I haven't blogged for a long time, and for that I am sorry. There's a couple of reasons really; firstly, since we're not actively TTC anymore and aren't planning on any more treatment there really isn't that much to write about! And then, secondly, the blog tends to get behind whenever big things happen with my brother. I always need to muster the emotional and mental strength to write a post about anything that goes on with him and therefore relive all that that entails and so things get delayed. But, that has now been done (and it was done a while ago - sorry), so here's where we are on the reason I actually created this blog in the first place (I realise this is the only safe space I have to talk about my family with this much honesty and I very VERY much appreciate you for reading it but, let's face it, this is a fertility blog and not a family blog).
We always said from the beginning that we didn't want to go down the donor route, any child would either be 100% us or 100% not us, we decided a long time ago that we really didn't want anything in-between. So, it's taken some time but we have decided to go down the route of adoption. Forgive me if this sounds horrendously arrogant, but maybe we aren't meant to have our own children as we have too much love to give and there are children out there that desperately need it more than a biological child would. Therefore, the research began.
We attended a video call with our local council adoption service and we really didn't like how they were doing things, quite a lot rubbed us very much up the wrong way, so we found a charity. A very large one that really did seem to do things very well and we enrolled on one of their video calls. That all went well and so we downloaded the (very long....) application form and started filling it in. The brother of one of my best friends has adopted two kids with his wife and so we went over there for an evening and asked all manner of questions and there was incredibly generous with their time and their knowledge. More research was done, more information was sought. Eventually, the form was completed and off it went.
Two months later we both had an initial phone call with a social worker, we talked with her for an hour and it seemed to go really well. Weirdly, they said hubby needed more childcare experience but I was fine. It's to do with our jobs, which I don't really want to go into here for obvious reasons, but I did think it strange. So, he signed up with a local cub group as a volunteer leader and I forked out a huge amount of money on a load of books it was recommended that we read. Very enticing titles too:
- Parenting a Child Who Has Experienced Trauma Parenting Matters
- Parenting a Child With Difficulties In Learning Caused By Trauma
- Parenting a Child With Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties
- Parenting a Child Affected by Parental Substance Misuse
- Parenting a Child Affected by Domestic Violence
- Loving and Living with Traumatised Children: Reflections by Adoptive Parents
Don't they just make you want to read them?! Name me anyone who's had kids that has been judged so much beforehand - hoops to jump through, medicals and references and financial checks. How is this fair?!?!? Sorry, I know I should look at the bigger picture of this is how we get to be a family but sometimes it's just so hard.
*breathe*
Anyway........
This was all going on last summer (i.e. Summer 2022) and after that initial phone call everything was put on hold as we were in the process of buying a house. We couldn't do anything further until we'd moved, there was no point progressing the application and sending a social worker round to see us if we weren't living in the property that the child would live in. We finally moved in November last year and informed the charity in December once we'd done about half of the unpacking, a follow up call was scheduled for January 2023.
Meanwhile, the hypocrisy of my brother continues. We facetimed his kids before Christmas and it was heartbreaking, our niece came out with "I want to see you at Christmas but mummy says I'm not allowed". She's five. And then eldest nephew asked if we were going to come over on Christmas Day and I said that I'd love to but we couldn't. It was the end of the call, he'd already been told to hang up, and so I wasn't going to explain any further but I was not going to lie to him. After that phone call, hubby got the following text from my brother:
Don’t tell ELDEST NEPHEW that you ‘can’t’ come round for Christmas cos that’s a lie. It’s now made him question with us why you ‘can’t’ come round as there was no explanation to it and it’s left me having to explain a few things!! He’s really pushed asking why now so I’ve had to tell him that it’s not that you ‘can’t’ it’s that you wouldn’t want to cos of some things that have gone on between us and quite frankly that we wouldn’t want you coming over cos of it either.
It’s put me in a very awkward situation with my son now as I’ve now had to tell him more than I wanted to as I was trying to keep them out of it. It’s bad enough for them as it is that they only know you guys as just a face on a screen once a week for 5mins or so.
Don’t act to my children like nothing has happened, especially ELDEST NEPHEW being the eldest, and act to him like you’re both just an innocent party leaving us having to explain.
Wow. Erm, how is it lying when he says in the next breath that they don't want us coming over?! How is it my fault that he needs to tell his children about this? He could have just said we were spending Christmas Day with hubby's family (which we were, but only because there was nowhere else to go). There was no reason to give that level of detail to his son if he didn't want to so I do find this interesting. They've also changed where their facetime calls take place. Previously, each child would be in their own bedroom but now they're in the downstairs playroom which can easily be overheard by adults in the lounge or kitchen. Anyone else think that he's scared about losing control of the narrative?! He's the one that's not keeping the kids out of it by saying we can't see them.........
So, it's been a very rocky road in the past year and who knows what the future will hold. For now at least, we have a very lovely house and are keeping absolutely everything crossed that we might actually get that happy ending.
