First Family Christmas

It is three years this week since my first panic attack.  This evening, after a lovely day with equally lovely people, my body (or is it my mind?) decided to celebrate with a full on reminder.  As I type, the tears are still drying on my face.  Wonderful husband is putting the children to bed due to this evening’s incapacitation.  I am writing my blog now because my CBT therapist told me to get it down on paper.  It helps you to be rational.  To step away from yourself and think logically.   Panic attacks aren’t real.  I mean, the sensations and the conviction that you are about to die aren’t real.  My therapist described me as a car with an over sensitive alarm because there’s nothing really wrong with the fight or flight response.  It just isn’t logical.  I have no need to run away from a predatory t-rex – this week.  

You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with what should be an upbeat Christmassy blog.  I’m getting to it.  I promise.  

There is lots of advice around for dealing with big occasions with adopted children.  Christmas can be a time of distress for them bearing in mind previous trauma or just simply missing their birth family.  Questions can resurface as to why they are here.  They are not necessarily appreciative of all of the effort which has gone in.  It can be a confusing time and it needs to be handled with care.  We worked really hard on slowly building up the idea of Christmas, drip feeding different things, trying not to get over excited, making them a real part of all of our celebrations.  All three of our children have been wonderful.  Their behaviour has been perfect.  Their excitement infectious.  Their joy when opening the presents made everything we’ve gone through worthwhile.  The most wonderful moment came when Mummy was stupidly stressed about the turkey and the Elsa and Anna dresses getting covered in gravy.  ‘Anna’ and ‘Elsa’ took their dresses off and ate Christmas dinner in their pants.  ‘Anna’ with rather ill-fitting ones which left little to the imagination!!  Neither of the girls were fazed by it and we giggled long and loud.  

We were told to expect tears and tantrums.  There were some tears.  ‘Anna’ and (shall we call him Kristoff?) ‘Kristoff’ were very sad at the end of ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’.  They didn’t want the bear to be sad and alone.  Right there.  That’s how great these children are.  In spite of everything that’s happened to them, they show so much empathy, spirit and love.   There is so much joy in their hearts and we are so proud to be their parents.

So where did the panic attack come from?  All sorts of things I think.  Probably tiredness.  I should not have stayed up late listening to George Michael until the early hours.  Probably being poorly for a couple of weeks.  It’s been miserable and I’ve been beating myself up for being a bad mum.  Too much CBeebies. I needed to rest.  I think another element to this is that for all the work that went into preparing the children for this big event, I didn’t prepare myself.  The children have now lived with us for six months and I think we have not necessarily acknowledged the impact that has had on us.  We’ve been full of praise for the children; they are resilient, plucky and amazing people.  They charm the birds from the trees.  I know I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that this would be a great Christmas – and it was!  Now that it’s done, I’m getting some feedback for pushing.  As adoptive parents, it’s really important to take care of ourselves too.  I forget that, too often reasoning that if the children are alright then everything is fine.  

Our lives have changed immeasurably for the better but the occasional deep breath to mentally say ‘hey, well done you. You’ve gone from 0 -3 in a heartbeat.  You’re surviving. Yay!’  Would probably be a good idea!  

Matching not hatching

I’ve had one of those mornings which makes me genuinely feel like a parent. A morning with mini annoyances piling up into a mountain of disappointment and frustration.  That clearly sounds negative – and it was – but that’s not the point.  I’ve hurt my wrist so I’m finding it difficult to drive.  My 3 little ones are incredibly sympathetic and sweet but not to the point where they won’t jump up and grab me.  Every little thing we’ve tried to do has been just a little bit difficult.  Shout out to the man who stopped the traffic so that I could retrieve my son’s shoe from the middle of the busy road by the way…

It’s made me feel like a parent though, and, more importantly, like a family.  Don’t get me wrong it was incredible meeting the children and being called ‘mummy’ for the first time but today made me feel like a real mum.

We have now arrived at another pivotal point in the story.

