This blog post was sitting in my drafts folder since January and now it seems like a good time to post it so chronological order is more or less accurate:
As approved adopters we joined the waiting game as soon as the ink dried on the Panel papers last May. We signed up to Children Who Wait, Be My Parent, National Adoption Register and Adoptionlink to maximise our chances. Now, several months and 'almost matches' later it seems we finally are not only the front runners, but (it seems) the only runners for 2 particular children. We were told the good news in January. In February we met the current Foster Carer; we could have had a lovely chat, but how do you relax when all your words are watched by several Social Workers? The SWs in the know informed us that the children would be moving in about 5 months.
So we wait.
When I share this news the natural response I get is 'oh, it must be so hard to wait that long!' and I am thinking 'boy, you couldn't be further away from the truth'! You see, we didn't choose adoption as the third option. We could have children born to us, but we decided to adopt instead as the FIRST OPTION!
Not for us, for the children. Not to meet our need, but to meet their need.
And we want to do a good job with that! Therefore, five months almost feels too short for us to be prepared and get ready. Our house needs to be finished and remodelled to accommodate them. As for our non existent parenting skills, we need to attend some specialised training to better understand and deal with their behaviour. I am a perfectionist who wants to get it right the first time... with everything! Hubby knows it's impossible; I am determined to prove him wrong. That means reading one more book, joining one more online support group, signing up for one more training session...
Perhaps I wouldn't be this patient if things were different. To explain the title: Schrödinger's cat is locked in a box and until you open the box you don't know if the cat is alive or not.
That is the same with us now; we see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we quite enjoy the darkness around us at the moment and not too keen to dash towards the light just yet. Is it because we could have children if we wanted to? Perhaps. Could we have children at all? Well, we will never know.
So we wait. And Schrödinger's cat lives happily ever after in my tummy...
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