The future

I'm taking a break from my tropical sojourn to talk about the future.

It's kind of hard for me to talk about because I really have no idea what the future will hold and yet I'm in a place where I really want to know.

I do feel confident that, if we don't mess up, Baby Spouse will be a pleasant child who is able to do most things for himself. I think we have dodged various bullets - we know that he does not have a major global delay and we know he does not have frank autism (sorry for sounding bleak but that's with my professional hat on!). 

Beyond that, I have no idea if he'll struggle academically, make friends, go to university, find the fact he's adopted hard, or much really but I think to me the big things (that he is able to know love and to be sociable, and that he is unlikely to need lifelong care) are in place. I think when we set out to adopt, those were the basics we were hoping for.

I'm also hopeful that Baby Spouse will see his birth family and grow to know them. I can't predict which family members this will involve, though I'd bet something it won't be his birth father, which is sad.

But it's really the big things in our lives that I'm not sure about. Will we carry on doing the same jobs (I'd say probably for Mr Spouse, maybe not for me)? How much longer will we both work (it's more likely that Mr Spouse would retire early than that I'd give up working entirely)?  Will we adopt again? (currently under discussion still, with the gender division falling along fairly predictable lines, though Mr Spouse seems to be coping OK while I'm away, which doesn't bode too badly, though there has been a development also which could go either way - we'll see).