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 ;)