The January Blues

Christmas was over, and a new year had arrived. A new year full of possibility and promise, but as the ball dropped it also meant saying goodbye to our Canadian family and friends, without fail a heart wrenching experience.

Each time I leave Canada I feel as though a piece of my heart has been left behind. I love England completely. It is the place I regard as home, and I don’t regret following my heart

across the ocean to start a life with Benjamin. Still there are moments when I can hear Canada calling me, even if the call is a faint whisper, I can still hear it. I still feel the pull on my heartstrings and on occasion it feels as though my body is in Britain, and my heart beating outside of it, somewhere on Canadian soil.

With all of us suffering from jet lag, the toddler demands for 3 am sandwiches, and the homesickness for Canada, re-adjusting to our normal day to day life was difficult. We returned home to England, expecting change around several situations, and discovered everything had remained the same.

It had been one of those months where the to-do-list was endless, yet nothing seems to get ticked off. The suitcases we brought from Canada remained unpacked on our bedroom floor for weeks, ready meals were our meals of choice, and the 68 Thomas the tank engine mini trains, paw patrol pups, and hatchimals scattered across our living room floor had become a permanent fixture in our décor.

Explaining to our Christmas obsessed toddler that Santa wouldn’t visit again until next year as he searched under our Christmas tree for gifts, was a challenge of its own, as a hint of Christmas magic still filled the air.

Usually we don’t decorate our home for Christmas as we tend to be in Canada for the holidays, but this year we had the urge to add a flare of Christmas to our place.

We allowed our sparkly tree to linger a little longer to celebrate Orthodox (Armenian) Christmas. Celebrating Christmas to honour our baby whom we have never met, or laid eyes on. A baby to us, that doesn’t have a face yet, except the one we picture in our minds. It doesn’t seem real, waiting for a child that feels like a figment of our imaginations, a baby we know nothing about.

When I was pregnant with our son, we knew he would arrive somewhere around his due date. I could visualise a baby that resembled us, or certain features of ours. I felt him kicking inside me, and although we didn’t know his gender at the time, I bought him little outfits, we picked names, we heard his heartbeat. We knew after I delivered, that we would carry a newborn baby through our door. In this case, I know none of those things, and I may know nothing about this baby’s history or family.

All I know at this point is that our little one will be under 12 months old. Vague, to say the least.

We are inundated with questions about this baby we don’t know yet, and what information we may know about his or her history and birth family, and that’s okay, most of the time we welcome questions and we are excited to share what  we do know.

 

 

With modern domestic adoptions, most of the time, there is a lot of background information on the child and the birth mother, and sometimes birth family, reasons why the child was placed into adoption or removed from the care of the biological family, past medical history of the child and mother.

However, when adopting internationally sometimes those records aren’t available. There could be many reasons for this. The birth parents may not have disclosed their histories, for anonymity, and sometimes, it is the choice of the country itself to keep the child’s records confidential. The bottom line is, we may not know anything about our baby’s birth family or why they were placed for adoption, which is a part of our child’s history that we will have to embrace.

I hope we know as much history about our child, and the birth family as possible, not for ourselves, but for our child. We will always be open with our little one and share what is age appropriate with them about their history and birth family. It would be nice if we are able to have some information about them, or at least have photos to share with our baby. Although I’m unsure if this will be possible, as open adoptions are uncommon when adopting internationally. This is a fact that we have come to accept.

 

 

 

 

 

January just sat there like a watched pot on a stove, and when February arrived, the water finally came to a boil. We felt the love in the air, and the days became a little brighter. Perhaps it was the red paper hearts, the Valentine’s day displays in the shop windows, or the fond memories of moving across several years ago on Valentine’s day, but as January faded into February, we felt a sudden shift. We could see everything starting to blossom and grow. It felt like a long winter, then suddenly little shocks of colour burst through the snow. As the little crocus gently reminded us that spring is on her way… it was the first sight of colour in our black and white existence, not full colour just yet, but just enough to give us hope that soon, things will transform and bloom into something beautiful.

 

Big Envelopes- Small Victories

Our hearts skipped a beat when one chilly morning, we received a letter notifying us that our PAR (Prospective Adopter’s Report) had been received in Armenia, and shortly after that we were told our documents were being translated, and that the translations should be completed by the end of February.

Like clockwork, we received word that they were complete. Our documents will be reviewed once more, and hopefully we will be matched with a little one in the next few months. The international adoption process is like a giant puzzle, and when a piece is put in its proper place it feels like a small victory. Getting a letter, or hearing a date on our completion of translations may sound mundane to  some, but at the moment it’s really the only information we can cling to, it’s our life raft keeping us afloat in treacherous seas.

