When my social worker suggested an impromptu meeting after the second home study, I knew there was likely a ‘ruling’ from the things that were revealed.

To recap the second home study delved further into some of my background, where we discussed things like rape, my mother, being kicked out of home at 16, and some of the relationships I’d had since then.

At this meeting, my social worker suggested that to show that I’d come through all of those things and was now in this moment a healthy, stable, safe, option for an adoption placement, therapy would be required.

She asked me if I would consider this?

She told me my options, we could “pause” my application until I was ready to take this step, or we could cancel my application and I could reapply in a few years when I felt ready, or we could go ahead and I would undertake therapy to show my readiness.

Therapy.

The purpose of the therapy was to assess my ability to recognise boundaries, deal with grief and loss, and assess my understanding of healthy relationships and attachment.

My feeling on this was that if a therapist gave the “all clear” then everyone was covered in case I turned out to be as detached as my own mother.

I understand this. In my own job we are constantly printing and filing paper copies of all correspondence, all discussions, and anything that will cover our asses in the future if something goes belly-up.

I get it. It makes total sense…especially when talking about the lives and happiness of children who have already been through trauma.

…but…therapy. Sigh.

Well, of course I would not only consider it, but I would do it.

I want to be a parent more than I’ve ever wanted anything, and I feel in my bones that I am ready to be the best parent I can be, and perhaps especially for children coming out of the foster care system. Not only because I am ready with an open heart to be a mom, but also because my own childhood was different and mixed up. I feel that the experiences I have lived will allow me to connect with children who have experienced trauma and loss in their own short lives, with a sense of understanding.

Therapy is not something that I would have considered for myself. Not that I don’t feel that it has benefits – I absolutely agree that it does. However, I write daily, I journal, I delve into the innermost depths of my emotions and my mind to constantly check-in with myself and to ensure that I’m living my life in a way that is loving, honest, and stable. Living with and observing my mother for so many years, has made me more self-aware because I saw how her lack of self-examination and compassion hurt those around her. As a result, I have become my own best therapist. And I *proudly* know myself more than anyone else could know me, especially in a few short hours.

I’m also not as comfortable in person talking about myself with someone I don’t know. In fact, I don’t know many people who are comfortable in that situation.

But this is another step in the process and I am “in” – I am committed.

So therapy it is!

I accept that I didn’t fit into the boxes in quite the right way – as I rarely do, nor would I really want to truth be known – and I will treat this as another check box.

• References – check.
• Police check – check.
• Medical check – check.
• Therapy – check.

I looked at my options. My extended health coverage covers $500 per calendar year for therapy. Good, so that was a starting point. How many sessions could I get out of that? Three per year.

Then I set to work trying to find a therapist that was relatively close (there were none in my town, the closest would be in the city), and someone that I might feel comfortable enough talking with right off the bat.

I contacted several therapists and the one I eventually chose told me she had experience with the home-study adoption requirements and with therapy for children after adoption.

Sold!

We set a first appointment two weeks from our first contact.

The first appointment was awkward to say the least. We sat and stared at one another for the first minute or two after brief introductions and taking our seats, until I said “uh…I don’t really know how this works? Do you ask me questions? Is there something you want to know about me?”

So she said, “Tell me about your childhood.”

And away we went.

My family is a little complex, but not as complex as some. This is the rundown I gave:

• I was born when my mother was 35 and my dad was 34, we lived in a two bedroom house in the suburbs with a one bedroom “granny flat” in the back yard where my grandparents lived. These were my dad’s parents and they didn’t speak English, only Italian. I spoke mostly Italian until I went to school.
• My mother and father divorced when I was 5, I saw my dad every second weekend for a few years.
• My mother met my step-dad when I was 7,
• When I was 8 we moved in with him and his three kids (two of which were adopted – so all four of us kids had different birth parents), that was about the time that my mother cut off visits with my dad.
• We moved states within Australia when I was 12,
• Moved back when I was 15,
• I was kicked out of home at 16, (about a month after we moved)
• My mother and step-dad divorced when I was 19.
• I don’t have any contact with any of my family (though every few years or so I receive a card from my mother).
• My real dad had MS, and the separation with my mother coincided with the first symptoms of the disease taking hold. I believe this was not a “coincidence” but a decision by my mother made because she knew she could not cope with a debilitating disease for the rest of her life. A solid indication that she was never really in love with my dad.
• My step-dad still lives where we left him, I think.
• My step-siblings and I stopped communicating when our parents divorced (a messy divorce which included my mother barricading herself into the master bedroom complete with padlock and key!) and we grew into different people. I actually feel extremely grateful that I was kicked out of home before the divorce, because the ‘kids’ left behind didn’t fare so well.
  My brother ended up in jail for armed robbery, my sister was working several jobs to bail out her drug-dealing boyfriend from jail, and my other sister got married immediately after high school and moved away from everyone.
  I, on the other hand, had done quite well in those years – I’d gone back to school, got a diploma, moved in with my boyfriend, started working for the Education Department and had begun working my way up through the government ranks.

