h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There was a parents – teachers meeting for Bulb 1’s class tonight, to discuss their secondary school education. It seems incredible that yet another school year is drawing to an end, with two very busy months ahead and then the long 9-week stretch of the Summer holidays. Amazing, it’s hard to believe he’ll be 12 in July (though puberty has arrived in a big way already, it seems). It’s at pivotal moments like these that I wonder what his birth mother is doing. Does she stop to think of him at all? Wonder where he is, what he’s doing, what he looks like? It’s around this time 12 years ago that we heard that we’d finally reached the top of the adoption list (we were couple no. 13 out of a list of 20), after 4 long gruelling years waiting.

And now he’s about to spread his wings a little further, and go off to the ‘big school’. He has chosen, with our and his teacher’s blessing, to go to a large technical college 2 villages away from us. His quick intelligence cannot compete with the learning difficulties caused by his ADHD, and ‘ordinary’ secondary school would end in disaster for him. He’s thrilled to be going there, and we’ve heard excellent reports from it too, from people whose children have been pupils there. It’s huge though, we drove over for a look last week, and the open day next month can’t come fast enough for Bulb 1! He’s still undecided what he would like to do later on, so I’m going to get a special questionnaire for him to fill in, to see where his aptitudes and interests really lie. The only thing we want is for him to be happy – and if people want to be snotty about the choice of school for him, it’s their problem, not ours. So much stupid snobbery in this. After all, as I point out to anyone nosey-parkering, look at OH and me: he left school at 16 with no qualifications, I got a University degree – yet he’s the one with the high-powered job, while I’m ‘just a housewife and Mum’! It’s stunning, the way people don’t mind their own business. Lynda Snell also ran.

Sour note of the day: the boys’ school was broken into at the weekend, and several classrooms trashed. Bulb 1 lost his precious ball-point pen... the boys turned up at lunchtime full of it all, not to mention upset. It was pure mindless vandalism, as several valuable items in the classrooms were left untouched. What drives people to behave in this way, with no regard for the pain of others whatsoever? Why? Why break into a classroom, and rip up the work that a child has put much time and effort into? What possible kick can you get out of writing scurrilous filth on the blackboard, and tipping all the desks over so their contents spread out all over the floor, and then trample over them? The police suspect some local youths in their early teens. Heaven help society when they grow up. They’ll probably end up as trolls on an MB somewhere...

Katy, I had not realised Bulb 1 was adopted. Where Bulb 2 and Cellofreak adopted too? I must have missed that during one of my absences from the board.

It is so important for Bulb 1 to be happy in his new school. A much better achievement for him and you than getting restless, bored or threatened in another environment. This is probably tactless but I was wondering if you worry more for an adopted child than for a non-adopted one? I worry about mine regularly and he is just over 30.

I don't know how you manage all you do with the insomnia too and teh weight loss. You're young, that's how!

Good heavens Katy, by my estimation you posted that at 2am UK time, or 3am your time. Is this true?!?

< It’s around this time 12 years ago that we heard that we’d finally reached the top of the adoption list (we were couple no. 13 out of a list of 20), after 4 long gruelling years waiting. >

Very puzzled about how the adoption list works. The only way I can work it out is that there were 20 couples wanting to adopt, but the first 12 didn't want him. Or something.

It sounds like you've got your priorities right with him. Stuff the snobs! If he's happy he'll do better.

Bex x

Hi martine!

Yes, I suffered from secondary infertility (very early menopause) after Cellofreak was born, and after failing fertility treatment we decided to adopt, IVF treatment with egg cell donation being a step too far for us personally (though I have no objections to others going down this route, we didn't want to, that's all).

Bulb's ADHD problems, and the fact that he's adopted, was the first reason Squirrel and I got in touch after 'meeting' on the boards.... .

We adopted him from birth, he was born here in Antwerp to a Spanish mother, and we took him home at 4 days old. He was 18 months old when I discovered, completely unsuspected and a mystery to the medics, that I was expecting Bulb 2! When Bulb 2 was a year old, although I was still apparently menopausal, we were just deciding that perhaps we'd best take due care not to increase our family anymore as our house is a tad on the small side, when I discovered I was expecting Bulb 3!

I've never been 'cured' of my problems in the fertility department, and the docs are still totally mystified how I produced the other 2 boys....



Not tactless at all. In fact, because of his ADHD, already a very difficult thing to be afflicted with for social reasons, he receives far more of our attention than the other 3 put together at times, and we certainly worry about his future an awful lot more. Despite some peeps IRL telling us at regular intervals that his problems and behaviour are obviously due to him being adopted - either we're lousy parents who obviously don't love him as much as the other 3 and he's reacting to this, or he has 'bad blood' in his genes.....

