P&Q

I will admit to being a bit, no, a lot, of a TV addict. It is doing me good, this rationing. I managed to watch just one episode of Glee today and then switch it off and talk to Mr Spouse.

He's finding his course a bit challenging at the moment - in a very recognisable mature-student-challenging way. What this means is he is not quite sure if he has done enough work, or that he is going to do OK on his assignments, and then gets firsts for all of them. He also panics about his exams, and tests, and so far has got firsts on all of those too. I have seen this many times before with keen mature students who a) have the savvy to actually, you know, organise themselves and b) are bright anyway. But telling him he is not unique is not what he wants to hear right now!

Cake

Having given up on Mr Spouse buying (or, obviously as he is A MAN, baking) me a birthday cake, I'm making a cake based on Lord Baltimore cake (my recipe has 5 egg yolks and 1 egg) but with penuche frosting (my recipe has only brown sugar, not icing sugar - the original cake has all kinds of nuts and dried fruit in the frosting).

It's amazing what you can come up with when you have 4 egg yolks in the freezer, no cocoa powder, chocolate, dried fruit other than raisins, or icing sugar in the house, and no motivation to go out. I also managed to leave my vanilla essence at the hall where we hold Brownies last week, but we had some vanilla pods so I crushed a few seeds into the mixture.

Psychic

The Beauty Bible people clearly know it is my birthday and that I am OLD as my very very nice package from them arrived this morning. I will have to stop myself from trying them all at once (partly as I have a slight tendency to sensitive skin and it would kind of help to know which product was causing it if I have a problem!).

Mr Spouse also came up trumps with a voucher for a massage and a really thoughful choice of book and DVD - I've been enjoying Hustle series 2 which has been on so he got hold of series 1, plus a new Garrison Keillor book I hadn't heard about.

This sounds terribly mercenary I know, but family were a bit on the FAIL side, my brother knows how I think at least and got me a highly amusing toy/ornament which I have been forbidden from taking to the restaurant/bar where we are spending this evening (I may have to smuggle it out with me...)... Father forgot and emailed me apologetically in the afternoon and mother for some bizarre reason came up with a couple of small bits including some bookplates - which I strongly suspect she also gave me for my 8th birthday.

I know it sounds a bit sad and grabbing but I think the real issue is that my mother and I are on different pages as far as gifts go. I really want to have something to open as a gift, preferably something I did not have to organise, though it can be something I chose, or not, I'm easy either way. And I did get that. But my mother wants to give gifts that are preferably very cheap, but that she does not have to organise. I asked for, and got, a lovely pair of boots for Christmas, and I did need to try them on, so that part was fine. But she insisted I pay for them and she reimburse me, I have no idea why, I just felt that I would rather she organise it. My father asked me what I wanted, I sent him details, he bought and wrapped it.
So for my birthday when she asked me what I wanted, and I asked if she would sort out getting my pearls restrung (bought in SE Asia, though I am fairly sure they are real!) - but she would not organise it, only pay for it if I organised it. So I said not to bother, I just wanted something I didn't have to sort out myself. Which I got, and now am sulking like said 8-year-old.

How do you feel about gifts you have to choose? What about ones you have to organise and pay for?

Crystal ball

Not sure how to approach this one or how it will transpire. We have had nice long chats with lots of adoption agencies who have been willing to answer any and every question under the sun but we may well need to deal with an actual lawyer as well. It seems that - just to talk to us - he wants a chunk of change. Compared to the rest of what it's costing us, it is really change, but it just seems a little unhelpful. And we may well not have a choice as he seems to be the only one who can work with other agencies in this way.

However other aspects of my future are a little clearer to me. Tomorrow I have a small birthday meal after a birthday haircut and highlights and before a slightly more (I hope) well-attended birthday drinks. On Saturday I have the joy of accompanying 8 Brownies to meet up with 82 other Brownies for a World Thinking Day celebration, followed by a night out with the lovely Mr Spouse.

And this evening I have a brief session relaxing in front of the TV (my Lenten discipline is to limit myself to an hour a day of TV; so far this evening I have tidied and dusted what will hopefully be our baby's room, in place of some of the TV, go me!), and a quick reminder to Mr Spouse that birthdays require CAKE.

More memories

Ash Wednesday - the fifth anniversary of the day I found out my first pregnancy was going nowhere and that NigelandDelia had died.

That day we went to church in the evening, and burst into noisy uncontrollable sobs afterwards.

Today I managed not to cry and was actually quite calm. I am trying to work on having more peaceful thoughts that do not lead to me worrying away at irrelevant things in the middle of the night and not sleeping. And the clouds of incense helped.

But now I can feel my period is starting. And my cycles seem to be getting shorter; this is both annoying (who needs more frequent periods?), very badly timed (I would much rather feel well today), and depressing (as it is very likely the last groan of my reproductive system).

Whatever happened to...

...Ok I know approaching zero of you are going to care, but we were watching Shameless the other night, in an episode focussing on Karen, who is the daughter of Sheila, who was the mother of Nigel and Delia, who were - in the show people! in the show! - born around the time I found out I was pregnant for the first time. So (if you are a regular reader you may know this already) we called the first baby NigelandDelia.

Anyway we were trying to remember what had happened to her and to them. And this led us to thinking about our NigelandDelia who would have been starting school in September.

"this high" as Mr Spouse said.

You know you've been doing this too long when...

you find yourself being lapped by infertiles.

Not just the "got married, found out they were infertile, had treatment/luck, completed their family" in the time it's taken us to have 4 non-viable pregnancies. I know there are a few of those but not too many. But more the "hadn't even met each other when Mr Spouse and I were first finding out there were problems but are now married and going through treatment". And also a few of the "almost young enough to be my own child and definitely young enough to be Mr Spouse's and have already found out they are infertile".

Yes, I have a birthday coming up. Why do you ask?

OK, not very Valentiny

Book review up at my other blog.

I don't normally do this but...

I got this from a friend's blog. It is hilarious.

One day I will learn

not to take out my contact lenses and then expect to be able to see the computer screen with my rubbish glasses.

Or I will buy a new pair of glasses.

Culcha

We went to see a one-man show about the life of Eric Morecambe - a great British cultural institution (though he wasn't too fond of the Glaswegians). If you get the chance to see this, it is highly hilarious; fortunately for me, like Shakespeare, it is full of quotes.

I say this because I do not recall ever seeing Morecambe & Wise as a child. I'm not sure if it was because of the timing of the shows, because it was "common", because my parents just plain didn't like it, or because by the time I was considered old enough to watch it, it was on ITV (also "common". Note my parents would never have used that word, but you get the picture). We watched The Two Ronnies.

I know I'm missing out on a basic element of British culture. But I am also missing quite a bit of American culture which makes me occasionally confused. My mother did her best to raise me somewhat American but outside the US, but there are some things you don't get.

We've been thinking about culture/nationality/ethnicity in relation to the adoption too - and I've been reading about transracial adoptees not feeling they fit in with people of their own ethnicity - I guess I feel a little like that myself, not wanting to open my mouth and show my passport at the same time. And Mr Spouse who has a classically Welsh name (if you are my friend on FB you will be able to see that you don't get more Welsh than that) actually has a "lots of planets have a North" accent. When you are in England and you say you are Welsh or American but sound English no-one is that bothered (though sometimes they do a double-take with Mr Spouse). But when you are in Wales or the US and you are both "from" and "not from" it is confusing.

Eric Bartholemew/Morecambe also had an adopted son, adopted in 1973 at the age of 4, after two birth children. In the show he was described as "a gift we gave to ourselves" which is in some ways a lovely way of putting it. Adopting a 4 year old in 1973 must have been very unusual. Irritatingly I can't find much about him though the two older children were interviewed for "Relative Values". Of course all references to him in the media say "two children and an adopted son". Or omit to mention him at all. But the interview with his siblings talks about how he came to be in the family - and this route to adoption was mentioned in the book I've been reading recently as well, about institutional care in this era.

(We also saw John Hegley in the same theatre recently - we are curious as to whether they admit artists who do not support Luton Town).

Slightly exciting

In a very sad way.

After my foray into the world of makeup, I have bought myself a few more bits and pieces, mainly along the lines of no-makeup makeup, and potions for my wrinkly bits, and the luggage under my eyes. I'm currently awaiting.... drum roll....

a Beauty Bible tester kit!

This is a great arrangement where you pay a small fee for postage/packing/admin and get a much larger amount's worth of products to test, theoretically suitable to your skin and hair. This package is supposed to be suitable for "over 35s", which I will be even more after next week.

