Getting Ready for a Roller Coaster Ride

I've been reading a lot of adoption blogs recently and, I have to admit, I've been loving reading about people's experiences both in preparation for adoption, during introductions and afterwards.  With my foster carer's hat on, I appreciate the insight it gives me into what's coming next for my little ones, and with my adopter's hat on, it's great to get a glimpse at the upcoming attractions for myself!

So this week, for the first time, I'm linking up with the Weekly Adoption Shout Out (WASO), hosted by The Boy's Behaviour and The Puffin Diaries.  If you're reading this because you're interested in adoption, please do go and visit these blogs, and take a look at some of the other WASO participants - some great, honest stories in there.

A number of themes have emerged as I've been reading, but the one that resonates most with me right now is how adoption (and fostering, for that matter) opens your life to be managed and planned by others.  The adoption process involves a whole plethora of people, some of whom you will never meet, and many of whom will get to have a say in some aspect of the way you plan to run your life, even if it's just in dictating the timing of what will happen when.

Even though I'm adopting as a foster carer, and OB has been living here with me for nearly two years now, we still have to face up to some big changes in the next few months, many of which are quite out of our control! 

Right at the beginning of the adoption process, it was made clear to me that we would have to move house as members of his birth family know where we live.  After a long search, with a few dead ends, we have finally found our ideal home at our ideal price, and various people are already requesting large cheques.  The move should take place sometime in the next three months amidst a whirlwind of packing and DIY (hopefully with the help of a lot of other people!).  But I don't know exactly when.

Sometime during that same three months, OB's final court date and celebratory hearing will take place and we will have a big party, and a special dedication service at church.  But I don't know exactly when.

As NB now has a family that is very interested in him, it seems that there's a good chance that the next three months will be a busy time of getting ready for transition and then actually moving him on - something I haven't done before.  The potential adopter is some distance away, so this will mean a week of them spending lots of time at my place, followed by a week of all three of us going to a distant part of the country so NB can spend time at his new home.  But I don't know exactly when.

And, I'm having a major birthday.  At least I do know exactly when that is!

We are certainly looking at a roller coaster ride, and I'm already struggling with the difficulty of making plans for it all.  I worry about how stressful I will find all of this and how we will physically fit everything in, but more than that, I worry about the stress that all of these changes will bring to the boys, and how difficult it is to prepare them properly when I don't even know the order in which it will all be happening.

These two little boys, who have already been through several traumatic and severe transitions (which will have felt like abandonments to them), are now going to have to face separation from each other and relocation to a completely new home.  NB will have to adjust to a completely new world as he meets and settles with his new family.  And each of these events will happen hard on the heels of the last one.

I thank God for my support network.  As I have to stand firm as a safe and secure constant in the lives of these boys through all the forthcoming turmoil, I know that my wonderful friends and family will help me to plant my feet firmly on the rock, and hold me there with their loving and capable hands.