Adoption , The Beginning......The Social Worker!
Our first home study day.
Again , I found myself cleaning and tidying like some sort of crazy person, desperate for our new social worker to like me, to try to make my home seem as "normal " as possible. I scanned every room as if I was surveying the scene of a crime, desperately seeking out any tell tale sign of a life lived less than perfectly which would allow her to judge me before getting to know me.
My stomach was churning as it had been since we booked the visit. Hundreds of questions flooded through my monkey mind in a constant loop, every waking second and every sleepless night.
"What will she think of me?"
"Am I good enough to be somebody's mum?"
"Will she mistake my nervous chatter for stupidity?"
"Will she ask me any trick questions to try to trip me up ?"
"What will she make of my relationship with my partner?"
"Do we look happy, in love, bored?"
"Will she think he's too quiet, brooding, too serious, too young , too old ?"
And so they went on, perfectly normal, unstoppable, irrational thoughts.
That was me...... my partner on the other hand was so laid back he was almost horizontal, he knew they'd like us, he knew we'd be ok, I worried, he didn't, I'm a Cancerian , he's a Pisces..... enough said!
6pm and the bell rang, I panicked , I wasn't ready, weeks of preparation and I wasn't ready. I would never be ready, I was about to embark on the most bizarre two years of my life, I was about to see my life opened up like a patient on the operating table, having everything removed, examined and sewn back up, except for me there would be no recovery time.
I expected a Mrs Trunchbull type of figure but here on my door step was our very own Miss Honey, young , fresh faced, kind featured and smiling, carrying huge bag of documents and paperwork.
She took a seat and asked us to talk a little about ourselves, our history and relationships with our families.
She then went around the house with clip board and checked that the house was safe and told us what we needed to do to make it safer. She sheepishly asked if our cat was dangerous and ticked the appropriate box when we said no. We then were asked to draw our family tree and circle any members of the family who would be part of our support network.
This first home visit lasted about two hours and as she left she gave us some homework. We had to give her a full chronological list of our lives from birth to present including schools , college, jobs, qualifications, previous addresses, parents divorce, deaths and surprisingly previous relationships and any other significant factors in our lives.
This was particularly difficult for me, firstly because I have moved so many times I've lost count and secondly divorce and death are very emotive subjects for me and I didn't want to revisit them again whilst going through the third most emotive time of my life !
My other half, as you've probably guessed, sailed through it , loving the chance to write pages upon boring pages about himself. I noted how different our lives had been and wondered how we ever managed to hook up in the first place. Then I started worrying that Miss Honey would think the same, I didn't sleep again that night.
I got up the next morning and dragged myself off to work, when I got home I started my homework then started cleaning again for her next visit in a weeks time.
Final thoughts To the mere bystander all my irrational thoughts and behaviour may seem a little over the top but to me at the time they were a coping mechanism, a way to deal with the undeal able, to keep swimming, to keep afloat. Drop a line in the comments box or sign up to get my next post where I shall be talking about our experiences at the four day adoption course!
Labels: Adoption, adoption process
posted by The Fifamaster @ 1:58 pm
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