Trips

We had our first family trip to a festival as I said (baby's first festival wristband, a far more important keepsake than first tooth/haircut/shoes), and also a stay in London seeing some Paralympics events (fabulous, especially the wheelchair basketball final). We're off again in a month to France for our one and only (very likely) holiday during both school and university term time, as I can't normally go on holiday then (we'll do some in school term before Baby Spouse starts school, though). We're going somewhere we have been as a couple and, like our festival-going, we have said how nice it would be to go as a family.

We're also going to book, shortly, a trip back to Birth State, in fact likely around Baby Spouse's birthday. We are doing this to avoid fuss. My family would make a huge fuss (as it's so shortly after Christmas, we're hoping to avoid Christmas Fuss too) and we are hoping we can get one year without this. Nella's parents said that they often spend time at Waterside Resort in Birth State, which sounds lovely, so we think we will ask if they could come there for a weekend and bring Nella and Montana (big sis).  We think Nella is under the impression that we will be visiting Nice Little Agency Ville and will pay for her to visit us there but we'd rather not get into doing that. However, we're encouraged that she's still calling us, if we don't call first, about once a month, and she sounded more calm and (I hate to say it but) sober this month.  So we're hopeful that she will at least make it to see us, if not in Resort then in Birth City (which is not very exciting as a place to visit but we could make a two day trip or something).

I also know where I want to go on next summer's holiday... am I too obsessed with travel? Or is it withdrawal symptoms from work travel?

My Flabber Was Ghasted

A couple of instances recently.

I went for a leg wax (I cannot do them myself and hate shaving) and it wasn't my usual beautician (I think the usual one knows we have adopted, but she is more restrained in her comments too). I mentioned that Mr Spouse was looking after the baby, and the beautician asked me a few other questions and then asked "so, how was the birth". I could not think what to say so I said "I don't really want to talk about it". I think she was also going to ask "so, how old are you?" but I deflected her with another question.

None of my mummy friends have asked me that outright (or even my age!). When the topic comes round to birth horrors, I just play with the baby or change the subject.

Yesterday I had lunch with a very good, very old friend who was one of our referees for Baby Spouse's home state (they require non-relative referees while all the other bodies require one to be a relative).  She was talking to another friend about people called Somethingson* which is her husband/kids' surname, and a family name in that friend's family. It's a fairly common name but the friend was keen to research families with that name. "Of course, D's father isn't a real Somethingson because he was adopted".

Speechless. As usual you think what you should have said later - it's not worth saying to her now but I wanted to say "but Baby Spouse is a real Spouse".

*names changed to protect those not present

A conversation

I mentioned in my last post bumping into an old friend and finding out that she was adopted. I'll try to relay the essence of the conversation here - forgive me if it gets a bit garbled - but it was very interesting.

It turns out that she and her two younger brothers were adopted, and she was 5 when placed (I think when placed for adoption, rather than when first fostered, but I'm not sure). I think she said that they were separated in foster care and then adopted together, but because her brothers had more moves than she did, or possibly because she spent more time with her birth mother (that's her interpretation), she was able to form better relationships and to pull her life together when older. 

And she does indeed have her life more than together - she is a mum to two lovely children and has two separate qualifications - she was in a more technical occupation when younger and then switched to social work - and she used to work in adoption (I don't think she works in children's services any more). But by her account her brothers do not.

There were a few other things she said that stuck in my mind - we were discussing the US and UK adoption systems and what happens when a child would be removed at birth and the parents know this.  I was also explaining that we might consider concurrent placement (fostering with a view to adoption) and she said she'd prefer if all adoptive placements were actually long term fostering. I am not sure if she agrees with me (that children shouldn't be moved around) or if she thinks that permanency shouldn't necessarily mean adoption.

She also said, and actually I agree though it's a bit more complex than that, that it sounds like Nella very much had Baby Spouse's interests at heart when she decided to place him for adoption. Nella did not want him to be removed without any input on her part into who the parents would be, and she didn't want to risk him going through multiple foster placements. In fact, the risk of him being in multiple placements would have been greater had she been able to care for him temporarily at some point - so it now occurs to me that she put aside the possibility of her caring for him in order to achieve stability for her.

