When Mozza came home

You know. I have written many things over the last few years, but I stopped blogging. Because I needed to experience. But I'm ready now - I'm ready to tell our story. Because the "Road to Adoption" ended when we'd walked so far down it, we actually reached "FamilyVille."

We got Mozza!

We got Mozza...he found us. After years of not believing, Mozza came to us, and it actually happened. We got what we never dared to dream that we could have. Mozza came home.

This series of blogs is not really chronological, but then adoption does weird things to you. I shall attempt to put into words a few of the circumstances surrounding our transition from two to three.
Day One
On the first day, we looked around us - we had a house full of cards, bags full of hand-me-downs from excited relatives, and a diary clear of any commitments for a month...but as The Lam and I stood together,looking down at the 4 and a half month old baby in the moses basket, we genuinely had no idea what was going on.

Nothing can prepare you for adopting a baby, which seems an odd thing to say after the three intensive years of preparation we have been through - but nothing can prepared you for it, because you are physically not prepared, in the way that biological families are.

Biological families have a tangible thing to look at and feel, in the shape of the pregnancy. That baby is there and it's theirs. And you take 9 months to slowly and gradually prepare, physically and mentally. And like it or not, at some point you slow down. You have to. You can't physically carry on, and your body sorts you out and makes you think about becoming a parent.
There was none of that for us. Even though we knew he was coming, and we had done everything required of us, until the day Mozza came home, life was exactly the same as it always had been. We were still working, taking the dog for a walk, going out at the drop of a hat. We were still a couple. The night before he came home, we had been to a restaurant, had a nice meal and a few glasses of wine, and "celebrated" our last night as a twosome. And then, BAM! Eighteen hours later, after a final assessment, listening to the foster carers talk to Social Services about how well we had handled "intros" (which deserve an entire blog to themselves) and watching the foster family say sad goodbyes to the little boy who was already our son, as we were absolutely itching to take him home, suddenly it happened - we were at home with baby Mozza. We had closed the door on the world and on all of those wonderful people from Social Services who had been our constant companions for three years. And all at once it was just us. Just the three of us. For the first time ever, and forever.

We are that very lucky couple. Everyone says that there are "no babies" in the system, but we are living proof that there are. Mozza's placement order was granted exactly 12 weeks after he was born. Fifteen minutes after court finished, Annie phoned me at work, and said (in the calmest voice I have ever heard); "You have been linked with a baby. He's a littlie. He's three months old."

From that second, our lives changed forever. We had his file that afternoon, three days later we had a visit from his social worker (Chris) and the Family Finder. This visit was like no other - he was suddenly a real baby, and we were suddenly talking about specifics. They HAD to like us. They had to see the same thing in us as people as they had seen in our PAR.
The visit lasted 5 hours. Annie had said to us beforehand "If they show you a photo of the baby, then it means they want to go ahead"

After 4 hours and 50 minutes, the photo came out. I think i held my breath for around the next ten hours. Not daring to exhale. Not daring to believe that this could actually be it.

The following day we had the fantastic, unbelievable, incredible phone call saying that they liked us, approved of us and wanted to proceed with the match. I remember I was at work, ina Year 8 lesson. I never normally have my mobile with me in a classroom, but it hadn't left my side all day. The phone rang and I simply walked out of the room and answered it. I think I cried. I can't remember the rest of the day!

 Within a month we had met his (wonderful) foster carers, his medical adviser, and, along with Annie, Chris and Babette, completed our 40-page matching report. The most important document in the world, detailing exactly why we were his parents and he was our son. In 40,000 words.
 Within 5 weeks of that first phone call, we were at matching panel (more on matching panel later)

Ten days later, Mozza was home.

Adopting a very young baby is incredible. It doesn't happen that quickly very often, but it is in the baby's best interests to be swift. Every day we count our blessings that we were chosen for him, and settling him into our lives and routines was a doddle. We got all the “firsts” that we never dared to imagine...words, steps, birthday. We didn't get first Christmas - but on that Christmas Day, for the first one ever, we knew about him. We knew that he was on his way to us, and we raised a glass to the little boy who was wearing his first Santa outfit somewhere in Yourjshire, knowing he would soon be home.
And then when he came home - we got those firsts -  "I love you, Mummy/Daddy", the first holiday, the first....nearly everything. How did that happen to us!?

Alongside the incredible fortune, however, is the weirdness. Suddenly consumed by this little person, and thrust into a world completely alien, all at once. People talking to me about Bounty Packs and Health Visitors, and venturing to baby groups, where other Mums ONLY talk about pregnancy, birth and labour, and ask all sorts of intrusive questions. Getting him weighed at the Children's Centre, and feeling like a childminder, because you can't join in with stories about stretchmarks and stitches. The strangers who stop your pram in the street to ask you who he looks like - you or his Dad, and the neighbours who couldn’t remember whether or not you had been pregnant, but were too polite to mention. The people who ask how much he weighed at birth, and how long he was in hospital for. Of course, we were furnished with that information, but - well, it happened to someone else. And whilst not wanting to engage with strangers about our unusually constructed family, not being completely honest felt, for the longest time, utterly fraudulent.

We have the “telling” to come, and we know that there are likely to be issues borne from Mozza's erratic start. We know there will be questions - difficult questions - about his birth family, and we know that for Mozza, issues around his identity are going feature very strongly. But Mozza is the product of two families - the ones who genetically created this perfect little boy, and our family who are nurturing him through his life. That's rather special.
We are so very lucky that we will have known our son for nearly all of his life, and two and a half years on, we can’t remember a time when he wasn’t here.