Awry

Awry
Adverb: out of the normal or correct position; askew.

This is me. Good word, awry.  I like words and I think this is just such an appropriate one.  I like it even more now I've looked up the definition.  I am out of normal and askew, but not necessarily in a bad way.  In one sense I'm so tired that I can barely hold up my own head, in another sense I know that my friends tell me you never new tired until you have kids.  In one sense I want to rush out and buy dungarees, in another sense I am trying to remain calm and realistic.  I'm not sure what I'm like at work. I sense that I might be waving my arms around and being slightly more random than usual.  Hopefully this is distracting and not hiding my general fatigue and lack of "with-it-ness"!

We had a talk at school from a motivational speaker this week and it made me boil with anger. Had I been there under my own steam I would have walked right out of there. Is was essentially the same old crap these people spout; self belief is all you need to succeed.  She seemed to firmly believe that having a goal at the age of 13 and believing she could do it was the sole reason she had achieved it.  I mean, I'm all for striving for your personal best, but clearly most of her success was down to luck, genes, timing and circumstances.  I just kept wondering how many people with the same dream at 13 got to live it?  Does she somehow think she deserved it more because she had more self belief?! What a load of rubbish.  It got me thinking about what you teach your kids...clearly I want our kids to have dreams and aspirations, but I want them to be happy more!  I think that sometimes these incredibly driven people are so focused on their goal that they never stop and notice all the brilliant things and experiences and people that there are in the world.  I kind of want to set up my own motivational speaking company where we talk about happiness and appreciation and flexibility of mind instead of the ridiculous self important single mindedness these "successful" people have.

Tsk.  That was an extension of my rant and only loosely connected to adoption!  Sorry!

So we are still waiting.  We have a countdown ap on our iPad!  We look at her picture every day and wonder if all adopters do that or if we are a bit mad.  We have made our introduction board book, photo cube and talking photo album.  We are childproofing. We are ready. In theory!  Can you ever really be ready, I wonder! And in just over a week we will visit where she lives right now, see her room and her things, but not her, and it will be so weird!  And then we will go back to work like nothing happened!

So, that's it. I am awry!  Happy, tired, emotional and excited.  Awry.

Guest post from Mama

Hello, Mama here. Mummy usually writes these but I felt like I wanted to write a few words on this blog so that we can read it back later and remember how we both were feeling.

Things are really starting to happen now: the social workers have emailed us copies of the photos of you that we saw when they first told us about you. The ones that I took one look at and thought “Wow, she’s our daughter, she belongs with us”.  We haven’t carried you in our tummies, we’re thankful to your birth mum for that, but I have been carrying you in my heart since then.  I also carry you on my phone!! I look at your pictures a lot and imagine what it will be like when you’re with us.

We have also had to write a statement to go with the papers at matching panel to say why we think we’d be good parents for you. We want to help you to be the best you can be and to navigate life’s difficult path. We know that you’ll probably be sad to leave your foster family, but we really hope that we can show you all the beauty in the world and have a fun time together.

Our paths are going to cross in two weeks’ time. We’re coming to your house to meet your foster family. You are going to go out for a while, so we won’t meet, but we’ll get to see your home, where you sleep, your toys, where you eat. You probably won’t realise, but maybe we can leave some of our energy behind – I wonder if it will register with you?

It’s really starting to hit home now that this is going to happen. I want it more than anything in the world, and I frequently well up in everyday situations because I’m living my life without you in it for the next two months. I do feel a bit scared though. I want you to know that Mummy and I are going to look after you and help you grow, and I want you to feel reassured that together we can do anything. I’m quite nervous about washing you, dressing you, feeding you and wrestling you into a buggy or car seat! I’m not really used to it, but I’m trying to have a positive mental attitude! We’ll all be getting used to each other, but I’m looking forward to us growing together.

See you soon x

This one’s for you.

When my friend was pregnant with her lovely twins, her and her husband set up email addresses for them and emailed them before they were born (I think it was on a google advert or something).  I seem to remember that we emailed them too.  Anyway, that’s not really the point.  The point is that this blog post is for you.  I can’t write your name or say where you are, but one day I will show you this blog and you will know that before you knew us, or could even remember us; we were thinking of you.  We were opening our hearts up to you, preparing for your arrival and hoping that everything would go well and that the beautiful little girl we had heard so much about, and who was smiling at us from a pixelated photograph, would become our baby girl.  And we are hoping that it won’t take too long because all we want to do now is give you a cuddle.