The complexity though comes when you see that she got a lot out of placing him, especially support from us, but also a more formal contact agreement (though still not enforceable) through Nice Little Agency, who I have no doubt explained to her their standard agreement.  We explained what contact we hope to have - and she was firm in saying (and good for her, as many adoption social workers don't seem to think like this) that we have to remember it is not about us or Nella, but about Baby Spouse.

But one thing that I think we agree on is that parenting Baby Spouse is not like parenting a birth child - as I said to her, I think my family in particular think that it is now all done and dusted, and we can carry on as if I gave birth to him.  We know we can't. Even if we never saw any members of his birth family again (which I have to say seems unlikely) it would not be the same.  

I must remember to keep her updated - I think she's one of the few of my contemporaries who really gets it - I do have a couple of friends who were adopted at birth, but in my generation those adoptees seem to divide into [COMPLETE STEREOTYPE ALERT] "don't really want to know much about birth family" even including "would be disloyal to adoptive family" or else "I was lied to all my life, my family life was a lie".  I really hope we don't end up either end of that spectrum.

Oops

I forgot to say that our adoption was finalised about a week after I last wrote. I don't feel much different to be honest.

I have five minutes before the washing machine finishes and Baby Spouse is sitting in his high chair dropping toys. So this will be quick.

The washing is the 75th load after a very muddy festival experience. Baby Spouse has just learned to sit up on his own but can't yet crawl, so most of the mud was ours. We go to this festival every couple of years and saw lots of old friends and met some new. It was interesting to see how some people just say how gorgeous he is (no reference to adoption), others ask intelligent (or not) questions about the process, and others (new friends and those who were completely out of the loop) ask if we were at the festival the previous year (i.e. around 20 weeks gestation).

I had a very interesting, but very long, conversation with an old friend, which I will try to reproduce in full before I forget it.

I am hoping I will feel more "wow" about being a legal parent when we have our baptism and adoption celebration next month. However my mother is currently in another huff because we have the godparents and associated kids staying and we have said that she needs to find somewhere else to stay. She is too cheap to stay in a travelodge, and regards it as her right to stay at our house. We have told her it is not her business who sleeps at our house or where they sleep, as she seems to think we can squeeze her in a child bed in the baby's room.

And Mr Spouse has shown himself to be an expert in emotional blackmail by telling her we don't want to have to explain to Baby Spouse that his granny couldn't be bothered to come to his baptism so she isn't in the photos. He of course feels this particularly acutely because of losing his mother. Note that my father (long-pre-booked-travel) and brother (does not want to make another trip to the UK as he has just been here) aren't coming, in fact the only one of my 5 aunts and uncles and 11 cousins coming is the one who will be godparent (and their kids).

So although we have almost all of Mr Spouse's teeny family, and several friends, I don't have high hopes for feeling fabulously excited. But there will be cake. And a gown.

Tracking

The substitute for a court appearance to finalise Baby Spouse's adoption is a load of notarised paperwork (how surprising!). It's been to the relevant UK government department, back to us, and yesterday was FedExed to OHP, where it arrived today. Next stop is NLA-town, but as NLA can't deal with it, it will be going to Substitute Lawyer to take to court on an undetermined day. Will keep you posted.

Ooh

We just (this minute) got an email from big brother's (and I may as well call him that for the minute as Baby Spouse is never going to have another big brother) adoptive mother (she calls herself that, though the social worker, Nella and birth grandparents have variously called her foster or adoptive mother). She sent two photos and says (and I agree) that they look very alike!

Now we have to chat about how much to tell her, what contact details to give her etc. We already told Nella and birth grandparents that we are fine with them showing her photos (most of our photos are prints, not emailed).

I nearly deleted the email actually as the subject was his first name, which is one of "those" names that are sometimes the subject of spam messages! 

Wishing my life away

While waiting to be a mum, I found myself wondering what next year would hold, hoping we'd be parents by Christmas/Easter/summer/autumn. Like May, I found myself thinking "the next Olympics/conference/school year, we'll definitely be parents".  Not making plans for holidays or travel, in case we were pregnant/still pregnant/had a baby/a match.

Now I find myself making long term plans, including what we'll be doing on specific days next year, and these are also somewhat related to whether we will grow our family, but I am embracing it. Baby Spouse's nursery has quite rigid rules on taking holiday time, and we also want to schedule travel back to his birth state, hopefully seeing birth family, so we more or less know when our holiday will be taken next year (and I've decided where, but haven't persuaded Mr Spouse to book it yet).  

