I just want to know who you are

                          I just want to know who you are. 

I’m ready to know you. I’m desperate to know you. I think about you all the time. I call you by different names, different genders (the boy’s room, the girl’s room, when we bring the twins home…). I try and guess you. Your age. Your hair colour. Your eye colour. What do you like? Will I be decorating rooms with superheroes or princesses? Cars or animals?  What makes you happy? Do you even know that? Where are you? How far away are you from me right now?  What are you doing? Are you safe? Are you warm? Are you content? Are you in someone’s arms right now who is loving you and preparing you for me to take over? Or are you scared, cold, hungry, lost, alone, waiting for someone to help you. Perhaps you are happy. Perhaps you don’t really understand that where you are isn’t safe for you. You must be so confused little one.

Oh but!

I’m going to be a mum.

 I’m going to be your mum. I can’t deny I’m stupidly, selfishly excited about that! I feel you in my arms…… (I know it sounds romantic and naff but I do, I feel you). Or at least I feel your absence. I know one day you will lay there and fill that gap. I understand I am talking from my deep rooted longing to be a mother. I wouldn’t be here doing all this if I didn’t feel that! The fact that you won’t have come from my body doesn’t bother me one bit. You are my child. My children. I know that already. I love you already (I know, I know, I’m being romantic, naff and idealistic but I do, I love you).

But……

I do not know you. Yet. I look forward, with such joy, to getting to know you. To figure you out. To understand what makes you happy or sad and how to make you feel better.  To learn your bedtime routine and how to calm you. Which stories you enjoy and you favourite foods. To learn to spot the triggers, if necessary, and help you deal with them. To find what makes you laugh and which songs you love to sing.

I do not love you. Yet. I am in love with the idea of you, but how can I love you when I don’t know you? Yet! 

Oh but!

My darlings, I will love you fiercely and forever. Because you will be mine and I will be yours. We will travel this road together, wherever it takes us, tied together forever. 

I just want to know who you are.

Adoption should not be a last resort!

Over the last few months I have been asked the same question quite a few times and it's really niggled at me.

The question is this...

"Why did you give up so easily?"

This question is in reference to the fact that we 'only' had 2 goes at IVF. Several things irritate me about this. Firstly 

Secondly, to be brutally honest, IVF is f*cking horrible. It is invasive, traumatic and nearly destroyed my mental health. It rocked my relationship more than I ever thought possible. The grief we felt tested us. Luckily, we found strength in each other too, and this overcame everything else. When you are in the IVF bubble nothing else matters. You think about nothing else. The constant push and pull of hope and devastation is exhausting and overwhelming. Ultimately, I decided that I did not want to put myself through it anymore and my husband did not want to watch me go through it. And, we are both sooooo much happier to be out of that world. Don't get me wrong, I completely admire people who keep going through the process again and again but stopping treatment was the right decision for us. 

Thirdly, and very importantly, I do not see this as 'giving up'. I am not giving up on my dream to be a mother, for my husband to be a father, for us to have children and be a family.  I will still have all of these things, we have just taken a different path. The adoption process is also pretty tough. It's been a lot longer than I anticipated and the scrutiny, at times, has been unbearable. The questions, the repetition, the pulling apart of our relationship, the paperwork, our finances, our home and our family and friends have been intense. 

This makes me giggle every time!

We are lucky to have an extremely lovely and skilled social worker, whom we trust, guiding us through the process as well as all the lovely twitter tweeps providing advice, support and pearls of wisdom. I hassle them almost daily! 

Fourthly, and most crucially, my husband and I never wanted to see adoption as a last resort. It didn't sit right with us that we should try everything, and then, only then, when we have no other choice and have exhausted all other options, adopt a child. Adoption is not to be undertaken lightly. Parenting traumatised children is not, by all accounts, a walk in the park, to put it mildly! Yes,we wanted to see if it was possible to have our own children. I think had we not tried that would always have been a question I asked myself.....what if? At least now I know we gave it a shot. IVF is addictive in some ways and it sucks you in, but I think deep down I knew this wasn't our path. 

 So perhaps I feel this way because I have always thought it would end in adoption for us ,which made it easier to stop treatment.  The Adoption and Fostering building in my town was opposite a pub. When I first began 'going up town' drinking I would often look at it and think.... "I will be there one day". We always said that even if IVF was successful we would have looked at adoption for our 2nd child. Indeed, if you have read this blog from the beginning then you will see that it is a thread running all the way through. I do not like the thought that my children, if they were ever to ask, would find out that they were considered the last chance on our list of having children. We want them to know we always wanted them. Ultimately, we want to help, to give children who deserve it a home, a family, however challenging that maybe. After all, what better thing can you do in this life? 

So here we are. Happy, excited, terrified, following our own path and full of hope and love for our children, whoever they will be. 

*All thought and opinions, are, as always, my own. 

I remember the night my Dad died.

