Author Archives: Emma Sutton

Letter To Their Foster Carers

Dear Ken and Mary (not your real names).

You gave our children a home, when they needed it most. You kept them together, letting them stay with each other and stay connected to the only family they had left. You helped her to recognise that she had a brother until they became inseparable (as they still are). Thank you.

You held her, when she arched her back and threw her head back and didn’t let her ironing board of a body dampen your love for her or desire to cuddle her. You loved her, unreservedly, however difficult her behaviour, however little she knew how to be loved, until she softened and yielded to love. Thank you.

You gave them structure and routine, love and fun, stories and bathtime, even when you’d only just left hospital and your shoulder was mending. You parented them with love and joy and kisses and hugs until they became touchy-feely-giggly-happy children. Thank you.

You took photos from the day they arrived to the day they left, charting their history, their lifestory, creating amazing books that meant we almost felt that we were there, stories we share with them and remind them of their past before us. Thank you.

You took those photos. The photos that tugged at my heart, as the Universe yelled “these” in my soul, the photos that had me falling in love with these little lives with their mischievous smiles and looks of contentment. I knew that these were my children the moment I saw those photos. Thank you.

You shot that video. Where he potters around, surprisingly trouser-less, playing with bracelets that she in her tutu kept stealing back for her cart, then they’re bouncing on the sofa until she says ‘that’s my bobble’ in her squeaky voice and my heart melted and I knew I was hooked for life. Thank you.

You came to our house, with a tower of photos, and the tears in your eyes Ken, told me how much you loved and would miss these precious lives. And if I could have done anything to save you from your tears, I would. Thank you.

You created a magical moment on the first day we met them, where those four incredible words “flowers for my mummy” shocked, surprised and delighted me, and tears flowed because for years I never thought I would hear those words said to me. You helped me bond with them, get to know them, by leaving the room and making space in your home for us to nudge you out and take over. Thank you.

Every day, despite your grief at losing them, you got them excited, peering through the window, waiting for our car to arrive – I can still see their cute little faces and feel my heart leap at that look. Thank you.

You helped me believe that I could do it, Mary, when you saw the doubt in my eyes, as you described their routines and I saw how effortlessly you parented them and knew I hadn’t a clue what I was doing. Hearing you say that I’d be an amazing mummy, when I felt like a fraud, was just the cheer-leading and encouragement I needed to save myself falling into a pit of doubt. Thank you.

You stepped in when needed, when the children struggled to cope with the confusion and different faces and feelings and more, calming them, even when you were struggling with the separation on the horizon. Thank you.

You were brave and courageous throughout this process, as you stepped aside and let go of our children until they became part of our family. Thank you.

You are the heroes of this story, their story, our story as a family.

Words are not enough

I cried as I wrote and read this back, because I mean every word from the depth of my heart.

With huge love, respect and more.

Emma

The Biggest Challenge In Adopting Was RSI

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What’s the process like? How long does it take? Isn’t it intrusive? I remember pondering these questions (and more) myself as I considered if I wanted to adopt, so let me tell you my version of events.

What’s The Process Like?

There are bursts of activity and then frustrating periods of waiting – it can seem all “hurry, hurry, hurry! Wait… wait…. wait……… now, now, NOW!” There are meetings, interviews, training courses, research, forms to fill in, questions to answer (again and again it seemed). When I typed my first batch of answers to the 27 questions our social worker emailed us, I excelled – typing 11, 468 words, or 13 pages of close-typed text. I was hoping for an ‘A* – very thorough’, but my social worker was not impressed and asked me to precis it (my beautiful words, cut to the core, how very dare she?).

Yes I was impatient, but that’s a character flaw of mine, so hardly their fault. The hardest part for me was hours spent hunched over a keyboard typing answers to the endless questions about our lives, history, past relationships, finances, parenting experiences, culture, beliefs and more, hence the risk of RSI.

How Long Does It Take?

Ah the ‘piece of string’ question. The process to be approved as potential adopters (stages 1 and 2) takes around six months. But matching you to a child can take longer. Our process was slightly different and we were both matched and approved as adopter on the same day, so we took less than 12 months from picking up the phone to enquire about adoption to bringing our children home for good. Sometimes it’s quicker, sometimes it takes a couple of years.

Even if it had taken two years (which given my impatience would have had me huffing and pacing until the floorboards were worn through) it would still have taken far less time than all the years we tried to conceive and attended fertility clinics.

I know you’re impatient and you want a child or children now, but believe me, it’s worth the wait.

