The Modern Adoptive Mummy

This one is hard to write. So it may seem factual and not in my usual verbose manner. It needs telling but not dwelling on. This is part of the story but is a much bigger story in itself and one I am not ready to write in detail about. I can't remember if it was just over a week or a matter days since our last training course day and the upsetting news about our extended wait- it was either 3 days later or 9 days. I don't want to look up dates. I received a phone call at work from the police. Very long story short, leaving out the emotion and trauma and intricate details how how slow and fast time can pass and how surreal life can be- it turned out that on that day my dad was knocked down by a car cutting a corner on a junction. He was walking to an appointment in town. Dad never regained consciousness and we were told there was no hope of recovery and had to agree for life support to be turned off. I learned that day what it is like to be alone and not be the child prote

It all went wrong.... Karl had received a call from our social worker to say she needed to speak to me and could I call her back. Karl had not managed to get hold of me at all- I have no idea why, I must have been staying at school for some reason, maybe I was at a rehearsal, I truly cannot remember. I remember it being dark and rainy (pathetic fallacy as a living entity!) and I was in Sainsbury's car park, again I don't know why I was there on my own. I called our social worker to be told some heart stopping news. We had been looking forward to the following day, day two of our training course, with third and final day on the Saturday. We had already had our medicals done and the doctor had assured us both separately that everything was fine. In fact his words to me were along the lines of 'I see you have missed several appointments with your diabetic nurse, but I haven't been asked a question about that so all will be fine'. He expressed concern that my bl

I don't do things by half (you may have gathered that from my previous post about 'doing things'). I made contact with three local authorities (even though I had heard 'bad things' about our own, largely from someone who we since realise must have had a lot of issues) and then because the internet is a strange and creepy omnipresent being, a advert popped up on facebook for a charitable adoption agency which turned out to be based fairly nearby. I received replies from all. Some were quite blunt and businesslike, but all agreed to send an information pack. One, however, stood out from the rest and this was the charitable adoption agency. They stood out because they were friendly, answered my emails like they had actually read them properly and engaged in conversation via them. I exchanged several emails full of hesitant and worried questions ranging from 'I don't have a bath, only a shower', 'I have a graveled garden' to 'will debt be a pro

We believed that we would not be allowed to adopt. 1) I was diabetic and overweight 2) We had dogs 3) We lived in a poorer area and our house is horrible (read- doesn't look like a picture perfect normal house) 4) We had some debt and we had no savings 1) I had heard from someone I barely knew that they were turned down because they were overweight and it might cause health issue in the future. This seemed grossly unfair and draconian and I felt we had no chance to adopt as I was over weight AND had a life long health condition. If they couldn't without a health condition there was no way I could. 2) Dogs are seen in the media as vicious baby biting buggers that terrorise neighbourhoods and if they get one sniff of a child they try to tear its face off.  Having one might have been acceptable but having two, surely would be  a huge no,no. Of course anyone with dogs will tell you how loyal and loving they are and how gentle they can be. I, of course, would never leave a

I've written about all the things we did to bury the thought of family and move on as a childless couple. There is no shame in it and I fully support couples (and singles obviously) who do not want children and have made that decision and move forward in life, happy with this decision. I see nothing wrong with not wanting or deciding it isn't right for whatever reason to have your own children- it is actually a brave thing to do with societies pressures around you wanting you to procreate. I do hate to see when that  not wanting of children can turn into child hate and parent hate- it makes you as bad as people that go on and on about 'little Tyler's potty training' repeatedly, ad nauseum- the worst word I have heard bandied around is 'breeders'. I find it abhorrent to attack those that have children just because you receive odd looks or comments when you explain you don't want children. Most who are child free and wish to remain that way are not in th

The stop gap years- Animals Both of us love animals- we got together because Karl offered to show me his guinea pigs and his cats (not a euphemism!). The day I moved my guinea pigs in was the day we knew it was a relationship for keeps! Looking back, our love of cats seemed just a little bit kooky and mad but nothing harmful- but what it was really was another filler in our lives. A lovely filler, but a filler all the same. At one point we had 8 cats, though that lasted a short while as the cat was only with us a night that was not as the vet described 'placid and loving' but instead feral and violent. He escaped and never came back. Over the years many have stolen our hearts and ended up with us in pairs as I was a sucker for 'we can't find them a home'. We are now down to a normal two cats who are 13 and 11. Byron loves to be outside and Cobweb loves to roost indoors and only goes out if the sun is out and all the planets are aligned correctly and the the br

Buying things/ spending too much Well there is no one else to spend it on, is there! Let's be honest about this, only us to take the brunt of debt, it didn't effect anyone but us. We fell headstrong into credit cards and loans and ignored sage advice from others. We were young, commitment free- why shouldn't we spend all we could on each other and on ourselves? It was a hedonistic period of time- money was like water and 'things' had their own temporary way of filling the family gap. We have a lot of things. and a lot of things have long since gone (the great house clearance of 2015/16). I think it is fair to say that wild spending didn't last long before we wised up. We took years to pay off debt, but we did it. Now we spend in our means and never beyond. I know we are not abnormal in running up debt in our younger years but it is a lesson we have learnt from. Now, I have savings- an odd feeling! Buying things does not take away the pain. It doesn't f

Doing things. Buying things. Spending money on who knows what. Animals. These are the four ways we coped. The four ways that we filled the gap. It is like making yourself feel better with food or alcohol. Filling our time was like an addiction. Doing things And boy didn't we do things! We have led very full lives. We have involved ourselves in several sub genres and alt scenes. We stared with the goth scene. It fit us very well in our late 20s and early 30s. We both love dressing differently and have never been a 'down the boozer on a Saturday night' type of couple- discussing the footie and latest celebrity gossip and soaps leaves us cold. This, of course, is a huge generalisation and stereotype, I know, nothing wrong if that is your thing, it just isn't ours. we went to festivals and club nights and met a few people, one who remains a dear, close friend of mine.  We found that we can never just be spectators with anything and within a year

Before this journey even began I had gone through trauma. A trauma that I tried not to recognise and I tried to bury. After all, it was my fault that we couldn't be a family. I remember, ironically, the pregnancy scares in my late 20s- Karl said he would marry me (it was early days in the relationship) bless him! I remember sat talking to Karl on the bed, dressed in a long hippy, patchwork skirt. It was scary, both to imagine myself pregnant and to have a promise to stand by me. I remember the panic and turmoil and the relief that I wasn't pregnant... I remember being ushered into the back of a now closed down pharmacy by a kindly, non judgmental lady, closing the door behind us both she advised exactly how to take the morning after pill... I remember a holiday away at a beautiful tower in Wales, confessing I thought I might be pregnant, I had various changes that made me feel this way...it was a little earlier than our planned age 30 to start trying but we were pleased