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...

Over hill and dale...

Last week I felt frustrated and low. This week, largely thanks to me reaching out and telling a few folks how I was feeling, I feel more positive and calm. In terms of the process, R and I still cannot make a sense of it. When our SW tried to challenge it, she was told to get back in her place and that LO's social workers and the managers knew what they were doing and 'wanted to make this match work and needed to have time to do that'. (So do we, foolish people! And, surely, the best way to do that is for our son to get to know his parents as soon as possible, ending destructive contact sessions and beginning our lifelong bonding process???? But no, we must wait another few months whilst they 'look at the paperwork'.) But I came to a realisation that I can either rail against the system, feel angry and powerless and sad at all the precious weeks and months we're missing out on, or I can relax and settle back and know that soon we will be a family. 

A friend who has also been through the adoption process sent me a poem. It made me cry, a good healing and ultimately joyful cry, and reconnected me with the vital truth: that we are mothers long before we are able to hold our child physically and that energetically LO is already our son. The poem reminded me of that so eloquently and tenderly. We look at photos of him constantly and laugh aloud at some of his comic little expressions...there is so much joy in the midst of all the bureaucracy, so much laughter, connection, love - overflowing love, and light. Our seaside home is the perfect place to experience all these things - we wake to the sea, the tides, the clouds, the birds laughing and playing on the wind, the eternal cleansing and changing of nature, truly the most healing and restorative way to be in the world. Sea swims wash away the aggravation, windswept walks blow away the 'mind-fussing', clean, fresh invigorating sea air fills us with optimism and warm sun fills us with light. What a wonderful place for LO to arrive into... We are truly blessed! There is a lifetime of 'moments' ahead of us as a family, some wondrous, some challenging, but we have surely had the very best start simply because of this place, this dream-like place.

So I've been on lots of walks this week, through sleepy villages, along the seafront, alongside rivers, through the newly-harvested fields, getting deliciously lost in a forest as the sun went down. We're planning a little wild camping on the edge of the same forest in a few weeks time. R got me some new walking shoes from a charity shop and I tested them out yesterday on a long hike with friends - brilliant! My feet were getting a little blistered in my old running shoes but these are more comfortable and roomier, and mean I will get as much walking in as I can before LO comes. Wild flowers in abundance, sheep and cows grazing, skylarks on the wing, the smell of woodland and warm grass... my sister bought us a fantastic baby carrier - basically a large rucksack with waist support but very ergonomic and beautifully made - so we can take LO out on our walks. I spent a large portion of my baby and toddler-hood on my dad's back exploring the countryside so am excited to share the same delights with LO.

And my best friend had her baby ten days early. I went to visit them with a feeling of love practically exploding my heart all the way on the train! He is breath-takingly perfect, delicate and wise-looking. He has his dad's nose, his mum's elfin facial structure and ears, and thick straight black hair - so much of it! I felt in awe, that wonderful feeling of sheer surprise, as if I had slipped through a portal into Alice's Wonderland, to a place more radiant, colourful, alive, incredible and magical than the humdrum day-to-day. It stayed with me all evening, after I'd left the sleepy new family and was travelling back on the train, buzzing lightly in my chest. Soon, it will be me and R, holding our little one, gazing at him with a feeling of awe and wonder.