Isn’t It Intrusive?

Yes, it’s intrusive. It has to be. If it wasn’t, it would be superficial and the social workers then run the risk of ending up on the front pages of tabloid newspapers whose journalists declare how deplorable the system is that gives vulnerable children to just anyone. Wouldn’t you want them to be thorough if these were your children they were finding homes for?

Personally I found it liberating. I reflected for hours (and thousands of words) on my childhood, my relationship with my parents, and how I imagined myself as a mum. My husband and I discussed and debated our approaches to boundaries, who does what and the nitty gritty of what it was going to be like as parents in far more detail that we’d have never delved into if I had been pregnant.

It’s Just Hoops

Yet the moment we saw the faces of the children we were destined to adopt (a moment that even four years’ later still brings tears of joy), I realised that it was all just hoops to jump through – none of which were flaming. It was annoying at times, frustrating in the extreme when our first social worker went off sick and we had to start again, and tenuous because it was never certain or real until the panel said yes to the match.

But at the end of it all, when I fell in love with my children, I knew that they could have asked me to strip naked and run across a football pitch on national TV and I would’ve done it. I would have anything they asked of me, however much I rolled my eyes at the time, because being a mum, being their mum, being called mummy, that was what really mattered.

While you’re going through the adoption process, you can choose to focus on the frustrations, the delays, the form filling and the things that drive you bonkers. Or you can remember the dream – holding hands with your little boy or girl, and them looking up at you with love in their eyes and calling you mummy or daddy.

What wouldn’t you do to have that moment, not just once, but over and over again?

What was your experience of adopting? How quickly did you go from deciding to adopt to bringing a child home to join your family? Please share your experiences below…

Is It Because They’re Adopted?

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I only popped out for milk….

Andy had arrived home to the usual fanfare of whoops from my kids, and in the post-daddy-comes-home invisibility of ‘Mummy? Who she?‘ I’d chosen to bank their inattention and pop to the shop for milk.

An Unexpected Reaction

The minute she’d heard me go, my 3YO little girl started crying, her hands dragging forlornly down the window pane, begging me silently to come back, whilst I obliviously skipped to the car and shop, unaware of the reaction I’d unwittingly created. It was only when I returned a few minutes later with milk and wine (it just lept into my basket) that I noticed her distraught features, all blotchy and puckered. I dashed in to comfort her.

Yet my ‘I’m home now, sweetie’ repetition, my kissing away her tears and the evidence before her eyes were krill to the whale of her fear. I hugged her and consoled her and told her that ‘I will always come back’ but my popping to the shops had triggered a secret fear inside her that no amount of logic would redress. Where did it come from?

The Scapegoat

Later that evening, as Andy and I talk about her tears, we ponder what might’ve caused it. And we start a round-robin of blame that heavily features the birth parents, her foster family and us, as reserves. And we hit straight into the conundrum of what causes a child to behave a certain way.

Is it because she is adopted?
Is it because of something that happened (that we do or don’t know about) in her backstory?
Is it because she’s a toddler?
Is it because she’s tired? Or we’re tired? Or because she missed Peppa Pig earlier?
Is it because the sun rose in the east, or because there’s a rainbow in the sky, or she’s Sagittarius with Pisces ascending, or because of Brexit/ Trump/ Bake Off moving to Channel 4?

Too Convenient By Far

I have found myself sorely (and arrogantly) tempted to presume that everything magical and amazing my children do is because of something I have done as their adoptive mum (with a nod to Andy’s involvement). And then I surreptitiously blame all their challenging behaviour (i.e. anything that attracts the glares of nosy strangers in public) on the black hole of ‘their past,’ whilst conveniently forgetting the not-inconsiderable impact of their fabulous foster family (who did all the hard work, if the truth be told).

She bit her brother? No idea where she gets that from. Not my fault your honour.
She learnt how to put her sock on the right way around? All me.
She drew lipstick onto her face with a permanent marker? Where’s she seen that? I never even wear lippy.
She gave me a hug, a cuddly toy and a book when I was shivering with fever? Of course she learnt that Florence Nightingale routine from me (those who know me well are choking on that line).

It’s Not Because They’re Adopted

After a few rather dodgy scapegoating sessions, my husband and I choose to ban the phrase ‘because they’re adopted’ from our vocabulary (and I humbly recognise that this might not be true for you).

