I realise that I haven't blogged for a long time, and there is a very simple reason for that. There was absolutely nothing to blog about. My brother is still not talking to me but we manage to facetime his children every few weeks, although we weren't invited to their birthdays this year which was heartbreaking, so it's well over a year now since we've actually seen them. The new house is taking shape, we're both in the same jobs, my parents have had health issues but this isn't the place to talk about that. There really wasn't any news or anything to blog about. Except, well, that's not exactly true.......
We decided to give adoption one more shot. In June, we went away for our wedding anniversary. Suddenly, away from everyone and everything else, and in a venue where we were surrounded by children full of sugar being persuaded (altho, to be honest, it didn't take much persuasion!) to do all manner of silly dance moves and wacky games on the dancefloor before the evening entertainment proper started. For whatever reason, we weren't annoyed by it. Usually that family-centric environment is the kind of thing we actively avoid, but not this time. Maybe we were in a better mood, maybe it was because we'd had a few sherbets ourselves, but it was unexpectedly endearing. And, out of nowhere, Hubby suddenly declared that that's what he really wanted. He wanted me to be telling him off for giving them more sweets as they ran round in circles next to us.
So, there we are. A third agency was found, another online training session was attended and in September we filled in and submitted the application form. We told no one. We were so scared it would all fall through yet again and we didn't want anyone getting their hopes up for us. The application form was the most comprehensive one we'd filled in and required multiple referees to be listed, so we did tell those people what was going on - we didn't want to put names and contact details down for people without telling them that's what we were doing with their information. It was a grand total of three people. We'd both put our mum's down but didn't tell them, I can't imagine they'll refuse us a reference so we felt comfortable putting their details down without saying anything or telling them what was going on.
The application was approved and we had a social worker come and see us at our house. This is the furthest we had ever got before!! But it was exhausting, we spoke to him for over two hours and went through not only our relationship history (including our split) and fertility history, but also mental health history and family history. For me, of course, this included what has gone on with my brother. The fact we have never spent one-on-one time with our nephews and niece, to them, is a red flag. The fact my sister-in-law has openly said "I don't trust you with my children" has, of course, concerned them - I believe the phrase was 'a possible safeguarding issue'. Great. So at the moment we are being tentatively progressed as they want a reference from my brother and sister-in-law to explain this. Well, that's going to be fun.
I genuinely have no idea if they will do that for us. I want to say that my brother won't be that pigheaded but I know full well he can be when he wants to be, the fact we had no invite to his children's birthday parties this year is testament to that. It's also forced our hand slightly as if they are at least going to ask them for a reference (regardless of whether or not they will give it), we need to come clean to parents as I'll have to tell my parents and it's unfair then not to tell hubby's parents. And it's sooner than we wanted to tell them but needs must, particularly as we've outright lied to them over the past few months about this kind of things but it needed to be done. Let's hope they understand that!
Speaking of my brother.... Since we aren't allowed to see them in person, the only contact we have with them are video calls. The last two calls we've only spoken to our niece and littlest nephew, eldest nephew hasn't spoken to us which was a shame. We had no idea why he hadn't spoken to us, I wasn't even sure he was home during the first call but I saw him at their dining table in the background of the second call. He started secondary school in September and I wanted to know how he was getting on. After the second call without speaking to him I started to worry and even said to hubby that if it happens a third time I would have to bring it up with my mum (even though she usually shuts down any conversation about them or my brother when I bring it up) just to make sure he's ok. He could have just been busy with homework or similar, but two calls in a row had concerned me. Then I got the following text from my sister-in-law:
ELDEST NEPHEW has been made aware of what has happened over the past 18months or so, as he has asked questions about why they haven’t seen you for over 14 months now apart from the odd video call. He has made the decision that he doesn’t want to speak to you both at the moment and, as we always do, we will ask each time you call or they call you back if he wishes to speak or not. We will not be pushing him on this as it’s his decision to make and we will respect his wishes.
As I always do, I have changed names to titles but that is the only thing I have changed about the text message she sent me.
First things first; "the odd video call" - how passive aggressive is that?! They never answer when we video call them, they will call us back later. We call them virtually every weekend, they call us back around once a month. If it's "the odd call" then that's on YOU - not us. Secondly, what exactly have they told him?! That I was mean and didn't apologise? That I called his dad names and didn't say sorry? That I told a load of lies and couldn't see the error of my ways? Whatever they said, it was surely just their side of things and why wouldn't he side with his parents. Especially ones that are so controlling and will therefore only tell him the facts that suit them. Parents that have never, ever, deigned to imagine there was any other side to this then theirs. They are right and I am wrong, simple. I just hope that at some point in the future he starts to think for himself and will realise that there are always two sides (minimum!) to every story, that he hasn't been told the whole truth. I realise now I have been incredibly naive, as I always seem to be sadly when it comes to my brother. I was hoping that as his children got older and got more independent we might actually start to speak to them more and perhaps see them occasionally. That's obviously not going to happen, there's a very real chance it'll actually go in the complete opposite direction, and all this has done is make my heart hurt.
The other thing that I've wondered about is the timing of all this, call me a cynical old cow but do you remember over Christmas last year when my brother clearly panicked that he was losing control of the narrative when it came to this? (the end of this post) Eldest nephew started secondary school in September, I sent him a card (with a small chocolate bar in it) a few weeks after he'd started at that school to wish him luck and tell him that I worked in a secondary school so if he had any questions, or if I could help with anything, he could always just ask me. A couple of weeks later I get a notification on LinkedIn that 'someone had viewed your profile' - low and behold it's my sister-in-law. What on earth is she doing looking at my LinkedIn profile?! She clearly doesn't use the site very much, her job title was listed under her name in my notifications and it was a job she left at least three years ago. I also can't imagine she would have looked at my profile on there if she knew I'd find out! Further proof she doesn't know how LinkedIn works... But she's blocked me on FB and never accepted followed requests from me on Twitter or Instagram so how else was she going to be nosey and find out about my job?! And, of course, heaven forbid one of her children comes to me for help and gets closer to me so this is when they decide to tell him.
Now, there is every chance he has asked questions and they told him and this could be a complete coincidence but as I say - I'm cynical and I'm not sure the timings here aren't entirely unlinked. I know he's asked questions before as we've been chastised (in the post I linked to above) for forcing my brother to tell more than he wanted to. But, on this occasion, once they've verified where I worked, they've answered his questions. It's horrible, I hate it. When I read her text I sobbed. But it is what it is. We can only keep doing what we're doing and hope, hope against hope, that one day things will be ok.
