Survival of the Fittest

I have often thought that adopting can be likened to different running races. When you first start you are a bit tentative, perhaps like a middle distance race as you research and decide whether it is right for you. Once you make the decision you want to sprint but tend to get slowed down by the system.  You finally get to panel for approval and things start to wind up for matching (or maybe not these days!). You are so close but not quiet there.  Matching panel finally arrives and you can see the finish line. All if a sudden it’s a sprint to the finish , aka placement day.

  

Except you very quickly discover that whilst you are over the finish line you have unwittingly gone over the start line at the same time and are straight into another race. This race is a marathon. Never ending, monotonous. If you are lucky you get the odd runners high thrown in when great things happen, little chunks of light. For some people it may become one of those mega endurance races through the Sahara desert or similar. Perhaps a mud run/obstacle race…nice bit of running interspersed with obstacles and/0r mud. 

  
There are people there cheering you along. Sometimes if you are lucky there is someone helpful to get you over the wall or under the barbed wire. Ultimately it is just you (possibly a partner) who has to work out the route. You can read books about techniques, train with others, but when it comes down to it, only you (& your partner) know what goes on. 

  
Hopefully at some point you reach the end of the race (although I now realise there is never an end) and are rewarded with and get some down time to recover while your children venture out into the big wide world! 

I now realise it is more than a race.  It is about survival of the fittest. Adopting will test every aspect of your being.  Just when you feel you are on the ropes, something else gets thrown at you and from somewhere deep down inside you find a smidgin more that you didn’t know was there. 

We have had a lot thrown at us this last couple of years. We keep finding strength from within we never knew we had. I am fairly certain that not all adopters would have made it through our experiences of the last 18months. We have and we are still standing together as a family. We know more will be thrown at us but we will keep on keeping on. It is the minimum that our kids deserve.

I always considered myself impatient and not very tolerant….I am now rethinking this! The empathic parenting fairy even visited this week. Don’t get me wrong, she has visited before but doesn’t always hang about long enough or she sees it through but leaves me feeling rubbish afterwards. This time was different. I don’t normally big myself up but I rocked the empathic parenting thing….and in the face of total ridiculousness from BB….I even managed to keep GG calm through what was a massive trigger for her.  I was able to release my emotions afterwards and not keep them bottled up. It was like all the planets were aligned.
I shall savour this moment. I will remember that it is possible….just not all the time!  I will look back on it when I am on the ropes and use it to come back out fighting.