Grownups

So, like Christmas, my birthday came and went, and was mainly slightly nicer than I thought it was going to be, and generally less scary.

Mr Spouse and I had a little chat about where we might go for adoption no 2.  He is not keen at all to adopt from the US again, I said it wasn't my first choice but I wouldn't rule it out.  He however sounds like he'd be able to cope with the idea of concurrent adoption, which they are introducing in quite a few councils across the country, including our county council.  His main concern actually seems to be that he had a lovely time being a mainly work-from-home student while I was on adoption leave with Baby Spouse, and he wouldn't get that again.  I have to say I can see his point.

If it was up to me, I'd be on the phone to them tomorrow about applying, but it is really too soon, my head says it is too soon, and I generally hear on the grapevine that about a year after an Adoption Order (the equivalent to finalization) is when they might consider you to apply again. So that would be some time in the summer.

In concurrent adoption at placement of a baby you are foster carers and then if (which is always more likely than not, based on the children chosen for this scheme) the child cannot go home the carers adopt the baby.  I know how besotted Mr Spouse was with Baby Spouse from day 1 and I was worrying he wouldn't want to think about this because of the risk that the baby might go home.  But given that he's always said he'd be interested in foster care, we applied initially for foster care (though we weren't going to foster babies), I shouldn't have been too surprised that his reaction was positive - his philosophy, he says, is that we must see ourselves as foster carers. And that's exactly the right attitude, which I will try very hard to emulate.

I will keep you all posted, but this sounds like it might be plan A.

Birthday

It's my birthday tomorrow and I feel about 10 years older than I did this time last year. Now I'm sure some of this is down to being the mother of a one year old and some of it to a gruelling day of teaching, including some material on nasty things that can happen to babies.
But in a way I think I felt younger last year than I had done for a while. We'd made it to a baby - a very lovely baby - and I was (just) under 45.
Now in a way I'm back to that ticking clock that many hear who struggle to have a family - will I be too old to get pregnant? Is it because of my age that I keep miscarrying? Will we be too old to adopt?
Oh, and I have also had a chest infection, and so has Mr Spouse, so we could probably both do with some sleep. I remember sleep...

What might have been

nh at Getting There posted about the baby she lost and how hard February is for her.
I was reminded that it is nearly Ash Wednesday, which was the day we found out we'd lost Nigelanddelia. I could work out how old he or she would be but the main thing is that it would be an age at which we'd have long ago been thinking about baby siblings.
Along the way of trying to have a family I've sometimes thought, if we had had this baby, what about that one. It's never been that real, but now we have a real baby. And thinking about not having him seems impossible, completely unthinkable.
So I suppose what I'd really like is to have both of them. But I feel guilty for thinking about not having ever had either of them.

Open Adoption Roundtable #42

This is in response to Open Adoption Roundtable no 42.

This prompt asks:
Think about a time when your child has been injured or sick (or for adoptees, when you have been injured or sick). Did adoption change or complicate that experience at all? Did you share it with others in your adoption constellation? You might write about an actual experience you have had or think about what you ideally would want to have happen.

A couple of things spring to mind here. One of them is the risk factors we know of that Baby Spouse was subject to because of Nella's choices. We will have to tell him about these eventually, but for the moment we don't share them with family and friends - and they'll be his to share in the future - if he wants to. But medical professionals need to know, especially if he's ill, and on the occasion we went to the paediatric ward with him, it was actually a relief to tell someone, and not just hint about "lifestyle and choices". I've written about that here.

The other issue we have is the complete lack of information on his birth father. We have reasonable genetic information on his maternal birth grandparents, who are of an age when they are starting to have some medical issues (though nothing too worrying), and we know they'll keep us updated, and if Nella has an issue they know about, they'll tell us too. But we know nothing about the father's side, including things we'd like to know now, such as allergies, and that's frustrating and we've even found some less clued up medical professionals who don't understand why we don't know.

Plans abound

I've noticed a few of my bloggy friends with good, new plans and this makes me happy.
Nuts in May has a new treatment plan following a fourth opinion.
nh has plans for a second adoption.
And so does missohkay!
If you don't know these fine people - change that now!