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.

Excited and suddenly nervous

Our social worker was talking to us about the different ages of kids we might like to adopt. For a long time we said we didn't mind, we just wanted kids, but they urged us to narrow it down, so now we've said under 2. She was talking to us yesterday about a one year old she had in mind. My heart skipped a beat. Suddenly things seem real, tangible. I went for a walk with the dog and ended up talking to our future child (the couple coming the other way on the footpath looked at me like I had lost my marbles), imagining what it would be like to be with them. So close...they already exist. Then, last night, I suddenly felt nervous. R is away in France and I'm here alone this week. The pure isolation and solitude of the place naturally lends itself to musing. And muse I did.

I realised I know nothing about what one year old children are like. Yes, we have lots of godchildren, I've been there the whole time as my nieces have grown up, and I've watched my friends' children grow from babies to teens...and yet, call me a dunce but it just dawned on me last night that I'm not really sure what one year olds can do...can they walk? Talk? I even found myself late-night Googling what a one year old looks like. It seems I've spent so much of the last eight years looking after pregnant women and their tiny newborns, I hadn't really given much thought to post 12 months. And here I am about to become (possibly) a mother to one. And, having found out the kind of things a child that age might be doing, it also dawned on me that we won't hear our child's first word, or see them start to crawl or even begin to totter about. I felt like a fool that I hadn't even really properly thought about that. I mean, I'd thought about that, but not quite let it slip under my skin, if you know what I mean...

My sister, always one to calm my nerves and uplift me, sent me off from hers today with a pile of baby books up to toddler and aged three. I'd scanned my bookshelves last night and found about 50 books on natural pregnancy and birth, but none on child development. Yesterday I felt a bit wobbly. I feel calmer today. R is back tomorrow and we will start reading up on what it's like to parent a one or two year old.

It's good, it's exciting. it's becoming real. I knitted a pair of booties in blue wool yesterday. I might knit some in pink tomorrow.

We had our first adoption workshops last week, on Monday and Tuesday. Alongside eight other couples, we learnt about the kind of kids that need adopting, listened to some shocking case studies and found out ways in which we can parent children who have been through more in their short time here than most of us will go through in a lifetime. It was certainly food for thought.

Interestingly, half the couples already had children and two of those had chosen adoption for truly altruistic reasons. The rest of us had tried, and failed, to make biological families and were trying our luck with a different approach. There were some interesting people there - some I know will remain firm friends as our children grow, and some I felt we were singing from different parenting songsheets. My parenting choices and interest has always been in attachment parenting and I have reams of literature on the subject and have written about it for years. It's a whole new thing thinking about the different challenges adopted children face - the level of loss and trauma they have experienced - and how to parent them with love and consciousness through that. Sometimes it feels like it'll be a superhuman achievement and sometimes I think that staying present, staying aware and loving will guide us all along. A social worker said somewhere near the beginning of our process 'choose your battles wisely' and it seems to ring so true. When I imagine the scenarios we might be faced with as parents, I keep thinking of not sweating the small stuff and finding ways for our future kids to express the big stuff.

Both R and I had been slightly dreading the workshops. We'd been told that they would be hard work and harrowing, and whilst they certainly didn't hold back any punches in terms of the realities of these children's lives, both days left us feeling inspired and uplifted. It further cemented that this is something we want to do, even need to do. We've discussed several times what would happen if I got pregnant suddenly now. We'd be overjoyed, yes, but part of me feels we've embarked on this for a reason. Another part of me already feels like I'd be letting down a child whose life we have the opportunity to change. I keep thinking of 'parenting the child who hurts' as they call it, and my heart bursts with love...I feel overwhelmed with how much I want to hold this child who might already be in existance somewhere. It's almost impossible to explain, so I'll leave it at that.

It seems it might all happen much sooner than the doom merchants have lead us to believe (everyone, from co-workers to friends - even if they know nothing about adoption whatsoever - has felt the need to say to us 'well, it'll be a long, hard haul. It'll take ages' when we've told them of our adoption plan). The social worker believes we might go to panel by the summer holidays. This is crazily, almost unbelievably exciting...we might be parents at Christmas.

Yesterday, I learnt that one of my closest friends is pregnant, a complete surprise. I was bowled over when I read her email (she's overseas at the moment), crying tears of joy and shock and delight. She will be the best mother in the world, I genuinely don't know anyone who operates so fully from the heart. I felt almost as if I was pregnant, that's how close we are, and I know we will share the journey together. After I'd emailed her my happy response, I had some time to reflect last night. Will it be strange her going through pregnancy and me going through home study simultaneously? Will I find it difficult to cope emotionally? I'd offered my support and love to her wholeheartedly - and at the time I truly felt I was able to give that - but last night I retreated back into my snail shell a little and wondered about how it might all feel. Well, I guess we will find out! And there's no escaping the reality of it, so I will have to take great care to listen to my heart and allow myself time out if it becomes too much. Noone deserves the joy of parenthood more than my friend does, and there's a joy in the fact that we'll be parenting alongside one another - different situations, but ultimately the same goal, to mother with love and conscience.

A knitted cat...

I just changed the name of my previous post, having reflected on what I wrote... I think I have always tried to see the sunny side, the silver lining in this particular cloud but I confused even myself with what I wrote about our baby-less life being a blessing. Yes, being with my husband is wonderful, beautiful and delicious but our heart-felt wish and intention is to be parents and we hope that will happen for us soon. I think I might mean that each day hopefully takes us closer to that dream.

We just had two of our dear friends and their one year old daughter come for a leisurely Sunday walk through the autumn leaves and a big bowl of veggie chilli by the fire. We adore their little girl M so much and our friends have asked us to be her guardians - what an incredible blessing! We had a wonderful afternoon - they are very much attachment parents so we are totally singing from the same song sheet and sometimes we get really overexcited talking about 'extended' breastfeeding, bed-sharing, child-led weaning, organic food, home-schooling, Steiner schools and all the other joys of truly connecting with the soul children coming in now. It feels pretty lovely to share such important stuff with friends and warms my heart so much. When I am around friends like this, it feels like it won't be long for us. I'm not sure why but my friend winked at me in a way like she thought so too, so the energy just felt warm and happy.

We went to this second-hand warehouse of goodies yesterday managed and run by homeless people - Emmaus - to get some Christmas pressies. We came across this hand-knitted cat in a Robin Hood outfit complete with feathered hat and boots, made by a homeless woman in a cooperative. I fell in love with its quirkiness so bought it (£2.50!!!! Such incredible love and workmanship went into it but Emmaus always sells things so they're affordable for everyone) ostensibly to give to one of our godchildren. In the car on the way home I said to R that I kind of wanted to keep it for our child and he agreed with me. This is the first time we've ever bought something for our future child and felt a bit mad as if we were pinning our hopes on an unknown future but also really blissful somehow. It made me wonder if other TTC couples buy things for their as-yet-to-be-conceived children or does it just feel too dangerously hopeful? Well, we put the cat between us on the bed last night and when I woke in the night it just filled me with warm feelings imagining it being our child's first toy, already spreading a little love out there to a homeless cooperative....

We've given him a name already too! (the cat, but of course we've got a couple of baby names up our sleeves - who hasn't?)