To be honest we have always wanted children and as a same sex couple we were slightly limited in option! However adoption was definitely always on the table.
The experience has been very much in keeping with what we expected given the research we did into modern adoption. We knew it would be hard, that our kids might (and do) struggle with various aspects relating to their trauma. It isn't glamorous, and it isn't immediately gratifying. In my experience, there's no one big conversation you can have to sort it all out, no 'but you are safe now and I'll always love you' and it's all fixed, no lightbulb moment where the child looks up at you through teary eyes and gratefully tells you how glad they are they get you as their parents. I mean, there have been those types of conversations but it hasn't meant any lasting change. It's hard, grinding, difficult, small steps that make a difference in the child's real sense of safety and attachment. My child today lost a game at a holiday park and immediately came to me and wept in my arms. However, I was internally rejoicing because before he would have hit the roof, swearing and telling everyone he would piss on their mum. Now he just was sad he lost a game and was able to be comforted.
Half the battle for us is that our children have been seriously affected by their experiences but it only shows up in certain ways. The more we have learnt about our children,the more we are able to anticipate their needs, but I don't think I truly appreciated how difficult it would be that their needs would be so specific. I knew I would have to advocate for them, but I thought it would be for them to get the right type of therapy or to get an ehcp. Turns out that actually it's very boring nagging nursery to tell you when they have a fire drill planned because he comes home absolutely wired, or that them having supply teachers in really sends them for a loop which is why he is biting other kids again, and his special need is attachment based, so simply running the same intervention with another adult isn't going to have the desired effect.
A lot of my parenting is vastly different to how I had imagined it, and much harder because the better I've become at it, the harder it is for other people to provide care effectively and allow me to get a break. Other kids can go to grandma and grandads for a sleepover. My two were put to bed by my dad unexpectedly because there was a death in the family that I had to be present for and it sent them barmy around bedtimes for the last 2 weeks.
However.
My kids are an absolute blast. I love them to bits. They are absolutely bonkers, and being me so much joy. Not only are they beautiful, physically and emotionally, they are funny and clever to boot. Given that they point blank refuse to do anything they don't want to do, act like absolute fools if asked to do the simplest of things, they are surprisingly thoughtful and empathetic. One loves anything historical, and is really into knights at the moment, so is lapping up anythinga nd everything we can teach him about jousting, armour and swords. We also helped him have a funeral for a bug he killed and instantly regretted, and he made a headstone and everything. He also dances with a rhythm and energy he certainly didn't get from me! He is confident and articulate and has the comedic timings down pat. He also swears like an absolute sailor and only just now revealed he actually can write when he wants to... But only because he wanted to write rude words on the window of the caravan. How do you parent that? Son, I'm glad you can write (even when you swear you can't at home and reception) but please don't call your brother a butt nugget in writing?
The youngest is an absolute diva, and again ridiculous. Today he cried whilst he was going up in a lift because he wanted to go straight back down again, raged (and I mean raged) for an hour because we weren't back at the caravan yet to the point where a lovely Italian man got up from his coffee to offer us biscuits to calm him down. It didn't work until a full hour later, having raged himself into a stupor, he looked up at me and asked "mama, why did that man give me biscuits? Can I please have them?" And I was like.... You little... Fine. Have the bloody biscuits. He also unabashedly walked up onto the stage midway through a children's show at the campsite to join in a competition in the second or third round (my shy, rule abiding soul could NEVER), lost spectacularly, them cheerfully came off stage chatting absolute bollocks about how far he threw the ball and everyone cheered. All the time I had been silently cursing under my breath trying to work out how he had managed to sneak on stage and how I could get him back without actually going on stage myself. He saw me gesturing from the side to come off the stage, looked me dead in the eye and laughed at me. But how could I be mad? The kid has cajoneys that I could never dream of.
So is it what I expected? Yes and no. It's difficult, and I've had to grow a thick skin. Things I thought would be hard weren't as bad as I thought. I don't find advocating for them as hard as I thought I would. But I do.find the jdugemental stares in public difficult. They look very badly behaved and I look very permissive. Their behaviours are usually trauma responses and my boundaries change depending on my judgement of a situation, but I'm only human, and a tut and an eye roll play heavily on my mind.
I spend a lot of time thinking about cost benefit analysis, and having to make choices that other people don't. It takes a lot of mental energy to keep that up in the long run, and I truly don't think I really understood how draining that would be. My boys have so little tolerance for anything out of the norm that it becomes restrictive and repetitive. We can't leave them with babysitters, we can't change our food choices, I can only work part time so that we have have certain routines, we have to go to special SEND sessions for stuff because otherwise they flip out randomly and it becomes dangerous for everyone. I'm constantly aware of them and their status, hunger, thirst, toilet levels because they find them so difficult to regulate, and just like keeping a tamagotchi alive, it's actually quite tricky to do, especially when they don't want to stop what they are doing to eat or drink or use the loo. But they make me laugh, and I'm their mum, and today they put a daisy in my hair and called me beautiful, so it kind of makes it all ok on balance.
Anyway. I would do some reading, follow Instagram accounts that talk about adoption in real terms, and think carefully about all the options that you might be open to. You might need to provide a variety of things for your kids- we do therapy X4 a week, some people home school, some people have complex contact arrangements, some people do none of that. It's a whole spectrum of stuff that you might need to do to support them, and you unfortunately don't get to know which would be best for your kid until you are in the thick of it. But I wouldn't change our kids for the world. Our family is great and I love them dearly.