For about a year before finally meeting our daughter, I have been a member a facebook group for UK adopters. In that group, I got to see people’s messages of going through matching panel, with introductions usually starting very shortly after (usually within a week). However, as our link was turning into a match and […]
Adopting an Older Child
Adopting an older child is not easy. And sure, adoption in general is not easy. Parenting is not easy. Adopting an older child means they have memories, they know what has happened to them. They have will, they never chose this, wanted this or asked for this. They have emotions, they love their foster carer […]
De-attachment
The final morning of intros. We’re getting closer to the foster carer’s house. A song starts on our playlist that we like, we get a bit disappointed when it stops midway through as we reached the house. “Never mind”, I think, “we’ll just continue where we left off”. Unlike almost every other day during intros, […]
Afterglow
The band Genesis have a song called “Afterglow”. It’s probably about a romance that ended or something like that, but listening to it I feel it echoes so well the feeling that a child in care must have just before and just after placement. The song starts with such a powerful line, “Like the dust […]
Resilience
“She’s very resilient”, our (hopefully soon to be) daughter’s SW said. “Yes, but at some point you want to stop testing her resilience and just let her be a kid” One day I’m going to tell my kiddo how much I admire her. I think of her and I know that she’s this smallest thing […]
Hand in Hand 