I'm 38 today. Birthdays always make me think and reflect. It's now just over a year since we had our first meeting with the adoption agency. I remember waiting for that first appointment with such eagerness. Just knowing the name of the woman from Staffordshire Social Services felt significant. Ridiculous really.
It was a very pleasant meeting. She was lovely. Because Andy has had a number of health issues, which actually turn out to be one health issue (he has sarcoidosis - a disease which causes the body to produce lumps randomly in all sorts of inconvenient places; in his case it manifested itself originally in his brain - which is particularly inconvenient) Babara suggested we should go for our adoption medicals first.
This is where everything ground to a halt last February. I had my medical (it's still sat in a folder somewhere). Andy went to have his, but was suffering so badly with a chest infection at the time that he couldn't stop coughing for long enough to answer the questions. Best to re-schedule and get a chest x-ray. Chest X-ray showed enlarged heart, which could possibly be serious, and our GP suggested that we would be best to get the results of some heart investigations before proceeding with the adoption process, as the agency probably wouldn't do anything until we had the results back anyway. The agency agreed. Eventually we got bored of waiting for Andy's results. Andy suggested we ask them if we could get on with other bits of the process while we waited for medical results. Particularly as most people have their medical check at the end. No. We need to get medical approval first.
Would you believe it took nearly a year for the medics to eventually decide that Andy's heart is probably fine. He was quite worried about the possible results. I wasn't worried at all. When you've spent as much time as we have in the last few years dealing with medical issues, you get a bit blase to be honest. He's had no symptoms of heart trouble (apart from one bout of mysterious chest pain, that turned out to be nothing) and does martial arts 3 times a week. If his heart wasn't working properly, I think we'd have known.
It's been a strange year. One of the most wonderful things for me, about deciding to explore adoption, was that suddenly I could enjoy the company of children again without feeling that awful pang of grief. Then we had to put everything on hold. For ages. We both quite deliberately shelved the whole thing. Stopped thinking about it. And suddenly being with children was difficult again - much to my disgust. And because we weren't thinking about it, I started wondering if I do want to adopt, or if I'm just mildly deranged and unhinged. I don't really process information emotionally.
For me, things that make sense are logical. Emotions are things you manage. Logic is what you base decisions upon. (My Myers-Briggs profile is INTP). But nobody wants or has kids for logical reasons. So living in this emotional world of maternal longing and wanting to open our home to little people but not really being able to give a logical reasoned argument as to why, is like living in a foreign land with no phrasebook. Interesting but slightly unnerving.
By the time we got to August, I really didn't know anymore what I thought about any of it. Then we went to Greenbelt (a fabulous Christian Arts festival) and there was a seminar about fostering and adoption. And I really really wanted to go along to it. Andy didn't want to come because he didn't see the point, given that there was nothing we could do about it at the moment anyway. He thought I'd just get upset. I knew I wouldn't - it was just a chance to get some information.
Seminar was deeply disappointing. It was about fostering. With adoption thrown in as a bit of an afterthought. Why do fostering and adoption get bundled together like that all the time? And how could Andy possibly have known that I'd get upset, when I knew absolutely that I was just going to get information? Masculine instinct, perhaps...?
Anyway. We're a year on from that original meeting. I rang the agency in December, as soon as we knew the results from Andy's tests, mainly to ask if I would need my medical to be done again, given that it's now a year on, or if I could just post it, and to say that Andy was now ready to have his. Barbara didn't want us to do anything until we've met with her again. So we set a date for early January. Barbara had to cancel. We're meeting her (hopefully) next Wednesday. Presumably to have exactly the same conversation that we had last year.
We had quite a hectic 2008 for lots of reasons, so waiting a while is probably no bad thing. I'm also much more sure now that I want to adopt and it's not just a reaction to Andy's test results. But we still haven't even got as far as the medical.
Tuesday 27 January 2009
Monday 26 January 2009
It's wanting what you've got...
Facing infertility actually wasn't the first time I'd thought about adoption. I'd quite often considered fostering or adoption. Andy and I have known quite a few people who have been through the care system in one way or another. I'd always thought we might end up fostering or adopting. After we'd had children of our own.
It was sat in the garden praying that something happened in me to change my perspective. Stuck between my desire for children and the very horrible (in my view at the time) prospect of IVF I suddenly thought "Why am I striving to create a life that I haven't got? Shouldn't I be living with vigour the life that God has given me?" And that simple thought opened a window in my soul that let in some fresh air and new perspective and allowed us to consider other perspectives. Amongst which was the thought that actually I'd like to provide a home and family to some people whose lives would be different as a result. And actually, if that's what we were to end up doing, I'd really like to be able to assure our children that they were not absolutely the last resort in a search for a family of our own.
So Andy and I began to talk. And I'm not sure how, but conversation kind of drifted from fostering to try out parenting towards the idea of adoption. Probably of slightly older children. And it didn't take much investigation to discover that sibling groups are particularly difficult to place. After all the disruption that children must go through prior to placement in an adoptive family, think what a blessing it would be to be able to arrive somewhere new with a brother or sister. A bit of stability amidst turmoil.
So with those thoughts in mind, we began investigating adoption agencies.
