Support

I spoke to one of closest friends this morning, just back from running a hostel in Ethiopia. She's seven months pregnant with her first child. She's also, as I've mentioned in previous posts, adopted herself. The news of her pregnancy broke just as things were really starting to move with our adoption, in one of life's extraordinary synchronicities. We were laughing this morning that we just couldn't have dreamt it up - her pregnancy being something of a surprise. Life is what happens when you're busy looking the other way! It seems that we'll be mothers around the same time. With all my years of supporting pregnant and birthing women, I hope I'll be a source of support to her. With her personal experiences of being adopted, she's already provided me with some real insights into what being adopted means throughout life. As I mentioned before, I got a bit of panic on after I'd expressed my joy and excitement at her pregnancy news back in February, and wondered how it would feel to be going through home study etc. whilst she prepared for her impending arrival. Miraculously, our adoption speeded up around then, and it looks as if our motherhood experiences will run in parallel, though of course our children will be different ages. I have long wanted her to be godmother to our child, because of her understanding of adoption, and I hope our children will be friends for life.

Running alongside our adoption process, there have been many synchronicities like this. I have been supporting an overseas friend via email with her adoptive daughter's transition into teens, discussing and musing with her the meaning of identity and birth family. Her daughter is raging and wild, angry and sad, but there are also moments of connection and beauty in the midst of it all. I have felt honoured to share their experience, and it has been SUCH an eye-opener for me! Talking to my pregnant friend's adoptive mum has also revealed so much, mostly on that count about deep, abiding, maternal love. Both R and I feel blessed to have friends in our lives who really know what adoption means, from both parent and child perspective.

My mum and dad and R's mum both attended a friends and family day, organised by our Local Authority. I felt nervous about them coming all this way, and how they might feel about it all. But it proved to be an amazing opportunity for them, to meet other adoptive grandparents, to ask questions, to really think through what it might mean to be adopted. I feel so lucky to have an LA that puts a focus on this, the support aspect, of adoption. We went for lunch at R's mum's last Sunday, and my mum and dad came too. All were delighted and excited about this next chapter, and I feel that's thanks to the workshop.

Making sense of it all

Feeling much better these last two days. Had a really good chat with my friend's adoptive mum - she used to sit on panel and said that it really was important for couples to be clear about what they wanted. I guess I'm just surprised by how much I want a child under two, it hadn't really seemed like a major thing before (and a part of me is disappointed in myself for being so predictable). The last eight years I've been supporting pregnant women and new mums, so I suppose some of that had filtered in, and I realised the other day just what it was I'd be missing out on. We're still not actually decided, and we have the details of the gorgeous little 15month year old - B I'll call him - by our bed. We look at him often and talk about what life might be like with him, and I feel who knows what the future holds. I am becoming aware of this stage of the process throwing up a lot more than any other part has done so far - now it's all becoming real, we're confronting new and different parts of ourselves, our needs, our dreams. And, I now see, parts of us that aren't 'perfect', parts of us that don't just say 'yes, we'll definitely take that child because they need a home'. That frightens me, but also makes a kind of sense. Anyone who has been through infertility will know how ludicrous it feels to be offered a child, any child, and have to think twice. Sometimes I think we're being ridiculous, petty, selfish. Other times I think I want this to be right for all of us.

Our social worker is coming on Friday to talk through things further with us, and show us some of the profiles of the many children under one they have on their books. If B doesn't come to live us, she assures us that there are other potential adopters who they're looking at as matches for him, which helps. I don't have to beat myself every night with the thought that if we don't adopt him, he'll spend his life in care, though that is the truth for something like 1 in 4 children currently in care. What a strange rollercoaster this part is. I'm tightening up my seatbelt a bit these last few days, taking a few very very deep breaths. We'll get there.

