I found the prep’ course that adopters go through to be quite comprehensive and of great value, it’s hard to imagine that in the past adopters were offered none of this information to prepare them for what in some cases are huge challenges, but for everybody is something new and unknown.
We settled and our son immediately opened a family size packet of crisps and started eating them, after a few minutes in a light hearted way I leaned across and took the crisps from his hands, making a joke about the packet being almost as big as him and how I needed to feed my big, fat tummy.
He called me Mamma which he has never done and seemed oddly very happy in this state. My reaction surprised me and I simply carried on stroking his hair. I adopted a lower, softer tone and replied back to him and he smiled from ear to ear.
We never told the boys that the ‘meat’ was not real and not knowing the difference they were wonderfully oblivious. However, we respected that they were old enough to have an opinion of their own and we had no intention of forcing our beliefs onto them, consequently when eating outside of the house they were free to eat whatever, so at school, in restaurants and at family and friends they eat meat aplenty.
When I adopted my daughter I agreed to annual direct contact with her birth father. I didn’t want her to hit teenage years with all the possible angst that that can entail and ask why I wouldn’t let her see him when there was no reason for me doing so other than ‘I didnt want to share you’.
Forgive my bluntness, and I’m sorry this blog won’t be more entertaining but I’m desperate for information so I’ve come here to get it off my chest and let it all hang out…
We brought our beautiful three year old daughter home 2 years ago as a 13 month old baby and were informed she was the youngest of five (to our knowledge) siblings and half siblings dotted around the country. All have the same biological mother but apparently (again – to our knowledge) one of them may well also have the same biological father making this a full sibling.
No child is perfect and my partner and I reassure ourselves of that every time we have a particularly bad day. Our sons are good boys – on the whole, but truth is not a day goes by when we are not reprimanding both of them pretty much throughout the day.
From the first day I met our child, I loved them and that love has grown with each day that has passed. Until last week. From out of nowhere, I felt utterly disconnected from them and it freaked me out completely. It made me cry. I never expected to feel anything like that.
It seems obvious that for the vast majority there is quite simply an inevitability that you will one day become a parent and indeed a social expectation that will be so right from the very beginning – even those young adults who buck the trend and do not consider themselves all that child focussed may soon find themselves in a relationship where parenting is the next logical step or around their peers who are establishing families which opens up the possibility of the same for them.
When on that path and the unthinkable happens and a natural pregnancy is not possible and medical intervention fails too, adoption becomes an obvious consideration and hopefully a solution.
My partner and I discussed adopting fairly early on in our relationship and talked about how much we would like to do it. We are not religious but I guess we suffer from that middle class, privileged background angst that can drive you in a similar direction. Our adoption assessment was straightforward (our lives were labelled ‘perfect’) and we were matched quickly with our darling boy who was 1 at the time.
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