So we covered all of that in the first session.

The therapist was scribbling furiously through all of that, and asked a few questions which made me go “huh??” like “do you think you will see your biological father again?” well, he is dead so….? I replied “maybe in the afterlife if there is such a thing and we’re so inclined to visit…?” I can’t help myself; I have a pretty off-beat sense of humour, especially when I’m uncomfortable. In fact, I have been called flippant more than once in my life.

She also told me that she had a terrible memory. Oh no!

We booked another session for two weeks later.

The next session we recapped some of the things from the last – so she could clarify some of her notes – and we covered my relationships, including a marriage and divorce (to the boyfriend I mentioned above, an 11 year relationship from go to woah). We also talked about the fact that I’m still in contact with his sister and my niece and nephew.

The next two sessions we talked more about adoption; about motherhood; about what it was I wanted to achieve through adoption; and about the things I’d learned so far about adoption, parenting, and attachment.

After each session I always enjoyed the drive home because I would recap what we’d covered in my mind. It was an hour-long opportunity for me to fine tune in my own mind exactly what I’d meant by the things I’d said, and to reinforce within myself my truths as they stood in that moment.

You see, I like the time to write something out, to look at all the angles, to consider every response I can think of to a question, and really FEEL what feels right in the heart of me before I respond. It can sometimes be a slow process if it’s something I have not considered already or is a concept new to me that I’d like to delve into more (to feel, turn over, poke, and learn more about it), before I find the answer for me. I have a group of wonderful friends who also enjoy this process and together we have some inspired conversations. However, with someone I don’t know well, or who hasn’t shown me that they too like to look at all the angles, I often feel like I have to answer before I’m clear on exactly how I feel, and then when looking back I feel like I said the first answer that came to mind rather than how I really feel.

And the thing about life is, there are no constants. How I feel today may change as new information comes to light, as I learn and grow, and I always want to be open to these changes and never “locked-down” to any one answer.

So my drive home and then my journal writing that evening were always exciting and interesting as I mulled over and clarified my own understanding of whatever it was we had discussed that day.

During the sessions I also brought up some of the subjects that I write about here on the blog – the questions I have asked as an expectant mother:

• Is it selfish of me to adopt as a single person?
• Am I too old?
• Am I prepared enough?
• Should I have more resources at my fingertips?
• What about the practical things – the house, schooling, vacation times?
• Etc…

It was good to voice those questions, though I had hoped for some “expert” answers! Nope, in true therapy fashion, she asked me what I thought about those questions and what my answers were! Well, that’s the thing, I keep asking them and I keep coming closer and closer to the answers that feel right.

She did ask me why I was ambivalent about becoming a mom. It was a question she asked at the end of our session and it gave me some pause that evening as I drove home. I responded to it in the next session, that I feel it would be wrong of me NOT to question whether I was ready? Does any parent (who wants to be a parent) go into parenthood without questioning that they are ready to be the most loving and healthy parent they can be?

The therapist agreed with me in our next session, and told me that ambivalence is a natural part of the process, and she just wanted me to think about that.

She recommended some books on attachment and had reinforced that it would likely be difficult for the first year, or even for years after adoption. I agreed. All that I’ve read and the courses I’ve taken talk about this, and I am learning as much as I can so that I am ready to reinforce my love and “foreverness” for my children when they arrive.

Though I know it’s going to be the most difficult (yet rewarding) thing I’ve ever done. I’m sure there will be moments where I will wonder what the ‘ef’ I have gotten myself into, and then we’ll have a breakthrough, or one of them will smile at me, or call me momma, or even look like an angel while sleeping, and my heart will grow even bigger than it is now – and I’ll know why I chose this.

At the end of our fourth session she asked me if I wanted to continue or if I felt we were done? I asked her if she felt we were done because she was the one making the report. So she asked me to have my social worker call her in a few weeks time (she was going on vacation the next week).

I was surprised but so, so, grateful that we managed to get to a place where she felt ready to weigh in so quickly. That was a huge relief for me, and I was feeling positive about the outcome.

Part of me wondered if the therapy was a test, to see if I had staying power, to see if I would be willing to go through with it or if I would say “this is too hard, I’m done”. Perhaps? It sure would be a good way to weed out the uncommitted.

Overall, therapy was me telling the same story over again to a new person. But I did learn and grow during the process. I learned of some new books to read on attachment, I learned of some new ways to view parenthood, and I reinforced with myself that I am committed to this process, to becoming the best person I can be for the children who will call me mom. And I learned I would do anything to make that happen.

If you have gone through an adoption journey – was therapy a requirement for you too? How did you feel about it? What did you learn from it?

Warm smiles and Love,

Ali Jayne 🙂