Over the last few weeks my Facebook feed has been full of wonderful posts discussing the recent Sally Phillips documentary on “A World Without Down Syndrome.”
If you missed it and you are in the UK, you can watch it here..
Month: October 2016
“She Adopted a Downs Kid”
It was a sunny summer’s evening when I walked up the lawn of my colleagues’ front garden to join the celebrations for his wedding. I was greeted by a group of retired doctors and their wives.
Aneena, a retired practice nurse, asked after my family and especially Star. I spoke about what they were getting up to now, how Hannah had been in a dance show, Ben loved football and how Star had loved our holiday on the beach, was learning new words and getting ready to start school. I am not sure if some of the group could hear me above the noise of the band and the celebrations. The conversation came to a natural close and I said goodbye and went to find the newly weds to congratulate them. As I walked away I heard Aneena say loudly to the group:
“She adopted a Downs kid.”
What No One Told Me…
From the perspective of a foster carer. So thankful for those foster carers who love the precious lives entrusted to them like this .
Before we started doing Foster care we had a somewhat ‘butterfly and rainbow’ view of Foster care and adoption. Our so called training only exemplified that view.
No one shared the nitty gritty painful horrible reality that could lay ahead. No one told me that babies brought into care in the first year of life can be so broken, so hurt, so battered, even as much as their older counterparts. No one told me that damage done in utero and in the first year of life could have detrimental lifelong impacts. No one told me about secondary PTSD, about the nightmares, about the strange and horrible feelings I could have from hearing about and seeing the effects of the horrors this child went through. No one told me about the judgement from others. The judgement of the first parents, the judgement of how we are raising this child, the judgement…
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Treasuring Ordinary Moments
When my eldest daughter was born so many people said to me:
Treasure every moment
It goes so fast
Make sure you enjoy it
And if I am honest I found that a huge pressure and it made me feel guilty.
Guilty that I wasn’t enjoying things enough.
That I haven’t got neatly made baby books and journals detailing every event of their first years.
Adopting Star 