Katy

Yep, nothing new though, I'm used to it. And now I can footle around in cyberland instead of tossing and turning....



No, it's the other way round - the parents had to wait for a baby. The adoption agency was in the first instance a counselling service for women facing unwanted pregnancies. Only after all options of keeping the baby were exhausted, and the mother still decided she wanted to hand her child over for adoption, was her baby made available for the expectant adoptive parents.

The selection procedure with counselling and interviews etc. etc. took about a year; 20 couples were finally selected out of a list of about a 100 to start with. And then the waiting started, couple n° 20 got the first baby that was born after the selection procedure for that year was completed , and so on. Took us 3 years to inch up that list until we were in first place - we were told around this time that a baby was due at the end of August, and we were first in line to adopt him/her. Bulb 1's Mum was an unexpected arrival at the agency only 2 days before he was born in July...

Katy

Thanks for the update katy, I quake in awe and admiration! I understand you not wanting to go down the IVF route, it's not as rosy as it's sometimes made out to be.

No, indeed it isn't. Incredibly stressful, and the failure rate is very high, so more misery along with what's gone before. For us there was another dimension too, though, in that we'd have to rely on egg cell donation too. As such, the baby would only have been half ours really, strictly genetically speaking, and when you know that there are so many children in the world without a home...

I shudder at some of the things being countenanced now though, such as the recent ruling that a couple may proceed with having IVF treatment so that the resulting child can help cure their desperately ill first-born. Apart from the effect that this may have on the second child (imagine knowing that your only reason for existence is as a life-saver for someone else), what if the treatment fails, and the child dies anyway? What about the lives of all the discarded embryos, who 'weren't good enough' as their tissues didn't match that of their sibling perfectly? I couldn't do it, no matter how ill one of my existing children were.

Katy

< Despite some peeps IRL telling us at regular intervals that his problems and behaviour are obviously due to him being adopted - either we're lousy parents who obviously don't love him as much as the other 3 and he's reacting to this, or he has 'bad blood' in his genes.....>

Katy, Have people actually said these things to you? Of course they have or you wouldn't/couldn't make it up. I am absolutely astounded I really am. Both by the fact that anyone could possibly believe this nonsense and that they would then go on to say it to you. How hurtful !
Never mind, one of the things that shines through your posts is how much you love all the little bulbs.

Take care,
Polly

Thanks for the explanation, Katy. Makes sense now.

Must have been an agonising wait. And then to have insensitive ignorant people tell you that Bulb 1's ADHD is because he's adopted etc etc.

I am full of admiration for you Katy.

Bex xxx

Thanks Polly and Bex!

People's behaviour and nosiness IRL is stunning when it comes to children, really. First when we only had Cellofreak we got flack from some people for being 'selfish' in having an only child; then we got flack from others who thought fertility treatment was morally wrong; the house nearly crashed down around our ears when we said we were considering adoption! Most favoured remark: "But you're letting 'strange blood' into the family, how will you know what to expect?" Stock answer chez Mr and Mrs Tulip: "But I let strange blood into the family when I married her/him!" Fnar fnar, people are so weird. Then of course when Bulb 1's ADHD was finally diagnosed (we had to endure other check-ups and examinations first to see if his behavioural problems weren't due to maltreatment from us/him unable to cope with the idea of being adopted - our detractors felt vindicated, some of them still don't believe the diagnosis. The 'told you so's' were deafening.

Nowadays I just tell anyone even gathering breath to launch off on one to either shut up and butt out, or change the record.

Katy

Hello Katy

I've only just caught up with your fascinating account about your family.

The bit that I'd like to add is this:

We had identical twin daughters (only found out for certain they were identical once they had grown up and decided to become blood donors though). Obviously, they were brought up in the same family - Mummy, Daddy and older sister. They went to the same schools - and even to the same university - although different colleges.

However, they were always (from birth) distinctly different from each other. People would ask "which is the dominant twin" - I used to think I must be a bad mother, because I could never answer this question. Each one had their own way of making their mark, mainly being cooperative with each other - although I wouldn't want to paint a picture of Walton type family Utopia Far from it.

The point I am stumbling towards is that children are just different from each other. Even when genetically identical and in the same family structure from birth. There is not always an answer to questions about why a particular child turned out the way they did.

And in case you are interested, the identical twins are now 26. One is a solicitor and the other, a consultant on laser welding defects.

Good luck with your family - they are all lucky to have fun and good parents

Hugs

Auntie Prue/Rom/Susan

Katy, I admire your fortitude. I'm not sure I could be so patient with such people.

Hugs

Bex
xxx