How did it get to be another year later?

And on that note...

First Aid procedures change intermittently, which our trainer on my refresher course last night explained is a mixture of planned reviews and new evidence coming to light. We were told that the new advice is to call for help at the scene before checking a casulty's airway.

I was reminded by May's post today that my first instinct on being told this was to yell "Heyulp! Heyulp!" like Penelope Pitstop.

I refrained.

I never see you...

This is Mr Spouse's plaintive cry when I am out several evenings in a row. This week it is only tonight (first aid course) and Friday (local amateur play that our knitting group has made some props for).

Normally it's very sweet but today he just wanted some help with his quantitative coursework. Pah.

Not quite over

Home study sessions cancelled by social worker = approximately 5
Home study sessions cancelled by us = 0 (though we were thinking of cancelling today's so Mr Spouse could go and see his mother in hospital a) she wasn't kept in and appears to be absolutely fine after a small tumble b) the SW cancelled instead).
However in contrast to this rather erratic showing
Times the social work has been late = 1 (when she didn't know the way yet). We gather this is very unusual!
Times we have been late = 1 (to prep group - long journey, quite a bit of traffic)
Times Mr Spouse has fallen asleep = approximately 2 (in prep group - long journey, quite a bit of traffic, I couldn't drive at the time, hot room, erm, not very interesting speaker).
Date on which Mr Spouse threatened to fall asleep in home study session = today.

I am married to an American football fan. Wrong time zone. 'Nuff said.

You will be happy to learn...

that I'm now a fully-qualified Brownie leader with my last Adult Leadership Qualification module ticked and signed off.

What next, I hear you cry? Perhaps I should do my Overnight licence, for added madness.

Update on the arm

It's improving a very, very little but I'm bracing myself for a consultant's appointment in a few weeks as I think it will be yes to the manipulation.

I had stopped taking my nefopam as I felt it was making me jumpy but even the maximum dose of ibuprofen doesn't help me do my exercises as much, so I've gone back on it this morning. Bit of a dry mouth but not too bad.

I've also started swimming and doing Pilates, and I'm aiming for 1 swim and 2 Pilates (even if just 20 mins of a DVD) per week. I can do two whole lengths at a time of breast stroke, or back stroke, or a stroke of my own invention involving a float. And I didn't even run into anyone doing back stroke.

This post was inspired by Julie's the other day.

I often take the bus to work, and before Christmas I was struggling carrying much stuff, and couldn't drive, so I hopped on the bus round the corner from home - with a light plastic bag and a fairly heavy shoulder bag, I seem to remember. I sat about 2 rows back from the front and there were at least 2 male students sat in front of me (or forward of me).

I was merrily listening to my iPod and couldn't quite work out what was happening as a dad got on with two children, one walking, one about 9 months I reckon. The dad was talking to the bus driver who was shaking his head and shrugging and the father then walked up towards me and asked me to hold his baby.

Now, I had my headphones on and it took me about 5-10 seconds to work out what he wanted and a further short moment to realise that as this would involve raising both arms above chest height I wouldn't be able to, and if I tried I'd just drop my parcels on the floor of the bus. I couldn't think what to say so said "er, no, sorry, can you put her on the seat there?"

No, says the dad, she'll topple over, and he looked around the bus helplessly. A male student on the other side of the aisle, but sitting technically in front of me, offered to hold the baby.

I realised at this point that the dad had been asking the bus driver to hold the baby for him.

I was roundly condemned for this incident at the time so (unless I am completely losing it) I didn't blog about it. I am not sure if part of this was that people assumed I was thinking "clueless dad" or on the contrary was thinking "dad who thinks he can get away with it because he's a bloke" or that I was being unsympathetic to "dad newly on his own" as if the only reason for a dad taking the kids out on his own is because mum is away or dead.

In fact, I was thinking "er what"? followed by "am I the only person on this bus? no I am not but I am the only woman" followed by "actually, although I think it is a little, er, unusual, to ask me to hold your baby, and normally I'd expect to help with the pushchair while you hold the baby, in fact I wouldn't be able to do that".

And that would have taken so long to explain I just went back to my iPod.

But my final thought, after the bus had moved on and I had worked out that his original conversation with the driver was about getting the driver to hold the baby was not "clueless bloke doesn't know anything" or "clueless bloke thinks everyone else is around to hold his baby" or "clueless bloke thinks women are there to help him out", or even a slightly more charitable "poor bloke, shame I can't help him" but in fact "good grief, learn how to use public transport mate, passengers will help, though not if you pick the wrong one, bus drivers won't, it's obvious YOU normally drive to work!!"

Second hand

I am not a fan of pink. When I was a baby we wore blue flowered dresses and then it was the 70s and everyone wore orange. The social worker commented that we couldn't really fully decorate our child's room for a number of reasons, firstly that it would be to difficult for us to make us do that without a child on the horizon, and also that we wouldn't know whether it was going to be a boy or a girl. I don't see the latter as a good reason at all because as far as I am concerned, there will not be pink.

"Not even if people give you pink things?"
"Well, maybe. Unless it's magenta. Then it's going back to the shop. If it's a girl I'll exchange it for something with Bob the Builder or Thomas the Tank Engine".
"Oh, that's mean..."
I pointed out that I would want to make sure anything we got for a girl would be usable by another child who was a boy. Apparently that is very wrong.

We compromised, I feel, by saying that we'd probably not need to actually buy any clothes for a baby as everyone would buy them for us.

Show & Tell - Candlemas

Yesterday, I know, but I only remembered today about taking down the crib.

It looks rather strange (it may be the angle), but I think it is quite cute - it's Mexican, made of tin, and comes in a cute matching box. The timing is very important. The Baby Jesus does not arrive till Christmas Eve, and the Magi not until Twelfth Night. But it can then stay up till Candlemas. I bought the set in either Tijuana or Ensenada on a border-hop trip when I was living in SoCal ten years ago.

I do love Christmas even though it's hard when you are waiting to have children. But in a way I love the extended bits more - the private, family bits - the bits where you don't have to go round to people's houses and appear cheery. Like keeping the crib up till Candlemas.

Tears before bedtime

Still not sleeping and still upset about life, promotion, etc. etc. Mr Spouse whisked me away from the office to the supermarket at about 3 (well, it was that or stay in my office weeping with the door locked, which is what I was doing till that point). We know how to live.

Lots of nots

Not sleeping very well, not getting promotion, not even managing my blog-a-day for January, not finishing any work including urgent stuff for tomorrow, and not feeling very well at all. But also shouting at Mr Spouse. Grand.

Random thought

One thing I'm slightly grateful for... as adoption in the UK, of children who are in foster care, is almost completely free (some families have the odd expense association with, for example, introductions for a child who is the other end of the country), most of the people we talk to do not realise, and therefore do not feel it is their business to comment on, the cost of our adoption.

Everything else, of course, is fair game.

That London

Down for the weekend - we have a small flat that is often rented out but happens to be empty, so are spending a couple of days here. Mr Spouse always finds at least one or two things that need mending every time we come - he re-fixed the coat hook to the wall last night and is mending the bathroom lights today. But we'll have time to think about some shopping and to catch up with a friend or two, maybe see a film.

If it's Thursday...

... it must be another social work appointment. Yesterday was Mr Spouse on his own, today me on my own, weekend in London, another appointment on Monday. We had an interesting discussion, touching on quilting, loopholes, Victoria Climbie and the demonisation of social workers, as well as things we were supposed to be talking about.

Tell me, in fact: do you feel society has become more affectionate over the last, say, 20-25 years? I certainly notice that the friends I made when I was 16 or 18 or 20 don't kiss or hug me, because we never have; the friends I made when I was 25/28/33 do.

Anyway, it'll be over soon!

Do I look like a lawyer?

No, I didn't think so.

Why is it then that I've had to tell a) agency M that they are potentially causing some UK-resident couples to do illegal adoptions, while needlessly restricting the options of others and b) agency T that they are very behind on regulations that might therefore be costing them business?

I'm not bothered about agency M but agency T was beginning to sound like they might work for us. Agency N is the one that has been successful but seems to have really really long waiting times (they claim to have one post-Hague couple but given the waiting times they quote, I'm not sure if they can - though perhaps this was an extremely flexible and lucky couple). Agency P hasn't been successful yet but we are in contact with a couple working with them. And Agency C which we used to love, hasn't answered any emails recently; agency O also looked promising and is having a think about whether they could work with us.