 

We heard about you this week; that you are doing well and are happy and settled with your foster carers.  We worry that when we take you away from there you will feel sad inside, but we know and hope that it will be worth it for you because we will love you forever and without question.  We heard about your birth Mummy, your birth father and your half brother and sister.  We were told that your birth Mummy had heard about us, and that she was very accepting that you would have two Mummies instead of a Mummy and a Daddy. We felt really happy about this.  When we heard about your birth Mummy’s life we felt sad for her, horribly sad that she had not been given the skills she needed so that she could look after you when she so desperately wanted to.  It makes me feel really sad that the world is not able to look after people enough that they can learn how to be parents, and I do worry that our society lets people down time and time again.  After the social worker had gone, we shed quite a few tears.  Some for you, because we were full of anticipation for what the future could be, and some for your birth Mummy, because her life was nothing like a life should be, and it just feels terribly unfair.  But your birth Mummy brought you into the world, so that we could love you, and we will.

 

We are going to meet your birth Mummy in the next few months if everything goes well with the paperwork etc.  We will meet with the doctor to hear about your health, meet with your birth Mummy and if everything is sorted in time, a big panel of people will approve us to be your new parents.  The plan is that you could move in early next year.  I hope everything goes according to plan this time.  We are ready for you, and having heard so much about you, we can’t wait to meet you.

 

If something goes wrong again, you won’t get to read this.  You won’t ever know that there were two people who saw your photograph and cried on a sunny day in October.  We will hold a little bit of you with us and wonder about you, but you will never know how close we came to becoming your parents and how much we wanted to be and how, even though we hadn’t met you, we sort of loved you a little bit.

 

Your Mummy (that’s me) has a very vivid imagination and currently I’m not sleeping well because I’m full of wonder and hope and I keep imagining the future with you in it.  I’m trying not to.  I’m trying hard to close my heart and slow down my brain, to try and protect myself in case something goes wrong again.  And we don’t want to say so out loud, let alone in print, but somehow this time it feels so right.  We have always slightly mocked people who say their adopted children look like them, as that in itself is unimportant, but you look like our child, your beautiful smiling face just looks like it belongs with us, and we can’t wait to meet you and to be your parents.

 

We have two months to wait until panel.  We have another meeting next week where we might find out more and might get some more medical information.  Mama is pessimistic that panel will happen in December, Mummy (me) is optimistic.  I can’t help hoping and crossing fingers, toes, limbs, hairs that it will go right for us this time.

 

So I’m a mess!  I’m an emotional wreck who is eating too much and sleeping too little and for some reason we decided that this weekend should be the weekend we destroy our bathroom to fit a nice new one.  At least there will be a nice new one ready for when you arrive...if you arrive...There is a seed of doubt from my brain but my heart is having none of it.  I’m just going to have to carry on wishing on rainbows and shooting stars that the feeling I have in my heart means that things are going to go right this time and that the beautiful little child we know so much about is going to become our beautiful little daughter.

 

x

Wishing on rainbows and shooting stars.

Just a quick post to let you know that we have been linked again. A little girl under the age of one. We feel blessed and excited because we never expected a child so young but we are wishing on rainbows and shooting stars that it goes well this time.

Meeting this week to go over the CPR with our social worker and then...who knows.

Looks like it could be two mums one kid. But we are happy with that.

Something feels right this time, but who knows whether I can trust my feelings.

I'm just keeping all my fingers and toes crossed.

Feel free to cross things or wish on things or pray for things for us. Or not, as you like.

Hope you are all well. X

Sad elephants!

Hello,

Last night something was obviously tapping against our bedroom window and I had a weird, vivid dream that a stork was outside. I'm hoping it's prophetic but I suspect not. Anyhow, it put me in mind of this song from Dumbo and at the moment, my partner and I feel really rather like the wistful elephant!

Our social worker called over a week ago to say that they were just about to have a meeting and she couldn't remember..we did still want a little one didn't we?  And we didn't mind if it was one.  I called her on Monday to try and find out more...was told to call back on Thursday to find out more...and then we were told there was still no news so she would be in touch next week.  Apparently the children's social workers have our PARs but that is all we know.  Presumably this is promising and at least it means they are thinking about us.  I'm hopeful that we might hear something this week.  The fact that I am hopeful is wonderful in itself as hope has been rather low on my list of most frequent emotions lately! School is busy and mad but I'm managing.  I'm still hoping we will hear something soon as this is so hard! This waiting is just so unbelievably hard...I can't even begin to explain!  We are so ready. We are always looking up at the sky like the hopeful elephant and then hanging our heads and feeling rather wistful.

Ho hum...

I will keep you posted.

In other news, two people from our prep course have been matched! It all happened in about a month and we are so happy for them! So if you are also a prospective adopter reading this, the is hope! It isn't all bad and sad!