I'm also working on him to have my nieces to stay for a couple of weeks to practice for having more than one child (and also, whether we decide to adopt or foster, to persuade social workers that we can deal with sleeping problems [no 1] and extreme fussy eating [no 2] - as Baby Spouse so far is mainly completely laid back on both counts). And as I'm going to be working part time, and with things like Bank Holidays, my holiday time is almost all accounted for now.

And I'm very happy about that. Embracing it. In fact, I'm just going to check my preferred holiday venue for July 2013 is still free.

Our current uncertainty is, unfortunately, Mr Spouse's job situation. We are financially fine (we can't quite work out how, but a low interest rate = low mortgage payments, plus being generally stingy, we think), but he's nervous about what's going to happen, and we are still booking the nursery place for the days I'll work, for all our sakes.

In other news, I think I have said that Mr Spouse should be in the US finalising Baby Spouse's adoption this week, but our New Shiny Lawyer arranged for this not to happen (several thousand miles' travel for a 15 minute court appearance being rather wasteful).  We answered the same questions by deposition here this week, and they are on their way to Government Department from where we'll get them back next week and send them to Official Hague Person. I'll keep you posted.

P.S. Half an hour ago I left Baby Spouse with Mr Spouse to have a lie down, as I had a headache. He is now crying loudly (status: normal) in his high chair as his tea has not materialised as fast as he would like (i.e. 2 seconds before he got in the room). Although bottle feeds are more or less equally shared, I am slightly stressed, and Mr Spouse is trying to plead ignorance, about solids. The issue is not what to feed or whether Baby Spouse will take solids, it's just very very time consuming and messy, and ties us to the house more than previously. I am being a very bad mummy and leaving Mr Spouse to deal with this while I blog. He thinks I'm still lying down.

P.P.S. make that thought I was still lying down. He came upstairs for a nappy change just now. Busted.

Am I the only one here?

There are times in your life when you do something ordinary for a not very ordinary reason - sometimes not a very good reason.

You wonder if you are the only person doing this for that reason.

Am I the only person having an ultrasound to find out if my baby is dead?

Am I the only person having blood taken to find out if the ERPC worked?

Am I the only person who gets to talk about prenatal brain development to my students, while wondering how far my baby's development got?

Am I the only person asking my employer for annual leave not to sit on a beach, but to go to a frankly not massively exciting adoption preparation course?

Am I the only person sitting in this conference seminar on the latest research on prenatal drug exposure, wondering if I will need to know this for my child?

Are we the only parents with their baby in hospital who didn't give birth to the baby?

Am I the only person picking up prints of their nearly-7-month-old baby to send to his birth mother?

And are we the only family planning next year's holiday to visit their child's birth family.

But I'm happy about the last two. Though, as this will be our last set of monthly photos, I won't miss desperately trying to find the right number of suitable photos at the last minute. We take far too many arty (read: blurred, back view, naked) photos.

Someone has been reading the baby book

And it's not me.

Baby Spouse chose yesterday to roll all the way over for the first time. Today he's 6 months corrected. He's also decided that not all solids are truly disgusting - banana is particularly nice, as are rice cakes.

We were given What To Expect In The First Year, but it scared us so we gave it to the charity shop. It has about 1 million diseases in it. My friend whose baby was 8 weeks early said the other day they looked in it to find out what she should be doing, and immediately decided they shouldn't look in it any more.

So, when you forget to blog...

Too much happens, and you can't blog, or you forget it all.

The News in Brief (not all good):

Baby Spouse is now six months and some transitions are happening (in his own room, holding and mouthing objects, banging), some kind of (rolling, which he did when tiny, but he got heavy, has partly come back, he is rocking on his tummy and arms), and some NOT - Mummy what is this horrible stuff you've put in my mouth Eewwww give me some MILK!

We had a monthly phone call with Nella and she did not sound as keen to talk as previously. We were due to cut down the frequency and I don't feel that she will object. This is a bit of a relief. Actually, it sounded like she was talking about someone else's child, which it hasn't before.

My mother has been in a major strop. She often sees things very negatively, but now is dragging up perceived slights from years ago. I think she has calmed down a bit, but both I and Mr Spouse are a bit bemused.

I still have bits and pieces of work to do, but unfortunately this is interpreted by some colleagues as meaning I can do anything they want as well. This is annoying me. I will book a babysitter (not always the free paternal one) for an important meeting, but not for an hour to create someone a reading list.

