All the lovely stories - this is truth

[tonyhawks23]

After reading the post focusing on the horror stories I thought we could do with a lovely stories thread of all the nice things that happen with adoption, and with more respect in general - we know its never easy life, it never is with children, its chaos, but theres loveliness in here too.
Was thinking about it this morning and its not hard to find the loveliness in the chaos so just wanted to bring balance to the forum.
With maybe-
Here are a few facts from within my own experience of adoption -

Our daughters foster mum was wonderful and gave her so much wonderful love and care she thrived in her care and she worked so hard in making the transition to our care as positive as possible for our daughter.

Our daughter has behaved exactly as any toddler does, there is chaos and there is crying but she is learning her emotions really well as she is with her numbers and colours and is doing really well.

Had the developmental stage of hitting and soon learned that 'no hitting' means 'no hitting' and if she hit would be removed from the situation immediately. Has learned to say sorry from cocomelon.

Our daughter has a lovely chaotic relationship with our older two, and they swing between annoying each other, all 3, to games and playing all round, and its fine.

Our daughter, like our other two, moans about stuff, says she doesnt want her lunch etc, but its all normal. I moan about stuff too.

Our support network is brilliant, most have children, of varying ages, and hanging out with them all together has been so much support and is just as lovely now than before she arrived.

We also have a new support network of our adoption friends through training, who we chat with on whats app lots and meet up occasionally, really helpful when we have worries.

We also feel really supported by the Adoption UK online community, although are too busy with 3 children to ever attend the support meetings, but we know they are there if we need them.

We also feel really supported by the family support team of our LA.

So just wanted to spread some positivity about adoption as too often only the bad stuff gets on here. Its never easy and the future may be different as her disability makes things harder for her and if my daughter is anything like I was as a teenager that part will be no fun, but so far its not all horror stories by any means.

@tonyhawks23 Thank you for starting this thread. I also read through the other one (and the Aibu thread on adoption) and the lack of compassion for our kids is disgusting. Adoption is awful. I’ve learnt that. It’s awful not because of the kids you are adopting but awful because by coming to us, our kids lose everything. They lose their home, their family, their support, their friends, their community. Absolutely everything. However, without adoption, our kids might be passed from family to family going through that time and time again. For our family, adoption was right for our son because he didn’t have a family able to care for him long term before us. How heartbreaking for a toddler.

when he came to us as a toddler, he was angry. He was lost. He was overwhelmed. He could not feel happiness. He did not feel safe. Years of love and never giving up on him (and believe me when I say I questioned was I enough for him, did he deserve better than me). However, after years of showing him love and building a happy life together, I can honestly say adoption was right for us. He is happy and feels loved and feels safe. I have no doubt we will continue to have challenges but I feel we can do it because we are family and that’s what adoption is, creating a family and together for a child who can’t live with their birth family.

my son is primary school age now and is thriving.

Its a marathon not a sprint as they say

My boy is 18. We have had some very tough times. He has done his Gold Duke of Edinburgh this year, including a cycling expedition in the Netherlands. He is working and planning on university next year.
When he came to me at 8 I never dared to think he would even do GCSEs, let alone go to university.
Very proud of my young man

That's lovely to hear.

That is lovely!

My boy has the greatest sense of humour. He has hilarious slapstick comedy and has made loads of friends at school because of his personality.

He was on a zoom call the other day with an education psychologist and he froze in place as he was talking leading the psychologist to believe the connection had gone. Then he laughed and said, "wasn't that a funny joke guys?"

Great thread idea.

We adopted our son when he was 10 months and we knew from the off that he was quite special. He did everything early ( already walking and talking at 10 months ) and we could tell very quickly that he was a bright spark.

He had some emotional and mental health wobbles between the age of 8 to 14 and we had to do some post adoption courses and therapy with him. It was tough at the time but he has come through it all amazingly well.

He is now just turned 17 and is ridiculously handsome ( after the very goofy early teen years when he was bullied because of his sticky out teeth ) He smashed his GCSEs at grammar school and is now doing four A levels and wants to do a degree in economics.

He has a weekend job as a lifeguard and is taking his driving test this week even though he only turned 17 in October. He's been obsessed with cars his whole life so he can't wait.

We could not be more proud of how he has overcome so much in his life and achieved so much success.

Our DD was also 10 months when we adopted her and although we had 13 years of easy life with her we are now in the middle of a storm due to lots of different factors. It's so bloody hard at the moment but I have hope because of how my DS has turned out.

We adopted our DS at 2. He is now 3 and a half. He’s just absolutely magical!