Today, I want to talk about my Dad. On Wednesday it was 4 years since he died. I think about my Dad often. Look at his photos, light a candle. But, I rarely allow myself to think about the night he died. The memories are locked up tightly in a box up high to the right of me. If I stretch my arm up to the right hand corner of my ‘presence’ or my ‘aura’ or my ‘bubble’ I can feel the box. But I don’t open it. It is too painful. This week the memories have rippled to the surface and seeped out. And so to help me deal with them I felt it would help to write them down.

·       I remember the phone call from my Mum to say he had collapsed. 6 o’clock, Friday night. We’d just sat down and poured a drink.

·       I remember being stuck behind the slowest driver in the world. My husband overtook him in the end. The ten minute journey took forever.

·       I remember as we drove up to the house my husband saying “oh god”. I hadn’t seen him at that point.

·       I remember the cold, the darkness. He was lying on the drive outside the front door.

·       I remember my mum repeatedly calling an ambulance, which took an age.

·       I remember my Dad saying “I’m dying”

·       I remember him rolling over him car keys causing the automatic locking system and lights to keep flashing on and off.

·       I remember his ear phones wrapped around his neck and could hear the music playing.

·       I remember trying to give him mouth to mouth out of complete desperation. He pushed me away and said “no Sofie, don’t.” This is the last thing he ever said to me.

·       I remember the neighbours quietly joining us, supporting us.

·       I remember the ambulance turning up, just one man and a car, and my mum saying “should we complain about the wait time?” and me thinking “for god sake just let him get on with his job”.

·       I remember him calling for another ambulance and sending us to get overnight clothes.

·       I remember looking at my mum and exchanging a glance which said “he won’t be coming home though”. We just knew.

·       I remember phoning my brothers to tell them. My eldest was on his way from Norfolk with his family, for an early Christmas get together. They spent the journey not knowing if he would be alive or dead by the time they got here.

·       I remember my other brother’s voice breaking when I told him he had to meet us at the hospital as he said “ok”.

·       I remember my dad’s eyes rolling and him foaming at the mouth as my mum and I screamed at him in the streets to hold on, to keep fighting. I take a little comfort in the fact that the last thing he would have heard was our voices fighting for him and telling him we love him.

·       I remember the paddles, trying to bring him back.

·       I remember knowing he was gone.

·       I remember the ambulance arriving, and as they took him away, they didn’t put the sirens or lights on.

·       I remember meeting my family in the dreary, bleak, beige bereavement room.

·       I remember my eldest brother and his family arriving, my teenage nieces not really knowing what was going on. They shouldn’t have been there.

·       I remember the Dr coming in to prepare us, telling us that his heart was incredibly weak.

·       I remember going to see him. I believe he waited until we were all there together.

·       I remember his face was yellow and peppered with bruises from where he fell on the gravel.

·       I remember families around us looking at us with such pity.

·       I remember crying and my shaking my head at my nieces who burst into tears.

·       I remember the Dr telling us there was nothing more we could do, and how matter of fact my mum was.

·       I remember going to see him again, in a different room, I had to ask my husband if he was dead or alive at that point. He had to tell me again that he was dead.

·       I remember the touch of his skin, I will never forget that feeling.

·       I remember driving home and the first thing I said was “who will walk me down the aisle?” I am thoroughly ashamed at this.

·       I remember pulling his glasses out of my coat pocket and saying “what do I do with these now?”

·       I remember us all sitting around the table and my mum saying “how will I cope financially?”

·       I remember every light in the house flashed on and off repeatedly for a few seconds. This has never happened before or since.

·       I remember a toy from A bugs life,  which my dad had bought me when I was at Uni and poorly, which I hadn’t seen for at least ten years and which hadn’t worked for longer, was in the spare room where I was sleeping. At 3 o’clock in the morning it went off, laughing manically. I have been unable to make it work since.

·       I remember the next day I phoned all friends and relatives. I noticed an answer message flashing (neither of my parents knew how to work it) I pressed the button, and it was my Grandmas voice, who died 2 years earlier, almost to the day, calling my dad’s name. I’m convinced she was letting us know she had him, they were together.

I remember the night my Dad died. And now, back in the box you go. 

And they lived happily ever after. Or did they?

(*disclaimer – I am new to all this. I haven’t yet had these experiences, I’m just trying to make sense of what I have learnt so far. If I have made any mistakes, incorrect assumptions or anything else, I’m sure the experienced adoption community will gently correct me, which I welcome gratefully).

I haven’t written a post for a long time, simply for the reason that it is generally therapy for me and I haven’t felt the need. But, now that we have finally began Stage 2 of the adoption process, my thought and feelings have been brewing and stirring and it’s time to try and formulate them into words.

Our current topic at school is Fairy Tales. It got me thinking about the characters in the stories – almost all had experienced trauma growing up. Cinderella – neglected, treated cruelly, used as a slave. Snow White - again, treated cruelly by her step mother, and abandoned; her father choosing his wife over his daughter, also repeated in Hansel and Gretel, mirroring the frequent scenario of mothers in abusive relationships choosing their partners over their children. Rapunzel repressed and abused by her mother, the princess in Rumpelstiltskin being forced into arranged marriage…I could go on but you get my gist. Most of these stories end with, as we all know, as I teach my class of 4 year olds: 

‘they all lived happily ever after’

Actually, not for all of us mate.