A former colleague - one of those people you click with after a short while, and keep up with on the Book of Face, had a baby boy about 2 weeks before Baby Spouse was born. On Wednesday he died, probably a cot death (SIDS). I am not sure I should even email her to offer support - I have a baby the same age as hers.

Sorry, I did say it wasn't all good.

Contact

After a couple of recent posts and comments, and a few things on other people's blogs (and, to be fair, not on blogs but on scary message boards), I was interested to read these two posts:

Bumping into birth mum  

Gearing up for Father's Day

These present almost entirely opposing views of birth family contact - both families adopted their child from foster care, in both cases their child was removed against the birth parents' wishes, at around the same age, though neither have gone into detail about the issues that led to the removal (and I don't blame them, I won't be sharing that kind of detail here).  Thorn and her partner are both female, so their daughter has no dad in the house, but I am pretty sure if it had been their daughter's birth mother they had bumped into in similar circumstances the reaction would have been the same (i.e. it's not because he's the birth father and they don't have a father on the scene at all).

In both cases their child spent some time in foster care before the adoptive placement (so although it's much more common in the US, Thorn wasn't a foster carer immediately after birth family removal and therefore with ongoing contact with birth parents as part of that placement). Neither family has current direct contact with either birth parent, but it's really interesting (and you can read the followup on Thorn's blog) what the reaction in each case has been to an actual or potential chance encounter.

And yes, I do "know" (as in, speak to on the internet) US adopters from foster care who cut off all contact, or who are even more negative than Stix about contact (and please also see Emily's thoughtful comment on the previous post* on just this topic), but I just thought this was interesting, as the posts were about such similar things.

From our end, we've just printed out what may be our last monthly set of contact photos (I'm not too sure, we are not being monitored any more due to the issues with NLA and their SW, but we may be due another one) to send to Nella, but we still haven't any word whether the other SW has made any contact with Baby Spouse's BF.  The slight medical scare we had turned out to be nothing in particular, at least, nothing that needs treatment or that could be due to Nella's choices, just something to watch. 

We've just put up a photo tree in Baby Spouse's room (this kind of thing, just something we were given a while ago), and it has photos of us, him, his grandparents that he sees (i.e. my parents**), his grandmother that he met but doesn't see (Mr Spouse's mother) and Nella. Mr Spouse asked "what do we tell people when they ask who she is?" (thinking especially of the nosy cleaner) and I said "they are family members".  We will also probably put up nieces, godparents***, aunt, uncle, but haven't got them all printed out yet.


OK, that post is DEFINITELY long enough, and I'd love to hear from my original two bloggers and have them tell me what I've said wrong!


*Sorry about the use of the term "foster carer", by the way, it doesn't actually bother me, even at the moment Baby Spouse is technically in "private foster care" though we have a rather unusual status legally and we aren't sure if in the UK we are legally carers, guardians, or parents. But I don't think it would bother me even if we were doing foster care, I'm happy to say we are parentING a child even if we aren't their parents.


**Or not. Mother in strop, unable to accept any boundaries, and also in delusional state about everything I say, apparently, as she's just sent me a long email saying "you hate me because you won't let me do X, Y, Z" (no, we won't let her, some we can't, some we just don't want her to) but also "and you refuse to do A, B, C" which, erm, we haven't?


***Baptism/finalisation party booked for September!

Apparently...

...I don't understand the issues that UK adopters (i.e.those whose children were in foster care) have around contact with birth family, because Baby Spouse was not in his birth home after birth. And if you have frequent contact you are just a long term foster carer. I would love to be an advocate for open adoption but I think my views are just being dismissed.  Interestingly I think that a lot of US adopters from foster care have a lot more contact than we imagine we'll have.

We are Baby Spouse's parents. We cannot wish Nella and his birth father away, but we are not foster carers. We are permanent. We are here - she is not.  We want him to recognise her, to know who she is, to see where his features come from (though some of them will come from us, in the same way that couples who have been married for a long time come to look like each other). We don't want him to grow up with a fantasy that she is an heiress who would give him a fabulous life. We don't want him to suddenly decide to seek her out, without support, in his teens.

Nella is not a lovely college student who would have been perfectly capable of parenting, but decided not to. As you will have gathered, there were multiple issues and reasons she would not have been able to parent Baby Spouse. This is pretty common among the situations we were shown while we were waiting. We still think they should have contact and we resent the implication this makes us less his parents.

