Who is the Enemy?

Before I crack on with this week's post I feel I need to clarify a few things:

1: Don't like, don't read! Simple!
2: Don't understand? Ask, before you report me for 'bad parenting'.
3: The 'target audience' is primarily fellow adopters who can appreciate the weight of 'being the mother of THAT child', who can celebrate with me when I say 'his tantrum only lasted 30 minutes' and most importantly those WHO HAVE WALKED A MILE IN MY SHOES! If you haven't, please refer to the second point before you say/do something we will both regret... Or sod off...

That being said let me tell you what promoted this post. We have been recently reported to Social Services by 'a concerned citizen' who knew squat about our life as a family of four. After a few agonizing and sleepless nights it's now closed (with no further action mind you) and we can move on with our life; the children are blissfully unaware of this ordeal. A fellow adopter told me 'welcome to your new reality'. Just like a doctor always dreads somebody someday will sue them, now we have to worry about this as well. This is such a real and depressing thought that I needed to write this out of me before I go crazy...

So, who is your enemy today? Take your pick...

1. Is it your adopted child/ren?

Our life as a couple has been really great. We had time and money for everything. We could spontaneously go to the cinema, do shopping at 11pm, go on mini holidays, achieve in our respective fields, have a social life, discuss problems in a civilised and calm manner...etc. This all went out the window the moment they moved in. I am a stay home mum for the time being; locked up in my house-prison; the topics reduced to poo, farthing or Peppa Pig; only have adult conversations with the teacher/Social Worker/Play Therapist/GP ABOUT the children; I step on bloody Lego everywhere in the house; #InsertYourProblemHere ...etc.

I wonder if you can read the next, very honest lines without judgement? The naked truth is, this chain of thoughts is not uncommon among adopters:
We decided to adopt children to help them change their stories so we opened up our hearts, our home, we put our life on the back burner and all we got in return for our goodness is pain and destruction. Our frustration is originated with the children and it is also aimed right back at them. And suddenly you realise you are not that good at all! So your anger turns towards yourself. How awful I am for blaming this poor child for ruining my happy life? What a rotten attitude is that? Oh, hello self conflict, just who I needed in my life right now. I hate what I have become, I hate what this child turned me into! This child has ruined my life! It's easy to see how they can become the enemy...

2. Is it your spouse?

'For crying out loud, why on Earth did you have to say/do that to our son?'
'Just because YOUR dad/mum used to do that to YOU, it doesn't make it right or an example I want YOU to follow when you parent MY child!'
'No, it's your turn, I woke up the first 3 times when he cried'
'I am so exhausted, I have no energy to talk to you unless it's related to the boys.'
'How can you not keep your cool? Do you think it's therapeutic parenting what you have just done?'
'It's easy for you, you go to work, I had to give up my career,  I have to take them to school, do house work, pick them up from school, make food, do all the therapeutic parenting, suffer through the tantrums, do the home works...' and it's twin sister: 'It's easy for you, you are home all day, I have to go to work, worry about money and then come home to more shouting, I have no energy to play with them...' It's easy to see how (s)he can become the enemy...

3. Is it me, myself and I?
Being a perfectionist helped me all my life to achieve my goals from swimming to masters degrees and a career. We can all agree, any type of parenting is hard, but because our boys had such a difficult past I struggle with the idea of 'good enough' parenting. I know it's self destructing in the long run and 'you can't pour from a dry cup', but I find zero consolidation in comments like 'if your children are fed and alive, it's a good day'. I know in my head it's a marathon, but my legs can't slow down from the sprint, so from time to time I stumble and fall. But even then there is no time for self care or me-time, because... there is always a reason. It's easy to see how I can become the enemy...

4. Is it other perfect parents?
'Oh, that's normal, my child does that, too. Why don't you just...' Soooo not helpful. I am sure we all hear the comments and helpful suggestions from others, well meaning birth parents who might know a thing or two about parenting their own specific children, but have no clue about the complexity and extra added challenges that we have to face on a minute by minute basis. I am tired of explaining why Reward Charts don't work or that my child's violence is not because 'boys are boisterous', but because he is used to see it at home as an effective way of dealing with problems and end arguments. Or the ones who complain we are too strict in our parenting style and they don't have a clue we are actually protecting their sorry asses from a potential allegation our child is likely to make against them... The other end of the spectrum is when they question your sincerity or severity of the incident simply because 'he is always lovely when he is with me. Are you sure it's not just you misreading the situation?' It's easy to see how they can become the enemy...