Last Christmas, he was really unsure and didn’t really understand. He spent a few weeks post Christmas being very upset thinking Father Christmas was going to come and take his presents away. This year however, he is so excited and it is lovely to see! He’s written his letter (he’s asked for ‘all the chocolate’) and keeps asking when the tree is going up, when we see ‘Merry Christmas’. It’s just wonderful.

He goes to Nursery 4 days a week and has a few lovely friends, who I’ve made friends with too! I love seeing them all play together and navigate the tricky world of being 3!

He loves camping and we’ve been on 2 holidays this year. We have 3 planned for next year and he’s already asking when we are going back in the tent.

Seeing my family just fully love on our brilliant boy has been the best thing. Seeing his attachments grow with my parents and see them be grandparents has been wonderful. We’ve now reached the point where DS will ask if he can stay and sleep over so DH and I have had a couple of date nights!

Honestly, I would do all the hard stuff one million times over for him!

Our youngest has started talking a lot more about Christmas in the last week or so, guessing they're talking about it at nursery.

This morning just before his gro clock woke up I was treated to this pile of cuteness

'Santa might bring you a present daddy, I might get a dinosaur present from mine list. Ho Ho Ho merry Christmas Ho Ho Ho merry Christmas'

This time last year was just before they moved in and he could say a handful of words and mostly grunted and pointed at stuff

Sadly daddy was already at work so didn't hear it. Luckily I recorded it for him (we have a video baby monitor) so daddy was made up when I sent him the video

aww these are lovely! ours has yet to have the fun world of Christmas but is still loving having discovered halloween - saying spoookyy at appropriate things and wanting to go on spooky walks with a torch every day.

Todays cuteness for us was her saying "Watch this" before showing off a super huge jump, over and over again at bedtime. New word cuteness even better than the jump!

DD is about to perform with her dance school on a West End stage 🙂

Oh wow congrats to her and good luck that is awesome!

Wow! That’s impressive. Best of luck to your DD (I won’t risk saying ‘break a leg’!)

You absolutely should be so proud!

I’ve got a foot in the really difficult camp (teen DD) and the relatively easy camp (DD2 (6). I’ve possibly posted in the ‘horror stories’ thread about the reality of living with DD1 (suffice to say that I have had periods of blocked care and I’m most probably suffering from secondary trauma, but we’re hanging on in there and every day is another day that my DD is not exposed to the vicissitudes of the care system).

DD2 is THE most irrepressible and exuberant personality, she has a tonne of friends and is just home from yet another party. She has had a ‘blue drink’ (fingers crossed it’s not WKD 😅) and is sucking on THE biggest rainbow lollipop. DD2 was awarded her head teacher’s award at assembly on Friday for always being a good sport (paraphrasing here) and doing the right thing at school (if not at home!)

DD1 has a multitude of disabilities and difficulties that affect her performance at and enjoyment of school but she has really knuckled down in Y10 and she is making great progress. Her latest monitoring report shows that she is on track for 9s for a number of her GCSEs. She is also doing really well with her fundraising for a Girlguiding trip to Scandinavia next summer.

@Sigma33 wow thats very exciting

@EmmatheStageRat

nice to hear some positive vibes. The blue drink reminds me of my boy’s first trip to the pub on his 18th. Our conversation went like this
Me - did you have a good time
Him - yes mum
Me - how much did you have to drink
Him - not much
Me - how much is not much
Him - a cider and a J2o
Me - to myself - thats a relief
Him - and the shots
Me - choking on my hot chocolate - shots, what sort of shots
Him - in a very patient tone - mum, shots are very small drinks
Me - I know what a shot is - what type of shot
Him- pink ones

😂I can visualise it...

What a lovely thread, we always need thus.

My 5yo is doing just fine right now. He goes through cycles of high emotions then comes back out the other side and we start again.

His 3rd ish month in reception and he is doing well academically, still toileting to get right but we, school and GP are working on that. School fayre last week where he helped me do the tombola; is a proper Del-Boy on a stall. Lots of children from breakfast/after school clubs knew him and came to say hello/high five/hug which made me smile.

Another poster/thread mentioned karate for high energy and focusing; been thinking of that for a while so going to take that plunge.

@DeegeeDee , my DD2, who is six, and being assessed for ADHD and autism tomorrow, does 2 x 1 hour judo classes each week. The discipline of the martial art has been incredibly good for her.

Thanks Emma, was trying to work out the logistics of school and home and wondering if we wait til the new year. He does swimming every Sunday for an hour then we do McDonald's and shopping. Grandparents every other Saturday so finding a stable slot has been on our minds but meant we haven't moved forward. Will try it and find a way.

Good luck with the assessments tomorrow.

@Ted27 good luck with the next phase of Fostering x