If you’re reading this blog, the chances are you are somebody from the UK who is either currently going through the adoption process, or already an adoptive parent yourself. Or perhaps you’re an adoptee, a foster carer, a social worker, a birth parent, a fellow adoption blogger…or maybe simply someone curious about the world of adoption. And I guess that’s a good point to start from, adoption certainly is its own “world”. Sometimes those of us within this world, or bubble, feel like we are staring outwards into the supposed normalcy of the world from a neighbouring planet, and that those “back home” are similarly peering back but can’t quite get a view, blocked by our fogged atmosphere. Sometimes even those of us on this planet feel lost amongst “our kind”, not knowing which way to turn to find help, the rest of our own population so distant from us that we can’t even reach out internally. And this is where I’m going to stop trying to make metaphors about planets and the solar system as I can see as I’m typing this, this isn’t really going anywhere!
But suffice to say…good information on the adoption process, and the world it is attached to is hard to find, and particularly hard to find if you are interested in the UK adoption scene in comparison to quite a saturated social media and internet presence about the US scene, which even in itself, is primarily dominated by stories of private and/or international adoptions. Like others, I’ve been able to find very little about UK adoption in general or US adoptions specifically from state foster care. This is something we will return to in much more detail in a future blog, but suffice to say that the vast majority of UK adoptions are domestic adoptions from the foster care system, and differ greatly from the majority of content about US style adoption, which can often be problematic and confusing. This is so not least for those of us adoptive parents who find ourselves met with stereotypes about adoption derived from a very 2D model of adoption proliferated by a collage of what people have gleaned from the internet, Hollywood films, and US YouTube vloggers (and by the way there is no blame attached to this, this is just the way things have come to be and I would probably have reached the same conclusions had adoption not touched my own life), but also for those who are just starting out, and trying to understand the journey in the UK on which they are about to embark. Or perhaps for those friends and relatives of adopters who want to better understand the process. It all gets quite muddled. This is something that a fantastic UK vlogger, Aimee Vlog has picked up on so well, and Aimee has done an amazing job of helping to fill that gap. I would highly recommend Aimee’s content for those of you wanting to get to know about UK adoption in an accessible, knowledgeable and engaging way. I thought about vlogging on YouTube but apart from what my hair has looked like since adopting(!), I know my strength better lies in writing (and that way I can sit comfortably behind a screen looking a complete mess!)
Even if you do find yourself in the adoption world, it can all be a little…vague. When I started out on my adoption journey, yes there were books for recommended reading, and some of which I have really held on to that genuinely offer very specific, nuanced advice – but if I’m honest? A lot of it was very generic, surface level stuff. Adoption content for newbies often falls into one of two camps – very basic information about the process which is very mechanical and clinical, and doesn’t really answer any complex questions, offers very surface level information that to be honest people could have got just by Googling – and most importantly doesn’t offer the human, road-travelled insight that real-life adopters can provide. Or, there are books you can read by very well experienced adopters, and whilst these have been a God-send for many moments throughout my journey, they can tend to be a genre that clusters around an extreme end of the spectrum where people have had a very hard time, and adopted children with very significant additional needs with very little support, which whilst of course, are extremely valid, sad, and important stories to tell, don’t represent the majority of adopters’ experiences, and can end up worrying people off the idea before they even begin. And for a bonus point, if I’m being really picky, my experience of the world of adoption forums has resulted in a little of the Mumsnet-curse. Either glowing reports of angelic children who supposedly settled into family life perfectly, loved their adoptive parents instantaneously, and are a joy from morning til night – or slightly holier-than-thou scoldings from adoptive parents who perhaps perpetuate a little of a martyr complex in the adoption community. That said, believe me, it is not all doom and gloom. There are some amazing, warm hearted, courageous, inspiring adopters out there in the world that I have learned so much from, and there is some really good content out there if you know where to look for it. I’d also not entirely dismiss the US platforms as I’ve found some great, down-to-earth adoption bloggers, who keep it real and are able to bridge the cultural gap. One such person is Angela Braniff at the Gathered Nest who would be my number one choice for anyone wanting an in depth look at the adoption world.
However, I do feel there is some room out there for more of us bloggers who can offer a real-life and down to earth perspective of adoption. With this blog, I’d like to lift a lid on the adoption world, in the hope of encouraging those considering it, or helping family/friends of adopters/ees to understand it, show some of the behind-the-scenes aspects which don’t get talked about in more generic texts, and provide some room for discussion and perhaps some Q&A depending on how this blog goes. I will certainly not claim to be a perfect parent, nor will I claim to be a particularly experienced parent at the time of writing. But I would like to be able to offer my experiences, thoughts, musings, for what they are worth, with the hope they help somebody like me when I started this journey a few years ago, dispel a few myths along the way, and provide a little more detail and food for thought.