In other news, I had a GP visit with Baby Spouse today for a long-running but minor issue. I was a little puzzled by the nurse-practitioner's body language when starting to talk about what the issue might be. I understood a little more when she told me that the issue might be something originating before or at birth, and which I would have been vastly less likely to cause than someone in the situation that Nella was in.

You can see why I might not totally be on board with the idea that Baby Spouse has been unaffected by the circumstances surrounding his origins.

(It looks like I managed to press Publish after only writing a bit of this. Sorry)

Kids say the darndest things...

I was at Brownies today and Mr Spouse brought Baby Spouse by to pick us up (as I have hurt my back and can't really walk or lift stuff).  One of the girls said "ooh yes, that's the baby you've adopted, isn't it". That's right. "Where did you find him" (very tempted to say - under the gooseberry bush). "Well, sweetie, sometimes babies' first mummies and daddies can't look after them, so then they have to find a new mummy and daddy". My other (very down to earth) Brownie asked "so, why do people have babies in the first place if they can't look after them?"
Why indeed.
Anyway I told her "sometimes people don't plan to have babies, and that is something you should perhaps ask your mummy and daddy".
I bet I'm going to be so popular.

This is not a very exciting post

But I went shopping today in our nearest BIG city (just over an hour on the train) and I bought:

2 plates (to replace the top tier of a cake stand I sold on Ebay that broke - but our plan is not going to work. Boo)

1 tank top and 2 pairs running shorts for me (AA, I wear them as warm weather pyjamas, causing Mr Spouse great mirth)

2 bodysuits (onesies), one black and one bright green, as well as karate pants and a wrap top, for Baby Spouse (all AA, particularly pleased about the black onesie)

A salt grinder, a navy and green maxi dress, two size 6mo+ (HOW is this possible) grobags, a light green onesie and a romper with a lion on (TK Maxx)

6 more bodysuits and a London bus romper (Next)

4 bras and 2 swimsuits (Bravissimo)

But no shoes.

And I was home by 4.15. All made possible by the power of Dad in Charge. Plus he took baby out of the bedroom at 7.30 am and I went back to sleep.

We got a voicemail from Nella to say she needs to give us her new address (so, housing situation has as predicted not stayed stable but she still has a phone). Mr Spouse doesn't really like talking to her on the phone - it is true, she finds him a little hard to understand.

I told him that IF we adopt again and it's from the UK he should do this kind of call as his accent is easier for people from our region. He did not say No we are not adopting again.

And on a more positive note...

I had a witty title for this but it's gone...

Anyway, Baby Spouse continues to be delightful and one of the most wonderful things about this whole being a parent thing is just how besotted Mr Spouse is with Baby Spouse.  He said the other day he wasn't sure about having a tiny baby as they "just lie there all day and sleep". Even given how addicted to sleeping Baby Spouse is, he is a delight to be with and incredibly rewarding to interact with* and very very smiley.  Daddy is the funniest person in the world EVER, apart from Mummy.

Our social worker is also a big fan of Baby Spouse and loves coming for her visits to us because she gets to hold him (much older adopted children who are not sure who they are supposed to be parented by will try and sit on social workers' laps, and this is to be discouraged; slightly older adopted children who are firmly attached to Mummy and Daddy would be scared of her; but he's too young to mind yet).


He still naps quite a lot (he's napping now, and I should be making my lunch, but am blogging instead) but there are moments when you think "what can I do with him, he doesn't want to sit in his bouncy chair and I can only amuse him for about 2 minutes with a rattle and I'm not about to put the TV on for him" but thank goodness for parent and baby groups I say, as I've settled into a routine of going to a few of these and he loves looking at the other babies and parents, and he is at least calm when in the pushchair or sling going there. We have a weekly (but highly interruptible) routine, and I'm thinking of being brave and going for a day's shopping in The City on the train soon, which he should be OK about as he'll like going on the train and looking at the people.

I still have not told any of the parents that I've met through these groups that we are adopting him** and it has not yet happened that any of the parents I knew already have been to the same groups as me, but our church has just started organising one and several people at church know we are adopting him so it's only a matter of time.  

