Our adoption journey...

“Amma means mother in many languages. It is originally derived from the language Tamil word அம்மா which means mother” When my son puts his hand on my cheek, looks me straight in the eyes and whispers... my amma forever and ever, I feel so full of love and nothing scares me anymore about motherhood. So here’s where we are six months later... In the last two weeks J calls me his amma but only in the evening when we cuddle before going to sleep, the rest of day he calls me mommy. Yet when he calls me his amma there is something different about it, for some reason it feels more significant. It’s the only word he uses from his native language. Six months ago we picked up a happy but also sometimes complicated little boy fast forward six months and J is pretty much like any other boy; charming, naughty and full of energy. Ready to start school next week, goes on play dates, loves dancing and swimming and watching Barney. J speaks already in three languages of course French a

Welcome to our life. This is us, we travel a lot, we believe in challenge to expand the mind and we try to apply this to our family all the time. That is not to say I was not worried because on the one hand I want to show Julian life and the world on the other hand I want him to have stability. So week 1, school in France. Not only was this the first time he was going to an organized school, it was the first time away from home for the day and boy did it show. He was worried, in his mind school was orphanage and I think he was convinced this is where he was going, back to school waiting for a new mommy and daddy.   I was so stressed the whole day, worried if he’s doing ok and if he’s managing to understand the language ..oh yes did I mention this was in French J When I went to pick him up, he seemed surprised but so happy. On the way home he pointed at me and said: This is still my mommy!!! It was hard not to burst out crying. The rest of the week went great. He went horse rid

My sweet Julzie You have been with us almost four months now and what a four months they have been. You showed us your country and we took you to ours. You showed us your family and friends and we replaced them with new ones.   You spoke other languages and we took away some and added others... And you take it all in stride. This month we celebrated your first birthday at home, I don’t know who was more excited you or me. It was such a big milestone. You so proud to be a big five year old boy, me so proud you are my big boy. I remember thinking in the first few weeks, Can I do this? How do I love you unconditionally... now I know. Julzie there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you; you have my heart and more. And yet I feel it is not enough. When you cry silently but can’t tell me why, it aches so much not to be able to take away your sadness. You miss your “foster brother” and all the skype calls in the world can’t make up for it.   You are so consumed with making sure I

“ He is an active child. Though he cannot communicate anything verbally, he follows commands and makes himself understood, but with continuous speech therapy, there is slight improvement. “   The above is an extract from our son’s report before we accepted his referral. We dwelled on it for some time as we were not sure if we would be able to handle it but after talking to the speech therapist in India who said there was a slight improvement we decided to accept him as our son. Why am I writing this post… two and a half months after picking him up he is a nonstop chatter box! It is true that in the first weeks he communicated with one word sentences but today oh my! Julian does not stop talking, he forms complete sentences uses past, present and future tenses and is so keen and eager to learn and repeat new words. Yes his pronunciation is sometimes a little off but my ears are already trained and I understand everything he says. I received some very nice advice from a good frie

Our two month anniversary has gone and passed. We marked it with cake and hot chocolate (for a change J ) Things continue to go well. Julian by now has met quite a few people and has won over every one of them. He’s quite the charmer and he’s so cute, it is impossible not to like him. He continues to be very stubborn at times which can lead to the dreaded tantrums but I have to say they are less frequent now. I just read a very good blog post about how adoptive parents are plagued by guilt and it’s true. You wait so long for your child that once it is there, you are afraid to complain because you wanted it so much so surely you should just be happy all the time. But things don’t go smoothly all the time. I remember the first week I did ask myself if I was cut out for this. Two months later, I can say Yes I’m cut out for it.   I feel comfortable in my mommy role and more importantly with Julian. In the last two months I have gotten to know him so much better that it has become eas

We’ve been home now for two weeks trying to find our rhythm. Julian continues to make excellent progress, he can do a 30 piece puzzle by himself, we memorised our first poem. The most amazing thing is his face when he has done something he couldn’t do before, he is sooooo happy and proud and jumps into my arms. I make sure I give him a lot of encouragement and I do spend a lot of time with him. I am still struggling with the discipline and him trying to kiss and hug his way out of trouble.   But I still believe he needs structure and he needs to learn to adjust his social behaviour which brings me back to the hitting and kicking. It has reduced a lot over the last six weeks but sometimes he does it for no reason, it’s almost as if he’s trying to see if the person he’s trying to upset will still love him after. Any advice from other parents is more than welcome on this issue. We also started with our medical visits, we went to a paediatric department for adopted children and toda

Friday 3am we set out for the long journey home. I needn’t have worried about having to wake up J in the middle of the night, as soon as I said time to go home to Lily, he was wide awake! 6am we had a flight to Delhi, no problems... five hour layover... a bit long with a small boy ... 8.5 hour flight to London...slept for 7 hours...one night in London...Eurostar to France... car home. Suitcases unfortunately have gone missing for now... I sure hope they will turn up as they are filled with memories of our trip. Luckily I packed his photo book and adoption papers in the hand luggage. Never in my life have I experienced feeling so much joy at seeing someone else’s happiness. He was just over the moon with his house, his room, his dog, his cat.... My worries about him being afraid of Lily had been unnecessary. Although he is a little bit afraid (she is bigger than him and weighs three times more) he does like her very much and pets her as long as we are there with him. Well I’m hap