It was sat in the garden praying that something happened in me to change my perspective. Stuck between my desire for children and the very horrible (in my view at the time) prospect of IVF I suddenly thought "Why am I striving to create a life that I haven't got? Shouldn't I be living with vigour the life that God has given me?" And that simple thought opened a window in my soul that let in some fresh air and new perspective and allowed us to consider other perspectives. Amongst which was the thought that actually I'd like to provide a home and family to some people whose lives would be different as a result. And actually, if that's what we were to end up doing, I'd really like to be able to assure our children that they were not absolutely the last resort in a search for a family of our own.
So Andy and I began to talk. And I'm not sure how, but conversation kind of drifted from fostering to try out parenting towards the idea of adoption. Probably of slightly older children. And it didn't take much investigation to discover that sibling groups are particularly difficult to place. After all the disruption that children must go through prior to placement in an adoptive family, think what a blessing it would be to be able to arrive somewhere new with a brother or sister. A bit of stability amidst turmoil.
So with those thoughts in mind, we began investigating adoption agencies.
Reflections on Infertility
I guess a lot of people begin their adoption journey having tried, and failed, to have children via natural means. That's where our story begins. Never having been particularly coo-ey over babies, I didn't really expect to be the kind of person who needed to avoid looking in the windows of toy shops or who would suddenly find being around young children so poignantly painful.
Andy (my beloved husband of 10 years) and I started thinking about adoption back in November 2007. About a month after we discovered that his sperm are mostly dead or swimming in circles. Natural pregnancy is not impossible, just not very likely.
We had been trying for a family since 2003 and in 2004 I was briefly pregnant and then had a miscarriage whilst we were on holiday in the Dominican Republic (not a good location in which to require medical attention, believe me!). I had been more delighted than I had thought possible, to be pregnant, and more devastated than I could have imagined when I miscarried.
We thought as it had happened once, it could happen again. Andy's health hadn't been great (he was recovering from a brain tumour when I got pregnant) and there was plenty else to think about. Not, I felt, a particularly convenient time to be worrying about childlessness.
One of the most difficult things about being a woman and wanting children is that however much you might think you're not going to think about it, there is, every month, a time which is allegedly auspicious for sex (not always convenient or romantic) and then an involuntary pregnancy test, in the form of a period, at the end of the month.
Eventually I realised I needed to know if there was anything else we could do about our failure to get me pregnant and we sought medical advice. Andy was pretty devastated by his navigationally challenged sperm. I was both gutted and relieved. To be honest, whether there is a good reason for us not having kids yet or not, doesn't make that much practical difference. Most infertility is, I believe, unexplained. Knowing there's a reason for it not happening has let us relax.
The next question is "What now?" Neither of us liked the idea of IVF. Andy wasn't keen on spending the money (it's not provided on the NHS at all in our area) on something so likely not to work. I wasn't keen on the invasiveness of it. And the prospect of all that desparate hoping and probable disappointment. I'm delighted for anyone who has had success in IVF, and slightly awed by the courage of anyone prepared to go through the whole thing. Knowing that it so often doesn't work. On the other hand, knowing that I was longing for a child, of my own, there were a couple of weeks when I felt horribly trapped between the desperation of infertility and the horrible prospect of IVF. After all, it's what infertile couples do. Could I live with the prospect of not giving it a try?
Andy (my beloved husband of 10 years) and I started thinking about adoption back in November 2007. About a month after we discovered that his sperm are mostly dead or swimming in circles. Natural pregnancy is not impossible, just not very likely.
We had been trying for a family since 2003 and in 2004 I was briefly pregnant and then had a miscarriage whilst we were on holiday in the Dominican Republic (not a good location in which to require medical attention, believe me!). I had been more delighted than I had thought possible, to be pregnant, and more devastated than I could have imagined when I miscarried.
We thought as it had happened once, it could happen again. Andy's health hadn't been great (he was recovering from a brain tumour when I got pregnant) and there was plenty else to think about. Not, I felt, a particularly convenient time to be worrying about childlessness.
One of the most difficult things about being a woman and wanting children is that however much you might think you're not going to think about it, there is, every month, a time which is allegedly auspicious for sex (not always convenient or romantic) and then an involuntary pregnancy test, in the form of a period, at the end of the month.
Eventually I realised I needed to know if there was anything else we could do about our failure to get me pregnant and we sought medical advice. Andy was pretty devastated by his navigationally challenged sperm. I was both gutted and relieved. To be honest, whether there is a good reason for us not having kids yet or not, doesn't make that much practical difference. Most infertility is, I believe, unexplained. Knowing there's a reason for it not happening has let us relax.
The next question is "What now?" Neither of us liked the idea of IVF. Andy wasn't keen on spending the money (it's not provided on the NHS at all in our area) on something so likely not to work. I wasn't keen on the invasiveness of it. And the prospect of all that desparate hoping and probable disappointment. I'm delighted for anyone who has had success in IVF, and slightly awed by the courage of anyone prepared to go through the whole thing. Knowing that it so often doesn't work. On the other hand, knowing that I was longing for a child, of my own, there were a couple of weeks when I felt horribly trapped between the desperation of infertility and the horrible prospect of IVF. After all, it's what infertile couples do. Could I live with the prospect of not giving it a try?
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