The Modern Adoptive Mummy

I have been thinking about this for a while and littlun's actions last night have prompted me to put pen to paper so to speak. He came to me in the middle of the night for no apparent reason other than to cuddle, a really tight cuddle. When you adopt a child, you long to hear them call you mummy or daddy and say 'I love you'. For the most part, they do. We had 'mummy/daddy' from the moment they met us (age 2 and 3). We re not sure they had much of a concept of what a daddy was and we were the homogeneous 'mummydaddy' for a couple of weeks. Next comes 'I love you'. We said it often and still do, we said it until we felt it and continue to this day, several times a day along with the 'you are safe' mantra that they need to hear. As adoptive parents, it will take a while for the love to grow. none of you know each other, no one loves each other from day one- in love with the idea of loving them, in love with the actuality of having each othe

Adoption is full of heartbreak. Yours, my darling child and mine. We come together not through pure joy (that fleets in and out of our lives) but through heartbreak. We are all filled with fear. Your fear is most likely about being abandoned, not fitting in, not belonging and not being able to even pinpoint what exactly you feel. You were far too young to make sense of it all (can you ever really make sense of what has happened to you?). I think you may feel you are not loved and never will be, I think that you show me this and will continue to share this fear, even if unspoken, in your behaviour for the rest of our lives together. I try to piece together your fear and not project it on to you but I read the thoughts of adoptees and birth parents and I try to arm myself to support you in future years. I fear I cannot be good enough to help you with this fear. I fear that you will blame me for all the past trauma that I couldn’t stop or help. I fear that you will reject me as