 

Timelines

We don’t know much more than you. We could get matched with a baby in three weeks, three months or even a year from now, and that uncertainty is agonising. It is especially diffcult for our three-year-old, who has truly shown patience and understanding beyond his years, maybe even better than mine somedays. Each day he asks, “Are we going to “Menia” to get my baby?”, “When do we get my baby?”, “Is my baby coming soon?”

Regularly he asks to buy gifts for his new sibling. It is heart wrenching to watch our kind and wonderful boy wait for our baby to arrive, though it also makes us grateful that he is going to be an extremely gentle, warm, nurturing and intuitive big brother to a little child who is in need of a lot of extra TLC.

So, as we wait, we are trying our best to learn as much about Armenia as possible, so we can keep our child’s heritage alive in our day to day life. We try to enjoy each day as it comes, and live in the moment, though sometimes it is unbelievably difficult.

 

“Let all that you do be done in Love”

When the topic of adoption comes up there are various issues surrounding it, but one, that not many people are aware of, is loss.

Loss? What does loss have to do with adoption? There is so much to gain from adoption, however, adoption stems from loss.

As adopters, we completely honour and respect that a birth family has lost their child, and that a little one has lost their family, and most of the time, everything that is familiar.

Sometimes the adopters feel a sense of loss too. Perhaps they were unable to conceive a biological child and have that cross to bear, or potentially they feel a sense of loss over missing out on the first days, weeks, months or sometimes years of their child’s life. Somewhere in the triangle that connects birth family, adoptive family and child, there is loss.

Some people assume a baby is “given up” because a mother doesn’t want their child or can’t face the responsibilities associated with parenthood, but there is so much more to it than that. None of us have the right to assume what a birth family is feeling when placing their child for adoption.

Nobody knows the pressure they may be facing from their families or communities, or that in some countries there aren’t resources for women to seek help if they find themselves pregnant and without family or financial support. We simply have no idea, and we absolutely have no right to judge.

I know women personally who have placed their babies for adoption for various different reasons, and in all of those cases they did it out of love, not out of not caring, not in an attempt to shuck responsibility. I couldn’t think of a more loving and selfless act to do, giving up a baby because someone else could give them a better life than you could. Sacrificing your own happiness in order to give your child a better life, and possibly never feeling whole again afterwards.

Of course, some children are removed from the care of abusive or neglectful parents or abandoned in horrifying ways. It is absolutely appalling, but still it may be part of our child’s story that we need to acknowledge and accept.

We aren’t entirely sure what type of environment our baby will come from, most likely from an orphanage, though in some very rare cases, perhaps a foster home.

 

 

There is a lot of academic research regarding children who have been adopted, and how their neural pathways may have been rewired due to the trauma they have suffered (even if not immediately obvious), and they may struggle to bond and attach in the same way most parents experience with a biological child.

This is a hard fact of adoption, and the days, weeks, months and possibly years after we bring home that baby, a lot of our time will be spent rebuilding trust, bonding and overcoming the early childhood trauma they have potentially experienced.

We really can’t predict the outcome of the situation, I’ve heard wonderful adoption stories where children bond almost instantly and live very happily after they are adopted, but it is perhaps surprising that people outside of the adoption process, feel it is their duty to give a balanced view by sharing the horror stories they have come across. I don’t really see how this benefits anyone. We don’t pretend that everything will be rosy and perfect once our little one is welcomed into our arms, but we are also optimistic, and we are aware of the issues we could potentially face.

Each case is different, each child is different, and we will have to take it day by day. We are absolutely open to any therapy that can be beneficial to children who have been adopted, and we will always be willing and open to learning more on how we can support a child with whatever needs they have.

We will be taking a step back from social situations once we have our baby. This will be a crucial time for us as a family to bond with our new little one, learn about them, show them what love is, and to help our son bond and learn about his new sibling.

This may be perceived as over protective or strange to people when we politely decline invitations, turn away visitors, and refuse to allow others to hold our baby. However, this is a rational and educated decision based on the best practice advice we have received from numerous social workers and attachment specialists.

Over the past couple of months, things connected together, like the brush strokes of a painting, each one a part of a masterpiece. Our family portrait is being being painted and we don’t quite know what it will look like in the end, but we know each stroke is necessary, each movement, each colour, each shape.