Written while waiting for a match

It is, of course, a good reality check. The Council are not looking for a child for us – that is not their job.

In an ideal world there would never be a child for us – because for there to be a match for us some very sad things need to have happened. Unlike approval – which can be a win win situation allowing everyone involved to be pleased with how things have turned out; when it comes to tracking and matching – a huge loss is at the heart of each and every hand played.

So this whole thing is not about me. BUT….

Just because this process is not about fulfilling our desires, that doesn’t mean that we don’t or shouldn’t have those desires. Those desires are exactly what the child we are waiting for deserves. The process needs to be child centred, but that child needs to have expectant parents at the end of the process. And that is us lot – the approved prospective adopters. Whatever the path that has lead us to this point – pain and loss, altruism, conscious choice or having choice taken away from you… – the point we are all at now is that we want to be the adoptive parents of a child who needs us. And that is good! Remember – we don’t need to have poker faces – we’ve played our hand! Impatience, excitement, fear of not finding a match, anticipation are all perfectly correct emotions for approved adopters to experience while they wait for a match.

While it certainly isn’t all about how we are feeling; how we are feeling is a vital part of the process. After all, should we really be offering ourselves up as parents if our intentions were totally dispassionate? Meh is not the appropriate attitude at this point!

If we felt just the same as we wait for a match as we would if we were offering our spare room to a friend’s brother on a ‘it’s there if the need arises, but we aren’t too fussed either way….’ basis would that not raise some troubling questions?

Would that be better than the ache I feel inside?

I don’t think so and nor do I think I should feel guilty about feeling deeply about this. I just need to learn to celebrate the ache and the anticipation while not feeling rejected or bruised when those emotions are given a back row seat in the proceedings.

And it is OK that that is hard. During the Assessment stages there are always marker posts ahead – even when progress is at its slowest each day that goes by is a day closer to where you are aiming for – and eventually the process takes you all the way to Panel. Once out the other side however, Panel remains the main reference point – it is just that now you are looking back at something getting further and further away. All future* marker posts that lie ahead of you are the ones that tell you how long you have remained unmatched since Panel.

So what with the emotions themselves, the awareness that they need to be kept a bit quiet while the professionals do their stuff and the unknown stretch of waiting ahead of you – well it all adds up to a very vulnerable position to be in. And that is not such a bad thing – what better way to prepare to nurture with empathy one far more vulnerable than I will ever be, whose little life may well have been a series of one unnerving experience after another?

*That is until that all important conversation with your ASW which starts “So there is some news…” Read on….

This is a post I wrote back in May 2019. It felt rather raw at the time – more of a personal splurge – so I decided not to publish it. I have now revisited it and feel the following is worth sharing.

Coming back from my first ever support group meeting and with the radio offering little that grabbed me, I turned my thoughts to why I was finding life post-approval a bit of an uphill struggle.

Not the whole of life you understand, but just managing my emotions around the adoption …

Despite having thoroughly enjoyed the support group I drove away with a distinct knot in my tummy. With a long drive ahead of me, and nothing to distract me on the radio I fell to reflecting on just why that was. And what I found surprised me – hiding amongst the excitement, longing and impatience that I had expected to give myself a good talking to about I also discerned fear.

Hmm – fear. What is that all about? There was the obvious fear of a match never being found, but hiding in its shadow was a more subtle fear: the fear that each week and month of waiting was somehow undermining the approval; the fear that life post-approval was becoming life post-being approved of.

O.K. – so at least the fear is out in the open – now to address it.

Fear 1: “You’ll never get a match”
Well it’s basically far too early to cross that bridge and there are people who will help us cross it if and when we come to it.

Fear 2: “On second thoughts we don’t really want you.”
So I get it – a big part of the reason I am feeling like this is because I’m, well quite frankly I’m me! That is how my brain works. Many of you will be made of sterner stuff! But just in case I’m not the only worrier amongst us let’s just stick with it for a moment – aside from my personal proclivities, what else might be going on here?

Well, as I drove home that summer’s evening it struck me that, as well as the dramatic change of pace at this point in the process (as covered in my last post), there is also a pronounced change in atmosphere. Not a change from positive to negative – there are still lots of positives: excellent ongoing training, support groups, email updates, visits from our ASW, not to mention all the work that is going on behind the scenes. No it is more like a shift from a predominantly open atmosphere to a more closed one. From an atmosphere full of potential to one more densely populated with obstacles like courts and geography and competition. The positives that led to our approval are just as real as before of course, but they sort of go undercover for a while, while words like ‘vulnerabilities’ take centre stage.

To borrow some language from the world of the card table:

As you near the end of the Assessment Stage and go through Panel everyone’s cards are laid out on the table. In the case of approval it is a win win situation and there are smiles and congratulations all round.

And then the game moves on without you. Your cards stay out on the table, while new players pull up their chairs and a new hand is dealt. In contrast to the last hand this hand is played very close to the chest, poker faces all round. Oh, and it literally becomes a competitive process.

Which is totally correct, understandable and necessary…

…AND just a little unnerving.

And that’s O.K. too.

Which brings us back to those knots of fear in my stomach as I drove home yesterday evening.

Is it understandable to feel an element of vulnerability as I experience this shift of atmosphere – yes I think it is. Does it follow that my fears are well founded?

No.

After all, it is often the case that the most innocent of things can cast a bit of a scary shadow when you find yourself in the unknown.

Is that our ‘approval rating’ going down? No silly – it’s just that we are not the right family for that child.

Are we slowly failing a probationary period? No – things are just moving a bit slowly in court at the moment.

Have we been ‘left on the shelf’ because we have fallen out of favour – forgotten and covered in dust like Wheezy in Toy Story 2? No – this is just the part of the story where you can’t quite tell how it is all going to work out.

So what to do? Well, take a bit of a deep breath, probably laugh at myself a little and keep going.