Waiting

With one step taken and completed and the next one on the horizon we are back to waiting. How long we will be waiting I am not sure but it is still waiting and it got me thinking about how much waiting I have done over the last few years. When we started our trying for our family it was waiting for the right time of the month and then it became waiting for our 'one year' milestone and a doctors appointment. That started a period of time in which we were waiting for the right time of the month plus waiting for tests, waiting for results and waiting for appointments.

Waiting for treatment didn't really happen as we went for an appointment and it was there. There was a short wait getting the prescription through and sorted but this was short enough to be over looked based on who long we had waited already.

The next rounds of waiting occurred after I fell pregnant. Waiting for blood tests and their results and then the dreadful pause in which everything stopped for me but really I was waiting for it all to be, medically, over. I had to wait for my bleeding to start and then I had to wait for it to stop. After that the cycles continued until the time we chose for it to end.

I got to wait for more exciting times after that. We had agreed to follow the adoption road but there are criteria - 6 months clear of treatment before initial assessment which was completely understandable. Another 6 months before the start of the preparation course (which has flown past) and whilst it has started to feel a bit more 'real' than it did, it still doesn't feel like there is an end in sight. There are still plenty of things to wait for - the start of home study, the end of home study, our approval panel and then hopefully a more exciting period where we wait for a match to be found.

I reckon I have become so used to waiting I have not realised that I have, somewhere along this road, learnt at least a little patience. Some of the waits that seemed forever back at the start of the road were actually a lot shorter than the waits that have flown past but overall my wait for a family is currently on 3 years and 8 months - all in. Sounds like a long time and it has been, especially we have no idea how much longer it might be but, for some, the wait for a family is so much longer than this and I feels right to remind myself that no matter how long I have waited there will be someone somewhere that has to wait longer.

The Pink C

The challenge was to write about one woman but I have to many in my life that are important to me and so choosing one was impossible.

My Grandma and then my mum - terrible luck, genetics or random chance? Good friends and people I care about, the list goes on.

Surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and everything that comes after - more hurdles to jump. The all clear that comes years later.

90 words isn't many to recognise everything to comes when some one you love has is diganiosed and then treated but I do recongise that I am lucky that my stories have happy endings.

Pink Ribbon Bingo have pledged to support Breakthrough Breast Cancer all year round with 15% of the gross revenue accrued through online play on the site being donated to the charity.  Visitors also have the opportunity to donate a percentage of their winnings directly to the charity.  Along with the fundraising element, Pink Ribbon Bingo and The Daily Mail online will be helping the charity to raise awareness by promoting their vital health messages such as TLC (Touch, Look, Check).

90 bloggers, 90 words about breast cancer for Kate on Thin Ice. Join and link up. 

The Final Day - Prep course complete

I do feel that I ought to start with the weekend before as I had the chance to visit some friends and spend some catching up. What amazed me was that everyone asked about the adoption process and how it was going. It is stark contrast to the situation not that long ago - people just don't talk about infertility or miscarriage and I figure it is because it is such a negative thing and adoption is seen as a very positive thing.

So, day 4 of our prep course is the one I have been most looking forward, not for the course content but for the fact it will be another 'tick in the box', another thing we can say we have finished making us that one tiny step further forward.

Today has been the most interesting day and started with a visit from a child physcologist talking about attachment theories and behaviour management strategies. It was so interesting to investigate the world using a child's eyes and looking at the difference between how children with good strong attachments and those who have come from less than ideal backgrounds. We also got to look over real profiles of children who have passed through the care system and into adoptive families and make discuss whether we would be able to accept children with their specific needs and, for lack of a better term, baggage. It has been the longest day of the course but the one that went the fastest for me.

We ended the course by exchanging email addresses and I am hopeful that we can stay in contact as a group so we can support each other though this process. The next step is waiting for our social worker to contact us so fingers crossed that will be sooner rather than later.

Elsewhere in the news this week.....
I had to try and persuade my dad to curb my mum's shopping. Normally I am the first one to enjoy a shopping trip but she has been looking in toy shops and although it is so very exciting that she feels she can do this I do feel that she might be 'jinxing' things a bit. How awful would it be if we still had years of the application process and matching process ahead of us and those toys were sat in boxes, unused and unloved all that time. I know her actions will have no bearing on the process we go through but it does feel akin to the 'no baby stuff in the house before a certain time' bad luck thing. There is another part of me that wants to be shopping - buying things for our family but when we talked about it we did decide not to buy anything until we were matched.

Desert Island Disks

After inspiration from Kylie on Not Even A Bag of Sugar I started thinking what my desert island disks might be. I love my music and have to narrow it down to just 7 which might be very hard so, in no particular order, here goes:

1)      The second dance we had at our wedding was ‘Accidentally in Love’ by Counting Crows and one we first heard when it featured in Shrek 2 but seemed so apt. When we got together neither of us was looking for love, neither of us had expected to find it in each and, certainly for me, getting married was the last thing I expected to be doing at the age of 25 but it was one of the best decisions I have ever made following closely the decision to actually give him my phone number.