(Update later: Agency T is looking like they would do this for us but our SW is sounding more pessimistic as she can't find anyone who has done any successful US adoptions to the UK yet. I guess the fact that we know the couple who are with Agency P and they are at least 6 months ahead of us is promising. Agency P probably wouldn't work for us for a few different reasons though. And Lawyer Y hasn't replied to my query about how exactly working with him and an agency - which would be necessary in the cases of T, O and C - would work in practice for us).

Well that's a relief...

Must be about my 75th CRB clearance in the last 10 years. Roll on Independent Safeguarding Authority.

Cake

Guider type meetings usually involve biscuits and admin. Today's involved cake and a bit of a rant. A slightly tricky situation as I happen to completely disagree with the rant-er, but she is a very nice woman who is also my mentor for my Guider training. I kept quiet in the meeting but the disagreement is one based somewhat on religion which we both feel strongly about - in some ways similarly - I didn't want to spend too much time talking loudly in the meeting but think I should get together with her and explain my view.

Heartbreaking

I'm reading a UK adoption classic - Adoption, a Second Chance, by Barbara Tizard, one of the very first books on "modern" adoption - adoption of children who were fostered (in this case, in residential nurseries) before being placed for adoption between the ages of 2 and 7. The research for the book took place in the late 60s and early 70s, but plus ca change... Some of the problems are just sooo familiar - agencies taking forever to make a permanency plan, to find out medical information, etc. etc.

Thankfully neither residential nurseries nor the laws that meant birth parents could hem and haw for years while their child languished in care still exist. Some of the adoptive families sound lovely, too - especially those who had children placed around 5 to 7 years old and who seem to love spending time playing with their children - something that, as the authors comment, in that era even middle-class birth children and earlier-adopted children would not really do when they were 8 - it was a time of "play on your own", in the street if you were working-class and in your room or the garden if you were middle-class.

Several of the children were relinquished but deemed "difficult to place" because of medical issues (including a broken leg!) and race. The chapter on race makes me very grateful to live in today's world. Only one parent out of the 10 or so trans-racial placements made an effort to promote her child's heritage (Indian in her case). About half of the families, at the age of 8, said their child "hadn't yet noticed they were coloured"!!!!! Some of the adoptive families (perhaps 3 out of the 10?) had at least one family member (father, I think, in all cases) who was actively racist, or at least would be termed so today.

But as Mr Spouse said, one mother at least said one thing that was right. "I don't think he realises he's coloured, he comes home and he's been teasing other children at school, and I tell him it's not nice, it's not good to be calling other children 'darkie' and 'w*g''". Too right.

And so it begins

Why is it that it already feels like we are in the middle of an interminable wait to be matched - even though in fact we are in the middle of a busy, busy home study with new facts and decisions being thrown at us every minute?

Without making it out too much to be "his" versus "my" decision, Mr. Spouse feels that he doesn't really want to raise a child of a different ethnicity (birth father uncertainty notwithstanding - we won't break a match after birth in the same way we wouldn't "send back" a child who turned out later to have new information about their background). I feel I could - no, we could - and now even feel a little sad that probably won't have the chance. I think this is likely because I have so many links and friends who are African or African American and I would love to have that link within our family.

It doesn't seem like it would make us that much more "matchable" (I have a whole other post in my head about my thoughts on overseas placement of African American infants, so bear with me) although our wait time might be a little shorter. And that's the bit that's depressing me. So far the only agency that we really feel comfortable with AND that has unequivocally said yes to us, is quoting 2 years wait on average. Two years. It would be maybe 6 months shorter on average for "mixed" heritage.

I just hate that a piece of good, go-for-it news is followed by finding the next stage is so drawn-out. We have other agencies to approach but I am finding repeatedly they don't reply to my emails. I'm not sure if this is a big spam problem (I have had one or two actual failures of emails), that adopters aren't priority, my incomprehensible writing style, or that most agencies just don't really communicate except by phone.
I think we'd fill our wait productively, but we are not getting younger, and I am so hoping we'd be able to adopt a second child before we get impossibly old.

A product recommendation

Boots waterproof mascara. Doesn't run when watching an episode of Ugly Betty (the series that is on in the US at the moment - the latest episode I think - won't spoil it for those who haven't watched it/are in the UK). But Mr Spouse said it was very real and they should show more real things.

Oh yeah. Minor piece of news.

We have a date for panel. 6th April (the day after Easter Monday). Yes, I know, we were shocked too. In an impressive display of forward thinking (which is not to say that she does not normally display this) our social worker calculated that if there's an unavoidable delay we can still fit in a May date before she herself takes a 6 week break and therefore in time to get round the DCSF's imposition of a Very Large Fee for their part of the paperwork, coming in in September.

Sooo... we have three or four more sessions and more homework. This week's homework:

• thinking about some of the circumstances of origin we would and wouldn't be prepared to accept (current answer between the two of us - we need to do a bit more thinking, but I am probably more comfortable with the kinds of conversations this might take and Mr Spouse also needs to think about what he's comfortable with - and I have just thought perhaps we could even - doh - ask our SW for advice on how this kind of thing can be brought up with a child)
  
• thinking about what would be our long-term plans if we had a child who needed significant care in adult life (they do assume that we'll both be around until a child turns 18 but I'm guessing they need to show we've thought about the worst - current answer between the two of us - make sure we plan properly financially for a child in this circumstance).
• some research we need to do on what difference it would make with the possible agencies we've chosen were we to say we'd only accept a Caucasian child versus a child of mixed race - again I think our SW needs to show we've considered the implications of raising a child of a different race.

It all seems very soon - we'll probably have quite a bit more homework as the full report on us will need to be checked as well as minor discussion points like this.

Well that's good news

We discussed this with our social worker, briefly, today - there seems to be a separate movement around non-matched orphans being fostered in the US and a "surge" in interest in Haitian orphans - but these children were all matched and in some cases were already legally adopted by US families.

So this is very good news.

One track mind? me?

I have no desire to watch most of the current or previous crop of vampire movies (or read the books) but I really enjoy Being Human. It's an everyday story of a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost who settle down to share a house in Bristol; two of them work in the local hospital as a cleaner and a porter and the third serves behind the bar in the local pub.

Of course various relationships ensue and the werewolf (well, the original werewolf - there is now another, if you are going to watch this series I won't spoil it for you) has a steady girlfriend, but in his wild lunar moments has a quick fling, the vampire being more or less permanently flitting from one Goth girl to another. The ghost also finds herself what she thinks is a nice young man, which is a cue for the werewolf (who is sensible today) sitting her down for a Friendly Chat about Being Careful.

So now I'm wondering: Vampires, presumably, being undead and all that don't need contraception, though turning people into vampires is pretty much the ultimate STD; but what about the werewolves? Is the werewolf running around creating lots of baby half-wolves in his mad moments, or are werewolves also infertile?

The ghost, as she points out, is "much too old and much too dead to need contraception". Although her back story turns out to include a really evil ex, she does mourn the fact that she is still stuck in the house that she was hoping would be the house she and he raised a family in, and now she'll never have kids.

But they still have Noddy wallpaper.

You know...

I'm getting the hang of this not posting anything about fertility, miscarriage, or adoption lark.

I imagine I will write something again at some point but today I'm going to write about makeup.

I am absolutely rubbish at makeup. I just feel overwhelmed with the idea of what to wear, how to put it on, and having to cart it around all day to reapply. I have however recently been given permission not to reapply in the daytime and some tips on what might suit me.

So... for the first time ever I let someone today in a well known very pricey department store in a well known Northern city actually put makeup on me. That is the only time anyone has ever done that, except perhaps my mum, and on my wedding day. And the woman who put it on did not look totally orange. And neither did I when I'd finished.

I think I should go and lie down now.

(my back is a lot better, but the painkillers are helping too. We have five kinds in the house, two prescribed for me, two for Mr Spouse, as well as paracetamol (and not counting GIN). We actually have no ibuprofen. I've taken two at least of each of them over the last 24 hours. But no GIN).

ow

Have done something to my back, exacerbated by sitting on the floor reading a story to the Brownies. That is all.

Tell me why

when I want to wear something it is in the wash basket?

I have a closet full of clean lovely clothes. And drawers full, and a huge blanket chest full of jumpers.

I expect it is that I look through the wash basket when putting a wash on, and the clothes I've put back as they are the wrong colour for the wash I'm doing, are now at the front of my mind as Must Wear.