Take care all....I'm off to make flapjack and hum the Mr Stork song...crazy much?!

A bit like a yoyo

Hello,

Sorry I’ve not been as regular with my blogging as I might be.  I’ve been rather up and down lately.  Sometimes I forget things and feel happy and then other times I just feel overwhelmingly tired and saddened by it all.  I’ve only got three days left of my holiday now before I go back to the madness of school.  I’m sure it will be good to be busy again but I’m worried about coping with all of this going on as well as my full on teaching job.  I guess I should just snap out of it, stop worrying and get a grip!

We have been spending our pain a bit....oops.  I just bought an SLR camera which is something I’ve always wanted but never felt like I could quite buy.  It’s very cool and I’m planning to learn how to use it properly so I can take some really good photos.  Spending your pain is a bit of a temporary fix though but I figure as long as we are not spending more than we have then it’s OK.  We’ve been saving up for ages and now have fallen off the wagon a bit as I guess we both feel like we’re not saving for anything anymore.  And that in itself is just stupid...because clearly we will be matched at some point.  I think we are just both feeling rather wounded and negative about things.  Friends of ours have been approved for 1 ½ years and still no match and they are just lovely, wonderful people so I don’t understand why they have been kept waiting for so long.  It doesn’t make sense.  Which makes me worry that for all our support network, reading, preparation etc etc, it still could take forever.

I’m sorry.  Putting things on paper makes me realise how much of a big old whinger I’m being.  I’m not really that “woe is me”...well, I sort of am...sorry!  I really should get over myself.  Some of the people over on New Family Social have been through a whole lot worse with matches that were days before matching panel breaking up.  At least we didn’t get that far.

We took the opportunity to decorate our bedroom over the bank holiday weekend.  It is now no longer dingy beigey cream but a lovely shade of white with a Wedgewood blue wall.  It is nice that we have done it because it made us feel productive and also now we have a lovely relaxing space.  We thought it would be doomed to remain dull, dark cream forever so that’s a big positive.

We signed up to bemyparent.org.uk.  I think it’s probably a bit premature but I just really wanted to do something proactive.  I suppose on some level it makes me feel better to know that we are doing something as I’m not very good at just sitting back and waiting.  It’s hard though, as the main thing you have to go on is the picture of the child (a bit like an estate agent) and that just seems a bit wrong.  I prefer the way the agency does it where they give you all the info first and you make a proper decision rather than starting it in such a superficial way with the strange emotional link that a photograph gives you.

Oh.  I haven’t told you about the meeting with our social worker last week.  She has restored our faith in her and reassured us that she is on our side.  It seems like the cock up with the agency was bigger than we realised and so really she was the wrong person to call us and break the bad news because she didn’t have the authority to apologise on behalf of her colleagues or the authority which is why she couldn’t really explain fully what had happened.  She only called us on Thursday afternoon before she went on holiday because really she was calling on behalf of the managers and the children’s social workers.  We were right about some negative assumptions though.  They had noted that our house was really tidy (clearly...there were social workers coming!) and apparently felt like our house would not be good for chaotic children as they would wreck the place and we wouldn’t be able to cope.  I mean...really!  Clearly our house isn’t currently covered in toys and vomit but we don’t have any children yet so it would be a bit strange if it was.  Our house is tidy(ish) but not *that* tidy.  I mean we do have things out on the side and our sink doesn’t have a mirror shine!  What do they want from you?  How do they expect your house to be?!  Luckily last time the twins came round, one of them spilled milk on the carpet so now there is a small stain...maybe that means they will think we will make better parents!  But I have been nesting 100% of my time for weeks!  I’m on “holiday”, what do they expect?!  What a bunch of crazies!  I can’t believe that they make these assumptions about you from your home decor...haven’t they ever seen “Through the Keyhole?” no-one ever got it right, did they?!

On some level it is nice to know that it is the system at fault and not us, but it doesn’t help too much when you know that this is the system you have to use to find your family.  But even this crazy old system seems less scary than heading off and trying to find a family on your own.  I much prefer the idea of being matched in house as at least social workers have knowledge and experience of matching.  I’ve never chosen a child before so I don’t really know what I’m looking for!

Ooh.  This blog is making me feel better!  Thanks anonymous readers, whoever you are.  I’m on the sofa in my pyjamas again.  Somehow you guys have given me the get up and go to get up and get some breakfast.  Well done, you!