I have said to people that it's not the first thing I say about him but it's not a secret, but now I'm second guessing myself as perhaps I am deliberately keeping it quiet? There is one baby at the main group I go to who has a hearing impairment, and when people find that out, they always want to talk about it, not in a negative way, but it is natural and I am as nosy as the next person.

*Except when he wakes up at 4.45 am to whinge about how he's just woken up, but isn't hungry, but would like someone to do something please. And then goes back to sleep 20 minutes later but I don't.

**At the moment, we say "we are adopting him" because we have not yet adopted him finally. But I'm not sure what we'll say in the future. I incline towards "we adopted him when he was a baby" rather than "he is adopted". 

Worth repeating

I got an email today from a reader who is an adoptive parent. I won't share their name and I feel slightly bad sharing their comment but I really, really think this is information that needs to be out there in as many places as possible.

The reader says "I'm seeing lots of comments about him being quiet, not fussing, very little crying etc. I just wanted to share my thoughts with you. Attachment springs to mind. I'm not sure if you know much about attachment and if you do forgive me but if you don't it might be worth looking in to."

Short answer (and actually slightly rude): why is it bad for a baby to be quiet and not fuss? this sounds like something my mother would say! Baby Spouse is actually one of the happiest, sunniest babies that most people we know have ever met. And premature babies are often quiet and don't cry. That's what the NICU staff told us and I'll take their word over someone who hasn't had any newborns in the house (and that's not just rude because it's flippant but also because I know many UK adopters would love to adopt a newborn, but can't. So I am sorry).

Long answer: I am very very worried by what adopters are being told in their adoption preparation about attachment. I am not posting this to make people look ill-informed but in case I can help someone who has not had good information.

Background: this reader said she hadn't read back beyond January, so does not know that I teach people about children's development, and research children's development, for a living. So can be forgiven. But even while I'm off work, I can't help trying to make sure people are well-informed about children's development. The reader does know that Baby Spouse was a newborn when placed.

In our adoption preparation, the timescales of attachment were clearly gone through.  Infants first become properly "attached", in other words they know who their caregivers are and they miss them when they leave, at the earliest at about 6 months of age.  I won't copy and paste the Wikipedia article as that would be a bit pointless, but it is up to date on current research. We didn't go into attachment styles or attachment in adults at our prep course, as it isn't appropriate. The most important facts though, are those on early time scales, and those were strongly emphasised.

Irresponsible people point those in the adoption triad to the book The Primal Wound, which I won't link to.  The thesis of this book is that any separation, however early, disrupts adoption.  I've looked for articles in respected, peer reviewed* journals cite this book (as most of the citations of this book are by the author, a sure sign of a one-person theory) and did find this article in what is really the top journal in my field. From this article I quote:

"Mainstream adoption researchers and specialists
(Brinich, 1980; Brodzinsky et al., 1992; Nickman,
1985) do not believe that infant adoption constitutes
an immediate loss at placement that inevitably disrupts
early attachments."

Most other articles I could find were in minor journals I hadn't heard of, or in journals that don't deal with child development. 


I shouldn't be too surprised that some prep courses don't cover it properly, though, as at our adoption approval panel, one of the members asked us what we'd do if we had a child who had attachment difficulties. I was very well behaved and did not say "write a really famous paper overturning everything we know about attachment theory" but charitably assumed they had not read the bit saying we'd be adopting a baby a few days or weeks old.

Adoption involves loss, in the same way that death of a parent involves loss. But there's no evidence that adoption in the first few weeks or days involves disruption of attachment and there's no reason it should because attachment has not formed by then. I do see a lot of adopters writing on message boards that their child will be sad/will have a disrupted attachment because of moving to a foster home at birth. They may well be sad later in life when they know more about what happened to them. But they won't experience it at the time and neither will they experience a disruption to attachment since it hasn't happened yet.


Of course things that happen before birth affect children and of course genetics matter - both are important for Baby Spouse. And there is information in what we know about that that could lead to him being quiet, but which we aren't sharing.

But since attachment is formed in the first six months of life, this is when inconsistent caregiving can interfere with it. I hope we are consistent caregivers, but a fair few children who spend time in foster care in their first few months don't spend all their time in foster care, but shuttle back and forth to birth family, or between carers.  This is one major reason why the UK assumptions that children will go to foster care while their fate is decided, and then to an adoptive family, is bad for children. Children who spend long periods of time in hospital are also at risk of attachment problems, as although they have loving carers in hospital and at home, the carers are not consistent.

