The Modern Adoptive Mummy

We are not strange. We are in a growing number. We are pescatarians. We eat fish but not meat. This is usually so hard to understand that we tell people we are vegetarian (another growing number of people). I have encountered some alarming viewpoints about how we feed our children (and indeed when they were prospective children). Views range from it being tantamount to child abuse to not feed children meat to befuddled views about how we manage to feed children without meat. We faced hard questions at panel for our children, what if they will only eat chicken nuggets? (Yes seriously, this was a question!). Well A: they should be trying other foods, has the FC of 10 months really restricted them like this and not tried to change it? and B: have you heard of quorn and soya products? As far as A was concerned it was a question not even based on the children we were hoping to adopt as they would eat most food and with B apparently some of them hadn't! (it is not exactly a bizar...

Adoptive parents of children that are older (by older, I mean not a young baby) may well, like me, come to parenting with no experience of  babydom, the all absorption of parenthood, the skin to skin contact and the feelings of utter connection (because I don't actually know first hand, I take this from friends who have had babies). We may come to parenthood of our toddlers with a total disconnection of what being a parent is- we come at it through theory, some childcare experience (we helped out at Beavers and i am a teacher) and we read. Some of us may have nieces and nephews, be exceedingly close to a friend's baby or know some baby in a more connected and intimate way. I would hazard a guess that many of us don't. And this is okay really- a majority of birth parents come to their with no prior experience and none of them have been though intensive questioning and appraisal of peers to be a parent. But- and here is the real lesson- we miss out on the crucial bondin...

...Or the invasion of the sleep snatchers! The day you take them away... We arrived fairly early to pick our boys up, it was fairly quick really. The foster carers had brought them presents and the boys themselves seemed quite happy to leave.Watson seemed a little sad and ran back to the male carer for a cuddle, Holmes, however seemed quite settled about it all. In all fairness, they wanted to move him on and I suspect he was aware on some level of this (he had displayed an unusual level of tantruming and rage with them- and they said they couldn't go anywhere with him). In the car Watson muttered the male foster carers name once in a sad manner, like it was sinking in for him. The drive home was strange as we both knew the support was gone, they weren't going back and we didn't have the safety net of  the foster carers. We had no idea how they would react to sleeping in our house (they had played in their rooms but not stayed over). Would they really be able to under...

The name certificates are up on their bedroom walls...the new birth certificates have arrived and we have no SW scrutiny anymore- these boys 'belong' (I say belong, but I don't believe any human should belong to another) to us- not just in our hearts and minds but legally. So is there a difference? Do we feel differently about them now? How do we feel now the safety net has gone? There is a difference, it is a mixture of relief and fear. Relief: Another chapter of the journey has ended and it is a welcome end. I was sick of LAC (looked after child) reviews and sick of chasing and chasing the LA for various pieces of information and more than anything, sick of never fully feeling like a family (as we didn't have full parental responsibility). Don't get me wrong, our VA SW was awesome and super supportive but there was always this niggling feeling that they boys weren't fully ours. I was relived that I didn't have to deal with the LA again, as to be...