Post panel, there was a mixture of relief and excitement for once from both of us.  The road to panel is arduous and emotionally exhausting so to get the ‘yes’ meant everything.  Panel was on Tuesday. On Friday, my email pinged.  It was from the Family Finder at Adoption Focus.  In it was a document outlining a family group of three children.  Frequent readers of this blog know that the word ‘three’ kept coming up during our discussions with M.  We wondered at the time if this was all part of a programme of persuasion and then suddenly….three little faces looking back at me from the computer screen.

In adoption, they often talk about children who wait.  Here were three small children who had waited.  For nearly a year.  There had been some discussion of splitting them up.  It probably would have been the next step.  Now they were staring at me.  I was staring at them.  I pinged the email to my husband.  Texted him aswell to make sure he was actually looking too.  Three little pairs of eyes searching. Beautiful.  Lost.  Humbling.

Not long before panel, we went to a matching event.  As a teacher, the best I can describe it as is a sort of options evening.  There are plentiful social workers and pictures.  Many, many pictures.  Brief descriptions of tiny broken lives surround you.  We had some harrowing discussions with family finders.  We left feeling spent.  Whilst there, we had registered interest.  It seems like such a strange and detached thing to do.  Like looking at rightmove and contacting an agent.  The reality hit us quite hard.

You’re also signed up to an adoption website where you can trawl through children across the country.  There are magazines too.  I don’t know about you but I always get a little pang when I see a cat or dog looking sad and needing a home in the paper.  There is no way I can describe how we felt as prospective parents seeing this vast number of children who wait.  It can be overwhelming.  It was overwhelming.  We needed to be careful and we needed to keep our emotions in check and make intellectual decisions too.

We entered a period of thinking – independent of each other.  I’m pretty sure that we were thinking the same things though.  At the time when we were considering our three, we were also considering a sibling group of two.  There was no room in our hearts or heads to consider more children beyond this.  It was becoming too much.  I’d take them all if we could.

The more we thought, the more we focussed on the three.  There was just something about them that we couldn’t let go of; they were already forming a family in our minds.  During the discussion processes with M, it was only my husband who had a clear idea.  Two little girls.  Well, here were two little girls – and a little boy.  Exactly like my husband dreamed plus a bonus extra.  With a deep breath, we asked to see the CPRs (Child Placement Report).

CPRs are an overview by the social workers of how a child has arrived at this point.  There are very long and very difficult to read.  We’ve read a few now and they don’t get easier.  The report is there to let you know what you’re getting into.  You begin to form questions.  You learn to look for warning signs.

One of the most important conversations you have with your social worker as an adopter regards what you are prepared to confront; which types of abuse you can deal with; what health issues; your views on adopting life limited children.  In general, we were very open to everything.  There were some things we agreed we would find difficult.  I don’t need to go into them here.  Nothing in the CPRs of our little ones frightened us.

So we met with the social workers.  Including my husband, there were five social workers in my living room – and me.  That was quite intimidating.  Now I know how my husband feels when there are a hump of teachers knocking about.  With my husband being so knowledgeable, they conversed on their own level.  I felt a bit adrift so I just looked at the photographs.  I was kind of done and dusted then.  I’d made my decision.  Those of you who have met my children will know that they are all absolutely beautiful.  They look very much alike – so much so that people often ask if they are triplets.  They are also extremely dinky.  The social workers were also completely smitten with the children. And everyone who had worked with them – ever.

Husband was cautious.  As usual.  I’m lucky.  I need reining in.  I’m pretty sure he had made his decision too but he likes to think.  I was desperate to respond the following day but husband advised patience and distance.  In the end he convinced me to wait until after Easter weekend.  At this point my social worker was on holiday so I sent him a text (again, with the modern way of parenting).  He replied almost straight away.  The social workers were very interested in us.  They felt that I could particularly help the eldest as we have very similar personalities.  A tendency to anxiety.  An inbuilt feeling of being overlooked and unimportant.  The little ones (as Julie Andrews once said) just want to be loved.  We were doing it.  We were really doing it.  What would our parents say?!  What would our friends say?! Three…are you sure?!

We were on the next step. Preparing for panel – again.