The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain

It is my birthday next month and I'm just planning the weekend - it's on a Friday - on the Saturday I have an all day Guiding event (joy - it's very near Thinking Day) and then on Saturday night we are for I think the third? fourth? time going to see this very fabulous group.

This is one of my favourites:

Aaaand breathe...

We had what was in some ways an interesting computer training session this afternoon. The most interesting thing about it was that it was even more strikingly obvious than normal that the guy running it has at least the "social communication" aspect of the autism triad (we already knew he had some problems with interaction, but I can't speak to the imaginative deficits). This guy claims that the reason he is such a pain to work with is because of being on the spectrum - but though I know it sounds harsh, if he hasn't got a proper diagnosis, he hasn't got the disability - but it's perfectly possible to have "features" without being on the "spectrum".

Anyway, leaving that aside, someone who doesn't know when he's losing his audience, thinks it's possible to turn all the lights off and not have everyone go to sleep, has no clue about layout, thinks it's a good idea to repeat all the things you can do with every single feature (you can start a new document here... and here... and here...) is NOT best placed to train anyone in anything, let alone a bunch of academics in using a new communication system that doesn't have the features we need, because no-one asked us.

I will stop now. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Erm....

I was going to write about our social work visit today. Except, for some bizarre reason, I had put a non-existent visit in the diary.

Anyway, what have I done that's interesting?
Nothing much.
I worked from home (because I thought the SW was coming) and went for a run just as it was getting dark (which wasn't a problem except I don't like to use my ipod in the dark - by the way - running ipod music PLEASE!) on the slush (which made it slightly tricky in places), my first outdoor run since about November and my first proper exercise since mid-December. I can't remember if I've said Mr Spouse and I have joined the gym at work - as he is a student we get a base membership pretty cheaply, and classes are £1.70 - I went to Pilates yesterday and managed most of it with my arm only protesting slightly at some over the head stretches. Using the "machines" is only £2.20 now I am Spouse Of Student!

Right - most important thing today. Go and give May a hug.

Reading matter

As part of my push to do more reading, less telly, I've now moved to an "upstairs book, downstairs book" strategy - so I won't just switch on the telly automatically and may actually read something!

Currently:

Upstairs - Where did it All Go Right - Andrew Collins
Downstairs - A Sea of Troubles - Donna Leon

In other news, it is now raining here. All that effort to clear the pavement yesterday.

Busy busy

The cardigan I finished the other day, the sheep is a prototype for a Brownies craft.

Forget National Service

I think all British teenagers should be sent to live abroad for a year after leaving school. Six months of that should be in a place where it snows properly in the winter - they'll learn how to dress properly, how to walk on snow/ice, how to clean off the pavement in front of their house (though we are guilty too), and how to keep the house warm.

The other 6 months should be in a place that is properly warm and hopefully they'll learn how to avoid sunstroke, sunburn, and discover the existence of fans (which is all you need here really in the summer).

And one of those places should be somewhere they don't speak English. Might teach them a little compassion for new immigrants who don't.

Hic

Out for a chilly night's pub crawl with friends. It's recalling my student drinking days in Chilly Scottish City. I've not yet ordered a Whisky Mac (whisky & ginger wine) or Rusty Nail (whisky & Drambuie) but only because I don't think anywhere will have the ingredients.

New post up

at my semi-professional blog...

In case you haven't got in your quota...

I would be having another snow day...

except I'm having a sick day instead. Horrible cough kept me (and Mr Spouse) awake a lot of last night, it's marginally better today, just irritating rather than chesty. I have been mainly being very silly and sitting in front of the computer not working, frankly I would have been better off sitting in front of the computer working.

I've been ordering some crafty bits and pieces - my brother made a slightly cheeky and in fact unreasonable request for a present - he wanted it for Christmas - a quilt with a world map on to make a record of where they have been as a family - now there was no way I could have sewn it for Christmas given the state of my shoulder at the time and the point at which he asked, but his 40th birthday is later this month and I've managed some reasonable sewing projects recently, so I'm going to give it a go. I was ordering wadding, binding and backing today.

I also suspect he really wants a crafty handmade appliqued map - but he is in fact getting this:

Spare Oom

(Shamelessly nicked from a comment on a colleague's FB page...)

Yes indeed, even here in the coastal, rainy NW of England, we are blanketed in snow. I am wondering when the Faun and the Beavers are going to come traipsing down our street. Our SW visit was cancelled (we were due to go to their offices on the train but she couldn't get out of her road).

Mr Spouse has discovered a new fascinating hobby - genealogy. We needed to do our family trees but although his is small, it is also blank - so he's signed up for a couple of free trials on ancestry websites. My dad is particularly good at this and has given some hints and a nice book for Christmas, too. Mr Spouse's maternal grandmother has a rather unusual surname, only found in areas of the NW (not even as far north as us), with a very strange spelling. There only appears to be one family that migrated to where he comes from (only 20 miles from the core of the name) but they appear to have been single-handedly responsible for populating his home town. The grandmother was the youngest of 5 and her father was one of 11; he's only looked up the youngest great-great-uncle's family so far and he had 8 children. No wonder the parents of the great-grandfather died in their early 40s. They were exhausted.

We think they needed a telly.

If I ever needed any extensive family trees doing, I would just have to go to my mum's Mormon cousin. I'm all set.

Chauffeured

If I've spelled that right!

I tried driving again yesterday for the second time since I broke my shoulder. It was less painful than last time although strangely while 2nd and 4th are not really painful to reach any more, 1st is. I think I've gained range of movement backwards but am currently working quite hard on range of movement forwards/upwards and it takes a bit of force to get our car into 1st, plus it's the furthest gear from your body. I think I'll be fine to drive round town, though wouldn't relish an hour or so of city driving, but motorway driving should now be no problem.

However given how freezing and icy it is here I decided to take the chauffer driven 56-seat taxi (aka the bus) to work today. I was the only passenger for the first 15 minutes of the journey...

Today I am mainly...

doing paperwork for the Brownies. I've just printed out the activities for tonight's meeting, letters to parents about subs, and letters ditto about the bring-a-friend party in 2 weeks' time.

Yesterday was spent trawling all the pound shops and toy shops in town in search of materials for some games: the only Fail was marbles, which don't seem to be available any more. Thankfully our local equivalent to Freecycle came up trumps and I have a box on loan.

So that's why...

...my mother appeared not to blink any eyelids when we asked for some information we need for adoption paperwork, and told her why. She didn't think we were serious.

Her birthday falls just after Christmas so I had given her this book (blink and you've finished reading it, frankly). First she said "oh, but I'll know everything in it" and then she said "how likely is it I'll actually need to read it?"

What do you mean "how likely"? We are adopting. We are not just doing paperwork for the hell of it.

Trouble is, if we tell her every single thing that happens - and I know we are indecisive - then it would just confuse her. But we did tell her we had dropped our previous attempt and she knew we'd had two miscarriages at that point. And she does know the difference between adoption and fostering - she seemed to be under the impression we'd finished the process but weren't bothering with the actual adoption part - so clearly she doesn't know as much about the approval process as she'd like to imagine.

New Year

A huge cheat as I am actually writing this on Sunday but using Blogger's handy backdating feature.

I have decided for a change to make some New Year's resolutions - if I do make them normally, it is on my birthday in February. They are mainly of the self-improvement variety.

I'm hoping to do more exercise (we actually joined the gym in December, which is not normally my preferred locale for exercise, as I prefer the great, and free, outdoors, but Mr Spouse likes the gym, and a gym buddy is what I need).

I'm also hoping to read more and hence watch less TV. My first step is to try and read a little while warming up my shoulder for exercise (the exercises have been a big TV inducement - I have 10-15 mins of warming followed by the same of exercise, at least 3 times a day). I have a huge pile of novels and am not ashamed to top it up with chick lit and other easy reads - I didn't say I was going to read more quality.

I'm also hoping to read a bit more spiritual/religious stuff - just daily readings kind of thing - I'm reading some Henri Nouwen at the moment who is a long time love of mine. Again nothing requiring brain.

And finally I'm hoping to blog more. I am foolishly going to attempt to blog 365 times (note I didn't say every day!) but will be making liberal use of twitter-length posts (can you automatically feed twitter onto blogger?) and probably email posting too. I know I post on Facebook almost every day so should manage something here, you think? A lot more on general life and less soul searching, which may or may not be to everyone's taste.

