Hello again on a damp Tuesday evening! I thought this morning how much I’d enjoyed writing last night because it was in no way related to Covid. It made me realise how much our lives have been taken over this year. But enough of that, we enjoyed popping to our favourite cake shop today to buy cupcakes, an extra special after school treat! Some of us opted for traditional autumn clothing of bobble hat teamed with sunglasses.

But back to National Adoption Week. A lot of people are understandably anxious about the assessment and approval process, so I’ll try and talk those things through a bit.

Q: I’ve heard that to adopt you need to – have a spare room/have a year’s savings/have a large support network/have never lost your temper/be a super-human.

Ok so maybe I stretched that a bit, but there are definitely lots of things people have heard about the kind of person who will be approved to adopt, a lot of it not true. The Adoption UK’s campaign this year is #Youcanadopt, to try and break down some of those perceived barriers.

The first one is true, however. You do need a spare room to adopt. The reason for that is to give an adopted child a safe and private place. That doesn’t mean that siblings can’t share, however. We have our two youngest boys in one room, our two oldest girls share, and Toby and Miss M have their own rooms.

Beyond that, however, the assessment is definitely not looking for perfect people. It does dig deeply into personal stories, because it is essential that children are placed in as safe and stable a home as possible. But the assessors and panel know that most people have complex lives. People of any faith, any race, any sexual orientation, single or in a relationship can adopt. Financially as far as I’m aware, there isn’t a set requirement for savings. Finances are assessed, but that doesn’t rule people out. When we began our fostering assessment we were in significant debt, and were in a debt repayment programme. The fact that we had recognised our difficulties and taken steps to get ourselves in a better financial position, and were able to show how we would be able to provide for a child, meant that we were approved anyway. When it comes to adoption, there can be financial support in various ways, and there’s no shame in enquiring if things get difficult. The welfare of the child is paramount, and no one can predict at the beginning of a placement what might happen in the future (pandemics, for example!).

In a similar way, many of the trickier things in people’s pasts are not a barrier. What the assessment looks for is that people have thought those issues through, have learned from mistakes, have worked through challenges, and have been honest in the assessment process, and are self-aware enough to know what their limitations may be. No one is perfect. We all have a past. And often the very challenges we’ve been through ourselves may be the experiences that can make us the right parent for our children.

Support networks are valuable – most of us know the old African proverb ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ Parenting is incredible – but can be incredibly relentless and wearing. And parenting children with a history of trauma can definitely bring challenges along the way.

However, I will say that I think support networks can also change and grow over time. We are very lucky in having families nearby and many close friends through church and schools. But when I think back to our support network that we described in our fostering assessment 9 years ago, there are definitely changes. People move away, friendships change, family situations alter as people get older. And new support comes in too. There are new friendships that are incredibly special, there can be relationships formed through toddler groups, adoption groups, and school communities that you wouldn’t be able to anticipate at the beginning of this journey.

So I think again the important part is to consider those things. If you are a single adopter, it will be essential to have people you know would be there to give you a break to recharge batteries. If you’re in a couple, you need time together to keep being a strong team for your child. If you work, knowing who you could call for emergency childcare will help. But those things aren’t set in stone, and not having all the answers doesn’t mean you wouldn’t get through, it’s about showing an understanding of the value for the child’s wellbeing being linked to your own wellbeing along the way.

Q: People have told us we need volunteering experience, why? If you get pregnant you might not have experience of children!

I hadn’t heard this before, but I can see the sense in it. As a new parent you question everything, and as adoptive parent there are even more reasons to question what is normal. So to have some understanding of children will help. And the odd nappy change or cleaning up vomit experience wouldn’t go amiss either!

However, on the flip side, I grew up with five younger siblings, was a qualified midwife, and I still felt clueless when presented with my firstborn. Who clearly had not read the books I’d read about the need for her to nap 2.5 hours every afternoon. I was lucky if she slept for 15 minutes. And then I spent the remaining time trying in vain to get her back to sleep, because the book said so. Ultimately, children are unique individuals who don’t fit a handbook, and we’re all learning as we go. Maybe having too many preconceived ideas and pressures can cause more anxiety than benefit.