2)      Bon Jovi’s ‘Bed of Roses. A soothing piece of music that always seems to settle my mind in times of turmoil. I was always a fan of stadium rock (Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams etc etc) and this appeared in one of the many albums I was bought when I was an angry teen having problems at school.

3)‘Sisters’. Everyone has to have seen the joy that is the film White Christmas where those 2 sisters perform their piece entitled ‘Sisters’. My sister and I used to prance about to this when we were children and to this day we people sing it at us when start getting at each other. I would never let anyone harm my sister if I could help it but we still bicker and I can’t see a day when we don’t.

4) In thinking about this I suppose I ought to be cultured and go for a piece of classical music but I am not a fan so I decided to go for an old faithful in my folk collection 'All around my Hat', a Steeleye Span classic of which there are many versions (some not clean enough for a public blog) and all remind me of sitting round campfires at re-enactment events listening to people singing. This isn't the most popular song for campfires but it still stuck with me and makes me smile.

5)  I think for a inspiration piece of 'sing a long at the top of your voice and having a wonderful time' music I am torn between 2 so plan to give them half each for number 5. They are Queen's 'Don't stop me now' and Elton John's 'I'm still Standing'. I do think they speak for themselves.

6) My all time favourite has to 'Romeo and Juliet' by Dire Straits - enough said

7) For my last choice I decided on the song I want playing at my funeral. Just this, nothing else. no hymns, no readings, no one yapping on about me and my life just people sitting down, listening for the 10 minutes the song lasts and then leaving to get on with their, hopefully, happy lives. 'Stairway to Heaven' By Led Zepplin.

Which leads me to ask the same question Kylie did - what are your desert island disks?

Day 3

Today was our third day in the preparation course and our assignment from last week was to take something that was important to us. I choose, as I expected to, my Mickey Mouse. Mickey is a stuffed toy that I have had since 1984 and the birth of my younger sister. He is a bit on the scabby side, he has seen a lot better days but he has been all over the world with me and I am very attached to him. It was really nice to listen to the stories of the items taken by other people, a charm bracelet where every charm meant something, photographs of family, of pets and other items of significance.

The next topic of the day was back to neglect and abuse and the effects it can have on children as well as ways in which we, as adoptive parents, can identify the impact it can have on behaviour. This consisted of watching a video in 3 parts - the birth mum, the child and the adoptive mum of the same situation and how the tiniest of little things can be massive to a child.

The most interesting part of the day, for me, was the visit from a mum who has recently adopted her soon and she spoke very honestly and openly about the process, about many of the little things she worried about and some of the things that she encountered on her journey. Her story was very positive and did a lot to displace some of the negativity that has surrounded us so far.

Our afternoon was taken up with more conversations with the adoptive mum and lots more questions for her plus some exercises and discussions regarding becoming part of a minority group when we adopt and some the things we might encounter. We were able to discuss some of the things people say when when they realise you are following the path to adoption. As a group we shared the frustration of people telling us how 'wonderufl' we were because we had chosen this path - at the moment I feel very selfish as we have chosen this route as the only way to have a family so it is not the 'wonderful thing' outsiders see it as. It also got me thinking how I would deal with being the 'adoptive parents' in social situations and what impact that might have on our child.

We ended the day without home work and I am looking forward to completing this course next week and moving onto the next stage of the path.

The Actual Course - Day 2

Day 2 was yesterday and I was pleased when we arrived in plenty of time and were able to be a lot more relaxed – I don’t think we were alone in being nervous last week as many of the other couples were a lot chattier and it was nice to get to know people a bit better.

This subject matter for the morning session was contact. We covered the different types of contact (direct and letterbox) and we covered how they were arranged, managed and filtered. The guest speakers were the 2 social workers that form the contact team for our agency and they were very open, honest and interesting. They also provided us with a really insightful pack of information that included sample letters, sample agreements of contact between birth families and adoptive families and guidance on social networking. 

The morning seemed to fly past but we were ready for lunchtime when it came round. This week there was more food than we needed and some sandwiches! I decided to make wraps with various fillings which went down well.

The afternoon started with another guest speaker, this time a children’s social worker who was also very interesting and she really hit home how careful they are with matches and the children they have in the care system. We did an exercise about the links children form using string – a piece held by the people in the link and then cut with scissors when the link ended. It was very sad to see how many severed links children could potentially have from just a few moves. The child I portrayed in the exercise had a birth mum and dad, 2 step fathers, 2 siblings, 2 sets of foster parents and adoptive parents plus a grandma and social worker and at the end of the exercise the only string whole was the one to the adoptive parents – all the other links had been cut.

There were other topics discussed after this and we touched on abuse and how to deal with the disclosures of abuse. I do think that it is right and necessary that we have to discuss these things in detail especially as there is a risk we might be placed with a child that has suffered some form of abuse but it is still very upsetting to hear about real situations where children have been abused.

We ended the day with a request that we each bring something next week that means something to us and that we can talk about. We also have our CRB forms to complete and return next week with the evidence we need which mean I have something to work on.

