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.]

Names

Although we haven't adopted yet, I have done some thinking about names (I've alluded to it before, but can't be bothered finding relevant posts, as I don't think I've written a whole post on this); I thought I'd weigh in on the debate, despite not being formally part of OA Roundtable.

UK social workers dealing with domestic adoption from foster care are very, very anti changing a child's birth name under almost any circumstances. Even where a child was abandoned in the hospital I have heard social workers say "but the nurses gave him the name". If a child's birth father and grandfather are both called Murgatroyd and they gave the son the name and, clearly, there are no other Murgatroyds in the country, it may not be safe for him to keep the name - most social workers would be positive about a name change under those circumstances. Otherwise not. I have also heard social workers saying that children must keep their original name's spelling, and their original nicknames (sometimes even if the nickname was given by a foster carer, not the birth parent).

They are very fixated on no name change. They "allow" addition of middle names, obviously change of last names (though recently the law has changed to allow no change of last name until the adoption is final; again I think safety may allow for exceptions). Until the adoption is final, the social workers are in your face, wherever you adopt. So, it's not a case of "my family, my rules". You'd be hard pressed to change a child's name when they had already been with you a year, although I know people who have fought for the right to change the name/spelling/nickname.

It sounds quite prejudiced - I think it is a social worker culture sort of thing, but also stemming from some of the Bad Old Days mistakes, ideas that children can just forget everything that happened before adoption, that it is best to pretend they are birth children.

I think I'd probably considered using a family name/name we had chosen for a middle name and, gradually if we/the child wanted, merging/changing over. For example, we saw a child in a Waiting Children newsletter with a name for which a nickname could be a shortened form of my mother's name, which I would like as a child's name. In this circumstance, we could keep the long version as a full name/first name but (even if the social workers said no, as it's something you can move into on a variable basis with a child) use the shortened form within the family. But if we were matched with siblings called Chardonnay and Wayne, I'm not sure what we would have done. Perhaps, as a forum contributor I read once said, have the best behaved Chardonnay and Wayne in the whole education system.

I don't know what UK social workers say about name changes for children adopted past babyhood from overseas; I would suspect it's the same, but from most countries adoptions are completed overseas so the social worker does not come along and "advise" post-placement.

When we decided that we might go for US infant adoption, one of the gifts I felt I had been given was the fact that I might get to give our child a family name. But now, reading some (sorry, especially US) comments on the whole name issue, I'm not so sure.

I'm not comfortable with the "did you give the birth family a say" question - perhaps it would be more honest to say to a child when they are older "your name before was X and your name now is Y"; acknowledging that the birth family did name them (if they did).

I think I'm of the opinion that, if a child is old enough to know their own name, then any changes should be minimal (or security-driven). I don't think you should take in an 8 year old and say "would you like to be called Charlotte now?" But parents shorten their children's names all the time (and children come home and say "I'm going to be called Aurora now").

I am also slightly agnostic about changes of names for children from overseas. On the one hand, children have names that are completely unpronounceable, or mean something strange in English (I understand that Nastia is a common shortening of Anastasia. Or perhaps it's for Natasha. Anyway).

On the other hand, the most common - and to me, cringeworthy - analogy is "We have a Polish builder, he just calls himself Paul, because it's the "same" as Pavel, he doesn't mind when people change his name". He's an adult. And his name is perfectly pronounceable in English.

So, look back here when we have been matched with a mixed-race, half African American baby whose mother has named him DuKwon.

Coping

A very lovely mother on the girly message board I frequent has found herself in a desperately awful situation with a very, very sick child and of course, as in all these situations, she reports that a posse of well-meaning individuals throw up their hands and say "I Don't Know How You Cope!".