We did it to take full responsibility, to accept that we have the most direct impact on their behaviour now, to make up step up to the plate and take it all as a reflection of our abilities as parents. Yes there may be some ripple effects from their lives before us, but it’s up to us now to give them new skills, new reactions, new behaviours for their new family.

If he bites her, it’s because I haven’t taught him not to.
If she draws on her face in permanent marker, it’s because I left a marker in reach and ignored her when she begged me to play makeup, but let me take a photo of that pen moustache for Twitter before I suggest she tries scrubbing it off.
If she cries when I pop out for milk, it’s because I slipped away thinking it would go unnoticed, instead of talking her through where I was going and when I would be back and perhaps even giving her something of mine to look after for me.

They are my children, my responsibility, and everything they do and say is a reflection of my influence on them. And maybe that is easy for me to say, because I have never had to deal with behaviour that gets my kids excluded from nursery or school, or suffered child-on-parent violence or things that aren’t easy to live or cope with.

But for me, for our family, that’s the way it has to be.

Have you ever been tempted to use the phrase “because they are adopted”? Share your stories below…

How To Balance A Child Over A Sink

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The sinks are all gleaming porcelain, at just the right height. You reach for the soap, under the mirror and over the sink, catch some and then wash your hands under the eco-friendly push button tap, then walk over to the dryer, perched out of the way on the wall. All clinical, clean, easy to use. Perfect. Unless you have children (or vertically challenged), when they are…

Perfectly Useless

The sinks are far too high.

But that’s no problem, surely any establishment with toilets that welcomes families (i.e., isn’t a strip club) will have a step? A simple, sturdy plastic step costing a few quid from Ikea, to help my children reach the sinks.

Uh, no. They might have an outdoor play area, a children’s menu and more, but the chances of a step in their bathrooms? As likely as my daughter getting that unicorn she has on her birthday list.

So instead I have to bench-press my children in some Mission Impossible human trapeze over the sink so they are suspended at just the right height, cupping her body with both hands to avoid her head-butting the sink or taps or soap dispenser with a precariousness that turns ‘let’s just wash our hands’ into a fiendishly difficult trick that would have health and safety experts reaching for a non-conformance report.

Still she’s at the right height now, so job done.

Job Not Done

She can’t get to the soap, even on a step (unless she has arms like ElastiGirl from the Incredibles), and on a dangle, the angle’s all wrong, so I have to manoeuvre her body so she’s hanging from one arm, then punch the lever (right now I want to punch the person who designed this ridiculously common and impossible bathroom) and catch the pink goo single-handedly before blobbing some in the region of her palms. ‘It slid off? OK sweetie, let’s try again.’ Now I have one soapy hand which is not making my slippery grip on her any more secure, but at least I am back to a two-armed grip on the wriggling worm that is my daughter.

Water Water Everywhere

She just needs some water and she can get frothing. She presses on the tap, nothing. She puts her entire tiny weight through both her hands and onto the eco-tap. Again, DroughtCity Arizona. I shift her body against my hip and arm and press the tap to be rewarded with a tiny microsecond of dribble, which her lightning reactions fail to intercept. Again I press, again a drip, again we miss.

By the third drip, she yells because the drips have turned to a boiling inferno, which the establishment warns us of with polite signs saying “warning: very hot water” as if an A4 sheet makes it okay to provide water hotter than Old Faithful. Through some knee- and edge-of-the-sink balancing (‘Mummy, it’s digging in’), we create foam in the general regions of the end of our arms whilst splashing water and soap liberally over the sink, the floor, our bodies and down my trousers such that I’ll have to keep my coat done up until my crotch dries.

Drier, Where Are Thou?

I stand her back on her own two feet, with a “chuff” of expelled exertion, confident that at least we’re nearly done, we just need to dry her hands. It’s almost in reach (if there was a step, which of course there isn’t), but the sensor won’t sense her, so I have to balance her on one uplifted knee, as I swipe my hand underneath with the regularity of a ticking clock so the darned thing won’t cut out.

It’s taken us ten minutes to simply wash her hands and I am drained by the thought that this life-sapping event is likely to be repeated a few more times on this quick trip to town. Then a minute after the door closes behind us and I sigh with relief that that torture is over, she gets a second wind and declares ‘I need a poo,’ after which I suggest she wipes her brown hands down her trousers and we’ll bleach them both later.

I can see why hand sanitiser is so flipping popular.

Disabling Our Children

Why can’t cafes, shops and malls provide a child-friendly, child-tested, child-proven bathroom experience so that a child is able to complete the simple routine act of washing and drying their hands without needing a human hoist with the patience of Mother Teresa?

