My First Office Meltdown…

So today I had my first hormonal meltdown in the office.  I am mortified.  It was my entire fault and my (male) colleague didn’t have a clue what to do… 

All he had done was asked some questions that I was willingly answering.  I am an open book and maybe some things I shouldn’t share as they are painful, but I just wanted him to understand my prospective – And sadly instead, I was unable to answer and just ended up more frustrated.

The thing is, I am very open.  Especially when it is about adoption as I am passionate for people to understand that my baby girl is MY baby girl.  My colleague, who I will call S, hit a nerve that is a constant worry to me.  He said that I would feel differently towards my DD then I would towards my biological daughter because it is a  “scientifically proven fact” that biology accounts for more than nurture.  This I vehemently disagree with.  I mean, if that were the case, why are there so many babies and children placed for adoption?  Why are children around the world being abused?  Why are mothers happy to go on vacation, leaving their children to fend for themselves?  This I could answer, but then when he asked, “Aren’t you worried that you will love your biological child more?”

I just broke down.   It is sad really as the easy answer is, “No.  Not at all!” But it is this type of questioning that I fear my DD will have.  It petrifies me to think that one day she will think this too – even if it is for a hormone filled millisecond - at some point she will feel that pain, and I just have absolutely no idea what I can possibly do about it.

It frustrates me even more that I was so emotionally upset and beside myself with trying to speak these fears out loud that I just broke down sobbing.  In a room full of men.  In a room full of men, who don’t have children and could never possibly understand the fears that a mother has and the all encompassing urge to constantly protect her children. 

It frustrates me that people don’t have the empathy to understand this.  that they don’t expect the response that I give; especially as I am 7.5 months pregnant (to be fair, S was expecting it to a degree and felt horrific afterwards). 

I was kind of blindsided by the line of questioning really.  I knew people would think that as most people I meet have no idea of the emotional turmoil you go through in your dream to adopt.  That you experience the exact same emotions at various stages of the adoption that you do with your own personal pregnancy.  The only difference is that the stress of adoption is far far greater than having your own pregnancy; in our case, we were at the mercy of three governments, yet we had the bond with our DD the second we were sent her photo.  She was thousands of miles away.  We could see her only at weekends and had no idea what was happening the rest of the time.  When we were told she had pneumonia at four months old, panic set in.  Could she get the right treatment?  Would the treatment be as good there as in Dubai?  Would the orphanage administer the treatment correctly in our absence?  What will be the long-term implications of it?  Is there anything we can do from thousands of miles away apart from keep in constant contact with them?  What happens when she is crying and just needs a cuddle?  We weren’t there to be with her through all this and that thought is so painful you just couldn’t understand…

When you are pregnant, you know that your actions are directly affecting your own baby.  You know that if jump out of building you will hurt your baby.  Ultimately though, the decision to jump is yours and yours alone.  When you have a baby in another country, being looked after by amazing people (but they are ultimately strangers), that decision could be taken away from you.  OK.  This is a tad extreme, but you get the drift.  Everything is out of your control and the stress that this brings is huge.

It scares me to no end that someone with no brains will think that it is OK to ask these questions when my DD is around.  As I said to S today, I would not have been responsible for my actions had he have asked these questions in front of my daughter.  The poor man… how does he know that this is something that has kept me awake at night more often than anything else – that at least twice a week I lie in bed worrying about this from 2am and give up at 5am trying to get back to sleep?

Realistically, I should have stopped the questions before they began but I don’t really have that stop button.  I need to grow one though I have now realized.  What good will I do for my daughter if I can’t field these questions in the future?  How on earth is that going to remotely protect her?

What is ironic, is that literally 10 minutes before this all happened, I had posted a viral thread on Facebook from Sandra Bullock who is also frustrated at people saying she isn’t a real mum to her son.  She is an “Adoptive Mum”.

Take it from me, love from a real mum isn’t the love from someone that produces a child biologically - As amazing as the human body is, most women can do this in one form or another.  Love from a real mum is someone who sits watching her child sleep at night and feels the most overwhelming sense of love.  Love from a real mum is someone who holds her child tight when they fall, and worries about them when she sees them testing the boundaries.  Love from a real mum is someone who petrified, jumps in the car at 2am racing to their child to hospital only to be told by a Dr that it is only a temperature and there is no need to worry.  Love from a real mum is an overwhelming unconditional love. 

You do not have to give birth to love like a “real” mum.

M.I.A. It's all change...