She feels she is NOT coping - but I'm sure my fellow fertility-challenged friends will empathise with this. I am not quite sure what the parents of healthy children, the parents of three happy rapidly-conceived, healthily-carried children spaced ideally, think the alternative is. Are they saying that if they were the parents of a sick child, they would just walk off and leave them in hospital? If they had problems conceiving, would they give up on having children (although I know this is the solution that some do end up deciding on)? Would they give up on their marriage? Stay in bed all day for 5 years?

Sometimes, as we come up to the 5th anniversary of starting to try to get pregnant, I find I just have to get up every day. And I just have to stay married. And I just have to try and see if there is a step forward.

We are officially booked on the adoption course next month. Unusually, it doesn't clash with anything. In case we do decide either to revert to domestic adoption, or go with the UK approval/US domestic adoption process, we think we should do it. It may be that we pay for it and don't use it, but it's here, now.

In other news, I've been told by the hospital to go away for a couple of months and have some physio - those who believe the NHS involves interminable waits for everything take note - I had my hospital appointment on Friday, was rung up about physio on Monday and had my first appointment on Tuesday. I am taking the exercises seriously and consequently have had to up the pain relief (though I am still not great with codeine, and was very woozy this morning after taking it last night due to a very achy arm). I went to the GP for some better anti-inflammatories and pain killers and she suggested a higher dose of ibuprofen (cheaper, it turns out, on prescription, so I have two large boxies of pink Smarties) and the codeine.

She also gave me a repeat prescription for the high dose folate - if we are, in fact, going to be spending the next year mired in immigration paperwork, rather than adoption soul-searching, I can probably stand a little reproductive suspense. Though currently, despite our best efforts, anything, er, active, is rather painful and awkward.

Leaning

Us, that is - we are leaning heavily towards a temporary move back to the US in order to adopt. I did have a couple of good and helpful chats with KAS, who put us in touch with another couple in our position, with whom I also had a lengthy helpful chat. But although selfishly we are pleased not to be alone - and especially pleased that the other couple is further ahead than us (and hence has wasted more time), and also we are not completely ruling out trying to (as a group) get the DCSF to change their rather ill-formed policy, which seems DIRECTLY a result of the US ratifying Hague - it's too much of a coincidence otherwise....

but still... it would be a lot quicker and possibly cheaper to do the overseas move.

Mr Spouse worries about my job if we do that. I get the standard UK allowance of just over a year's adoption leave but we need to be abroad for at least 18 months. I know, however, that if we adopted from the UK I'd need to work very part time after the first year - if not also to take extended leave (I have heard of several people adopting in the UK being "told" by agencies to request this). I am wary of telling work detailed plans as no-one is particularly discrete - but I think I need to ask sooner rather than later. I'm debating whether to do this all at once with my annual review (due soon) which is likely to touch on return-from-sick-leave (thankfully we have done return-from-sabbatical); or whether to try and drip-feed it. Either way I am going to keep it general and just point out some slightly relevant precedents. Currently I am thinking "worst case scenario, I resign and find another job - or reapply for mine". How good a prospect this might seem down the line I don't know.

Anyway, mind on other things, seeing v. well known Irish band in small (and rainy) Scandinavian city tonight. Woo hoo!

Still waiting...

...to hear from KAS, who has assured me she will call back today.

While I've been off work I've been at least catching up with friends on the phone - something I'm often bad at - but easier to do than typing for me at the moment.

FET twins friend is doing OK but completely broke. She is my inspiration if we do end up with more transatlantic moves - the twins & older sib moved over here from the US when twins were, I think, 3 months. She took a step back in her career to have a life with the family (in-laws are here & she prefers living here).

ICSI no 2 friend just got a positive test. After 2 FET miscarriages she isn't even cautiously optimistic - just cautious. She's also getting over a brush with OHSS and banned from going back to work as swine flu is rampant where she works so is just a bit fed up.

Called Central America adoption friend but haven't heard back. Depending on the outcome of the call from KAS, I definitely need to talk to her about adoption leave negotiations with our mutual employer.

So just waiting to hear at the moment. At least I've just found out how to get police clearance from the two African countries I've lived in.