5. Is it the PIE?
From Sarah 'therapeutic parenting guru' Naish's book they are the Patronising Ignorant Experts (teachers, social workers, therapists) who have 'seen it all' so they must know it all, too. In one sentence they tell you 'you are the expert when it comes to your child' and in the very next one they tell you off saying 'trust me, you are wrong, I am the expert'. A teacher who only sees my child is constantly disrupting the class because every time the door opens he must turn to see who is it (but failed to position my son's desk to face the door as I had requested to lessen his anxiety levels). Or a TA who doesn't get that even though he looks 7 he can revert back to a 3y old in a second and unless they use toddler distraction tactics he will not 'just snap out of it' and therefore TA concludes he must be challenging TA's authority only to annoy them. Obviously.

6. My new reality: the concerned citizen
Perhaps the scariest of all. You don't know who might have a personal grudge against you. You don't know which friend you honestly confided in about your struggles will get anxious enough to turn against you strictly 'out of concern'. Or perhaps a neighbour, who had enough of the shouting and crying that goes on in your house at 4 am and (s)he incorrectly assumes the child cries because you are beating them. Or a mother of the boys' classmate who has no idea you are not the same mother who had abused the boy in the past when he casually mentions during a play date 'my mum hit me with a...' because we didn't tell everyone the boys are adopted.

Perhaps the next post should be about Who is a Friend and how to recongise them?

3 months into Placement...

I have not been blogging for a while and I am sure most of you can relate to me when I say it wasn't because nothing post-worthy happened or I had nothing to say; just the opposite! So many things happened on so many different fronts that my head is still spinning so this post might be a bit of rambling. Blogging sometimes helps me to organise my thoughts and feelings and I am hopeful it will do the trick again...

So, today we passed the 3 months mark - exactly twice the time the boys have spent with their previous adopters before they have given up on them. Is it a success? The SW seems to think so. Most of our friends agree. The boys are still too young to appreciate what a 3 months time period really means (for them a 5 minutes time-in is already 'fooooooreeever'). For us? Well... we are still alive. The boys are still alive. They still live here. Success?

It is impossible to capture what we have been through in the past weeks so I will not even attempt to do that. I was debating with myself while in the bathroom (yes, that is the only place I can get a few minutes of peace, though they still shout 'muuuuuuuuuum' through the door every 15 sec) what structure should I use for this post and for starters I thought stats with comments will do.

Number of times 'Muuuuuuum' was shouted in the house: 135*24*30*3.

The plus side is that both boys refer to us as Mummy/Mum and Daddy. Just the other day we were looking at some of their old photos, all 24 of them! Let's just pause for a second and imagine your 6/7 year old child and the number of photos you have taken of them over the years. Now throw away everything from the first 3 years, select one standard photo with a birthday cake for each year (never mind the different people who stand around them each time), pick a picture with each school uniform and classmates, pick 1-2 blurry shots where their other siblings are there too and a few happy moments from 2016 and THAT IS ALL YOUR MEMORIES. (for those in the know, their Life Story Books are still not done so here is hoping we will have some more pictures later)

But I digress; back to us looking at their pictures. There was one blurry picture of their birth father. Goofs was telling me the misadventures of that one photo and the fights he was in to keep it. So, that was 'dad'. Snoops was confused and asked 'which is daddy? This one (pointing at my husband) or that one (pointing at the photo)?' Umm, yeah, about that, kid... We agreed to refer to the man on the picture by his first name and hubby remained 'daddy'. This is convenient for us, it will make everybody's life easier in the future, but it also stripped away another piece of their past.

Number of pictures taken of them - mostly by me: ca. 1000.

I know it does not make up for the missed past, but maybe with time they will appreciate my good intentions. Out of these we used 24 to fill 2 big picture frames and put them on the wall next to our pictures - apparently nobody has ever done that for them before!

Number of meltdowns in the house (because that is the place both boys feel safe to have one! When others are around or we are out and about they are terrified and 'save it' till it's safe): 23*30*3

This also means some of our friends probably think we are liars or constantly exaggerating about how difficult our daily life is, because they only see 2 little angels...

Number of night terrors: 3*30*3.

