After adoption, Our Adopted Family, Tips

Early days of adoption similiar to Covid-19 lockdown

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As yet another new day started in lockdown Britain, it got me thinking how the early days of adoption are similiar to Covid-19 lockdown. We were told to help beat the Coronavirus:

STAY AT HOME
DON’T TRAVEL TOO FAR
KEEP AWAY FROM FAMILY & FRIENDS

These messages sound drastic, but, as we all know, they were put in place to protect and prevent the spread of the virus.

For us, the same life changes proved vital in the early days of adoption. Looking back, I think they were a crucial piece of the jigsaw for moving towards becoming a family; helping us bond and attach.

Early days of adoption similiar to Covid-19 lockdown
STAY AT HOME

Though it knocked me for six when the girls moved in, it completely floored my husband. I think the responsibility, the ‘constantness’ and the dread of this is forever, pushed him close to the edge. He had booked two weeks paternity leave; he went back to work after six days. I guess it’s like bringing a new-born home, but, though life with a new-born must be exhausting and, initially, very scary, the young person doesn’t walk and talk and come with a whole lot of baggage from a traumatic former life.

We’d been told during social worker sessions, pre-adoption, to keep it simple in the beginning. When these two little children arrived, like a whirling dervish, Wizard of Oz-style storm, had swirled above and dropped them into the house, each clutching a teddy and a lot of history. We all stood there, shell-shocked, staring at one another.

A few days later, I watched out the window as my husband, their new Dad, cycled off to work, not looking back. Two tiny girls climbed on my lap and waved him goodbye. Outside, I smiled and rocked them, inside I was gasping for air, drowning in claustrophobic fear. How would I do this on my own? This wasn’t the plan, I was okay at home, but the thought of taking them out of the house on my own terrified me. What if LuLu ran off, I’d have the pushchair. I couldn’t let Fi out of it, it was difficult enough to get her to not run off with two of us.

STAY AT HOME

We’d planned that we wouldn’t meet my family for at least a month after the girls moved in; meeting friends would be a long way off. So, I did what any strong level-headed grown up would do; I phoned my Mum. I blubbered down the line that I couldn’t cope, I couldn’t do this. She came straight around.

STAY AT HOME

At first, I felt disappointed in myself that I hadn’t been able to do this on my own. I also felt that for any chance of the girls attaching to me, they shouldn’t get too close to my Mum. This was difficult for me in those early days. For my Mum, it must have been confusing. Each time she visited, she put up with me pushing her out of the way if they hurt themselves or they needed anything. I tried to explain that this was what we’d been advised to do, that this was part of us trying to build attachments. I’m not sure that she understood, but after a short time, she adored the girls so much, she went with it.

DON’T TRAVEL TOO FAR

In the first few months, apart from Lulu starting playschool two mornings a week, which she was desperate to do, it was just me, Tom and my Mum, who came to help a couple of days a week. Looking back, after just a couple of weeks, the girls were starting to settle into their new home, their new routines and not long after, they started to thrive.

Every day, we’d play in the house and the garden, watch TV and go for walks. I sat and watched them dance around for hours, dressed up as princesses. I rarely ventured out alone with them, except to drop Lulu at nursery school and pick her up. When we went out, my mum helped. Again, for months, it was the same walk; to the supermarket or to the park, rain or shine. It seemed in those early days, it rained continuously; the four of us regularly getting soaked, but the girls enjoyed it. At the weekend, when Tom was home, we ventured further, to other parks, woods, very occasionally to do food shopping. Always just the four of us.

KEEP AWAY FROM FAMILY & FRIENDS

Of course, this is probably making it sound far too easy. There were many, exhausting problems along the way. There were times, which were incredibly difficult in those early days, but, looking back, success or failure was based on our parenting and whether we got it right in that moment. And, we had heaps of ‘advice’ from parents; friends and family, asking why we weren’t mixing with other kids, why didn’t we want to go to the barbecue or party. But, in my heart, I knew we had to stick to the plan: keep it simple, stay at home.

What others didn’t understand and I could, being on the outside for so many years, was that when you give birth to a baby, your life changes as they grow. Nearly all new mothers will say the first few months, or first year, is incredibly hard. You are in your dressing gown at midday and all you’ve done is fed and bathed your baby. Your hair is a mess, you’re exhausted. Gradually, you venture out, you meet new mums at playgroups and the whole rhythm of life continues until you’re meeting up for days out, as the kids play together, and you spend time with their mums. Each experiencing the same new world.

