Friday 17 January 2014

A week of social workers and unexpected emotions

We've had all the social workers here this week.  Our social worker and our Post Adoption Support social worker, plus Missy's social worker.

Ours came for her last ever visit as she's moving on and semi-retiring.  We got on really well with her from the beginning; she listened, she understood, she empathised and she gave us a huge amount of support when needed.  I shall actually miss her visits as we always had a good chat and she understood Daddy's sense of humour.  Out of anyone we know, she probably knows us the best in terms of the adoption, our feelings and what we've gone through, even more than our families I'd say.  She handed over to our PAS social worker who we know already and, again, I really like.  She's friendly, reliable, I can trust her to be there when we need her, and we will need her support in the future, I'm quite sure.  We've been very lucky with our social workers.  They get a bad press but ours have worked damn hard for us.

Missy's SW also paid a visit later in the day.  I like her much more than Missy's original SW and actually I think Missy does too.  She gave us some news last week which was a surprise in one sense but half expected in another.  I can't go into it here at the moment though.

We're expecting the Adoption Order hearing date to come through any day now.  I really have no idea which way Missy will take it and her SW is visiting again very shortly to talk to Missy about what it means.

I've experienced some unexpected emotions in the last 7 days.  Firstly, two friends said they were expecting, one announced it by Facebook.  Oh how I love opening up FB first thing in the day and being presented with a baby scan.  Needless to say I burst into tears.  I really thought I could handle it, I thought that I'd put it in the past - actually its almost fine if its someone I don't know.  But closer to home.  It just reminds me that my body has failed me, I have failed in being the most natural thing, a birth mum.  I guess I'm still grieving.  I know you can't grieve for something you never had but I suppose I'm grieving for the lost opportunity.

Then yesterday I was catching up with Finding Mum & Dad on iplayer.  This C4 programme was about Adoption Parties, where foster parents and SWs take children in care to a themed party where there are also prospective adopters looking for children, in the hope that there will be some interest from the adopters which result in matching.  It took me back to when we first saw Missy; just a photo then a week later a DVD.  We didn't see her in person and I wonder whether things would have been different if we did.   The programme focused on two boys, brothers, and another little boy, all deemed to be hard to place.  Of course the programme, didn't go into their background or into more detail about the boys, so I saw a lot of comments on FB and Twitter the next day about how gorgeous they were and why oh why weren't they being adopted.  There are perhaps many reasons and I'm not going to spend time here talking much about the programme and the whys and wherefores.  But what surprised me was how I felt.  Hearing one little boy talk about his old family but also his excitement at finding a new family, I suddenly had this overwhelming love for Missy.  It took me by surprise.  Of course I do love her, but this feeling was stronger than before.  I wanted to give her a big, big hug but this had to wait until school pick up.  I know children pick up on their parents feelings and moods and it's interesting that whilst I've made an effort to be more positive this year, I think Missy is calmer too.

In other news, the tooth fairy paid a visit this week and I've just about survived a 5 day juice detox (though I did pinch one of Daddy's chips).

3 comments:

  1. You can absolutely grieve over what you've never had - it's a real loss that many of us still feel deeply, however much we love and appreciate the children we now have. Don't feel bad for feeling bad x

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  2. Waiting for the adoption papers can give you lots of unexpected emotions everyday. You might worry that the court won't approve of it. Take heart and never lose hope. I'm sure your desire to have one less lonely orphan in the world will be granted to you. :)

    Dean Glover @ AdoptionNetwork

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