Friday we are travelling home. I am astonished at how fast the time has gone. We’ve been in India now for just over four weeks, we had our one month family anniversary on Monday. I often have to pinch myself that it finally happened, that I am a mom to this amazing little boy. The visa process went very fast and they were extremely helpful at the Embassy. We have a long journey home, two flights and a train ride but Saturday we will be home. J is asking every day if we are going on the airplane today because he wants to give Lily (the dog) and Koshka (the cat) a biiiiiiiiig hug, we’ll see what happens when we are home. Lily is bigger than he is so I have a feeling he’s gonna be a little bit intimidated. I am nervous about going home, I am worried as well. I am sure that to this day he’s still not fully aware of his future. We are still surrounded by people that look just like him, the weather is great, our days are filled with fun, shopping, playing, swimming and hot chocolat

On Thursday we were notified the passport arrived at the orphanage. Boy I was so happy, we picked it up and I tried to get an appointment with the embassy but they could only see us on Friday morning. Thursday we had another swimming lesson which went quite well, he lasted almost the entire lesson before he started crying he was so cold. He also seemed to be more focussed on the teacher and didn’t try to just put his head under the water or argue with the teacher. Friday morning we went to the embassy, all went well and they were hopeful the visa will be ready on Monday. All the documents were in order as was the passport. I had read many times that the passports only contain the first name of the child but in our case the full name is there, two first names and family name and on the back page of the passport we are listed as his parents. He was so proud of his passport, kept showing it to Momo the bear (who also has a passport) and then of course he was in a panic he had to

So we are still in Bangalore still waiting for the passport and we decided to make the most of it whilst we are here. We found a swimming club right around the corner of our apartment where every day they have swimming lessons for children. We thought lets give it a go... yesterday was the first lesson. The lessons are one hour. J was in a small group of 3 students (one of which is his new friend R) and things started well. I have to admit I was nervous, J still needs to learn a lot about acceptable behaviour with other people (shouting, hitting and biting is not allowed) but things went fairly ok, after half an hour he had enough though and started crying so I nodded at the teacher that it was ok to let him go. He was so cold, he was shaking like a leaf, my little man has no body fat. After swimming we go to the coffee shop for hot chocolate and cappuccino for mommy. Today was lesson number 2, I had a little chat with the teacher beforehand and today was much better. Of cour

We came back on Friday and moved into our new apartment. This is the third location we are trying in Bangalore and this one is spot on. It was recommended to me by another adoptive mom and it was a great tip! The apartment is almost half price of a five star hotel and we have a two bedroom apartment situated opposite UB city and two minutes from the Cubban park. It’s an ideal location, we can just stroll out. They have a small laundry room that you can use, free WIFI and cable tv. If anyone travelling to Bangalore wants more info, don’t hesitate to email me. I miss the tranquillity of Kerala but Bangalore does have some nice things to offer: Cubban park, Lalbagh botanical gardens and Ulsoor lake are all great places to have fun with kids. For shopping there are some good malls such as Mantri square and Garuda mall as well as MG road. Tomorrow I am going shopping for souvenirs, fabrics, saris and pashminas. So how are things going, well today was a bit of a battle of wills day

The end of our Kerala trip is near... I can’t believe we’ve been here for seven days! Time seems to enter a whole new dimension when you become a parent; a day feels like five minutes. Kerala is beautiful and I wish we could stay here longer; we will definitely come back in the future. It is so peaceful and breathtaking. The food is delicious, the people are friendly, and although the air is more humid there is less pollution than in Bangalore. We had a fun week of swimming, walking, eating, sleeping and bonding. We made huge progress in the swimming, he has completely lost his fear of water and now loves jumping into the pool or going to sleep under the water with daddy. Every day things go better, we still have our moments though but they seem less frequent and they seem to pass quicker as well. He can still be stubborn and can get upset if we tell him not to do something but he seems to be more accepting now. This morning I checked on the tracking site for the passport a

Today is our two week anniversary. Two intense, emotional weeks with lots of tears and I’m not talking just about him. I’ve cried because I was happy, because I was emotionally drained, because I miss my family and friends, because I’m not sure I will love him as much as his birth mother, because I am worried about him, because I over analyse things. So today I kinda said to myself ok no more crying it takes away the enjoyment. For five years I have tried to refrain from imagining my child. It is a hard thing to do, keeping your hopes tucked away deep inside you because whatever they are, they will not correspond with reality. In some ways my son is much more than I dared to hope for. He is beautiful, smart and sweet. He is also resilient, defiant, and at times really difficult to handle and this is where it’s difficult. I find it hard to find the right balance between love and discipline. I have read too many books and listened to too many people and I see something in every littl