Sniff

Mr Spouse got his annual Christmas cold and kindly passed it on to me when he was finished with it. Hence I cannot breathe properly and didn't sleep well last night. Although I didn't actually strangle my mother, when this morning she asked what was happening with a rubbish bin and I was in the middle of my shoulder exercises and said "it would be helpful to empty it into the other one" and she told me not to treat her like a servant, and then when Mr Spouse asked her to do the same and she did it, you may understand why I am repeating my usual Christmas mantra:

"Extended family is God's reward for having to be related to your immediate family".

And my extended family are mainly jolly nice. One of my aunts wins Olympic prizes for weirdness and stinginess and another uncle and his wife for having the most dangerous house in the world to eat/sleep/live in (mainly due to salmonella risk), and another aunt still thinks we are all 9 and refusing to eat sprouts, and if we don't, reminds us of when we did. But when you have 12 cousins and 5 blood uncles/aunts and almost as many by marriage, you have to hit lucky with a few of them - and I have. My youngest uncle is writing our family adoption reference; his middle child (just a teenager) thinks Mr Spouse is highly hilarious so perhaps we should get him to write it.

Both my mother (gratefully, in fact) and my brother did eventually acknowledge our desire to tick a childcare experience box and we were In Charge on Sunday from (more or less) child-up to child-down (I let my mum get them up). We only had one tantrum (niece 2) and 3 whining sessions (niece 1). No screaming whatsoever at bedtime and both of them managed to sleep in a bed without either parent, and to go to bed when told by an adult, not waiting to decide for themselves when they wanted to go to bed. They are 6 and 3 by the way. I am not sure how long my brother has before the older one notices it is weird to share a bed with your parents.

(Top "aww" moment - we were sleeping at my dad's and the family were basically convening at or just after breakfast and then parting after dinner/at bedtime each day - on our last day niece 2 charged in the door and saw me in the living room, not good enough apparently, she demanded to know where Mr Spouse was and charged off to see him instead. He has a slightly difficult name to pronounce - many children ask what he's called several times - and before this visit she hadn't seen him for about 18 months - so, when she was very tiny - but he had become a firm favourite very quickly).

Oh dear

We are off to my dad's tomorrow for Christmas (he lives the other side of the town I grew up in to my mum, they are divorced but get on OK if dad's new woman is not around, which she isn't at the moment) tomorrow and I was looking forward to it but now I am starting to become very apprehensive.

I spoke to my nieces on the phone last night and the older one was very sweet ("oh, you are staying at Grandpa's? Oh. Will you maybe come to Granny's to see us?") and I'm looking forward to seeing them but as usual my mother has rather overplanned (this is of course where I get it from) and Mr Spouse will get very stressed with all the together time (having no siblings and only 1 cousin his age, he is not used to The Hordes). And everyone else (brother, sister-in-law, other relatives) is very relaxed about timekeeping and this sends my mother round the bend. And my dad has supposedly upgraded his spare beds but we are not convinced they will be sleepable on.

And... we have been saying for months to both my mum and my brother that we'd REALLY like my older niece to come and stay when we come back home after Christmas, and my mum initially said "good idea" and my brother said absolutely nothing (which is precisely what he and niece said when I asked whether she'd got her birthday present, too), and I didn't ask my niece yet because she can be a bit shy and I haven't seen her for over a year.

But now my mum is acting as if it will all be TOO inconvenient for her, she does not want to look after the younger one if brother and sister-in-law want to go away on their own (they are borrowing our holiday flat), I don't think it would be a good idea for us to take both (the younger one doesn't really know us, as I say we haven't seen them for over a year and she is only 3 so that's a long time), and my mum doesn't want to come and pick my niece up (and since we'll have done the whole journey twice already we don't really want to do a quick-turnaround drop-off, so we offered an overnight for my mum but she's already booked something on the best day for that, which she didn't tell us was that day).

This is all very complicated and moany, but we were kind of hoping to have niece to stay mainly because we really like her and get so see so little of her, but also as adoption-related experience - we can't really ask friends to lend us their children overnight despite what social workers would like to believe. Our SW is very positive and doesn't seem to think we need to bolster our experience, but I would like to get the experience myself and I think niece would have a good time. And if we say this to the family they will either say "social workers are mad, how can they make you jump through these hoops, you should refuse" (yeah, you just try that with social workers) or, probably, just get all negative about the whole idea of adoption.

And in other adoption-related business, we have to find a nice, natural photo of the two of us for the agency (I don't know if this will actually serve any purpose as we'll do a whole set of photos and a letter for our proper profile with the agency later) and we have been instructed No Alcohol in the photo, but if we could get some decent photos of us with the girls that would be fabulous. The main decent photographer though is Mr Spouse and again, having to explain that we need loads and loads of photos from which we may be able to use one or two, and get people to keep taking them in casual situations (most of my family think photos should involve standing still, staring into the camera, wearing special clothes, grinning madly and preferably having redeye), and again not give up and say "why on EARTH do you need so many photos? surely that one of you in front of the Christmas tree in the nice red jumper I made you will do?" will be, er, challenging.

Now before my sentences get any longer, I will go and do something else. Lament the icing sliding down the sides of my Christmas cake, I suspect.

The four members of the triad...

It's been a very interesting fortnight.

N. My fellow Brownie leader. She's only 7 years older than me but claims to be "feeling her age". While I do feel my age a little (frankly, I was never a clubber, I only pretended), I really hate it when people say that who are under, say, 70. Anyway, she's a lovely lady, very good with the girls and a good person to do this with. Turns out she is a grandmother and the grandson is the child of the daughter she relinquished when she was 19. I only found this out about 10 days ago and have not let on about our plans. She has met her daughter as an adult - she has two other children who have also met her - she met "my daughter's Mum" before she sadly died of cancer but the Dad does not want to know, and recent efforts to contact birth dad to get a medical history have proved fruitless. Anyway, interesting, and seems definitely open enough that I can talk about stuff later when I have news.

J. Lovely lovely friend from my favourite forum (except when I'm being slagged off for saying Absolutely Anything About Parents, even jokingly, as You Can't Possibly Know Anything). Adopted herself and has two older siblings who were adopted, one of whom was not voluntarily relinquished and over whom there was a bit of a court battle. One younger "mistake" birth child of her parents as they call him in the family. She has met her "natural mother" as she refers to her, and her half-siblings - one of whom died of liver failure. Very pleased to be out of that family, she says, and a total argument for nurture I'd say.

Although I do know quite a few adoptive parents, I've not had any unexpected or unusual encounters recently but I did meet both J and E for lunch the other day. E is also a lovely lovely friend (well, as she comments here, I can't say much else, can I?) but she is sister to an adopted brother who, again, now as an adult (I think - can't quite remember his age) has contact with a birth sibling who lives round the corner. Obviously there are loads of other people affected by adoption, but we've been thinking about relatives who are not the adoptive parents (in our case grandparents - in her case siblings) and how they are affected by it. Short book review to follow, also (short review but also short book).

Although I'm not 100% sure about N., talking to E. and J. gave me a really positive feeling. As with our last SW chat, it actually feels like we might be able to plan for parenthood this time.

On that note, I have just put in my promotion paperwork. All of the senior women I have talked to seem to be the "work part time through maternity leave and then come back at 4 months" variety. I think that is probably a group that will never really "get" adoption and how it might be different (for a start, I've waited so bloomin' long I want to enjoy it!) but one encouraging very senior colleague who normally seems very anti-having-a-life said that she went back to work full time and worked 9-5 and then stopped. It is very tempting in my profession to put things off, work in the evenings etc. but it's nice to see even dragons think you should have evenings off. This is actually in contrast to a couple of colleagues who are mothers who say it is essential to work after the children are in bed so was a very helpful observation.

Homework

Another SW session - again quite relaxing though lengthy - you'll have to get your fix of posts now as there won't be much after we finish the home study.

This time it was about Us. I think we are used to talking about Us - mainly when I read a tale of someone's thoughtless/cheating/scumbag other half on my favourite forum, and don't bother posting a smug reply, but thank my lucky stars and mention to Mr. Spouse how lucky I am that he doesn't do X, Y or Z (whereupon he usually says "Oops, didn't I tell you?". The wag). Apparently a couple of times she has had people separate after, having ignored the problem, talking about their relationship made them realise it was going nowhere.