If you are interested in a readable and accurate account of the actual facts behind attachment (not the pseudo-facts behind the attachment parenting movement), I highly recommend Understanding Attachment by Jean Mercer.

Blank slate

One of the interesting things about having a child that isn't genetically related to either of us is that we don't have the expectations that other people seem to have about their biological children. I'm not talking that he will be an astronaut/musician/teacher but that he will be sensitive to things on his skin (like Mr Spouse, and like a lot of children I know whose parents can afford expensive organic creams), will sleep well, will be a fussy eater, will use a pacifier - the kind of things that your mother says "ooh when you were a baby you..."

However our generally well hard and not bothered baby has unfortunately decided to be allergic to a couple of different washing powders (the branded one is worse than the own brand, which I am slightly proud of him for). But I bet if we had a birth child my mother would be saying "oh, you should only use Brand X" which either doesn't exist any more or has a completely different formulation. So that would not be massively helpful either.

I took ages to edit and post this because so much has happened in between. We had to work out the proper baby garb for a funeral (mother-in-law's, last week - answer was Not Rainbow Stripes which is my favourite baby garb currently). We had our first visit to the out-of-hours doctor (today, baby's temperature magically lower upon entering room). I've had a fairly reassuring meeting with my line manager about part time hours on return to work, we'll see if an upcoming change of manager makes a difference but I'm pushing for this in writing ASAP).

Also, the agency implode came to a conclusion, said conclusion including further expenditure on a lawyer for us, and missing photos for Nella. She also changed her phone number yet again, which I should be used to by now but which panicked me. Anyway, I heard from her today that she got the last two batches - a relief on many counts including the fact that she's still in an uncertain living situation so we aren't always sure mail gets to her.

I told her about Mr Spouse's mum and she was very sweet, and said how nice it was she got to meet Baby Spouse, which is exactly what we and everyone else have been saying. I knew that there was little chance he'd get to know her and remember her, but I was hoping for more time with them together so we could have more stories to tell him. I have made sure to keep a few things for him, some from Mr Spouse's childhood that she had but also some odd things like dressing-up clothes that we can say "that was from your grandma".

We've asked our UK agency if they will do what is called "letterbox" here and what US adopters probably know as "contact" - they'll hold on to copies of all our photos and letters till Baby Spouse turns 18, in case anything happens to any of the parties - they seem OK with this, though they've never done it for any overseas adopters.

I think they are impressed with us for persisting with contact, both in general and also now we can't do this through Formerly Nice Little Agency. It only occurred to me today that we could, if we felt like it, use this opportunity to decide not to continue with contact. I actually shocked myself for even thinking of it.

Lucky

I have already posted about people saying Baby Spouse is lucky, and how to make people realise it is not lucky if you cannot grow up with your original family. We have tended also to emphasise what an easy baby he is and how rewarding. But I was caught out the other day when I was surprised when someone offered me a seat on public transport when I had him in the sling. Surely I already have an advantage and I should be giving up my seat?

There have been a few amusing posts on STFU Parents about things not to say to your childless friends, and about "mommyjacking". One common theme is telling people they cannot possibly know the meaning of the word "tired" until they have children. As I say, we are very lucky in how easy Baby Spouse is and the fact that he actually sleeps, but I can think of at least four things in the past that have left me at least as tired:

- Shift work (as a volunteer, but coming just before starting medical school, it was very good for me in that it played a part in my, very sensible, decision to follow a different career).

- Insomnia, which at times has been chronic.

- Being in charge of a group of school aged children on a multi-day holiday (it's when they take it in turns to have nightmares/arguments/homesickness).

- Being in charge of a single, very ill school aged child who can't be left alone, even for one night (thanks to that parent who still sent her daughter on sleepover).

The last two I know are likely to happen again (the first because I'm a masochist and the second because I know there will be illness at some point). But if you are awake feeding a newborn (at least, our newborn), you don't need to be nearly as alert as if you have a sleepwalker or cough-till-you-vomiter. These thoughts leave me to conclude that my recent ennui was not entirely tiredness-based.

In other news, Baby Spouse's cousins adore him, naturally, and vice versa (five year olds are very amusing to a baby). The clans aka all my friends will descend on our London flat tomorrow and the next day (approx 8 adults and more children). And everyone at my work is taking it in turns to be a pain in the proverbial about matters adoption-leave-related.