So, a little about me…I’ll start with saying that due to the nature of adoption in the UK, it would be inappropriate for me to share too much personal information about my story. If someone who knows me in real life is generous enough to indulge me in following my blog, I trust them implicitly to honour and respect my child’s story and not identify them through their interactions with it. They know more detail about my journey and luckily I am blessed with hugely supportive friends and family who “get it” – which is not always the case! If you are somebody else reading this, I am an adoptive Mum of one child of pre-school age who I adopted as an older baby through the support of a local social services agency. I have a long-term partner who I have known for about 15 years now, and we started our official journey to adoption about 2 years ago, although I would say the story started about 7 years ago. To help place my story a little (and don’t worry I’ll share a little more that I’m able to as the blog goes on), our adoption was a domestic, but long-distance adoption, and we came to adoption as our first choice following infertility. We have not tried after receiving this diagnosis, to conceive a biological child despite the odds, and didn’t feel the IVF or surrogacy routes were right for us (more on that another time).
It may help as we start this journey to say a little about what I will and won’t be able to include. For reasons which I will definitely write about in more detail in a future blog post (I currently have about 4 pages of ideas for blog entries, so we’ll get to the deeper dive stuff I promise!), I’m choosing not to share identifying information about my child. Throughout the blog, I’ll refer to my child as Little Star. I’m afraid I won’t be sharing photos, or any specifics of the agency we adopted through, my child’s back story, specific individuals involved in their care, or any identifying information about where they lived etc etc…you get the picture. I already have a blog post in mind about this, but something that is sometimes hard for people to understand is why adoptive parents can’t share details of their background. I suppose there is a little morbid curiosity about these things. My partner and I are of the belief (which is commonly held by adoption agencies) that adopted children benefit from ownership of their story, and autonomy over who and how they choose to share it with as they grow old enough to understand it for themselves. Suffice to say that any child adopted from social services (the vast majority of UK adoptions) will have been categorised under one or multiple categories of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse and/or neglect, and the situation will have had to have got to the point where the child is deemed as at immediate risk of harm should they continue to be parented by their birth parents. Many adopted children, even those with relatively “stable” experiences in foster care, will grow up with feelings of shame about where they come from, struggle with low self-esteem rooted in feelings of otherness and believing themselves to be unwanted, and be on their own quest to fill what can be huge gaps in their knowledge of their own story. So, it is to be understood, I feel, that their life story sits best with them, their parents, and close family. If you can imagine that even by the time you are a young adult, there will still be people who may know more about aspects of your life and how you came into the world than you do, it’s not so hard to see why adoptive parents need to be protective over these details.
That said, what I can share is my general experiences with adoption, down to quite specific information about the process, what you can expect, my thoughts about common issues and dilemmas that arise with adoption, and a deeper, real-life insight into some of the things that opening a generic book about adoption won’t tell you. I hope to be able to shed some light on how it might feel to:
- Grow to love your child and they to love you?
- Have to ask permission to go on a family holiday?
- Prove yourself to be a fit prospective parent again and again?
- Examine your own childhood (and any associated traumas) forensically to understand how it has affected your own parenting ability and style?
- Experience heartache and loss of an adopted child through a broken match?
- Develop and draw upon reserves of resilience you never knew you had to fight for your right to start a family?
- Make significant changes in your lifestyle to accommodate a child you’ve never met yet?
- Parent a child who may look, act, think and learn entirely different to the “normal” in your family?
- Experience “choosing” or “being chosen for” your child, or as some may feel their child “choosing them”?
- Parent a child who has experienced grief, loss, separation, and trauma?
- Not know your child’s medical risk or heritage?
- Know that your child may one day choose to reconnect with the first parents they knew?
- Have the confidence (or need!) to go against the grain of conventional parenting wisdom to parent a child for whom those strategies may be entirely inappropriate or out of step with their developmental age?
- …Have your cat or dog assessed for your suitability to adopt? (Yes really!)
All this and more to come I hope, if you have the patience to read through my ramblings! I’d love for you to join me on what I hope will be a new journey, my passing forward all the generously given advice, support, insight and help that I was afforded by the UK adoption community and support networks when I was going through the process.
A final note – if this blog goes well, I’d love to be able to answer some questions that may be on people’s mind about adoption. I do understand, for what it’s worth, that adoption is a subject that people can feel a little bit intimidated by. It’s easy to feel you ae “saying the wrong thing” or putting your foot in it, and that thinking can stop otherwise curious people from stepping forward and asking what they need to know. So please know that this blog is not intended to crucify anyone with a genuine interest, who may sometimes stumble on the “right” wording or terminology, and I am always happy to take Q&A from people who may wish to do so anonymously. There’s a world of difference between a badly phrased but innocent question and an invasive, and offensive sweeping statement, and I’ve learnt not to be too defensive and decipher between the two…so, if you want to ask, please do. If I can’t answer your question, I’ll let you know, but if I can, I will. You can private message me on my personal Instagram if we are friends, or via Tumblr.