With this simple act, we empower our children, to be able to do things on their own, without shadowing their every move and nannying them.

Can’t people see that these designs are unfriendly and unwelcoming? How do you expect me to feel good about having kids when every single item in this room is designed as a spectacular obstacle akin to the lofty hurdles of the Grand National? When you present parents with a choice between clean hands (and good routines) and doing their back in, which do you expect them to choose?

Why is this world so child-unfriendly?

I want to give my children the confidence and skills to do things for themselves, even if it’s just going to the toilet on their own and washing their hands. Yes I will sniff and inspect them afterwards to check they have been thorough, but this is about empowering them to do what they can, from the youngest age appropriate, to learn, to grow, to expand. Yet the moment we are in public, we design rooms, chairs, seats, cutlery, doors, sinks and more that are barriers to them: too high, too big, too long, too wrong for them to use.

I’m not the only mum who must feel like this, so why haven’t things changed? Why is it that designers and architects, builders and more still continue to churn out toilets that are entirely unfriendly to any child or grown-up who doesn’t fit the norm?

Come on world, you can do better than this.

Dodgy Advice On How To Get Pregnant

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‘How’s it going?’

The question that all couples who are trying for a baby love to hear. Not. The ‘not this month’ answer is too depressing and ‘twice last week, once this, we’re still piling pillows under my bum’ is straying dangerously into oversharing territory.

Our friends wanted to support us but what were they supposed to do?

Cheerleading

After all, they can hardly stand in our bedroom by the side of the bed with those big fluffy pompoms, chanting “Give Us a Bee, Give Us an Ay, Give Us another Bee, Give Us a Why, What Have You Got? A BABY!!” because that’s not going to help us conceive.

But it’s hard to just sit by and watch someone’s dreams of having a child evaporate, so instead they would pass on advice that was highly unscientific and barely proven – just because you can draw a Venn Diagram with an overlap between two unrelated items does not mean that there is a causal relationship between them. I like using purple ink in my fountain pen and am gluten-intolerant, but the that doesn’t mean that the ink causes my intolerance. Still why let scientific principles get in the way of a pointless suggestion to help us get pregnant?

Apparently, we needed to:

Go On Holiday

Despite peering through the small print on many a holiday contract (the first few lines at least), I’ve never found travel agents warning me that ‘this holiday could result in pregnancy.’ Are there perhaps special ‘ovulation breaks’ where you get to time your holiday to your ovulation cycle and ensure that your holiday falls mid-cycle for optimum baby-making?

Perhaps our friends hoped that being away from all the stress, and having not much to do would help. However, in the climate I yearn for on holiday (sunny for sandal-toting, coat-abandoning warmth), my husband’s skins welters into a irritatingly tickly and painful heat rash and when that happens, there’s no way I am getting anywhere near his body, not even for a few minutes of serious sexual communion. But that wasn’t the main reason we had to reject this solution – we blew so much money on our honeymoon-of-a-lifetime, our holiday funds were as overdrawn as the British government.

Next?

Quit Our Job(s)

Apparently someone (one person, you call that cause and effect?) had had trouble conceiving, quit their job and miraculously became pregnant. By the same unrelated lack of cause-and-effect I bet someone got pregnant after signing a petition, closing their MySpace account or cleaning out the hamster’s cage. Forgive me for my sarcasm, but I expect it was having sex that got them pregnant, not quitting their job.

Now my job was not great and my boss was an obnoxious bully who shouted at me, paid me less than half I was worth and I tried to leap at this vague equationless science, because I was really fed up with a git of a boss and felt sure I would’ve been more amenable to Andy’s advances if I wasn’t wound as tight as an old lady who’d waited 30 minutes in a queue at the Post Office for her pension. I’d be happier, less stressed and who knows Andy, it might just work, I reasoned one evening. He countered that I had to find another job first. He can be so reasonable and logical at times. Spoil sport.

Next?

Get A Dog

Random or what? The RSPCA/ Dog’s Trust would have serious problems re-homing dogs if their leaflet was legally obliged to mention that there was a high risk of pregnancy involved in the arrival of your pooch. I have plenty of friends who have dogs and none of them have spontaneously grown a child within them and conversely friends who became pregnant without even petting a dachshund. (I recall the irony of a work colleague a generation older than me, telling me categorically that I shouldn’t get a dog “because what happens when you want to go on holiday?” and in the same breath telling me to hurry up and have kids “before it’s too late.”)