I do believe that our children are out there.  I suppose we are worried that this mess up has wasted us time, which it has, but not that much time.  We are young!  And we should be enjoying our time as a couple and making the most of not having children and we are in a way but it’s peppered with sadness and hollow purchasing to try and make us feel better.  If we hadn’t had this link, we would feel funny and apprehensive but not in the same way.  I had fully imagined that I would only be back at school for a month or so, and what an exciting month it would be.  I had imagined Christmas and I had imagined trips out with my friends who are already mummies and I can’t un-imagine it.  I wish I could.  No...maybe I don’t.  Getting excited and getting ready and looking forward to being a parent is part of who I am and I don’t want to be a person who doesn’t do those things.  Unfortunately it just makes it harder now because the near future isn’t going to be what I thought it would be.

It makes you think though.  All these emotions I’m having.  I am constantly on a knife edge between coping and not coping.  Merrily getting on with things and then welling up and having to stop.  I’m getting there.  There is more merriment and coping than there was.  But my point was.  I’m an adult.  I’m an adult who has been through crap before and coped and managed and come out the other end more than usually perky and OK.  But these kids...they’re just kids and the amount of crap they have to go through before they get to their forever families and not just when they are with their birth families but in the “care” system too.  It makes me realise that though this path we are taking has brought us a huge amount of pain lately, it will be worth it in the end, not just for us, but for the children that eventually become a part of our family.

Another long one.  Congratulations for making it through to the end.  Maybe I should start putting summaries at the beginning.  “Feeling a bit sad.  Getting there.  Worried about going back to school. Social worker better than we thought. Will be worth it in the end”.  I’m not sure it quite gets across the same message though.  I love words.  I love the way they can make you feel so much less crap.

Hope that wasn’t too much of a snivvely moan bag of a blog!  TTFN! x

It's all gone Pete Tong!

Hello folks.  Sorry it’s been a while.  Everything fell apart (including me) in a rather catastrophic and impressive fashion last week and I’m sure anything I posted would have consisted of moans, sobs and sniffles.  However, I have now bounced back (ish) and will proudly present you with the facts of the matter without added melancholy although, probably more than likely, with a smattering of indignation.

I didn’t commit to paper the excitement and apprehension we felt after our meeting last Monday (which is probably for the best...).  We were talked through the children’s past history and behaviours...occasional biting, sleep issues, a bit clingy...nothing we hadn’t expected given that we have done tons of reading on the implications of neglect and domestic violence and also spoken to lots of current adopters.  So no big shocks at all.  We were there in the meeting waiting for the fact which would pop out and make us say; “whoa there, hold on a sec...” but it never came.  The social worker complimented us on our child focused attitude to adoption and said it was great that we understood that they would come with issues and wanted to work with them rather than try to forget they had a past.  She praised us for our extensive reading and the whole meeting was very open (or so we thought).  I said that I was looking to take two years off and the social workers smiled at each other like this was very positive.  Then I asked if they thought we would make good parents for these children and they said; “you have a lot of the skills needed to be good parents for these children” and I said; “OK then, what happens next?” and they said “Well, we arrange meetings with the medical advisor and it could be about three months...[then our social worker said]...much sooner than that, I think”.  Then they showed us photographs and proudly looked on and asked us how we felt.  We didn’t really know what to feel but we felt quite in awe of the fact that these were going to be our children.  And that was that.  They said they would call that afternoon to confirm the next steps.  Wow, we thought.  We are going to be parents really bloody soon!  Then the social worker called on Monday afternoon and said that she hadn’t been able to talk to her manager so she would call me on Thursday or Friday.  And that was Monday.  Rightly or wrongly I assumed this was go, go, go (wouldn’t you?) and let my close friends and family know (the ones who had been references on our PAR) and also emailed school as I am very conscious of keeping them in the loop as they won’t have long to find my replacement.

So cue Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday where I go out and have jolly lunches with my chums and their kids only this time my brain is saying “wow...you’re not far off the Mummy club now!”  So it all sort of feels different and exciting and scary but kind of wonderful because it’s what we’ve been working towards for so long.

And then Thursday comes and at 3.30 I get the phone call (the one I’m expecting to be confirming the appointments with the medical advisor etc) and I’m in the park in the sunshine with my friend and her two children.  Our social worker says “how are you feeling?” I say...“well, I don’t know if I’m allowed to be completely excited”...she says...“oh...” and then I can’t remember her exact words but it was something along the lines of “the children’s social worker has decided it’s not a good match”.