When we first started talking about adopting we thought we would get our happy ending and, despite knowing that our children may potentially have experienced some sort of neglect or abuse, we would love them, fix them and we would all live happily ever after.

But through endless research, reading blogs, and the adoption preparation days it is now very clear that it is simply not that simple. Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel would have been left deeply traumatised by their neglectful beginnings. They would struggle with issues of attachment, trust, and anger. Cinderella, more likely than marrying her Prince Charming, would have taken up with an equally abusive partner, due to her incredibly low self-esteem and belief that she is worth nothing. They would struggle with impulsivity and self-control as no one would have taught them those skills, amongst many other possible issues.

The phrases ‘children are resilient’ and ‘all children do that’ crop up time and time again when I talk about adoption, demonstrating a lack of understanding about the issues surrounding it (totally understandable – I didn’t have a clue either – but a clear indication that more needs to be done to educate others in how to support adoptive families.) Yes, children can be resilient.  Some of these children have often endured more than you or I could ever possibly imagine. But that does not mean they are not deeply hurting and deeply scared, in ways we will never understand, and which manifests themselves in ways in which we can never make sense of. And 'no, not all children do that'. Their early traumas means they process the world in a very different way, and this is physiological, not a choice.

I am very grateful that the twitter community, who share their daily tweets, insightful blogs, trials, tribulations and #glowmos (the moments that would seem insignificant to most families but these small steps of progress and moments of happiness which mean the world to their parents) – which are helping to me prepare somewhat.

But, I am ashamed to say, I have been asking myself over and over one question:

Can I do this?

I read the stories shared on twitter and put myself in their parent’s places, living out the situations as best as I can imagine it. What would I do? What would I say in that position? Can I be therapeutic enough? How will I cope?

Then, I remind myself that it isn’t about me. These children did not choose their lives, they were born into it and are trying to make sense of the world the best that they can. If I can give a child a safe, loving environment to do that in then I will just do my best to cope with the rest, whatever that is.

The thought occured to me the other day that my children could be out there somewhere, possibly scared, alone, hungry. And I felt heartbroken. But more importantly, I felt fiercely protective of the little children I haven’t even met.

So the answer to my question is

I don’t know if I can cope, but I’m going to do my damndest.

Many thanks for voting me #7 in the top adoption blogs of 2016. What an honour! 

Letting go, moving on, giving up?

• Hey. So it’s a few months after my last blog and this is where I am. I have worked with my applied kinesiology lady weekly over Skype - which is very weird - but she has been amazing - my doctor, my counsellor, my friend.  I have no doubt she has helped me in many different ways. But to cut a long story short this is what I have discovered:  

·        I don’t ovulate properly.
·        All these years of OPKs have been a waste of time as PCOS throws them off.
·        We have probably never got the BD timing right.
·        Taking my temps daily, checking my cervix, looking for signs of cm leads me to bad places.
·        I cannot do this anymore.

It all came to a bit of head when I was on a weekend in Mallorca with my best friend. Despite the fact that I could tell AF was on her broomstick I still kidded myself I was pregnant. The period pains were implantation cramps. The brown blood was implantation bleed. My temp dropping and staying low was implantation dip. I scoured the internet for similar stories like mine that ended in pregnancy. (there were none) Even though I knew. And as I sobbed on a Spanish beach (well, if you’re going to sob anywhere…) I gave up.

I gave up the dream of having my own child. Because this is slowly destroying me. I cannot do it. I am not strong enough, a fact of which I feel utterly ashamed. But a new friend on twitter recently said to me

“that the real strength lies in the simpliest things – like having the courage to be honest about the hardest things”

and I take heart from that. It’s time to be honest, I cannot do this anymore. I dreaded broaching the subject with OH but when I did he said to me “I never thought we would do IVF again anyway, it kicks the shit out of you”. Ah, love him. He made it so easy and he never once made me feel like a failure, or like I have let him down.

Of course I want my own child. I want everything that comes with being pregnant. But I didn’t ever feel strongly about having my own biological child. What I want is a family, and it seems crazy to continue this when we can be a family and create a family for children who desperately need it.

So, we attended an adoption open evening and came away feeling so excited! We have the forms to fill out. We have asked for a sibling group under the age of 5. We know it will be really tough but I feel so much lighter now. I feel like myself again. There is no pressure on me anymore and I won’t have to keep failing and failing and failing. I can rebuild myself.

We have a lot to grieve about and a lot to do. But I’m ok with that.

What better thing can you do with your life than give a home to children who need it?

I have never actually had a dream about being pregnant or having my own child. But this week I dreamt we adopted a little girl, with black hair, who was angry, and no-one wanted. So I think my subconscious is on board. And I think I always knew.

I always suspected this would turn into an adoption blog and it looks like that is what will happen. We have one more month with my lady trying naturally but I am moving on. Perhaps, as I mentally let go, a natural miracle will happen but I refuse to focus on that. I have committed myself to this now. And this is good.

So, no, I have not given up, just following my dream on a different path.