I am not getting a dog.

But the psychobabble our friends were spouting showed just how much we were all running out of ideas. That coupled with our total lack of results in two years told us we needed to go and seek professional help.

What If I Am Meant To Adopt?

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We’ve started the adoption process and as we drive into town to do some shopping, I am pondering our life, our childlessness, the strangeness of what we’re going through, a tangle of confusion and grief and hope and anger and frustration. And amongst a trail of similar forgettable days, this one is about to be remembered.

A Tiny Flicker

The sun’s shining and as we drive up a hill, over the canal, through some green traffic lights (this mundane location is about to become ingrained on my mind) a thought enters, bypassing thinking and debate, then spinning my heart on its way directly to my core, my soul.

I start. (I’m glad I’m not driving).

I catch my breath.

Oh.

My eyes widen and water.

The thought is more than just an idea…

It is a New Truth.

My heart recognises it immediately, like the voice of a friend you haven’t heard in years cutting through the chatter in a crowded room, but my mind toys with it, rolling it around my brain as it works out how it connects will all the other stuff in there. And yet when it settles in the right place, it’s clear this thought was meant to be there all along.

There are moments in our lives when a tiny shift makes sense of your life and you experience a new reality. This is one of those.

And that truth that I did not conjure up, but found me in the midst of heartache, reverberates like a tuning fork to happiness, bringing silent tears of joy.

What If?

It’s a simple idea. So simple you might not even recognise its majesty when you read it. So simple as to be blindingly obvious in a ‘why haven’t I thought of that before?’ shrug and yet, it is deeply moving and profound.

They’re already here.

Oh.

O.M.G.

What a magnificent, expansive, exhilarating thought!

What if the children who need us most as their parents are already here?

My mind jumps and creates an image of children, not far from here, already here, already born, who will be our children, but who came through a different route. An invisible thread connecting me to some children who need me.

This truth tells me gently that life is going to plan, if not the plan that we wrote for ourselves.

I will be a parent, I will have children, I will be a mum, I will have a family.

My hope is reborn.

And in that hope, my tears of grief for the child we never bore turn to tears of joy for the children who are already born.

The universe has other plans for me

The Invisible Shoe Guzzler

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Where’s My Shoe?

Did you get it out of the shoe box? Yes

Where did you put it? Right here.

So where is it? Dunno

He is standing in the kitchen with one school shoe on and one missing. We glance around and it fails to leap out shouting “boo”. It’s just over a metre between the shoe box and where he is standing – how can it possibly be missing? (I ponder, still grasping my scientific logic bubble as if the arrival of children failed to pop it irretrievably).

Bubbles and I both check the shoe box. We independently conclude that it is definitely not there, nor near it. We look under his coat and book bag. Nada. How can it possibly have disappeared? He had it just seconds ago. Argghhh.

The Hunt Begins

We search under the chairs, the table, even behind the bin (he has a tendency to fling). Nothing. I am both bemused and frantic, for it’s nearly time for the school schlep and the merest hint of being late has me hyperventilating. I start pulling chairs out, checking the seats and under the cushions, but this game of hide and seek has me well and truly stumped. How is it that one shoe and two children can outwit the brain that got me my PhD?

‘What have you done with it?’ I ask in exasperation, as if he is simply waiting for me to ask to shed light on this situation. ‘Nothing’ comes the reply. There follows some pointless and less than illuminating discussions as my voice rises to octaves only dogs can hear.

Since we have searched our small kitchen floor pretty thoroughly, we now hurriedly look in the less obvious places. In the oven? Nope. The fridge? Nope. The washing machine? Please not the washing machine, as that’s now a frothy, spinning jumble of school clothes embroidered in a mix of felt tip and snot. Still nothing.

Time Runs Out

I glance nervously at the clock. It is one minute past our scheduled exit from the house.

‘Here, wear these’ I say through gritted teeth, flinging his non-school shoes at him. I hate giving up but we need to get to school. As we half-hurry over frosty pavements, my brain rewards me with a steady stream of increasingly ridiculous suggestions as to where his shoe might be.

I dismiss the idea that a microcosmic bermuda-triangle event occurred between the shoe box and the kitchen, ate his shoe and instantly evaporated. Whilst the idea of the invisible shoe guzzler at least brings a smile to my face, I am similarly unconvinced.

Where You Least Expect It

When I get back from school, I give the kitchen an expert and uninterrupted (and unhurried) search. Nothing. Maybe it was eaten by the Tupperware monster who randomly chomps on the lids that match whatever you have put the leftovers in. I shrug resignedly and ponder when I might be able to get to Clarks to buy a new pair.