We have a break now till January before which we have to produce:
A family tree each (me: 11 cousins. Him: 2)
A chronology of our life so far (places lived, jobs, schools. Me: average stay in one place about 4 years. Him: hadn't moved over 5 miles from his place of birth till I whisked him to the other end of, er, the county. Me: 3 schools, 2 universities, 6? 8? jobs. Him: 2 schools, one job.)
Brief account of each of our childhoods (he'll have to think back a bit further)
Financial statement (just a month's worth - that's Mr Spouse's job though!)

Miss Manners

I just love Miss Manners (probably because I am etiquette-challenged). She has a letter about adoption this week. I do think that she has an extremely good point - removing your child from a potentially damaging situation is probably the way to go. I expect when their child is older, though, they (like parents of children who are conspicuously different in race) will have to reassure or educate their child about the ignorant and rude people. Or do people stop making rude and ignorant comments when they think the child can understand? I somehow doubt it.

Anyway, I had my "solo" SW interview yesterday. As with Mr. Spouse's, I get the impression some of the questions the SW thinks are helpful and some are "just there because they have to be". She's also quite good about saying "you don't have to give me any details if you don't want to" and seems to understand that my family are, indeed, mad; it's not normal to go to family events that your ex-husband is at but only if his new partner is not there, nor to go to elaborate lengths in trying to find out if she is there. Nor is it normal to enrol your children in music lessons, and greet an offer from your mother to buy a suitably-sized instrument with "I hope you don't think buying an instrument means she's going to play this for ever". And neither is it normal to take the huff when you ask to arrive for a visit on Thursday afternoon and are told that your host/daughter has quite a bit of work to do on Friday and was hoping to work from home, so please could you arrive on Friday afternoon instead.

But she's absolutely right, I do resent the fact that getting pregnant and having children seems to be really easy for everyone else and particularly that my brother was disappointed when he found out their second child was also a girl.

I didn't spot any tissues in her bag and I think I will lay some in for future sessions.

More pieces of paper

9. Reference form with two friends (one each) and one relative (not my mother, you won't be surprised to hear!)
10. Second reference/personal details form with employer (current - knows about plans) and employer (past - will probably be a bit non-plussed), and volunteer "employer", well, which one? Out of three Guiding District Commissioners and about 8 Guiders I've run Brownies or Rainbows with? If asked to pick, it will be the one that knows about the last miscarriage, and is very motherly, but not too much older than me.
Just about to fill in:
11. CRB form

(still haven't got money sorted for 7. and 8. CA and FBI have taken money for 5. and 6. but have not sent us anything. Where's the eye-roll smiley when you need it?)

Telling

We are going to need to face the fact that we have to tell our families about the adoption process. Very much not looking forward to it - not just the negative attitudes I expect from some quarters, but frankly the indifference I expect from others (e.g. my brother who has mentioned once in 5 years the miscarriages - even my dad has engaged more). Mr Spouse's mother is a bit less problematic as she'll forget what we told her anyway...

So, we were talking today about a large heirloom piece of jewellery we have in the bank. We pay a fair bit to keep it in there, plus insurance (which would be so much higher if it was in our house so it's worth keeping it there). The value of this piece of jewellery is more as a "replacement" than we could get for it by selling it, but we could still get a fair bit. In fact, we could get an amount approaching what we are paying the UK agency. I never wear it and never will.

So I feel I may have an opening with my mother (whose family it came from)... Can we sell your grandma's jewellery to pay for our adoption?

(Incidentally, if anyone on the US open adoption side ever stops by this blog, I'd really appreciate ideas of grandparent books to introduce her to the concept... thanks)

Hmmm

Although I know my visitor rate is not exactly massive, some of you may have spotted a very weird comment over the last day or so. Sadly I can't moderate only anonymous comments so I've removed the option for anonymous comments. I believe that this means Typepad/Wordpress people can still comment without registering for an evil Blogger account.

In other news, after Mr Spouse's session last week we had A Bit of a Misunderstanding but we are all sorted out now, and in consequence, quite a lot poorer having paid a large chunk of money to the agency. Coal and satsumas for Christmas for us, I think.

Marathon

Mr Spouse had his individual session with the social worker today - he reports that it took an hour and a half, and he missed out a couple of sections (on siblings - as he has none - and on close friends, which is fairly typically male, I think, as close male friends do have a tendency to meet up for a drink every two years and grunt "yeh, got married, yeh, trying to have kids, yeh, no luck yet".

So that suggests my individual session (thankfully all the rest will be joint) will be even longer. Will make coffee beforehand. Our social worker though very lovely and friendly is missing one crucial social worker characteristic, at least as I understand them - she refuses all offers of tea and biscuits.

My flabber...

...is well and truly ghasted.

I was due to have a phone meeting with a PhD student yesterday morning; she is in her home country (in the tropics) doing fieldwork, and I have a week-long supervision visit with her in 4 weeks' time. I rang the switchboard at the unit where she works only to be told she had delivered a baby girl in the night.

Now initially I was very worried the baby was very premature because a) she had not told me anything about it, b) she had not appeared at all pregnant when I saw her in June (nope, sorry, it was early July), c) she was clearly planning to be fully functioning next month and d) SHE HAD NOT TOLD ME ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

Today I found out that no, the baby was 2 days early, but clearly not outside the realm of possibility. So she was planning, apparently, according to her boss (her work supervisor - she is a research assistant at the unit) to work part-time for a month and for that to be her maternity leave, and to come back full time in time for my visit.

I find myself in an incredibly awkward situation - completely leaving aside the personal feelings which this brings up.

The travel (very expensive travel) is paid for and the ticket is I think non-refundable. I paid for it but the unit is supposed to be refunding me. I am extremely uncomfortable about going. This student has a history of over-reaching, of saying she'll do something and circumstances getting in her way. This is her third child, and she did only take 6 weeks maternity leave with the previous two (common in her country), but at this point things could still go wrong, I know she will be breastfeeding, and I don't want to go for a week's visit and find myself unable to do any work, nor do I want to be left with the bill for the ticket, or no other time to go and supervise her fieldwork (which needs doing at some point).

Students have a limited period of time in which to complete their theses. A student with a very similar project, but much better writing skills, and no new baby, just finished hers - only a couple of months short of the maximum. If students take longer than this, there are sanctions - for the student, yes, but for the department and the supervisor. As I said, this student has a history of not being realistic. It leaves me open to potentially being removed from the list of possible supervisors. Which would be A Very Bad Thing. It would take a couple of students in this situation to have this happen, but one is more than zero.

But I'm not her employer (this is a relatively common situation, where a student is employed to do research, the employer allows them to do a PhD and pays their fees). One of the things that boggles my mind is that her boss allowed her to just carry on and not tell me about the pregnancy. And it worries me too - as if I say she has to take a break in her PhD, her sponsor has to agree, and they seem to be saying "whatever floats your boat, we're happy to make you work hard if you want to".

I am feeling very taken advantage of. I know I am going to have to put my foot down about something. I have already given some supervision time to this project before the student was enrolled with us - normally this wouldn't happen - and I've been asked by a similar student in the same area to be an "adviser" even though again she won't enrol with us. This is all very difficult as - although of course this should make no difference, and financially it does not, I am not "rewarded" for such supervision by my employer in terms of it being an official part of my workload. I can, of course, and do, collaborate informally with other senior colleagues - but this is somewhat different. But it makes me look unfriendly, and being friendly is the way to get productive collaborations, and students who actually enrol, and people to write grants with you. And I cannot really afford to appear unfriendly to colleagues, but I cannot afford to appear to be a pushover to my students.

And so it goes

It is looking even more likely that I'll need the manipulation under anaesthetic. But can I be very wicked and say how I was actually pleased I'd need 2 weeks off work to spend every minute doing my exercises? Work does not please me at the moment.

(Although I had quite a good lecture today, a newly constructed lecture which is always a bit nerve-wracking, on Down Syndrome which is also something relatively new to my research, and I managed to shock the class with the 90% termination rate for pregnancies with DS which I quite like doing, sick I know but it is a fact that I feel is brushed under the carpet, and I also used my Brown Owl Powers for good in spotting the two know-it-alls in one group and talking over them for a bit and resolving to split them up next time.)

Not waving, but drowning

Cliched, I know, but I'm not doing very well and can't think outside cliches. I feel bad for moaning when so many other people are doing much worse, either because of really horrible things happening in their lives or because of serious ongoing issues. I think with me it is just a bunch of stuff and it is all getting on top of me. I am sorry, but this is going to be long and self-indulgent.