Yes, that means we have them almost every night, often 2-3 times a night. Poor little boys developed a sad rhythm; Snoops would wake up screaming around 9 pm; by the time we get to him he is sitting up on his bed, face and pillow wet from a flood of tears, but he himself is not awake. We put him to bed, stroke his face till he settles down. Around 11 Goofs would cry in his sleep, which wakes Snoops up who comes to our room to complain about his brother and demand that we 'make him stop'. Again, I go back to help both boys to settle by stroking 2 faces with my 2 hands simultaneously. Usually around 3-4 am we get a loud knocking on our door; it's always a gamble which boy is there. Either Snoops wet his bed (and here I mean soaked it through completely as they both wet themselves every night but the magic DryNights pullups usually keep it all in) and he can't sleep until we change him and the bedding or it's Snoops again sleep-walking while crying.

Number of useful help/comments we received from professionals regarding the point above: ZERO

Number of fist fights and bruises on bodies (combined score of all 4 of us): 100+

Goofs is a very aggressive little boy with massive control issues and according to the play therapist he wants to punish every adult for his parents' mistreating him. CPV (child to parent violence) suddenly became a daily reality for us. I remember when a friend of mine was talking about it I seriously struggled to believe him, not what he said per se, but the helplessness he felt every time. Now I fully understand it and imagine MY friends going through the disbelieving bits. When Goofs attacks my husband (usually for something simple as 'brush your teeth') we all feel powerless. Me watching this little piece of xxx hitting my husband, his brother as he is just stands there being confused, Goofs as he doesn't do it because he is evil and wants to hurt somebody, but because he feels his control is taken away and his natural flight/fight mode kicks in and also mu poor hubby, who could stop the kicking/punching/biting with one swift hand movement... That would probably diffuse the situation, confirm in Goofs' mind that 'all adults are evil' and it would cause this adoption to break down as well. Naturally, we don't do it. But we can't do either what the play therapist suggested 'why don't you just keep your cool and in a calm and controlled manner tell him you love him and reflect back to him that he is sad and afraid now that is the reason why he behaves this way.' Riiiiiiight! :(

Goofs is also jealous of his brother who seems to have a slightly easier way of settling into his new family and again, his way of dealing with the situation is to punch his brother whenever he has a chance. His latest proof included slamming the car door onto his brother's hand - it's only by God's grace that Snoops' hand is not broken!

Number of play therapy sessions: 1.

20 min with each boy. Nothing to say at this stage except we are sure we will be seeing her face for the next many many years...

Number of times the 'A' word was mentioned: 200+

I am not referring to the general ones, rather to the 2 most common themes: 'Are you ready to put in the adoption order request?' and 'Mummy, when can I have my passport with my new name?' Naturally the first one is from the LA and SWs who keep reminding us that the placement is 'past the 10 weeks mark and is progressing so well that this is the next obvious step'. The second one is much much harder to dodge! The truth is, we don't know when; we don't know if ever (and yes, I appreciate what I am saying here and all the implications). We also don't know what should change that would make us say 'Now we are ready!'  

Number of times we were told 'we are doing sooo well': 3-4*30*3.

Depending on our mood and on the number of fights we already had that day our response varies between 'thanks', 'if only you saw the other 95%, which is usually ugly' or just a quick eye-roll then smile and exit left.

Number of arguments between hubby and me: uhumm.... loads!

They usually start from having slightly differing views on how to raise children, which I suppose is a daily struggle in any birth family, too. But agreeing on how much therapeutic tolerance is too much when he is stealing your money, when he is knocking down your favourite flower pots on purpose, when he threatens to call the police with an allegation because you told him no bedtime story tonight for bad behaviour... Let's just say we disagree a lot and add to this mix a healthy portion of lack of sleep and work related stress and you can understand our predicament...

I have so many more numbers to share with you and hopefully in time you'll get to hear about the number of happy moments that lasted at least 1 hour - I promise as soon as this happens I will write about it!

Birth Mum's contesting...

We did expect it. We were prepared. Or so I thought...

Things were progressing so well. Met the Foster Carer a few times, exchanged notes with the medical advisor, visited school, SAW THE BOYS from a distance, sorted out adoption leave cover for my work place and then BOOM. 1 phone call from the SW and suddenly everything was on hold...