I go into the living room to get my water bottle and what do you know? It’s there. Half on the bookshelf. Abandoned like a rusty car on a back street to nowhere. I have the shoe but no closure – how did it get there?

I may never know.

Birth Mum, Adoptive Mum, Real Mum, Confused Mum!

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Andy rounds on me with a sour face that says I’ve done something wrong.

‘What have you been telling Bubbles?’

Ummm. My brain scans through the last 48 hours and tries to pin down exactly which of my major or minor mummy misdemeanours he might be referring to.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask innocently, knowing that his accusation is enough to send a flush of guilt to my cheeks.

‘Bubbles seems to think that you are not her real mum’ he continues and the surprise on my face is genuine.

‘Where’d she get that from?’ I send my brain on a rescue mission, searching for memories where those two words appear together.

Search string “real mum”… Results – zero

I come up blank. ‘I don’t think I’ve mentioned it’ I say, with the closest approximation I can make to certainty. My PhD-brain has run off with the milkman and I’ve lost about 75 IQ points (probably down the back of the sofa) and there are parts of the last few days that are shrouded in mystery. Did I say it? It’s a good job I am not in court as any half-decent court-appointed defence lawyer would blow my statement into pieces.

Her Other Mum

We’ve always stuck to simple terms. Your birth mum and dad, and mummy and daddy (aka us). We started off trying to use birth mother and birth father, but the unwieldiness of those phrases soon had them morphing into birth mum and dad.

Why is she now calling her birth mum her real mum? I wonder where she heard it? Andy is uncharacteristically livid. I wonder why?

Who’s Your Real Mum?

I hear him explaining sternly but patiently to Bubbles:

‘Your real mum is the mummy who looks after you, who takes you to school, who makes you breakfast and combs your hair. Your real mum is the mummy who cooks your meals and reads you story and washes your clothes.’

Oh, I see.

I feel a warm cuddly sensation – he is protecting me. Protecting my right to be Bubbles’ real mum. How sweet.

Her Real Mum Is Me

One in Six

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It never really occurred to me that we might have difficulty conceiving a child. In my twenties, the fear of finding myself pregnant had felt very real – as if I was just one forgotten pill or one split condom away from a life-changing child and a difficult conversation with my mum. Even in my late thirties, I still believed that the only thing standing between me and a blue line on a pregnancy test was the rigorous use of contraception.

The Baby Button

I naively imagined that the minute we pressed GO on the “having a baby” button, and threw both caution and contraception to the wind (not literally, that would be littering) that I would get pregnant. I was surprised when we weren’t pregnant the first month after our honeymoon – with a frowny “but we pressed GO” reaction. As if the universe hadn’t realised that we wanted a baby. That surprise turned slowly to sour disappointment when it dragged into a year of being annoyingly on-time with my period.

We tried to boost our chances – using a fertility thermometer, then pee sticks and then various smartphone apps to help us predict the best days to bonk. None of which seemed to have any impact at all – for after nearly two years of trying..

We Were Stubbornly NOT Pregnant

Not to worry, I thought. Time to call in the specialists. I held medical science to an unattainably high standard, after all if they can transplant organs, 3D print new body parts, see into our brains – surely getting a woman pregnant is no biggie? I dreamed of machines that go ping and a raft of X rays that would magically explain the problem and give us the simple answer to sort it out and give us the much-yearned after child. Yet after relatively few tests (not the barrage I hoped for) we were given our official diagnosis:

We Don’t Know

But not in so many words. The official phrase was “unexplained infertility.” They had done some tests and everything seemed in order, so they had no idea why we couldn’t have children. And therein lay the problem – for if they don’t know what is wrong, there is nothing they can do to fix it.

One in Six

It’s a lonely business being infertile. There’s nothing anyone can do to help, and people don’t know what to say or how to talk about it – there’s a lot of staring at the ground as people trip over possible ways to revive the conversation. Yet one in six couples experience problems. Where are they all, and why wasn’t there a place to go and talk with people who understood what I was going through?

They Offered Us Leaflets

We were given a leaflet about counselling and the doctors strongly urged us to consider IVF. Yet, when we discovered the statistics published online, there were no clinics within hundreds of miles who had successfully created a baby from a woman of my age. I was 41 years old and on the IVF scrapheap.

