The 5th March is our official gotcha day as a family. I used to celebrate a date in July when I first met my first daughter, A, but this time last year my older daughter S officially moved in with us and our little family of three was complete.

It feels like it’s been a lot longer than a year in many ways – I can’t quite believe it has ONLY been a year since she moved in!

A LOT has happened since then, and it certainly hasn’t been an easy ride by any stretch, but my god am I glad she’s my kid.

She is such an incredibly bright, funny, cheerful, TALL 11 year-old, and she has enriched our lives in ways it is hard to describe. I am so proud to call her my daughter.

I thought I would write a blog post on this as it’s quite a big subject and we have had some interesting experiences recently.

So, in the UK, in most adoption cases, direct (in-person) contact with birth parents is usually not allowed once adoption is approved by a judge as a course of action. (Unlike in the US where they have open adoptions – this is usually down to the fact that in the US a lot of women give up their children for adoption at birth voluntarily whereas in the UK most children have been removed from their parents by the state due to neglect or abuse – so the safety and trauma of maintaining contact has to be managed in the best interests of the child).

When a child is first removed from a parent’s care, they continue to have visitation and direct contact visits, supervised via social services in a neutral location until a placement order is made (meaning that child will be put up for adoption). Once this decision has been made by a judge to be in the best interest of the child, a final contact visit with birth parents will be arranged, and the parent (and child if they are old enough) will be told this is the last time they can see each other in person.

Being a parent, and especially a single parent, means being all things all of the time, whether you want to or not. It’s a huge responsibility to be the person holding everything together even when sometimes you don’t feel like it.

You are the anchor, keeping everything stable.

You are the Captain, in charge and sure of yourself and your decisions at all times.

You are the navigator, charting a course, figuring out where you are going and how you’re going to get there.

You are the ship itself, keeping everyone safe as you roll around in the stormy weather, reeling and rocking, getting pummelled and battered, while keeping them warm and dry.

You are the activities director, planning all the playdates and football matches and swimming lessons and fun stuff.

You are up the mast clinging to the pole trying to spot any icebergs bearing down upon you, working out if you can avoid them or not, or if you will inevitably have to take the hit.

You are the safe harbour when the outside world is too rough and inhospitable.

You are all of these things, and sometimes, you are also an exhausted human who needs their own safe harbour, and anchor and captain to look after you too.

If you’re lucky enough, you have a support system (or harbour) strong enough to hold you sometimes when you need to dock and refuel, to bolster you ready to head back out to sea and do it all over again.

We are now 12 weeks into the adoption placement, and recently had our second adoption review (the first one is usually around 4 weeks in and then the second one is at about 10-12 weeks, and the third is 6 months after that if needed).

The easter holidays have been BUSY!

After thankfully recovering from my awful chest infection, it’s been pretty full on for the last two weeks!

Well I am 3 weeks into my adoption leave, and am starting to realise how little from my to-do list I am likely to achieve.

I had a plan that once I stopped work I’d be doing all sorts of things like going swimming and painting the doors and skirting boards, and meeting friends for coffee in a relaxed, chilled out sort of way.

Instead I am finding myself waking up profoundly tired and dragging myself through the day, mostly doing laundry and food shopping and meal prep and running the girls around to playdates and activities. S finds it astonishing that I am getting myself ready for bed at 9pm while she is still sneakily trying to read her book in bed instead of going to sleep!