Suddenly everybody was asking me how do I feel. Some assumed I was angry, some thought I was disappointed or sad or even devastated. I guess, I did have those feelings, too. But thanks to this wonderful community on Twitter I was overwhelmed with encouragement and positive messages from strangers whom I never met, yet I felt the closest to already. Adopters who have been there, done that sent me messages and hearing their stories my initial negative attitude was transformed into one of feeling sorry for Her. I also gained a whole new appreciation for Her as a mother who was not giving up on her children without a fight! When I shared these thoughts with our SW she was very impressed (and probably relieved that she didn't have to give a motivational speech or pick me up from the floor). She more or less assured us that BM won't be able to get her children back, but we can't assume anything so we need to wait it out.

We expected the court date to happen soon, but sadly the judge picked a date in April, which was still a month away. This meant the boys would definitely not move in with us during the Easter break as originally hoped. Despite the encouraging news that the judge didn't ask for a re-assessment on BM we were naturally anxious and irrationally worried. I say irrationally because all the evidence, practice and really, common sense dictated that there was NO WAY the children would return to Her home and stay safe. But I couldn't think rationally. My mind went into panic mode and the 'What ifs' took over.

The weeks dragged on slowly and finally the dreaded Friday arrived. Needless to say I couldn't focus on work or on anything, really. The only think I could think of was the fact that in these very moments a judge is making a decision ABOUT MY LIFE and I can't even be there to hear it, let alone contribute. I know, the judge was not even considering me at that moment, just assessing BM, but still; if the decision is for the boys to be adopted, chances are very good they will come to us thus it will influence the rest of my life. On the other hand if she decides the children should stay in the Fostering system, in a sense they will be unavailable for us, prospective adopters... Not helpful thoughts!

A whole day was blocked out so we expected a decision to be made on the same day. By 2 pm I was sufficiently full of chocolate (forever grateful for an amazing colleague who constantly fed me sweets all day!) I was in the middle of a telephone conversation, when my mobile phone rang. I saw the name; it was my SW calling. I only said 'hello' to the phone when she started: 'Good news, I have good news. Hi, it's me calling.' I will always love her for not beating around the bush and she just said it right away!

And suddenly the mind returned to the rational reality... But of course the plan is still adoption. Who in their sane mind thought the children would be returned to BM? No judge would have ruled that in a million years! So, the plan is still adoption and we are still the only family considered!

We shared the outcome with out friends and naturally they assumed we were over the moon. Yes, we were very pleased with the decision, but I couldn't help feel sad for Her. She  put up a good fight; she believed that she had made sufficient changes in her life and she genuinely believed she can have her children back. Deep down I wish that was the case! I wish these two lovelies could grow up with their loving birth mother, because that is how it should be. But sadly that's not in their best interest and they wouldn't be safe. It will be MY job to keep them safe!

FeelingDadYet (a.k.a my lovely husband and always the practical one) celebrated by buying 2 children's beds! :)

Questions Questions Questions

3 Questions have been bugging me from the start:

Q1. Why must I always (and here I mean every.single.time. to every.single.person.) defend my position of NOT wanting to be a birth mother myself and instead chose to adopt a child as a first choice? On Mumsnet there was a very interesting discussion about it and it's clear most people still don't get it so this is something we should talk about more!

Q2. How can a Social Worker really get to know me in only 6 short meetings (according to the government's recommendations) to write up my life, my past, (possibly my future too) and my personality to represent me at the Adoption Panel and fight for my wish to adopt a child?

Q3. Why is it better to have a child of my own first before I sign up to adopt a sibling group of 2?

Now, a quick hello to everybody who stumbles upon this page of rambling, questioning and rocking the boat from somebody who takes pride in NOT BEING NORMAL, just the opposite really. We are a quite unconventional family; my husband and I have decided to adopt siblings as opposed to give birth myself as the first option. Not only that, but we are particularly interested in the so-called HARD TO PLACE children - currently that means 2 or more boys above 5.

Other insignificant info about me: mid 30s, living in UK, married to 1 amazing hubby, as far as GPs concerned able to get pregnant, a successful and happy person both in career and personal life - even a Believer.

But why -oh why- do I feel every time the topic of adoption comes up, (regardless of age, gender, political view, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, upbringing, culture and everything that can be used to force labels on somebody) - in short: everybody judges me and suddenly I have to brace myself, assume a protective position and defend my decision.

I am sure you, dear Reader, also have one or more possible comments to add. If it's on the judgemental side, I will not give you more ammunition by listing all the comments I got from all the above mentioned Labelled Ones. If, however, you are interested in adoption yourself, please do stick around...