We went away, cried, hugged and I licked my wounded pride. I would never feel a baby grow inside my body, never have stories of cravings, or stretch marks, or a tiny bladder to share. I would never experience a child kicking or being born from my body. And that was no easy dream to give up on.

But We Could Still Have A Family

When Andy and I first started talking about having a family, we would say that we wanted children “if not ours, then someone else’s.” Yet neither of us really thought that we would need to fall back on that option.

And here it was, staring us in the face, the only route left open: adoption.

Chapter One: Spies Like Us

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WE ARE ON A STAKEOUT

Ways in which this is like a stakeout:

1) We are two grown adults sitting in the front of this car, staring into space.
2) We are going out of our minds with the monotony of it.

Cop shows know what the viewer wants — pace, action, adventure. Not soul-sucking tedium. Which is why you only see a stakeout seconds before something interesting happens. Yet we have 23 more minutes of this; not exactly addictive viewing. We check our phones, sigh and wriggle. Many times.

Ways in which this is not like a stakeout:

1) There is no fast food in the car — not a burger, doughnut, coffee or soda in sight. To be honest, my stomach is wound so tight I couldn’t eat a single thing without barfing.
2) We can’t actually see the house we are ‘staking out.’ You might think it’s a rookie error, but it is a crucial part of the plan.
3) In the back of the car are two child seats. You don’t get that much in cop shows.

Reviewing these facts, it would be safe to say that this is nothing like a stakeout. Although it is rather cloak-and-dagger; we’re hiding out of sight until the designated time. Perhaps it’s more like a cold war spy exchange, although we have forgotten to pack a spy to give them in return. Who am I kidding? We are two adults waiting 23 minutes for something momentous to happen.

Handover is at 10am on the dot

And we have arrived somewhat early. (I say ‘somewhat’, my husband prefers ‘ridiculously’ and, as my fingers yearn to drum impatiently on the dashboard, ‘ridiculously’ seems to fit the bill). I like to be early, whereas my husband is more of an on-time (his words) or cutting it superfine if not late (my words) kind of guy. But Today is not a day to cut it fine.
The silence between us is intense. Not in the flammable way that you get between two people spoiling for a fight, when the air crackles with tension that a match would ignite. No, it’s intense because of the emotions that seep out of our rigid bodies. Powerful, extreme emotions that arise from the overwhelming importance of Today.

A day we will never forget

I feel so many conflicting things that I don’t know where to start, or what to say, or even if I dare say anything at all in case I break the magic spell we are under. I am giddy, excited, nervous, scared and more. Mostly I think I should be ready, after all the preparation we have done and courses we have attended. But I am not.
I am not ready.

I can’t silence a mantra that fills me with dread . . .
‘What have we done?’ (For of course, in blame, we stand together.)

After what seems like forever our social worker arrives. And such is our tedium that the arrival of another car is something worth remarking upon. This simple change in our environment releases us for a few minutes from the endless checking of our phones, which we justify to ourselves in case 10am suddenly sneaks up and surprises us.

She parks near us, but not too close and walks over. I wind down my window and she leans in. The not-stakeout just got marginally more interesting again. She goes over The Plan again: The Plan we have heard and agreed to several times during multiple meetings already. I feel like the stupid kids being told how to line up for assembly for the umpteenth time.

No, we won’t go in.
Yes, we will act normal.
Yes, we will stick to The Plan, we intone in robotic response.

Because there is no way we are blowing this, not when we have come so far, invested so much already. It’s just another (insert adjective) hoop to jump through. Yet we both know that nothing about this day is normal. We normally go in. We normally say hello. We normally have a cuppa. I normally don’t feel this strange, this freaked out. Today my stomach churns with queasiness, my knees wobble, my plastered-on smile is strained and fake. So we nod our heads and promise to act normal even though The Plan is as far from normal as it could possibly be. And we return to limbo and wait some more.

As 10 o’clock approaches, my already intense emotions shift into overdrive. I wrestle them down, leaving a suitably stiff upper lip and all that emotionally restrained balderdash because my alternative is to be a blubbering wreck. I need something to distract me. So I thumb onto Facebook ‘just four minutes to go, eep.’ I post and run. I dare not wait for responses or read the messages of support, for my façade will crumble at the slightest nudge.

The clock finally changes from 09:59 to 10:00

For twenty-some minutes we’ve been stuck in time that won’t move forward. But now it has. Hundreds of seconds have crawled by and we are finally at the finishing line. This is all so strange I am having an out-of-body experience.