Q: Is there anything you weren’t told before you started the adoption process that you wish you had been told, and do you have any advice to give someone looking to start it?

I think when I look back now, particularly with experience of sitting on the other side of panel too, I think it would be to know that they really do want to approve adopters! I think because the process is so in depth and intense it can feel like you’re constantly having to prove yourself. I used to tell Liam before the social worker came to make sure he didn’t tell any jokes!!! The ironic thing being that both our assessing social workers had a really good rapport with him, and commented really positively in our assessment about his sense of humour (they clearly hadn’t been married to him!). Obviously the process needs to be like that because the children’s needs and safety are the central thing in it all, and finding the right people who are committed and caring and understanding of the issues at stake is essential. But at the heart of it, social services have children they desperately want to find homes for, so they certainly are not out to reject potential families for the sake of it.

I think if I had advice to give someone starting the process, it would be that as you go through it all, the meetings, the waiting, the stressful moments when it feels like it will never happen, to keep in focus that at the centre of it all is a small child. And that small child needs someone who is willing to risk their own heart to help the child heal. Who is courageous enough to face the unknown to offer safety to a little one who’s come from the unthinkable. Who is willing to choose to love to a child who has no idea how to.

I think that’s what has helped me through the risks and unknowns and frustrations of the process, and helps me through the hard parts of parenting.

And I wish I’d known how much I could love them.

‘A child born to another woman calls me Mummy. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me.’ (Jody Landers)

I’ve been blown away by all the questions I’ve had over the last 24 hours! Really practical ones, thought provoking ones, ones from people I know, ones from complete strangers. I love that people are thinking about adoption, talking about it, stopping to consider. I know that it’s not for everyone, but I also know that the children who are waiting need people to stop and question if it just might be for them.

I thought I’d break the questions into some different topics, and write a couple of posts this week talking about them, starting, well, at the beginning. I had several questions about how to know when you’re ready to consider adoption (particularly if you have other children already), about gaining experience beforehand, and about the approval process and panel.

So I have to be honest in this, because we didn’t adopt via the traditional route. As we were already foster carers, and the two little ones came as a foster placement, we didn’t do the normal enquiry/information evening/assessment type road. Instead we had a ‘child-specific’ adoption assessment, tailored to the particular children we were applying to be approved to adopt.

However, five years before that, we did go through the assessment process to be approved to foster. We did the enquiry, the initial visit, the information evenings, the assessment, the panel. And nearly a year ago, I became an Independent Panel member for a Fostering Service. So although we didn’t do the adoption assessment traditionally, in a lot of ways its not dissimilar to the process to fostering approval, and I now have more of an insight into how panel consider assessments too. So I hope that this is still useful!

Q: “How do you know when it’s the right time? I sometimes feel at capacity with my children already!”

Brilliant question!!! Obviously the answer to that will be so unique to different families, but I can share my experience.

We had Megan and Maisie a year apart, and then Toby 2.5 years later. When I went back to work as a midwife, Maisie was still having a lot of health input following her cleft palate and repair as a baby, and it was a real challenge to care for three small children whilst juggling those appointments and shift work as a midwife. The maternity service was changing to 12.5 hour shifts, and I was reaching a point where I felt that I wasn’t caring well for either my family or my patients. When I was at work, I had my children and their needs on my mind, when I was at home, I felt anxious about the women and babies I had looked after, or what the shift ahead might hold. So we were getting to a point where I felt stressed most of the time, and we started considering what I might be able to do instead. Fostering was already something we both felt a desire to get involved in, but we’d thought it was something older couples did as their children left home. But the more we talked about it, the more we wondered whether it might be a good time to consider it. We already had a home full of toys, our birth children might make a foster child feel more comfortable, and although we would be adding to the busyness, it would mean I could be at home and available for appointments and school runs. And it would enable our birth children to grow up with the idea of sharing what we have been blessed with, and of choosing to go out of our comfort zones to care for others who are in need, even if that is hard at times.

