Arms no longer empty

The weekend was long and filled with an excited tension. All we wanted to do was make that phone call and begin the process of us becoming a family. Finally Tuesday arrived and we were able to ring our social worker and accept the placement. After making the call we were able to start dealing with the logistics of bringing a child into our lives with only a few days notice. We had no cot, bassinet, pram, clothes, nappies etc. You are warned and counselled against buying anything for a baby prior to placement because there is no guarantee you will be chosen to become parents.



I had to give notice at my work of our impending parenthood. While I had been working towards training a replacement I was nowhere near the point I could walk out and know all was taken care of. However, faced with the choice of going to Melbourne to meet my daughter or staying at work to facilitate my departure... no prizes for guessing which I chose.

On June 12th I walked out of work for what would be the final time even though I had vague thoughts of perhaps going back after 12 months. We flew to Melbourne and hired a car so we could get to the foster parents home to meet our daughter. I was so nervous. What if she didn't like me, what if I didn't like her, what if I couldn't connect to this child. All these doubts assailed me and made me a quivering mess. There was incredible disbelief, after so many years of childlessness I couldn't quite believe that I would finally become a mother again.

When you adopt a child you don't just walk in the door, say hello and take a child home. That's almost how it happened years ago but now you have to meet with social workers, they formulate a plan for transitioning the child into your care, you go to and fro between them and the foster parents home. You spend time getting to know your child's routine and your child before you get the green light to go home. Depending on the age of the child and the circumstances you may do this for a few days, a week or potentially longer if needed. We were given a plan that involved three days. Day one we were to meet our daughter and spend time watching her, day two watching routine, day three take over routine and head home in the evening. This is pretty much how it played out with the slight change in plans that we were able to go out with our little girl to see my parents. My father had been diagnosed not long before with yet another bout of cancer and we weren't sure how long he would live nor if he would be well enough to come visit us. he was seeming to be in remission but you don't take chances when you're up to your third bout of cancer. There were restrictions on travelling once we took our daughter home and we didn't want to wait until we got permission to travel again. So while no-one in our families had been told we were to become parents we chose to drive over to my parents home and surprise them.

It was a lovely way to tell them. I rang a little while before we would arrive at their home and just said I'd had to come to Melbourne for the day and would they be home. I can still hear my father's laughter as I walked in holding a baby, that laugh you make when you're so happy, perhaps just before you might cry... Many had been the time my father had expressed his anguish for me being without a child in my life. To see his face when he met his newest granddaughter was a wonderful thing.

And so my parents met our daughter, we had to return her to her foster mother's home in all too short a time but we got to take her home the next day. My husband had let his mother know the evening before we were going home so she surprised us by coming out to the airport to meet her granddaughter. We weren't telling my Father-in-law as we planned to bring my in-laws up for a visit to meet their granddaughter. She was their only living grandchild so we felt they would love to be able to spend a few days with her. I sent my sisters and brother a letter with a photgraph introducing our daughter and explaining that we would bring her down to meet them soon. Again, we were restricted by DHS regulations and requirements as to how many people could meet our daughter during the transition period. They weren't happy about my parents meeting her but accepted the reasoning of my father's ill health making it a risk he may never see her if we didn't meet up with him during that few days. The emphasis is on you bonding with your child and getting to know their routine. If you know and follow your child's routine they maintain that familiarity upon moving, their surroundings may be different, the voices and faces have changed but there is something that has remained constant. That is important, so their rules make sense but like all rules they need some flexibility to allow for individual circumstances.

A week or so after returning home (and a huge amount of money later after buying all we needed for her) my husband's parents came to visit. When they arrived I took them outside to where my husband was waiting with our daughter in his arms. The look of surprise mixed with happiness and disbelief is one I will never forget...