The start of our Adoption Journey

Today's blog is going to be the first in a series of posts dedicated to our Adoption journey, which we are starting as of this week.

It is a very exciting time for us, but it also comes with a degree of reflection, self interrogation, confrontation and trepidation (if I can say that). In my previous blogs, I know that I have said, that I never expected to be in a position where Adoption was my only option for motherhood. While I have dealt with that reality, there is still a small part of me that grieves for the life that I won't have and for the experiences that will elude me. I am reading a lot of books, listening to a lot of podcasts and Vlogs about it, and I know that this is a normal thing to be feeling, but there is a small degree of guilt associated with feeling like this still, because I should be 1000% dedicated to Adoption and the excitement that goes with that.

Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to go through the process. I think it is a great thing to be able to do, give a child a chance at a life that they wouldn't have had otherwise. To be able to raise a child in love and care, and give them the very best opportunities in life. However with all of the checks, all of the interrogation into our lives/finances/family we find it quite ironic that if we were to get pregnant naturally, none of that would ever be scrutinised. I understand why the process is what it is, but we feel the unfairness of it all.

We started considering the possibility of adopting during our IVF journey, as a "what if" kind of scenario. I have adopted cousins and Jack's ex-girlfriend was adopted and so we both have an idea of what it is all about and have seen first hand how integration work and family dynamics progress in these situations; so considering adoption was something that felt pretty natural to us. After being unsuccessful in the IVF process after 3 rounds, we made the call to stop the process and start investigating Adoption.

We booked onto an information session with Adoption West the following month and prepared ourselves for the next journey down the road. I did my usual thing of going completely "gung-ho" and started buying/compiling our Adoption folder, printing out resources (including the full household safety checklist), buying books, signing up to podcasts and generally going OTT on it. Jack on the other hand was dragging his feet, and again, me being me, this started to really irritate me. This is the thing about these processes and dealing with the emotional side of infertility, we all get there at our own pace. So while I was still grieving (but compartmentalising) and forging ahead, Jack was still not in the emotional headspace. This was a key learn for me, I needed to take a step back and really consider Jack rather than just focussing on how I was feeling about it all. I think there is a tendency when it comes to infertility for the emphasis to be on the woman and her feelings/emotions, and the male tends to be forgotten about in some regard. I did exactly that. However following the Adoption zoom meeting and subsequently seeing how Jack was reacting to it, I adjusted my perspective.

After all of this "upheaval" and on advice from Adoption West, we had to wait until the 6 month post IVF mark before we could submit out forms, which we did in early August. During that wait time, we decided to get some of our international checks done to avoid any unnecessary hold ups once the time comes. I got our international police checks done and international medical records sent across, so by the time we submitted our forms we had a number of our checks ready to submit also. That was the first hurdle that we conquered and it felt good to be making some sort of progress. We booked our medicals the following day (which are happening over the next week) and our references have been contacted.

So here we are, today is a Sunday, and I am planning what I need to "tick off" this week to keep things moving. We are having our first meeting with our Social Worker this Wednesday, which is the official start of the process.

One little side note before I wind this blog up. I have been doing a lot of research into birth parents contact, changing of names and all of those things that come along with this process. I'm not going to lie, it is something that is concerning me and I am not sure how I am going to deal with these issues moving forward, but I will write about it as we come across it.

Key take away's from this process:

1) Take a step back and don't lose the wood from the trees. While it is all about you, it's also not all about you. In a couple, you need to step back and think about the other person and how the other person is dealing with it.

2) Be prepared, but don't get ahead of yourself. The road is long, make it as smooth as you can but don't try and rush it. You'll only end up frustrated and annoyed.

3) Make sure that you have dealt with the underlying emotions of the realisation of not having a "natural" family. These are things that you cannot mask and have to be dealt with prior to this process. If you don't deal with it appropriately, you will forever have a part of your heart wishing things had been different, which is not fair on your spouse, your adopted child or yourself.

Take care of one another, with love, joy and Big Ol' hugs

TCG xx