So after looking into it a bit more via the council websites, considering the financial implications, and chatting to friends who fostered and a Social Worker friend, and praying, we just decided to bite the bullet and enquire. For us it was about trusting that God would make it clear along the way whether it was the right thing at the right time.

In terms of capacity, and the implication of adding more children to our already busy and still young household, I think the place I came to was that capacity grows as you stretch it. From the moment we brought Megan home as a new baby, I felt overwhelmed and incapable. I didn’t expect to feel like that, but my mental health was struggling, and she was a challenging, non-sleeping, collicky baby who much preferred her father to me! So when I became pregnant again when she was four months old, I couldn’t imagine how on earth I would manage. I would stand in her bedroom in the night rocking her to sleep and crying that I wouldn’t be able to manage. Fast forward nine months, and Megan was an early walking/talking one year old, and Maisie arrived with her undiagnosed cleft palate. And it was hard!

Yes, it was hard, but it also grew me. I learned from all the times that I would phone Liam in a stress to find out when he’d be home, that most of the time, in the 15 minutes it took for him to get back, the crisis would have eased. So I learned to ride out the 15 minutes and see how we were getting on. Or I would just put them in a bath, the magic cure for many toddler (and child. And teenage.) meltdowns.

So by the time we had Toby, my children and my perspective had changed. And he was a different personality again. He fed well. He slept well. All night, and for three hours in the afternoon.

So not longer after he turned one, because we knew the process would take a while, we felt that we were at a place where we would enquire.

It took 18 months from that initial enquiry to being approved, so in that time things had changed a lot again. Toby was 2.5, and the girls were in school, so in that sense it was more manageable.

But the truth is, I often feel I’m at capacity. With one, with two, with three children. When we had a foster child, when they went. When we had a new foster baby, when we went back to three children. When we had five and then six. In truth, most mornings by the time we’ve dropped them all off at school I think ‘this is too much. I can’t do this.’

My experience is that it’s not me and my capacity or ability that enables me to do the hard things. In the hardest moments, God has been there. And the hardest moments are often the ones that have taught me the most. Taught me that on my own, I won’t be able to do it. Taught me to be humble and ask for help. Taught me to acknowledge my humanity and inability to be a perfect parent, and to know that I am held by a perfect Father God, who not only loves me, but loves these little ones more than I can, and promises to gently lead me as I open my arms to them.

So my suggestion would be to think, to talk to others, to research, to consider how life might change day to day, to pray, and to make that enquiry. Making that first phone call doesn’t commit you to anything, the process is long and in depth, and at any point along the way you can choose to delay the process or to stop. And that won’t be frowned upon, because at the end of the day it is important for these children that adopters are able to be fully committed to them. And if you keep going through the process, and welcome a new little one into your home, yes you’ll be stretched, but your capacity and you will both grow along the way.

Well it seems I managed to find a lot to say for one question! I’ll finish here and look at some others relating to the process in a different post. Here are some examples:

Q: Is there anything you wish you’d known when you went into the adoption process?

Q: Would the complicated parts of our personal story impact our chances of being approved? (eg finances/mental health/addiction history/impatience/older child with needs)

More to come tomorrow!

Last year we decided to have a family sunflower growing competition. We ceremoniously gathered the family and planted 16 seeds. They grew well initially in compost, but when we transplanted them to the bottom of the garden to grow by the wall, they died, one by one. The one that made it was short, wilted, and eaten by bugs. It was a sad affair. (Although Maisie still claimed the winning plant. Winners are winners, apparently, no matter how poor the produce).

This year I tried again. I carefully planted up 8 little pots, two seeds in each. Only for Storm Dennis to come raging through the country, flooding the nearby river and also drowning my amateur attempts at planting. The soil spilled them everywhere, and I gave up on my sunflower growing ambitions for good.

At the beginning of lockdown Liam planted some sweet pea seeds in the planter, and as they slowly started growing, we noticed a foreign plant growing and overtaking them. It turned out to be a rogue sunflower seed that had taken root from my rain drowned efforts.

And it grew and grew and it blooms, 6 ft 5 inches tall, turning its face to the sun as it stands guard over garden.