Guilty

Oh shit. Just had to hide in the loo to have a cry. I'm not a crying kind of person really. But I suddenly feel so gut-wrenchingly, sick-makingly, horribly, hatefully guilty about my ambivalent feelings. What a terrible process this 'choosing' is, I'd never really considered that it might be like this. I thought it would all happen perfectly, that the right child would just be there, like that. And maybe this little boy is the right child, and I'll have it on my conscience for the rest of our life together that I initially felt ambivalent. R came home and was delighted and happy, and I just felt such a gloom merchant expressing my concerns, which is why I slipped away for a cry.

Because I wasn't really expecting to be like this, to be the one who researched on the computer and worried about health issues, who got the baby books out and mourned for the things we might miss adopting an older child, who just generally didn't leap up and shout from the rooftops how excited I was. The thing is, everyone else is excited and keeps asking us how we feel and I keep saying 'excited' because I was and am, but now I also just feel horrible and nasty and guilty. Who knew it would be this complicated? Who knew that after all these years of wanting so desperately to be a mother, of wanting it with every cell of my being, I would get so muddled at this stage. I don't want to have to 'choose' my child.

Our child?

A mixed bag of feelings today. Our social worker and her colleague came over to do my 'Adult Attachment Interview' - basically a set of questions which assesses how I 'attach' to other people based on my early experiences. I had a sense I was being sacharrine sweet, but there really was nothing bad I could say about my early years. I was lucky enough to be born into a loving family and felt fully supported and loved by my mum, dad, sister and, later, brother. It's a good thing really, I wouldn't want them to go away thinking 'lord, we've got a right one here'. And R and I learnt early on not to treat any line of questioning as a kind of therapy, because it all comes back and nips you on the bum. Not least because a lot of what we've said in all our meetings has been recorded on a dictaphone and will, as our social worker told us, be repeated back to us verbatim at panel. Later on, in my teens, things got a little more complex but they've already covered that in great detail (trying to come up with reasons why you behaved a certain way or did a certain thing in your teens feels nigh-on impossible - as our friend going through the same process said, does 'I was young and stupid' count?).

The real news is that our social worker brought a photo and some information about the little boy they have in mind for us. It's amazing that it's suddenly real. I looked at his face and was surprised that I didn't immediately go 'that's my son', but I suppose I shouldn't have expected that. I just keep picking up the picture - and now I have it beside me at the computer - and saying 'hello', trying to get a feel for him. My heart is gradually coming round to the fact he might be our little boy. It's an old photo, he's about 15 months now, and he's smiling, cheeky chappy. There's signs of foetal alcohol syndrome, which we knew about, although so far he's developing well and the paedetrician is pleased with his progress. I guess I expected to know instantly or something. But I've read elsewhere that it's a slow burn, a slow learn and growth, this way of becoming parents. R is on his way home now and I can't wait to share it all with him, to sit here and talk about how it all feels. Here he is now...

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.

Adoption panel date booked for the summer

Suddenly seized with an overpowering urge to BLOG! Now that's a new one. I've spent the day 'writing' (read 'procrastinating') and trying to cajole myself into switching off the pesky internet. It wastes more of my time than I can say. Today I have been researching Edwardian living for a novel I'm working on, so it has actually proved useful. No, seriously, watching someone recreate an Edwardian hair-do on Youtube is research. R is in France with work so I am home alone with the kitties and the dog and just about to jump into bed with a big pile of books.

I just wanted to update where we're at with the adoption. We have the most incredible team, and they have whistled us - in a most light-hearted and joyful way - through the process. Our social worker is fun and kind, and the three of us are often in fits of giggles about one thing or another. This was a surprise - all the literature prepared us for some painful knuckling down with the sense that it-would-be-worth-it-in-the-end. But our experience hasn't been like that. Okay, it wasn't always easy to rehash our pasts and pick apart the reasons we behaved certain ways, and both of us found the medical checks intrusive but that's because neither of us have been to a doctor in nearly a decade and felt pretty poked around and patronised (I was told I had a heart murmur - three months of stress later, after a meeting with a very kind cardiologist, I'm told there was a mistake and I'm actually A.O.K. That was after they got my notes mixed up with someone who was on serious prescription drugs. It wasn't the best part of the process.).