Brain dump

We saw my mother-in-law yesterday. Mr Spouse was pleased that she was actually awake briefly, though she is very seriously ill and they have stopped treatment, he had not seen her awake on any of his previous visits, even when she was not as unwell and was fairly responsive a lot of the time. I was also pleased we were able to take Baby Spouse as she's in a private room now.  We are sad, and I hate that I am also resentful of the time this takes away from us as a family. Mr Spouse has already been spending ridiculous amounts of time on his work for his Masters, and this (and I know how this sounds) is just the last straw. Uncertainty.

We are due to go down to London on Monday (visitors will be received) and thence to European Capital where my mother has booked an apartment for us and my brother's family.  Being my mother, when she got an email saying "it is possible your booking for this apartment was hacked" and we said "ring the person you are getting the keys from" she refuses to do so. Being my family, my brother was supposed to be transferring the money in Euros but we are not sure if he's actually sent the balance. So we may be in London all next week, we may make a mercy dash back up north, or we may get to go on Eurostar and annoy the business travellers (OK, we aren't in business class). More uncertainty.

There is a major, and I mean major, issue with Nice Little Agency. I don't think any of my readers will have received details of this, but we will lose some money (not too much thankfully) and we may need extra legal work done for finalisation, and/or extra social worker time for post-placement reports, and we aren't sure what will happen about that, we aren't even sure if some of our paperwork may disappear. We think the worst that could happen is that we have to redo one report and shell out again for some others to be filed, but we really aren't sure. In some ways we have been lucky in this as if it had happened while we were in country, or before Baby Spouse was born, we'd be in much bigger trouble. But more uncertainty. 

Although the MIL issue is ongoing, the other two issues came up over the same couple of days and I've been feeling very out of sorts anyway.

I want something. I do not know what it is I want. OK, I'd like more sleep, but that's up and down, and some days are pretty good, and though Baby Spouse is probably having "a bit of a grow" as Mr Spouse says, and therefore not sleeping as well, it's not too desperate.  We had friends staying, and they basically brought the contents of their loft for us. Except it's not all there is - but our house is now the one that is overflowing. Our social worker thinks we have lots of clutter but we actually have just the right amount of clutter, and more makes me anxious.  

Not exercising also makes me anxious.  I have had a couple of days when I have felt awake enough, and had someone else to mind the baby, and I could have been for a run. These days don't come often. But I don't want to run (rare for me). I'm not sure if I'm too tired underneath, or bored of my route (some of my older varied routes are now too long for me, and I feel oddly anxious about going one direction because you have to run past people, so I've been going only along one out-and-back route).  And running is the best way I've found to keep my weight down, I'm hopelessly bad at dieting (to the point where I don't believe in it), plus it's the only realistic 30-40 minute door-to-door exercise option. 

But I want something else. It may be I want to do some other form of exercise. It may be I want a regular mummy meet up (except those are anxiety-provoking too - I bit my tongue through a round of birth stories the other day). It may be that just having Mr Spouse to ourselves with no mercy dashes and no coursework will be what I need. I feel sad and out of sorts, and it IS partly intermittent tiredness, and it is partly the MIL sadness, but that's not all.   

Still here

Still trying to find strategies for sleep and night feeds, still not the most popular member of the family (two visits to view Baby Spouse yesterday, one today, though the second was from the lovely family members who we nominated as guardians so highly welcome. But I think I'll just go out and leave them to it in future!).  Still annoyed that I don't have a husband in the evenings/weekends. Mother-in-law still (more so) very ill.

Also, Nella still has a cell phone so we managed a brief (nosy, and therefore somewhat unsatisfactory, but at least it happened) contact call yesterday evening. She told us that her parents had sent Baby Spouse's personal email address to the parents of Baby Spouse's slightly older brother (who I think I will call Karman) but we did not get anything from them. I think we will email Nella's parents to say thank you for this, and to ask two things about the birth father which, in my shock at actually getting through, I forgot to ask Nella (namely, can we have a photo and has she been able to contact him to fill in a medical information form that the agency sent).

Nella does have contact, possibly quarterly? with Karman and his parents, and the evidence is she gets herself there and shows up in a good state. So actually, that isn't a bad omen for the future. She also sounded understanding that Karman is quite wary of her and of her parents because she does realise that he sees them rarely.