My shoulder is better, but nowhere near as good as it should be. I have probably 2/3 of the movement I should do in the forwards and sideways directions but only about 25% backwards. I can't do up my bra, it's challenging to zip clothes up on that side, and to tie wrap tops. I will probably never be able to do up my bra in place. Never. I still can't drive as it is very painful to get into 2nd or 4th gear (and a little sore holding the steering wheel, though that would be OK mooching round town).

I am still having physio but she has suggested I don't go twice a week for manipulation (yay!) but instead do more exercises on my own. I had been doing about 15 minutes, 3 times a day, which is preceded by taking a high dose of ibuprofen and warming my shoulder with a heat pack for a further 15 minutes. It's painful and time consuming but do-able and gives me an excuse to sit down in front of some crappy TV 3 times a day.

I was given some pulleys to use and the physio then suggested I start using them in the middle of the day, at work. I work in a 1970s building and they do not fit over the doors at work. But now the physio wants me to do at least something - preferably the pulleys, but that just isn't possible - every hour, as my shoulder apparently stiffens up if left immobile for even that short time. I have been trying to do this for the last week, I find it nigh impossible to coordinate with meetings, travel, setting my phone alarm but then going out of the room but I have been doing my best. As far as I can tell it is not making my shoulder more mobile - just more painful.

And that's another moan. I've been given very large amounts of ibuprofen and a low dose of codeine. I have been taking most of the ibuprofen as I also had some finger tingling, likely caused by inflammation in my arm. That has almost gone, and I'm running out of ibuprofen again, and am starting to get worried that I'm getting an acid stomach. I have to take the ibuprofen after food, and I always seem to end up at the right time to take the pills, but not the right time to eat, and as I say my stomach is not too happy. I have been avoiding taking the codeine. I started taking it at night because it makes me sleepy, but found that if I skip it, it is harder to sleep. This may be psychosomatic as it is a tiny dose, but I am paranoid about it (and don't want to fall asleep at work/in the cinema/on the bus, if I take it earlier in the day. I do take it before physio if I'm having manipulation, but after that I go home and groan anyway). So I'm worried I'll have to stop taking anything that actually works.

I am very likely to need a manipulation to my shoulder in a few months' time, under general or local anaesthetic. And frankly I am beginning to wonder if there is any point in doing the exercises if I'm only going to need the manipulation anyway.

And and and... sitting at my desk makes my shoulders hurt - in a different, new place. I am getting very little work done (though my office is quite tidy since I get up and move stuff around quite often, except of course when I sit at my desk saying to myself "shoulders hurt... get up... no... just look at blogs... forums... Facebook... hence spending more painful, but massively unproductive, time at my desk). I've managed I think ONE day starting at 9.30 and lasting past 5pm in the last month, and two where I got in before 9 and stayed past 4.30. All the other days have been 9.30-10am start, long lunch, go home at 4pm.

And I need to get a promotion in the next 18 months. Very badly. I need to be earning more when I go on adoption leave so I'm not trying to fight for it when on leave/working part time, and because Mr Spouse is likely to be on a new graduate salary at that point. And I've put in I think 5 grants in the last year and 4 have been rejected (and we haven't heard about the other one). I'm basically treading water at the moment, no grants or papers being submitted, just fire-fighting. I am normally a bit of a slacker, but I think I work in a more condensed manner than some people, plus I'm rude to students, so they don't bother me too much. So normally I'd get some of this kind of thing done in term time, which many colleagues say they don't. Now I'm not, and it's scaring me. My colleagues seem to work all day in the office, all evening at home, and the dedicated ones work all weekend and Christmas Day too. I don't do that normally, and couldn't possibly now.

And the whole adoption thing is just so, so dreary and boring and is going to take forEVER and suck out my soul (and our savings - at least we have them, for the moment). And I started my period yesterday, a day early, at least not too crampy owing to the rattly-pill-bottle nature of my stomach these days. But I feel bloated and have put on a couple of inches anyway with not being able to exercise much due to only having one working arm (no cycling, yoga, swimming, or Pilates for a start, and I've only just managed to start running again, just as it got too dark to run in the evenings, and then only after taking yet another painkiller).

And also, very sadly, my MIL is not well - we hope this is temporary, she had a fall but nothing broken, and she has an excellent appetite and is in reasonable physical health, but she is 89, we fear starting to get a little confused, but it is hard to tell if this is because of some other cause (infections are a common cause in the elderly). So she is in hospital for investigations, and we visited her last night.

So, given that at least we have a little money at the moment, and I have no toddlers with chocolate on their hands to smear on me, I thought perhaps cheering myself up with a little retail therapy might not be bad. Which is why after the hospital visit we headed to Kitsch Temple Of Shopping which is Very Badly Signposted, hence it taking me forEVER to find one of the shops I was very keen to visit. And just as I picked up 8 garments from the rails, they closed the changing rooms and would not let me in. 15 minutes before closing. It is over an hour away and I do NOT go there often enough to justify buying 8 garments on the offchance one will fit me.

Which is why last night I was in tears all over Mr Spouse on a bench sitting in KTOS.

Absent from post, guv

I have been slacking. Well and truly slacking. I don't quite know why, as I tend to intersperse my working day with spurts of blog- or forum-reading and I've been feeling a little out of sorts with a couple of my regular forums, but have kept on reading them despite this. So I totally missed what was going on in May's life and feel very, very sorry about this.

I think things are just very slow and vague for us at the moment. Five years on, and we are still not much further. The social worker is nice, and actually has a sense of humour (which is apparently rare). Although we are now sure that the US route is our first choice, she did ask us to justify this, not because she thinks we are wrong, but because in her words "I don't want you wasting your money". We came away even more convinced that we were right: although they initially said they'd take us on if we were open to children aged over 2, she is now saying over-3s only; I would really like to parent at least one child under this age. But more than this, she seems to think that the children available for adoption in the UK are moving more and more towards older and older children, and towards multi-sibling placements - they seem to place few singletons any more. I was also slightly amused to find out she didn't really have any idea how old Mr Spouse is, and like most people thought he was much younger than he is - him being older means we'd be less likely to be chosen by a placing authority for younger children, though the agency takes the age of the younger partner only into consideration.

She again recommended that we have a word with our local authority, who are much more likely to place younger children, but frankly we want to get on with it at this stage. I am reserving the right to see if we could adopt a second child through them, but for now we are going ahead with this and have booked in 5 of the 8 home study sessions we need. Some of it seems rather irrelevant to us, so I'm trying to hold my tongue; I think she can also see that I'm on the same page and do know something about the whole business. We had an interesting discussion about foetal alcohol exposure, for example. Sounds like we should finish this part around February.

First up, I think, is the Adult Attachment Interview. Joy.

To Do List, This Evening's Version

• Ring grandmother of Brownie whose mother has learning difficulties to find out full situation
• Then, ring mother to offer her our remaining ticket to the Panto (she won't be the only mother going, and I strongly suspect some other girls of having forbidden their parents from embarassing them by going too).
• Remove entire contents of wardrobe and linen cupboard, currently draped around dining room/kitchen, drying.
• Pile spare Brownie equipment slightly higher so it is possible to walk to said kitchen without killing oneself
• Hoover living room so social worker, coming tomorrow morning, does not die of dust inhalation.

(Not entirely clear if social worker is only coming to reassure herself that we have decided which adoption route to pursue, or is actually intending to start our home study, but whichever - perhaps a slightly cleaner house would be an advantage. Most prospective adopters tell us that the social worker rarely steps outside the living room and only judges the house on the quality of the biscuits; unless my rep for great home-made biscuits has followed me from the preparation group, and she's expecting fabulous, I think we're OK on those!)

Subtle

We were watching a "hard-hitting 70s drama" the other night and suddenly I realised one of the characters had had a miscarriage. I think I'm probably sensitive to this but it was one of these dramas where you cannot work out what on earth is going on, because nothing is directly stated. It all added up though, first the conversation between husband and wife "what, Vietnamese babies now?" (clearly the overseas adoption option du jour), then the frantic phone call of which you only heard the husbands end "oh no, not again, I'm coming straight there, we can try again". Mr Spouse didn't pick it up, but they did state it explicitly later in the show.

Tonight is the Wave of Light -- 7 PM till 8 PM here. I feel no particular need to go to any public events, but will remember this I think.

Absorbing

When you have an adoption on hold and a broken shoulder and can do very little, what should you do to keep yourself occupied?

Why, open a Brownie pack of course!