But the adoption team themselves have been helpful and interested and kind, and just generally very keen for us to become parents. After much deliberation (we still haven't officially decided) we're thinking of adopting just one child, rather than siblings. Our social worker has some children in mind, and as soon as we come out of panel she will give us their paperwork. That's in July. So we could be mama and papa by autumn time, or maybe even earlier. This gives my whole life a certain dream-like quality. It's like being pregnant without the actual pregnancy, without any idea when the due date will be, what age our child will be (under 2 though).... If I were pregnant, I would be winding things up at work by summer time, but we're working right up until the wire because we don't actually know where the wire is! It's extraordinary and strange and sometimes I wake up and think it's all a dream. The idea that by some miraculous intervention, after all this time, I will hold a child in my arms and say 'Mummy loves you' just strikes me as truly remarkable and not quite, well, real...

Here's something I read the other day that made my heart soar. I felt it was somehow written for R and I. My sister wrote this out in her best script for my mum and I remember it in our childhood kitchen. It's from Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet' - On Children:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Off-grid living

Never have R and I lived our lives so in tune with Nature. For years we’ve talked of living more closely with the seasons and with the changing moods of the weather, but so much of modern day life deadens or removes the experience, not least electric light. Now, we’re in a mad dash to get things done before the sun goes down, and as the last streaks of light stain the sky, you’re most likely to find us scurrying around making sure we can locate everything we need for the evening ahead. That’s not to say we need much! Our evenings are mostly spent reading and relaxing, and I now have two teetering towers of books by my bed. Getting into bed is the most productive use of warmth, especially with a hot water bottle. Any excuse to work my way through my favourite novels on a cold winter’s evening! The days are steadily lengthening and I never truly noticed these minute changes on a daily basis before.

These beautiful winter days take the breath away – literally! – but the lack of wind means our electricity supply has been erratic at best. Recently we’ve been lucky if we can run the computer for an hour or so each week. But the incredible tranquillity of a windless day more than makes up for it. Just before I sat down to write this (on what’s left of our laptop battery), I popped outside to see the moon. A few weeks after the magical first full moon of the year, the Wolf Moon, the now waxing moon is glowing with its own halo. The sky is littered with stars, I truly don’t think I’ve ever seen so many in my life. Little dots of light are reflected in the pools left by the retreating tide. I can see brightly lit boats strung along the indigo horizon like a glittering necklace – it seems the fishermen are making use of these calm seas. In the stillness, you can hear the gentle lapping of the waves and occasionally a bird-call from the rockpools.

Finally, the winter snap that everyone’s been talking about! Preceded by all those mild days when confused birds burst into spring chatter and bulbs edged experimentally to the surface of the soil, it’s always a bit surprising to have to root through the coats to find a really warm winter one, and a hat, scarf and gloves to boot. R and I have lived without central heating before so we’re accustomed to wrapping up warm indoors as well as out.

We went away with family for a week in January and stayed in a lovely country house in Somerset, complete with hot water on tap, hot baths and showers, a washing machine, electric light, a dishwasher, a stereo system, DVD players, heating…the list of luxuries was endless! And it was perfect to start the new year basking in the warmth of the family; laughing, eating, talking, walking, reading, relaxing and playing games. There was a big storm whilst we were away and we dreaded what we might find upon our return - the house blown away like Dorothy’s in the Wizard of Oz?! Though the friends who were looking after it had assured us all was well, we hardly dared believe them. When we got home, everything was fine. And the best welcome? The cats, all three of them, fluffy and warm and pleased to see us. What better way to stave off the winter’s chill than with a houseful of pets?

After all the home comforts and mod cons the holiday cottage provided, we wondered if it would be difficult to adjust back to our clifftop lifestyle. But one morning of waking to the pink and orange dawn, with the fiery globe of the sun bowling up merrily on the left, and the moon glowing white on the right, soon reminded us what an incredible blessing every day is here.