The effects of my infertility? And even more so, the effects of recurrent miscarriage? One of the nasty, long term side effects, is that I’m forever waiting for the other shoe to drop. I can no longer simply accept and revel in good things in my life. In the back of my mind I’m worrying about something going wrong.
Our adoption is exactly the same. On Saturday, I attended an infertility support brunch where the topic for discussion was Adoption and a social worker in private practice was going to share her knowledge and I was going to share my experience. During the SW’s talk, she mentioned that final adoption orders will not be granted if the bio father has not signed consent. I almost farking fainted, the rest of the brunch past in a blur, when I got home I was so distraught, convinced that the reason there had been such a long delay with ours was because our SW had forgotten to mention that we would have to wait the 2 years for the bio father to with draw consent before receiving the final order.
I spent the whole of Saturday and Sunday frantically trying to contact our SW and had my friend Roz, using her legal mind to scour the new and old child act looking for this clause. By Sunday night I was so frantic I was convinced I’d kill myself should she be removed from my care. No amount of logic or persuasion from Roz or my husband (who studied family law) would calm me down. By Monday I was living on Nurofens and by Monday night I was on to the Myprodol’s, so severe was the tension headache I’d developed. Needless to say I spent Tuesday in bed, nursing the mother of all migraines and dosed on Myprodols.
My SW finally called me back on Monday night, this is after about 10 rather hysterical voice mails and emails and sms’s to her over the past couple of days. The news she gave me should have comforted me and in terms of our adoption order is has comforted me. But it has broken my heart for my precious daughter.
The 2 year period on the final order does not apply to us, our order has been approved by social services and was passing through the courts this week and going for registration next week because………… Our BM does not know who Ava’s bio father is.
Adoption is a strange process, you can never understand it unless you’ve done it. People are surprised by the love I have for our BM. People are surprised that I keep in touch with her by sending her photo’s and emails monthly. But those feelings change once you’ve been through the process, once you understand the process, the fears you had before embarking on it do dissipate.
Those of you who have been through adoption will understand my utter devastation, I cried great big gulping sobs out of heart break for my daughter on Monday night. My heart cracked and broke knowing that this incredible, innocent, beautiful little being will NEVER fully know her roots. That one day when she’s 18 and if she so chooses, we will reunite in person with her BM but we can never ever do the same with her Bio Father.
And while I should be glad because this simplifies our adoption, I am also indescribably sad for the child I love more than words can ever convey.