I have been wanting to do this for quite some time - I came back to Guiding on a slight whim about 7 years ago, and have been helping established groups (a couple that are fabulous, one that is small but cute, and one that frankly was a waste of space) since then. Our part of town is badly served, as is one particular ethnic community (largely due to religious classes directly after school every day, and lack of awareness of Brownies even by UK-born mothers).

There is a stack of paperwork to fill in, mostly by hand, and many of my contacts were surprised to get multiple phone calls from me organising this, that, and the other at the point when I couldn't type. The church that owns the hall we are now meeting in unfortunately would not know an act if it came up and slapped it in the face, let alone how to get one together, and I say that as a member of that particular church. Despite that, I have had many fabulous (though I say them myself) ideas over the summer, having had lots of thinking and surfing time, and we had our first meeting last week.

Thankfully it was a beautiful day, and equally thankfully even though there was no wind, kites fly when a seven-year-old is running very fast and pulling them along. And little girls get very excited when you tell them they can take their kite home.

Pieces of paper

Adoption paperwork so far (this attempt):
1. Official application to agency (sent in August? early Sept? - the agency has 8 months to complete the process from that date).
2. Feedback on whole preparation course (sum: first two days repeat of fostering course; middle day by guest speaker interesting for the first hour, then too detailed on stuff we don't need, not enough on stuff we do; final two days mainly relevant, and helpful especially if we go down the UK route).
3. Letter saying that we intend to go down the US route but would like to keep UK route (ages 2-5) open for the moment because of agency uncertainties in the US.
4. Six fingerprint record cards (two for Mr. Spouse, four for me).
5. Application for FBI records for both of us.
6. Application for CA state criminal records for both of us.

Pending:
7. and 8. Application for criminal records from the two African countries in which I have lived. This would be fairly straightforward (information on how to do this is published in multiple places on the web, including the High Commission Website in London of one of the countries. However the other country has neglected to inform anyone publishing this information - e.g. the USCIS, who need such records also - what their fee for doing this is).

Next up:
UK CRB (criminal records check).
Medicals

And then (probably concurrently):
Very very large UK homestudy report.

blurgh

I am at work, using my new speech recognition software. It's a bit of a pain, especially around navigation and spaces, it's not too bad at working out what I want to say, or at least at giving what I want to stay as one of its alternatives.

It's just hitting me, exactly how long it's going to be before I am a parent, and how old I am going to be. Either way, we're relying on someone to pick us, be it birth parent or social worker, ironically if it's a newborn and it's a birth parent doing the picking they may not know our actual ages, which may be in our favour (I'm not 100% clear on this).

But all those days, weeks, months, not just the process -- but the waiting, and the boring work, (sure, I like some of my work), and just stuff.

So, really, what do I want?

Because it is really me - Mr Spouse is happy with whatever I decide.

The adoption course was good - about half of it was, anyway. Some of it was the same as the fostering course, some rather basic and pointless (and at points, wrong) stuff on child development, but some I felt gave us the confidence (if not all the skills, mainly because you can only learn so much without doing) to deal with children with difficult backgrounds. We also, happily, talked about contact quite a bit - we are, of course, on the extreme end of the spectrum, for the UK at least - our end being "family holidays if we can manage it", the other end being "over my dead body". We are not quite at "together for every significant moment plus sleepovers", which I know some US open adopters are. But that would be unlikely given geographics, anyway.

In the last couple of weeks we found out a career-related piece of information about Mr Spouse, which is good, helpful, and makes adopting now a good idea - but makes going to the US for a protracted period less possible. He feels more geared up about what he is doing, and I'm really pleased about that. It is all good - it just means that we will probably have to do the UK process first whatever we decide.

Mr Spouse would be happy to be the parent of preschooler(s) first (or verging on, at least UK, school age). We have spoken, and will speak again, however about how likely it is that we'd be chosen for a younger child or a sibling group with a younger child. I do not feel that I have to have each of my children from birth, or even from babyhood. I just feel that I want the experience of parenting a baby. Not even necessarily a newborn (I do like my sleep and, though I know older children don't sleep either, it shortens the sleep deprivation period if they are a year older). A newborn would be lovely, but a 1-year-old from the UK would be, er, well, free.

Matching times might be similar (our agency would not let us go through with it if there was NO chance of matching, but we might wait a lot longer fora 1-year-old in the UK, even in a sibling group, than for a newborn in the US), but there's an additional admin step before sorting out the US end. So on time, we have little to choose between them. We're looking at parenthood within 2 years, definitely not within 1, if we're lucky between those two.

So the question is really, if the agency doesn't think there is much chance of matching us with a baby in the UK, how important is that period to me? And, despite my feeling more confident about parenting an older child who's been through a lot (which, obviously, we'd need to do if we took on siblings), I'm not sure I want to give that up.

(Can I just add: feel free to comment, would love you to, but PLEASE for my sanity do not gush about how lovely it is to parent your genetic child as a baby? thx).

Same old same old

Have had the first two days of our adoption preparation course. Not surprisingly it is almost exactly the same as our fostering course, except longer. At least we don't feel quite so much like we've been repeatedly whacked after the session on abuse/safety which we had today.

It's just such a long way from home and not really new to us (even the social work stuff that was new to both of us last time).

It is pretty much exclusively geared to UK domestic adopters from foster care, which isn't too surprising, though at least one other couple wants to adopt from overseas (they are of an ethnicity which is difficult to match in the UK but one of the fairly common sending countries). Much of the foster care agenda is useful for adoption from an institution overseas, though, and we'll get individual sessions which are country-specific anyway. If we'd never done the foster care course this WOULD be a helpful course, but we did, and it isn't really.

We're still keeping a slightly open mind about our 3rd option - the UK foster care one - but really moving away from it, I think. If we wanted to have an under-2 placed with us, it might just be possible in the UK, but probably not with this agency, and possibly not with some other agencies/local authorities, partly because of Mr Spouse's age. I think we will ask one last time whether there are any circumstances in which this might happen (e.g. if we took siblings) but not really that confident about it.

There have been a few interesting or fun moments - e.g. discussing adoption in the media - "Everyone knows about adoption!" as one of the social workers put it. Yes, they do - they know what's in the media - everyone knows that social workers snatch babies, and that no white British couples are ever approved to adopt in the UK...

Joy of joys

We are going to a Dedication this weekend for the baby of the Now We're Fertile couple. These are the ones who, although they sympathised with us during the three years and unexplained infertility diagnosis it took them to get pregnant, conveniently forgot that it's NOT nice to be broadsided with pregnancy announcements, and told us while we were on holiday, with just them.

Dedications, for the uninitiated, are the Baptist/"We're So Special We Don't Fit In a Denomination" version of christenings/infant baptisms. One is not supposed to be baptised until one is old enough and savvy enough to stand up and speak for oneself, but strangely, parents still want Tradition and Ceremony for their baby. Hence the Dedication.

Now, unfortunately I have known a lot of Special church people in my life so I know all about these, but the general population doesn't. Especially not card shops.

So, having bitten my tongue, agreed to go, started steeling myself for the Shouty Church, the Over The Top Reception (in the same venue as their Over The Top Wedding - at least there isn't a river boat to take us between the two this time), and come over all Good Wife and gone to the card shop, what did I find?

Lots of Christening cards (no Baptism cards for either babies or adults - I'd actually call it a Baptism whatever the age, but no matter.) A selection of It's a Boy cards and of Naming Ceremony cards. Nothing whatsoever for infant dedication.

See, when you try and behave, where does it get you? I've a good mind to buy them a Civil Ceremony card, well, it's a ceremony, and I'm hoping I'll manage to be civil.

[Theological aside: you may switch off now, but my take on this is: baptism welcomes infants, children, or adults into the church, and anyone can be a member of the church, it does not take knowledge or maturity. Refusing to baptise infants because they cannot answer for themselves begs the question, what of those who are adults or adolescents and cannot answer for themselves? It seems to me rather insulting to children (and parents of such children) who have severe learning disabilities such that they will never be verbal. They should not be refused membership of the church either. Likewise, my godmother's sister-in-law, brought up Baptist but with Asperger's Syndrome, refused to answer "yes" to the questions put to her in her adolescent baptism preparation, because having Asperger's Syndrome she would not answer anything that she was not 100% sure about. No-one is 100% sure about belief, and if they are I'd be mighty suspicious, and I think the sister-in-law wasn't intending to be refused baptism. It is, to my mind, a dangerously gnostic model of belief - if you know certain facts and answer correctly to certain questions, you are a member of the church - if not, not.]