NAW 2012 Day 5 and a half: Our Adoption Story by Laurel Ashton
I thought I’d
share some diary entries from soon after Amber came to live with us. After the
first week, I wrote:
‘It’s flown. We were prepared to be very
careful, to introduce her slowly to new people, to add new clothes, toys and
bedding slowly. But it all got a bit confusing. She came with a ton of stuff,
but we’ve had 2 more tons delivered or given to us in the past 5 days. I no
longer know what she’s been used to. But she really doesn’t care. She’s happy
with all the new faces, toys and animals. We’ve had a few screams. She’s
teething. We’ve seen a couple too many 2ams. She’s bitten DH. And she throws
pasta on the floor. But we don’t care. She’s just learning her way around the
world and we want to be there with her as she goes. One week on and being a
parent isn’t at all what it’s cracked up to be. It’s MUCH better!! Perhaps
we’ve waited so much longer than most people for this, that we’re savouring every
moment. And it still feels like a dream, like I’m writing someone else’s story.
Thankfully, I can smell her on me all of the time, so I know she’s real.’
Two months on,
I wrote this:
‘I thought I
loved her the first time I saw her. Something did move in my heart. But I now
realise that I’ve grown to love her in a very deep way. We share a special
look, or smile. She holds her daddy so tightly sometimes that it seems as
though she’ll never let go. And we only now have begun to notice that we’re
actually growing together – and it feels amazing.’
I wrote a book, Take Two, to
chronicle the build up to becoming a parent and can’t believe that so much time
has passed since all of those life-changing events. Right now I’m planning 6
and 7 year-old birthdays, and see their outgrown clothes in the photos of
children of close friends. All that time we spent waiting to become a family,
cursing the adoption process and its endless frustrations and waiting by the
phone is now almost completely forgotten. We’re just a family.
I won’t deny that it was hard to adjust
to being a working parent and that we had to learn to juggle so many facets of
life simultaneously. When Ellie came to us 7 months after Amber (they are birth
siblings, hence the rapid match), we found ourselves with two mobile children
aged 23 months and 11 months and it was a bit of a nightmare. Looking back, I’m
not sure that we were able to give either as much time as she needed, but
somehow we all caught up. More importantly, we all got to learn to be a family
at the same time and these days I still look on in wonder at these playful
little sisters.
Five years on, is there anything I would
have done differently? We were in the unusual situation where DH took adoption
leave. For us this worked amazingly well and to this day the girls have a
strong bond with daddy. I have continued to work since they came home (apart
from my subsequent adoption leave) and don’t regret it at all, but then I love
my job and wouldn’t describe myself as a natural ‘earth’ mother. The time I
have with the girls is directed entirely at them and I do try to appreciate
every moment we have together. We would also not have mentioned the fact that
we are vegetarians, or that we don’t have a TV, as both of these seemed to
single us out as ‘weird’. Those issues turned into a debate during home study,
but they didn’t hold up the process or affect our chances in the end.
The major ‘adoption’ issue in our lives
today is contact with their birth sister, who is only one year older. We meet up twice a year and all the girls
simply accept their relationship, and behave entirely like sisters who live
together – hugs and kisses one minute, bickering and recriminations the next.
It’s magical to watch them together and wonderful to know they will always have
one another in their lives.
I’m really struggling to find anything
insightful to say about adoption when reflecting on our current life together.
The problem is that we’re just an ordinary family. And while we do life story
work with the children and regularly see their birth sister, most days the
whole adoption ‘thing’ just sits quietly on the mantelpiece and lets us get on
with daily life...........
Daily.....chaotic.....hilarious.....frustrating....love-filled
family
life, that is!
Note from "Life with Katie" author Gem: Laurel Ashton's book "Take Two" features in the Top 10 Recommended Reads for Adoption books as recommended by the BAAF. It was one of the first books related to adoption that I ever read and I cannot recommend it enough
If you are interested in finding out more about adoption then visit
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for more information
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