This week has been one of the hardest, heart hurting weeks I’ve known in our home for a long time. We knew the return to school would be hard. We did what we could, emailed schools, contacted professionals, put plans in place. But it’s been gut wrenchingly painful to watch three different children facing huge fears. The ones we expected, and then challenges we hadn’t anticipated surprising us and knocking us sideways.

Thursday morning was hard. It must have been bad, because I didn’t even get a photo. Me. Who documents every moment and etches it in my memory (well, the iCloud is a start). And that tricky start was with just one child returning to school.

Yesterday I sat and cried alongside one of the children. Cried at their tears, their hurt, their fears, their ‘why’ questions. Cried because I can’t fix it for them. Cried because I love them so much and I wish I could make it better. I promised that I would fight for them and never stop fighting. I am on their side.

But I couldn’t tell them why they had to face their struggles. I could only promise them that I believe in a God who cries with us too. Because He didn’t want a broken world. But He is the One who loved us so much He made a rescue plan and sent His own Son into the middle of our mess and brokenness. And then He left His helper to walk the road with us. And I promised that I believe this because I’ve known His help in my helplessness. I’ve seen His light in my darkest places. And I promised that you, my child, will never ever be alone.

And then because I felt helpless and especially unwise and wished I didn’t have to be a grown up today, I talked about the sunflower. Because quite honestly I’ve been obsessed by it for the last month. As I’ve sat at the dinner table and watched it grow, it’s exceeded anything I imagined for it.

Because that surprise storm-drowned seed grew and bloomed. And bloomed. And bloomed. It grew the first head, then two more budded. Then more. Long after the first bloom had withered, and despite the storms of last week, it stands strong and tall, and the flowers bud and bloom, day after day. Today I counted it’s tenth bud appearing. All on the same plant. All from the one lost seed.

And I told my child the reason I’m obsessed with the sunflower is because of its journey from tragedy to triumph. It gives me hope that even in our weakest, most hopeless, storm ruined moments, we can be planted. Through no efforts of mine, the seed took root. And through no effort of mine, God can work surprising miracles even in the hardest parts of my life. And that little seed can grow and grow and become more abundant than I could ever have imagined. Because even the tiniest of seeds, planted in the aftermath of the pain, can bloom beyond our expectations.

And I told my child all the ways I see them blooming already.

The metaphor is almost certainly weak, but I feel like there’s a reminder in my garden that God can do surprising things with even the hardest parts of life. This week has been really tough. And I haven’t held it together all the time. I haven’t felt full of faith all the time. I’ve got really angry at a phone call. Been patient for long conversations but been irritated by mud on the stairs. Felt guilty that I’ve let my children down. Been so grateful on one hand for big answers to prayer, whilst on the other being devastated at the brokenness in the world.

And I think the sunflowers encourage me because they played no part in the planting and growing process. They were passive and helpless and yet they have brought joy to the garden for weeks. Sometimes the events we think will be terminal to our hope, are actually moving us to the spot where we are in the best place to grow. Surrendering to the loss can give space for indescribable growth. Maybe He’s moving us to the place where we can look at His face and shine.

To bloom, to grow, to bring joy to the world around us, sometimes comes from riding the waves of time, mistakes, pain, and disappointment. Allowing ourselves to feel it, be broken, and wait. Maybe the way to bloom is to rest amongst the ashes of broken dreams, allowing ourselves to be fed and watered and nurtured, and facing the Son.

I can’t change the world for my children. But I hope I can always be the one who will sit with them in the hurt, arms around them, tears mixed with theirs, not trying to give answers but being there. Listening. Praying. Promising hope. And whittering about the sunflowers.

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” – Isaiah 35:1-4

Yes, it’s the end of the school year, and I’ve slidden into the ritual sense of nostalgia and questioning where has the time gone, and how are they growing so fast, and didn’t they look young.

And yet it’s feeling rather anticlimactic, in all honesty. Normally at this time of year, I’m bracing myself for the holidays, both looking forward to finally being able to stop running around like a cat chasing its tail, and at the same time tensing for the impending adjustment to all being home together.

