An 8 month pregnant wish...

Sometimes I wish I was pregnant. Not because I want anyone other than LO - I don't, he is the most precious person to us already. Not because I envy my pregnant friends the wonders and magic of pregnancy - I made my peace with that a long time ago. But because right now I'd be eight months pregnant and I think people would treat me differently.

I know that there can be some shocking oversights in day-to-day life; people not giving up their seat to a pregnant woman, for instance. But on the whole I know that pregnant women are treated with a kind of reverence. They are allowed outbursts of emotion. They are expected to be tired and overwhelmed at times. They are asked tenderly how they are feeling, sometimes by complete strangers. Others get caught up in the magnificent energy they exude and smile at them, say 'not long to go now!' (I witnessed this whilst away with my friend a few months ago, everyone we met whilst walking the dog smiled and spoke to her about her big bump.) They leave work amidst a flurry of cards and presents. They have blessingways or baby showers during which friends and family toast the good news and offer advice and gifts.

I know this attention might be unwanted at times, and I'm sure there are moments when every pregnant woman wishes she wasn't carrying around a big sign saying 'I'm about to have a baby! Talk to me about it!'. But there's something about being an adoptive mum that makes you feel a bit...well, invisible. You don't want to tell lots of people in case it falls through at the last minute. You're expected to carry on as normal until you meet your future child. Outbursts of emotion and general exhaustion are seen perhaps as moodiness, irritability, and at worst, irrational. In some cases, people are embarrassed by adoption - the elephant in the room being why you've chosen that route - and they avoid talking about it altogether. Others are furiously opinionated about adoption today, about the prospects for children whose early life is blighted by difficulty. Finally, there are those who ask impossibly impertinent questions about the birth family, without seeming to think how it might feel to answer those questions. The birth family is an endless curiosity box, pored over by people intent on sharing their opinions (I have refused to answer questions on this subject, other than the bare neccessities). I have been told many times, by people who have never been through it, how incredibly difficult, time-consuming and invasive the adoption process is - rarely have I been asked what it is really like (not that bad, actually, until the last chapter).

Sometimes, I would like someone to smile at me, say 'congratulations! Not long to go now! You look amazing! Radiant! Sit down and have a cup of tea, let me help you with your bags...here, have a tissue, it's perfectly normal to have a cry.'

Now, wouldn't that be magic?

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...