eyes light up when we come in the room, he loves being tickled, he loves wriggling and leaping about in supportive arms, he loves crinkly crackly toys, he loves his milk and snuggling up...

It is so like falling in love. Last night, after we'd dropped him off at his foster carers' house for his 'goodbye evening' with them, we came back and sniffed the blankets he'd lain on!

In a few hours, we go to pick him up and bring him home. We are bringing our little boy home.

WE DID IT!!!!

Extraordinarily, blissfully happy today. Yesterday we had our matching panel - and we passed!! When they came into the waiting room afterwards and shook our hands, we both burst into tears...what a pair! Felt like so much was hanging on that moment - and now, finally, we can move into the next chapter of our lives. OH MY GOD/GODDESS/ALLTHATIS, we are going to be parents!!!!

We were both seriously nervous beforehand, firing intense questions at each other and fumbling to answer them. When we arrived at the meeting place, we were early and the sun was shining, so we went for a little walk to gather our strength, fearing an onslaught like the last panel. But it was our twelve year anniversary so it felt like an auspicious day. And everything was truly flowing our way. The panel members were warm and friendly, and we all laughed together. They seemed delighted with the match and hardly asked us many questions at all. In fact, when they asked us if there was anything we had expected to be asked but hadn't been, I looked down at the pages and pages of notes in my hands and laughed! It just felt right. The whole thing was so beautifully smooth.

Our friends went in straight after us and were successfully matched with their little boy. Afterwards we went for a drink and all sat there looking at each other in stunned surprise!

And the best piece of news? Our little boy - who for so many months of his early life was inconsolable - has become the happiest and most joyful child. All of the people at panel who had met him commented on it. When did he start becoming so happy? Around June time, when we found out about him, and began our nightly rituals of sending him love, imagining holding him, talking to him, visioning everything we would do with him. I'm sure so much of his contented outlook is to do with the wonderful love and care his foster parents have lavished on him, but part of me just feels that there is also a deep, deep connection there between us three, founded five months ago and growing stronger every day...

Better...

My beautiful sister looking over the Atlantic

Dad's beach stone colour mandala

Me and my dog

Yesterday, I posted a pretty gloomy tirade. This morning, I am feeling a lot better, largely thanks to a wonderful message from Kate and a wild, wet and windy walk yesterday afternoon with the dog. Getting out in the fresh air, whatever the weather ALWAYS makes me feel better. Thank goodness the dog makes me go for a walk, as I'm not sure I would have been able to convince myself it was a good idea in yesterday's stormy weather. The waves were crashing up against the windows, scaring the bejeezus out of all the animals. Today, the sea is calm and the sun is making sporadic appearances through the clouds.

Last week R and I went away to Pembrokeshire, Wales with all my family, 12 of us. It was a week of walking, eating, drinking, laughing, dressing up and general uproarious silliness. One day a bunch of us went down to a beach and my dad made this colour mandala from beach stones - how gorgeous is that? My sister was looking out to sea wistfully and I captured the moment in sillhouette. And when I came home my dog and I went for a mega walk through field and forest and I took a picture of us together as I'd missed her so much. Pretty embarrassing when someone stumbled across me on my knees trying to capture me and the dog...

But happy days. These photos remind me, happy days in ABUNDANCE.

Yesterday we were sent a video of LO by his SW. He was gurgling and laughing and is beginning to look so grown up now with his little teeth. I can't explain how incredible it was to hear his laughter echo around our home, and see his face light up. We love him, oh how we love him. Not long now....

Separate

I am beginning to get a sense of just how vast the difference between adoptive and birth parenting can be. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't under any illusions about this before, it's just that some events have transpired to bring the reality home. Sometimes, it feels like there's a void between me and other parents. A rift has developed between me and my sister, someone I have never really argued with before or at least not for any length of time. Indeed, up until recently I would have described her as my best friend. But adoption seems to have changed all that. As the adoption situation became more complex, I found that there was no common ground between our parenting journeys and we drifted further and further apart as I tried - and failed - to articulate some of the emotions I was feeling. I wrote in a previous blog post about how I wished I was pregnant because of the different treatment of pregnant women to those preparing to adopt. I know that if I were pregnant, my sister and I would be talking about birth plans (I always said I wanted her around, or at least nearby, during my birth experience) and getting excited about the big day and the babymoon to follow. Instead, R and I are preparing for our matching panel meeting with heavy hearts, as we just have not clicked with our new social worker and feel increasingly alone. I'm not sure my sister even knows we have a matching panel meeting next week. I wish I could explain what this is all like without seeming to be doom and gloom about things. I am trying not to be doom and gloom, but sense that this is where I have lost connection with my sister, and others, as R and I struggle to ride the waves of our adoption preparation. Preparing for parenthood shouldn't, after all, be a doom and gloom period of your life. All the years I supported pregnant couples, I was caught up in the excitement, the deep personal transformation, the joy and wonderment of their adventure. I wanted adoption to have the same qualities. I knew it would be different, of course, but I still wanted to capture some of that magic. Until our social worker went on emergency leave, all was going so well....

From reading others' blogs, I know that this is just the beginning of a the sense of separateness that keeps adoptive parenting in a special category from other parenting. I am aware that I need to create a network of support around us as we embark on this new stage of our lives, but I just don't know where to begin. How to explain the ups and downs, the rollercoaster of emotions that come from knowing your little boy is just an hour's drive away but you're not allowed to be with him, let alone meet him, until the endless endless bureaucracy has been navigated? How to explain the sense of dislocation as you try to get on with normal life but find yourself frustrated and angry and powerless? How to explain what it feels like to read the letter your son's birth mum has written for him - the pain and anguish in her words and the realisation you're going to have to help him make a sense of that and the tragic truths of his birth family?

Spending time with friends and their families brings it home how simple parenthood can be - just getting pregnant ('it was a complete surprise!') and then getting on, in your own sweet way, with birthing, caring, mothering, playing and being with your children. There's no assessment of your capabilites, no questioning of your finances, lifestyle, life choices, relationships and no intrusion into your family life. There's no sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers who know the most personal and intimate (and painful) details of your personal life and have no qualms in asking you about them. There's no defending your right to parent, over and over again. There may be isolation and loneliness, but you can rest assured there's billions of parents the world over just like you. Even if you can't get out of the house, they're just a click of the mouse away.

I am feeling blue and missing our beloved social worker, so this has turned into a royal moan which I hadn't intended. I want to be happy and full of excitement and joy that in 17 days we will meet our son (maybe...though after last time and the last minute cancellation, we're less inclined to count down the days). Instead, I feel anxious about the matching panel without our social worker next week (they're going over our finances with a fine-toothed comb as I don't receive maternity pay as a self-employed adopter) and sad about the breakdown of communication with the people I love. I feel bad about posting when I feel this dreary, but sometimes it is just good to get it off your chest. Forgive me, most of the time I am a very happy camper.