A Philosophical Question

This morning I woke, after a lovely long sleep feeling very warm, safe and above all loved. It took me a minute to realise that I was surrounded - my snoring husband to one side, one cat curled up my my knee and the other cat curled up at my waist.

My next thought was - which one can I move so I can get out of bed and, do you know what? I couldn't decide! Daft as it sounds they were all so peaceful that I didn't have the heart to do it so had to lie there until the cat decided it was time to get up!

This was this morning but it does evidence the amount of space my 2 feline friends take up when they want to! I think this was taken at the point when my husband wanted to get in bed and couldn't.

I am pretty attached to them both which leads to my next question - how will they cope when are family expands? I have some thoughts based on how they behave when we have visitors but after they realise that those 'visitors' are staying they might change their behaviour. I can say with some certainty that I expect Marmite to be the adorable softy that he is and just to enjoy the new people to make a fuss of him. I have watched small children pull on his ears, tails and fur and he actually likes it. Yang on the other hand might be a bit different. I guess I will have to wait and see as I can't explain it to them, I can only remind them that they are important to me in the way cats understand - food and fuss.

So my question is -  what would you have done? Who would you have moved?

Medical assessment

I knew when we started this process I would need a detailed medical assessment and my appointment with my GP was this morning.

My appointment was this morning and despite the doctor running over half an hour late I have not had an appointment as nice as that in a very, very long time. He was brilliant. He filled in the forms honestly but with a mind to what we are doing. I mentioned the concern I have over my weight and he reassured me that I was going in the right direction - according to his scales I have lost a further 3 and a half pounds since I was weighed at the beginning of December and he made a note that I was making a real effort and that my weight would have no impact on my ability to look after a child - I could have hugged him!

A lot of my fears have been focused on this element of the process and they were all unnecessary. My blood pressure was fine, my previous medical history was as expected and there are no family related concerns.

I hope that they fact that I asked for some counselling and did a course and CBT and counselling when things were a bit rough with the infertility and miscarriage will go in my favour as I have the ability to ask for help and take that help on board and turn things around.
Next step is to look forward to the last 3 days of our preparation course.

The Actual Course

So, the first day of our course is done, 3 more left.

It has been a very interesting day but if I am honest my nerves are frazzled as it is a long day when you are meeting lots of new people and being assessed during group discussions and other tasks. The course was very honest. Today we looked at the process and what to expect plus some issues around the needs children have the some of the different challenges faced by children who are adopted. We watched a video from an old BBC documentary showing children who might be taken into care and did an exercise about what will change in our lives when children become a part of it.

Anyway, back to the beginning as my head is a mess.

We managed to arrived in plenty of time, the social workers were there and we were the first couple to arrive but soon the room filled. There were 6 other couples - a really good mix of ages and backgrounds and situations which I think is a great thing as it give the discussions added depth. It was obvious that we were all nervous and very aware of the fact we were being assessed and I am hoping that we can all relax into the course in the next sessions.

The lunch was a bit weird - lots of contributions but no sandwiches! At least we have a better idea for next week. My jam tarts and cheese biscuits went down well but there was plenty left as I had made far too many. I figured better that than not enough. There was a lot of fruit - everyone went for the healthy option which I can understand and one lady made a huge banana cake. I think for next time I am going to do wraps or something similar instead.

I was also pleased that, after all the good advice I got, I was comfortable and dressed 'right'.

We have another 3 days of this course and there are lots of topics left to cover plus we are being visited by adoptive parents and other members of the social work team to cover topics like contact, post adoption support and child development (including attachment and bonding).
Next step in the meantime is tomorrow morning and my medical assessment appointment. Wish me luck.

Step 2 - The Preparation Course: My Preparation

It sounds daft but since the invitation to join the preparation course in January we have had a fair bit to do by way of form completion including:

actual application forms

NSPCC checks forms

Adult Medical forms etc etc etc

I am still really pleased that I am as organised as I am as they have all be received, completed and returned by both email and paper copy with in 48 hours. I figured it shows that we are organised (never a bad thing) as well as prepared for this stage of what needs to happen. I am also hoping that us moving a as quickly as we can means the process might be a bit quicker overall. There doesn't seem to be any guidance anywhere about what order things are done or when they are done in the process.

So, the day before I spent frantically preparing myself. I made sure all the paperwork was filed and in order, I made my contribution towards the lunch buffet (cheese stars (like cheese straws but star shaped) and jam tarts) and I spent an age trying to decide what to wear! My vanity is usually tempered by what is available in the wardrobe and the occasion but this was different - did I go for business smart (my normal work wear), a more casual jeans and tee look, something in between, are leggings too casual, is that skirt too short (even over leggings), how much time will I need to spend on my feet so do I want flat shoes, heels - sounds daft but I figured that my appearance would be the first impression the social workers got of me and I wanted it to be a good one.

In the end I decided on skinny jeans, a jersey dress and a cardigan with knee gh black boots.

I also spent today, the day before, cooking! Our invitation letter asked for us to provide a contrinution towards the lunch for everyone and after much thought and many opinions I decided to make cheese stars and a mix of jam and lemon curd tarts.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow . . . . .