Something cute

It's Mothering Sunday in the UK, so perhaps you'd all like to hear how my actual child is getting on, rather than just drama about our hypothetical child.

We spent about half am hour this afternoon sitting on a stool by an upstairs window looking out at the sunshine on our rather empty street, and spotting bees, as well as pushing wooden cars and a horse along the window sill, and putting them to sleep on the window sill. At one point I got up to go to the loo and The Tiny Dictator (as he is known) came to the bathroom door to tell me to "come on, mummy".

So life with Baby Spouse is good. He's still a good sleeper, and we've managed to fool him into going to bed a bit early this week in preparation for Summer Time. He's had some issues with being far too hungry/grabbing food/screaming for more but we think we've got most of that sorted for the moment (partly by dishing everyone's food up away from the table, but he also seems more able to wait longer for food - he can now play in the kitchen while I cook, without having too much of a meltdown, so I think it's partly that he's a little older).

He's just started enjoying scribbling, stickers etc and also Duplo (baby Lego), and it's great to have things he likes doing that don't necessarily involve running around, or throwing things.

He has loads of new words most weeks - we're almost at the "gosh, I've lost count" stage. We are however about to make an appointment to have his height and weight remeasured, to see if he's a bit further up the charts (weight was fine but height was below the 9th centile. He's never going to be a basketball player (which is a sha physiologicalme as he loves balls, and is pretty good with them too), but they want to check it's nothing physiological.

We did find out something interesting yesterday regarding Nella, which makes sense of a few things, and may or may not help or hinder us. We'll see.

The post that I do not want to write

My computer seems to be conspiring with me to prevent this, too - and my phone has decided to implode - we've been living with this news all this week and it gets no easier.

Nella decided she had had enough of NA and that she'd find a new new agency.  We think she'd been talking to them for a few days, because all of a sudden we heard that she was moving to them and already had a couple she was working with and no longer wanted to work with us.

That is basically it. We feel like someone has died. Mr Spouse was afraid of saying that it felt like one of the miscarriages - but I felt that way too. "Our" baby will still be out there, though - instead of a notional due date, there will be a real baby that we may never see grow up. We've talked to our social worker about our feelings, as well as about what to do now.

I don't think we can give up hope that she will change her mind (or it is slightly possible that she would be left with no other alternatives if she continues to burn her bridges left, right and centre, now there's a great mixed metaphor!).  It's also entirely possible that the new couple might decide she's too much like hard work.  We have put out some feelers but we aren't really sure which of them would be a mistake, if any.

Our SW had originally worded our PAR (the full form that includes the home study) to say we were approved for a sibling of Baby Spouse.  Her manager pointed out that this should really be just for "a baby" (before this all blew up) so that is changing. It's not going to make much difference to the time taken to approve us here (a 3 week delay to panel), and it's still therefore possible that we would be ready in time should she change her mind.

We have decided for now to go with the "sibling, or other baby, from the US" option but our heart is not in the "or". It will take a bit longer to get ready for the "or" so we have a little time to have a break, a holiday, that kind of thing. We do have other options and we are worried that we might burn our boats on those, though, if we end up waiting too long on this option.

I'm basically in denial at the moment - I have hinted to a couple of people that this might not be happening but there are just too many people to tell, at work etc. etc.

I think that Baby Spouse has worked out something is up, too; he's been very clingy, and his nursery worker said he was looking at the picture they have of us all and saying "Daddy, Daddy" and getting very upset, several times this week (though Mr Spouse was late home a couple of times too, and we've all been very tired).

There's more

Nella can't stay calm for long it seems. She's managed to wind up both OHP and NA. They have agreed that OHP will now mainly deal with her, with NA doing the things that they only can do, being in state. She's generally OK with us on the phone, or even apologetic, but we also suspect she doesn't know what they tell us.

She rang us the other day to tell us she's thought of a name for the baby. Will you think about it? she asked. Well, it's definitely something we can talk about, I said. For about five seconds, said Mr Spouse when I told him her choice.

Just a quickie

Nella is out of jail, and sounds much more positive than she did recently, too. I imagine it's mainly relief to be out.  I won't go into details, but the BF is no longer on the scene and that sounds like a good thing.  She was also - crucially - positive about the help that New Agency are giving her which is a huge relief to us.  I am sure they are putting in the effort they should be putting in - it is possible this isn't quite the level of effort she felt she had with Nice Little Agency, it's also possible they were overstepping the mark a bit.

Anyway we are kind of back where we started when we were matched with Nella before Baby Spouse was born - and she had a breakup with a boyfriend - and she called me to tell me how awful he was. Quite a bit. But that's OK, it feels familiar and that had a good outcome.

Mr Spouse says that the more we learn, the more we can see how we are not "taking the babies away" from a beautiful life with their birth parents.  It's going to be hard to tell him/them about this when they are older. But it's going to be necessary. It is, as a friend once said, one of the special burdens of adoptive parents.