Not so this year. Yes, we’ve aimed for some structure, but it’s been far more relaxed than normal school days, simply by not having to get everyone out of the door for a set time. We’ve not committed to many extra-curricular zooms, (not a bad thing, considering our frequent inability to be on time, if at all, for the ones we were committed to!) so there won’t be a great deal stopping there either.

On the plus side, there won’t be the usual first week tensions of everyone fighting for their place in the hierarchy. We’ve been home together for 4 months now, and we all know that Micah is the boss.

It does feel a bit like we’ve been robbed of something though. I tearfully watched the video Theo’s nursery teacher sent, with clips of their early nursery days, and the realisation that by the end of September he’ll be in full time school hit again. He looked so little in September, and somehow, over these last months where we’ve been busy slowing down and surviving, he’s grown and changed and getting ready to fly.

Toby particularly feels genuinely sad and disappointed at the end of year 5. He loved having a fun male teacher this year, hanging out with all his mates, and it all evaporated away somewhere back in March. He was especially down in the dumps at the lack of end of year class party, where they take in a paper plate of the same food that would normally be in their lunch box, and watch back to back movies. Because those are the rituals, and things don’t feel the same without them.

And then there’s the thought of filling the coming weeks. How to make it interesting when nothing much will change? Without the school day structure, will the teens morph into actually becoming a physical extension of their beds? Getting them out in the fresh air has been tricky enough with school work to do, what now?!

We’re going to sit down and have a look at the holidays, come up with some ideas, but it isn’t filling me with anticipation. I know places are open and bookable, but the thought of a committed time slot when you’re wrestling eight people in and out of the car and around an attraction is stress inducing at the best of times. And then there’s the uncertainties of how practical it will be to negotiate places with one way systems and strict toilet planning, especially if visiting new places with a lot of offspring. I admire the people who are weighing up the impact of the virus and going away anyway, I just don’t think my heart rate is ready for those kinds of anxiety levels.

I know a lot of people, like me, are struggling more with the lifting of restrictions than the actual complete lockdown period. The grey areas are harder to negotiate. Before you meet up with other people you have to get the measure of where they’re at with the virus, and respect and love one another whilst still wanting to make connection. There’s the planning for outdoor meet-ups but the great British weather to negotiate. The back up plans for if places are very busy, the toilet considerations if you pick somewhere more rural. There’s the different rules in different countries to keep tabs on. The hints of normality but headlines blaring that there’s a lot that just isn’t normal. And it can all feel quite exhausting.

And honestly, the homely introverted part of me can be sorely tempted to just stay at home reading and writing and crocheting (because in my head that’s how I would spend my days…) and hope that one day I’ll wake up and just be able to cough in public without wanting the ground to swallow me up.

Then tonight a sad Micah was calling for his Meggy when I took him up to bed, and she appeared in the room, gave him a cuddle, brushed his teeth and read him a story. And it reminded me that 2020 might not be the year of holidays and hugs and end of nursery parties, but there are opportunities in every day for moments that matter. Whether they’re in my home or on a phone or making the effort to effort to meet someone or get out of the house even when it feels more complicated, I get the chance every day to choose to love. To choose to be thankful. To choose to learn. To choose to listen.

I keep hearing people say ‘let’s just write off 2020’. I get where that comes from, but I think life’s too unpredictable to just write off the bits that don’t go my way. I don’t know what ups and downs the summer will bring. My calendar predicts September will be spent driving back and forth between 3 different schools in complex transition plans for six different children. So I don’t want to just get through the six weeks, just surviving.

And more than just the unknown changes ahead, as Rend Collective sing, ‘my every breath is grace’. Every day I am given is a gift, not earned or a right, but an opportunity to love my neighbour and worship my Maker. The Psalmist said:

‘So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom…
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.’ – Psalm 90:12,14

The start of the summer holidays might not feel anything special this year, but they are full of possibility to be numbered, to be counted instead of written off, to make a difference. Even if it’s just in the mundane, in the gentle cuddles of a big sister with her cranky brother, in agreeing to sit and play a game with a child, in choosing to make eye contact and smile at a shop assistant, in stopping to send someone a text, there are opportunities every day to make 2020 count.