I will not dwell too long on day 11, we went to the speech therapist in the morning. It wasn’t a great experience. I don’t know why they asked us to sit in during the session, I thought it was a recipe for disaster and it was. J was defiant, not listening and did everything he wasn’t supposed to do so it wasn’t that beneficial. It was interesting to meet the therapists and hear about the progress he has made and he is continuing to make. We spend a lot of time teaching him how to ask for things and how to pronounce things. We don’t like the; I want, and give me and basically one word orders. So we are very persistent and only give him things when he asks I would like to   or can I please have or Give me please... it takes a lot of patience but it’s working. The rest of the day we just relaxed at the hotel and packed for our trip to Kerala. So on Friday we headed to the airport. I was stressed because we don’t have a passport yet for him. We did have a letter from the orphanage s

Don’t worry everyone, I’m not going to blog every day J this is just during our trip, once we are home my blogging will be less frequent! This morning I had breakfast with my boy whilst daddy was at the gym. We are both trying to keep up with our work outs. First of all, I need to be fit to keep up with life as a mom and secondly it gives us both some me-time which is equally important. Following breakfast we now introduce some “school time” to keep up with counting and writing and to provide some structure to the day. He doesn’t always feel like it but I give him a little break when he gets bored and go and do something else. He calls me when he is ready to continue. We went back to the park today with our friends, this time we went to the play area of the park. When you come in there is first a train ride, boy he loved that! He was so excited he hardly knew what to do with himself J the rest of the day every time the train passed he waved at everyone on it. After tha

Today was a relaxed day. I spent a lot of time with J colouring and playing football. He was a happy boy today and also a good boy. Perhaps my discipline from last night did have some effect. Today has been over a week that he is with us. I feel like I crossed a river to a new life and I do from time to time longingly look back to the other side. Since last Monday I have not picked up a book, listened to music, watched a movie, just enjoyed a cup of coffee or chatted with a friend. It has all been about J. I hope with time my old life and new life will blend into one and I will get the best of both, yes I can be greedy J So how does it feel to become a mom to a child you never met, a child that already has quite the personality, a child that was not born to you. My view on adoption has always been, you adopt to give a child a family not to give a family a child. The last attitude would lead to huge disappointment. My greatest fear was that J might not like us or vice versa, w

Yesterday we moved to a new hotel much better suited to our needs. J was ok with the change, he was quite excited to see the new room and the new swimming pool although we have not yet been swimming. There is a little park around the corner where I took him to play football yesterday, we didn’t go out we just had a quiet day together. No crisis just defiance and basic naughtiness.   We also managed to skype with my other sister which I was very happy about. Today we had to go back to the orphanage as he had to do his fingerprint for the passport. He was excited we were going to see his friends. He went to the police station with a member of staff of the orphanage, he was a little confused as mommy and daddy were not coming and when he came back I got a big hug. In the afternoon we went to Cubbon Park with our friends and their daughter. We had a nice time, it’s a beautiful park with the biggest bamboo I’ve ever seen after that a quick stop at the mall and back to the hotel.

Today was our first monsterless day J We had the same routine as yesterday: breakfast, swimming, nap, mall and bed. Apart from some defiance everything went great so I’m not going to describe every part of our day in detail, I will limit it to the story of the ball pit. J really liked the soft play area at the mall and he was a bit upset he had to go home yesterday so we thought it would be a good idea to go again today so he understands that finishing fun doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come back. Before we went in I asked him not to shout and not to throw balls at the other children like yesterday and here’s what happened: He went straight to the ball pit to swim in the balls. There was one other girl in there as soon as he entered she started throwing balls in the air. He took two balls in his hand and suddenly turned to me, smiled and put them back down. I was so proud of him I could cry (well my eyes welled up). He played all the time near us, he doesn’t want to lose si

This morning started with monster time. He was really misbehaving on the way to breakfast. We gave him time to improve but he didn’t so we decided that he should know his behaviour has consequences so we picked him up and went back to the room... no breakfast just yet. We told him we love him very   much but that he needs to finish his monster time before we can go to breakfast. We gave him space, I expected screaming, kicking and throwing things but none of that happened. He slowly inched his way to us, I made sure I smiled at him every time we made eye contact to show that I was not angry. The silent war ended with a group hug and we tried breakfast again with success. Swimming was great as was lunch after which he said: Daddy I am soooooo tired, so we all had a nap. After that we went to the mall. We now explain things to him before we go out, today we discussed the holding hand on the street. He did well, he didn’t let go one single time J A few interesting things hap

We got up early this morning 7:30 and woke up J. As usually he comes for a cuddle in our bed, he loves it, he loves playing hide and seek with mommy under the duvet. We got dressed for breakfast and he was veering towards a mood but daddy managed to diffuse it by involving him in counting and preparing daddy’s supplements. Mission accomplished! We spoke to him that he needs to sit at the table during breakfast and not run to the swimming pool and he promised he would and he kept his promise. We arranged to go to the zoo today with our friends and whilst waiting for the taxi I showed him the videos I made at home from our dog and cat. He was super excited, kept kissing my computer screen, waving at the dog and petting them on the screen. So I’m not worried he will not like the animals J The zoo was great, we had a good time. We did the safari first and he was so happy to see all the animals. We got great pics as we were seated directly behind the driver and his assistant, they