KEEP AWAY FROM FAMILY & FRIENDS

When you adopt, the natural rhythm isn’t there at first, the rhythm is all over the place. Overnight, you have two walking and talking little people in your home (obviously how much they do this depends on their ages). They also come with a lot of history, which will have possibly made them prone to huge angry outbursts, strange behaviour and, most difficult of all, no attachment to you whatsoever.

Keeping it simple; keeping their new world as small as possible for at least the first few months, definitely helped us with developing the bonds and strands of attachment that would lead to us becoming a family further down the line.

After adoption, Our Adopted Family

Did I regret adopting our children?

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my eleven year old daughter asked me if I ever regretted adopting her

A couple of weeks ago, my eleven year old daughter asked me if I ever regretted adopting her and her younger sister. Out of the blue. Just like that.

At first, I was a bit upset and shocked. Why would she think such a thing? What had I done wrong to make her think this? But, it was lockdown. We’d spent nearly three months cooped up together, four of us; working from home, doing school work, the same walks every day. She had been followed around constantly by her nine year old sister, who, at the best of times finds it hard to self-regulate. Her Dad hadn’t been well and had slept most of the three months. I was running on empty from trying to hold everything together. At times, I had exploded, cried hysterically, and walked away, mainly when her little sister had screamed and ranted and thrown toys at me because she didn’t want to do the work her teacher had emailed through.

And, yes, this is most families in lockdown. But, there is a difference.

Tough on the inside

My eleven year old is a very thoughtful girl. She’s the oldest, she’s smart and she’s a thinker. She’s also been through more crap in her short life than most of her peers put together. Ever resilient, she’s soft on the outside but oh so tough on the inside. She has more determination than anyone I know. As she’s heading towards the teenage years, she’s thinking more about who she is; why she does and thinks what she does. She’s wondering where these traits come from and, saddest of all, she’s thinking what would she have been like had she stayed with her birth family.

Communication – talking helps

I know these things because we talk. It’s the thing that has given us our bond, our strength and our love. It’s probably why we are just about doing okay. When she came to us, at three and a half, the one thing she needed, craved, was attention. I could feel it oozing from her; someone please, please just notice me. We had conversations, yes, conversations, at three. She told me things about her past that she’d never told foster carers (I’d asked them at the time). I listened. She learnt to trust me. It was the first rung towards self-regulation, trust and being able to be happy. We are still on that ladder, just a bit further up.

At three and a half, we were her sixth home; sixth place of completely different adults, no connection between any of them, save for a social worker from the last placement who disappeared within two weeks of them moving to us.

I’m the rock

For nearly nine years, she has clung to me like a drowning person to a rock in the ocean. That’s how I feel, I’m the rock. Sometimes it’s stifling, draining, exhausting. She watches my every move for my reactions, my facial expressions, my approval or disapproval. But, for all the responsibilities, we, as adults, chose to adopt. She didn’t choose this life, didn’t choose to be born to parents who had no real hope of offering her a safe place to grow with opportunities that every child deserves.

Deep in my heart, I wish that both my girls had been born to parents who could have cared for them; I wish that we could have had our own biological children and have been spared the years of infertility heartache. But, we didn’t. Neither of us. And, thankfully, we found each other.

Tell it from the heart

So, back to the moment when she asked me: do you regret adopting me and my sister? Her face crumpled into a concerned frown. Using the techniques I’ve learnt from books and psychologists, or probably just completely from the heart, I exclaimed:

‘What?! Why would I ever think that?’

I could see her face relax a bit.

‘I can tell you, completely, hand on heart, that I have NEVER, since the day you both came to us, NEVER thought I wish this hadn’t happened. And, do you know why? Because my life is 110% better than it was before. It has meaning. Even with all the shouting, the screaming and the fall-outs, I wouldn’t swap any of it to be just me and Dad. Can you imagine how boring that would be?!’

She was smiling now.

‘I’d be sat there whilst Dad watched Top Gear, again, or read the paper. The most exciting thing in our week would be a trip to Tesco. We’d be just like Grandma and Grandad! OMG! Imagine that?

She was laughing. I know that she’ll think it again, next time we fall out, and there will be a next time. The good thing was though, I meant all of it.