A shiver of blessed relief courses through my body as we coast our car down the hill and onto the drive. We get out of the car and the doors clunk closed in synchronisation. We try to act normal.

The front door swings open

There are no words today (weird), just strained smiles. We focus on the children and gently take them into our arms, on the doorstep (weird). Neither in nor out of their house, it’s a spy-like handover in neutral territory. I catch the adults’ eyes, and shy away. I focus on my little girl (for calling her my daughter makes me feel like a fraud) and carry her to our car without a backwards glance. We strap them in, chatting about the fun we are going to have at the play gym today. They seem happy, excited.
I can breathe again.

The deed is done

I want to drive out of here as fast as possible. To leave behind the tension and the anguish and the strangeness of this experience.
‘Ready?’ asks my husband as he revs the engine. Everyone’s strapped in and yes is on the top of my teeth and it stops at my molars. Suddenly I jolt alert. My spidey senses are tingling: something is wrong. What can it be? What have we forgotten?
‘STOP!’ I yell, as my brain solves the conundrum.
‘Where are Nibbles and Bubbles?’ I ask.

The engine fades…

We search frantically under car seats and then I get out, dash to the back of the car and rifle through the bags of their overnight kit in the boot. I swear silently and profusely as the realisation hits: they are not here, and if they are not here, they have to be in the house. Back in the house. The Plan didn’t plan for this.

Nibbles and Bubbles are cuddly toys: a rabbit and a dog.

But saying they are just toys is like saying today is just Thursday

They are the first things we ever gave to our children, fluffy vehicles of hope and love and expectation and joy, and they are saturated with an emotional element that elevates them to the status of Gods. My husband and I spent hours searching for the perfect toys; two different but equally loveable softness-incarnate. I slept with them next to my skin for a week, so our children would recognise our scent when they finally met us. Our daughter has not let go of Nibbles and loves her obsessively: we can’t leave without them.

My husband offers to go and I shrug him off in my frustration, a choice I would later regret. I storm quickly back to the house, deviating dangerously from The Plan and silently fuming that today of all days, we get this wrong. I stride in the front door and come face to face with things I was never meant to see.

‘Where are Nibbles and Bubbles?’ I demand abruptly, as I enter the front room. Ken turns away, wipes his face with his hand and starts to look for the toys, but I have already seen too much.

There is devastation here

As quick as my lighthouse glance was, it was too slow not to see Mary, crumpled against the wall, sobbing relentlessly, her knees buckled with the weight of this separation. Her grief, just beneath the surface these past few weeks, broke the moment that door closed.

We are not rescuing these children – they were rescued nearly a year ago.

We are ripping them from a family that loves them deeply. A family who held them when they knew not how to be held and went rigid with fear. A family who nurtured them through sleepless nights, panic, pain and tantrums. A family who cherished them as they blossomed and taught them how to love and be loved.

Mary made us promise that one day she would see the children again. We didn’t know if we could, but she made us agree, even if we were lying, she said, because she couldn’t bear to think that this was the end. So we made the pact anyway, believing it was null and void before it even left our mouths, in a vain attempt to lighten her grief and assuage our guilt.

I finally find both toys and dash out, unable and unwilling to say or do anything to help. For we are the cause of their grief. Our gain is their loss. In every way this is a happy day for us, it is a sad day for them.

I pout childishly

Annoyed that my special day has been tainted.
I slam their door behind me and I run back to the car, away from scenes I would rather forget. I hold the toys aloft, triumphantly, feeling anything but. Then my little girl sees her bunny and delight spreads across her face like a sunrise on a glorious morning — an expression of sheer joy. She grabs her bunny and hugs him to suffocation.
I’ve saved the day. Yay for me.

I don’t feel like celebrating. My husband drives off and asks if I am okay, although I suspect he knows the answer already. I stare out of the window and mumble ‘not really’. I am filled with a sorrow that I did not invite to this party. My perfect day has soured. I want to forget the image of grief that haunts me, but it is etched forever in my mind.

I shake my head and focus on the future, turning to marvel at the sheer cuteness of our new additions. Tiny perfect humans. One mass of curls with a bunny on her lap and one mischievous boy sit behind me. A girl who reminds us constantly of who we have become:

**‘You’re my mummy, you’re my mummy, you’re my mummy’**

Today we take these children home.
Tonight they will sleep (or not) in the beds that have been waiting for their arrival for months, in our house. Their family of two joins our family of two and we become four. It feels like we have reached the end at last. The end of our long journey to become parents.

and then there were four

~~THE END~~