a partridge in a pear tree… It didn’t, it gave me far more than that.

First Steps on Twitter

For years, opening twitter was like walking into a noisy pub, filled with bubbling conversations, all talking at once, threatening to overwhelm and deafen me in one fell swoop. I didn’t get it; so would post and run.

In April, I swapped white noise for a focus on the adoption and fostering twitterati. Overnight twitter made sense. As I reflect on 2017, a course by First4Adoption (encouraging adopters to blog and share their experiences) was a seed that blossomed into something magical.

The Joy Of Being Heard

Not everyone listens with the intent of hearing you. All too often, they are waiting for you to catch your breath and tell you about their day or to dismiss your concerns with ‘all children do that.’

I wish I was connected on twitter in those first few discombobulating months, when Nibbles didn’t sleep, or when Bubbles was angry and rejected me, when my life was a stranger and I had no idea if things would turn out okay. For those immersive, intensive first few months were lonely beyond belief.

Now I know that someone is always listening, that help is just a tweet away, eliciting perhaps a simple (yet powerful) *hugs* to a more involved response via personal message, and I never need to stew over anything. I have an outlet to be heard.

A Hug of Connection

One of the first questions I asked on twitter was about adopters relationships with foster carers, since we had an ongoing relationship and I wanted to know just how far out on a limb we had wandered.

Turns out, not far at all. I had lots of responses, many having experienced excellent long-term relationships with foster families, some wishing their foster carers would keep in touch and yet another that stuck firmly in my mind: ‘We hope that her foster carer will walk her down the aisle.’

That first question and answer session was enough to convince me that I was not only in the right place, but had now tapped into a world of experience that would benefit me in ways I could not even imagine.

The Helping Hand Of Those Who Have Gone Before Us

Yesterday I received illuminating advice to change toothpaste as it might be aggravating (if not causing) my daughter’s painful, recurring mouth ulcers.

But my children and I have personally benefited from advice this year on topics as diverse as planning holidays, anxiety in school, how to spend pupil premium, approaches to regulate emotions and more. You have saved me hours of searching online for advice that might not be relevant in an adoption situation.

And in return I have shared my advice or thoughts with others too – memorably with a family whose child was unsettled on that first exhilarating night. The twitter voices used different words, but sung one song: comfort him. Reading them, my heart responded with joy, for I knew that that chorus was a warm voice in a dark, strange place, bringing succour to one concerned adopter.

Normalising The Strangeness

Adoption is a world of strangeness. And before you all start, yes it is full of things that other parents experience too – like a child pouting over a sprig of cauliflower, or a nappy exploding, or a tantrum in a supermarket. But in order to protect our children, we are often forced into a level of secrecy or anonymity that creates a distance and a not-normalness that people can be quick to dismiss.

I have no birth stories to share, no secrets on how to breast feed, no miracles for sleeping in the third trimester. But I have stories about choosing a toy, creating an audio book, writing letterbox contact, about panel and matching that I want to share with others too, so they can feel that this strangeness is normal.

A Tribe of Understanding

The second someone tweets that they too have experienced the same thing, that they understand what you’re going through, that they have come out the other side at least partly intact, I breathe again.  Because it means that there is a solution for the complexity I see before me.

It might not be a simple, wrapped up neatly in a bow solution like changing toothpaste. It might be a drip, drip, drip, month on month, year on year solution that scares me a little. It might take more energy than I can imagine to change the situation, yet simply being understood, having someone acknowledge what is going on, to nod their head in recognition, is a powerful healing in its own right. *hugs*

A Voice In A Choir

At the Adoption UK conference, I met (and sorry, ignored) some of the adoption twitterati – it was wonderful to meet them in person, to put a face, a shape, a tone to the letters online, to share a smile that is more than 🙂 and see the twinkles in their eyes.

It was a connecting experience and I loved feeling surrounded by a larger tribe, a huge chorus of voices, to be part of something bigger than me. Twitter gives me that experience in microcosm every day and I love it.

I might be just one voice. Just one adopter sharing my experiences, sometimes asking for help, sometimes giving it, but a mere eight months after starting again on twitter, I have found a community that sustains me in ways I could not have imagined this time last year.

Thank you to all the friends and connections I have made this year on twitter, for your advice, for your support, for your encouragement, for your links and blogs and podcasts.

I love you