Oh

Bugger

Now I feel a mixture of crushed, sad, stupid, over-excitable and about 0.5mm tall.  I also wish that the playground would swallow me up and send me away from all the cheerful mums and kids.  I can’t really remember the rest of the conversation as I was just so shocked.  The meeting had gone really well, they had shown us the photographs, they had told us it would be much less than three months and now...bang.  So I can’t clearly remember the conversation we had but effectively what I took from it was “we don’t think you can manage these two children when you’re at home on your own”.  I felt like someone had stamped on me repeatedly and it physically hurt.  I tried to keep normal until my lovely friend and her kids had gone home but then I just melted down.  I felt like they were saying I couldn’t do it...I couldn’t be a good parent.  She said it was nothing to do with the meeting and that they definitely hadn’t withheld any information but that the children’s social worker felt I wouldn’t be able to cope and that they wanted what was best for everyone and that wasn’t for the adoption to break down.  So in my mind I’m thinking...but all they had were some fairly minor behavioural issues (we questioned this during the meeting and they confirmed it), and they were two smiley, sociable children, and we can’t cope with them.  Well I’m thinking, clearly we will never be matched then, because I’m not good enough to manage.  I was in a state, I’m not going to lie about it.  I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t stop sobbing because I blamed myself and I felt like I had let me, my partner and these children down.  So that was Thursday and Friday.  Not great.  Not proud of that, not trying to be melodramatic, just trying to be honest.

Oh yes, and that phone call was the last thing our social worker did before going on holiday for a week.

On Friday our old social worker called (we text to say what had happened) to say that she was quite shocked as on paper it seemed like a really good match.  These are the two children they have been talking about for us since before our panel.  I said I couldn’t figure it out.  I just kept going over it in my head...they said it wasn’t the meeting...they said it wasn’t that the children were different to what they had said...so what was it?  Anyway, she advised me to call the adoption services manager (who is lovely) so I did, and that’s finally how I managed to get to this point.  A point where I can function and reason and look forward and write about what happened.

I explained to her that I felt totally crushed and devastated because I didn’t understand what had happened and was blaming myself.  She explained that it was the children’s social worker’s first ever link and that on paper it had seemed like a really good match but on talking to the children’s social worker it transpired that the children’s behaviour was much more challenging and demanding than the CPR stated.  That they were violently clingy etc. although she admitted that it wasn’t her case so she didn’t know everything about it.  She said (as did our other social worker) that they feel our primary skill is as nurturers, so we are better suited to more withdrawn children.  One of my friends worries that this is slightly homophobic, as they are seeing us both as “mothers” rather than co-parents with different skills.  I’m not sure.  I said to the manager that we felt like everything they kept saying about us being nurturers was a sort of code for us not being resilient, and that it sounded like an insult and she said that it was just that some children are a better fit for some people than other children and these ones didn’t seem like the best fit for us.  She apologised, she said that they shouldn’t really have matched us in the first place.  I made it clear that we weren’t upset because these particular children wouldn’t be our children, we were upset because on Monday we were very firmly led to believe that we would be parents very soon and they waited until Thursday to tell us that we weren’t.  They shouldn’t have left that meeting on such a positive if they had doubts; they shouldn’t have shown us the photographs; they should have asked us directly about the behaviour they felt I couldn’t manage and they definitely shouldn’t have let us spend three days feeling positive and excited about our imminent parenthood only to tell us it was all off and not really explain why.  Especially when the reason why is that they have cocked up, not us.  They messed up the match, they behaved inappropriately in the meeting and it seems like they have made massive assumptions about our personalities which we worry aren’t really true.  But despite all this, I still feel inclined to trust that they understand matching better than I do.  It’s their job and I’m not going to believe or argue that these children were right for us; I believe them, they probably weren’t, and that’s OK.  Just don’t put us through all of this, please.  Because we’re not even parents yet and we feel like our confidence has been totally squashed.

So that’s that.  That was the last couple of weeks with my OH’s grandma’s funeral and an engagement party thrown in for good measure.  I have two weeks left of school holidays and I’m not really sure what to do with myself.  We have a meeting with our social worker next week and I wonder what we will say.  I’ll let you know.  Three months from our approval panel is fast approaching which means the national adoption register looms.  I don’t know from experience but it sounds like when you are looking for a house, and they send you masses and masses of details which aren’t right, and then when one finally is right, the sellers choose someone else.  It seems like a lonely old process fraught with rejection and negative assumptions made without even talking to you, let alone meeting you.  I had really hoped that we would be matched in house and not get that far but you can’t win them all.  Our adoption journey has been fairly painless up until now so I guess it was going to happen at some point.

Sorry that was so long!  I hope it wasn’t too down in the dumps and angry!  I do feel cross now.  I feel like I’m mostly healed but all this emotion makes you seriously physically tired!

I need to get off the sofa, get dressed and have some breakfast!  xx