what was your first night/week like when you brought your adopted baby home for the first time!!!

[muli]

I'm so excited we have been aproved to adopt a baby girl starting in January,I would love to hear from people who have expierenced this,wondering what it was like staying with the foster family whilst bonding and what your drive home with your very own new baby was like!how was it on the first day,night ,week with your new baby!

No experience to offer here (I'm approved but still waiting for a match) but I just want to say: CONGRATULATIONS! Hope it goes wonderfully well.

gingel , thankyou its never too late and i'm gona record everything,getting that diary tomorrow.

Tenar , thankyou also I keep thinking of that first sight,,i so want to be cool and calm and not squeze her too much ,play it cool. HOW!!!!

I'm so glad to have this oppertunity and the support of this thread has beeen so supportive.dont worry gona keep you all with me when she comes thats if i'm not in bed!!!

Many Thanks

muli

Congratulations!!!

DS was 8 weeks old when he came home to us. We are not typical in that we had very short notice of his arrival and I picked up straight from court. It was the first time I had met him and found out his name.

Our first night was a real mix of emotions.

I had no idea how long this little man would be with us, I was still in shock at his arrival and I was so nervous about looking after him properly. I was an experienced mum but didnt know anything about this little boy.

So the first night was spent in the living room with him in a moses basket snorting and snuffling away. He was the noisiest baby I had ever met!

He woke up hourly for tiny feeds (new to me as I had bf my other children). I felt desperate for him because I could only imagine how confused he was. I felt desperate for his birth mum because I couldnt imagine how she was feeling at losing her baby and I was knacked because of the preceding week's events (assesments, meetings, arguments etc).

I sang a song to him that first night and I sang it at least once a day thereafter. His own little song so he would know where he was as his life was so chaotic. I wore the same necklace everyday, quite a big one so he could see it and know it was me, and I stopped wearing perfume so he would know my smell.

For years afterwards that song could stop him in his tracks if he was fretting or upset.

I wish you all the best for your new life with your DD.

sooo exciting muli.get practice with the car seat, we had a right hoo haa.also the amount of attention you get with having a baby, its scary.we picked up our first baby after meeting him for 4 hours.we then went food shopping and was besieged by a couple of young girls saying how cute he was.

don't see anyone for 2 weeks.

i was thrown by "where did you have him?"
and also because he was so young the amount of birth mums who asked me how i got rid of my baby tummy.
how silly i felt pushing a buggy, also going into john lewis and wanting to order a buggy only to be told, its 4 weeks!i explained and got it in days.
listening to every breath when sleeping, finding out you dont have to change nappies at 3am, loads of sudocreme.

swaddling, a life saver.
weekend treat of carton baby formula, the horror of organising bottles.
saying to dh, "its your dinner or a tidy house".
we had a lovely foster couple second time around but getting there at 7am and leaving at 7pm will be the hardest days in your life, you just want to take them and run.
find out what your dd will come with, we had a whole car load.
the foster carer will give feedback , can you practise on anyone?
ones social services are out of your lives its fabulous.
soooooo much good luck to you.

When we adopted a baby DH and I had no experience of babycare. We contacted our local health visitor before DS1 was placed with us and she was wonderful. She gave us a special condensed session on the babycare stuff they teach on ante-natal courses - she had us changing nappies on a doll, bathing a doll, etc. It was so useful and gave us a bit of confidence when we had to do it for real a couple of months later. When DS1 came home with us it was also useful to have an existing relationship with the health visitor.