So I have been M.I.A. for a few months as I was unwell – Or at least, that was what I thought and whilst that was partly true, it also couldn’t be further from the truth…

It started as me being utterly exhausted, unable to concentrate at work and wanting to sleep non stop if I was anywhere else.  The tiredness was like nothing else.  I was sleeping so soundly that I didn’t hear my daughter (DD) coming into our bed at night.  I was going to bed at 7pm and sleeping through my alarm.  I put it down to family staying for three weeks and entertaining every night yet maintaining a job.  I was just so tired… 

I suddenly had all the symptoms with horrific sickness and diarrhea to match my extreme tiredness.  I could keep nothing down at all and had to cancel the breakfast that I had booked with a fabulous friend Holly.  Luckily Holly was awake when I text at 6am to say I wasn’t well, and immediately jumped in her car driving from one side of Dubai, all the way to the other, calling me en-route to say she was coming to look after my daughter so I could rest.

Despite her protestations, I initially refused hospital.  Gastroenteritis has been going around town, so I was sure it would pass.  After spending several hours asleep and waking only to check that Holly was still OK with DD, I found that DD had been sick too.  Realising that I had to get better to be able to look after my daughter properly if she were ill (she was actually completely fine in herself, but you just can’t risk it can you?), we took her to her Godfather’s house and Holly took me to hospital.

After 9 bags of fluids, several blood tests and various injections later, I was told that I had Salmonella Blood Poisoning.  “Have you been experiencing any other illness recently?” asked the Doctor as she told me the test results.  After I said no, I had just been tired, she asked, “Did you not know you are pregnant?”

The room span.  “Pardon?”  I asked, not believing what I had just been told.  We had spent years trying to get pregnant, and when it didn’t happen and with our adoption window was narrowing, we adopted our most precious DD.  In those years, you quickly learn that actually ‘physically being pregnant’ is not the be-all and end-all.  All you want is the child at the end.  In fact, the more times you see your monthly cycle alive and kicking, the higher and thicker the brick wall is built about whether or not you want to become physically pregnant.  I lost count how many times over the years I have said, “Actually, I am far too selfish to be pregnant.  I like my body the way it is.  My boobs are in the right place and I have a small waist, plus a crying newborn baby?  Why would I have a child?”  This was my standard moniker that I trotted out when I was continuously asked (normally by family who should have known better), why wasn’t I pregnant yet?

After a few months of repeating these sentiments, you do start to believe it.  Years on, you not only believe it, but the thought of pregnancy quite literally revolts you.  In fact, by my mid 30’s, I felt better about my body than I had ever done before.  Oddly, just one month before I found out I was pregnant, I recall standing in my underwear in front of the full-length mirror in our bedroom saying to Ian, “Actually, my body really isn’t that bad for a 36 year old is it?”  I truly meant it too.  I also remember vividly that I thought I only looked this good because I hadn’t had physically carried a child…  That said I did not care.  After years in a mentally abusive relationship being told I was fat, and being constantly compared to other women who looked far better than me, Ian had installed confidence in me again, and I was loving it!

We took the decision to give up trying for kids’ years ago, way before our daughter came along.  Our new mantra was, “if it happens, it happens.”  People would ask us why we weren’t IVF’ing.  Personally speaking, by the stage IVF was a consideration, all I had ever wanted was the baby at the end.  Adoption was a much more natural consideration for me, and although discussing whether or not to IVF with Ian (I would absolutely have gone through the process had Ian have wanted me to), he surprisingly agreed with me that we would adopt.  It was a further couple of years though before we were able to complete the process. 

Adopting our daughter was the best thing we have ever done.  She completed us and we are so lucky to have her.  But it reinstalled in both of us that your flesh and blood does not make a ‘family’.  It the unconditional love that you have for that child; How you would trade places at the drop of a hat if they were in pain or in danger, how you live to see their smile each morning and think there is no better sound in the world than hearing their laughter.  Naturally, when we spoke about extending our family, it was only ever in discussions about adoption, never anything else. The thought of my falling pregnant never even crossed our minds.

Last November we had been speaking about to whether to adopt again or not and decided that we were in the middle of such an exciting age with our DD, where she was developing such a magnificent personality and getting more independent daily, we just didn’t think we would ever be this lucky a second time around.

So when the Doctor explained that I was actually around 12 weeks pregnant, shock set in.  I just sat there mutely, my head swirling.  She continued oblivious to the fact I wasn’t listening and luckily Holly was, “This is why the blood poisoning had taken hold so quickly as your immune system is lowered in pregnancy,” and what the next steps where that I should take to deal with both the salmonella and how to proceed with the pregnancy.  “Take it slowly, take a month off work,” Yeah right – One day off and a week working from home more like.  I had a deadline to think of! “And rest up,” not to mention the scans, finding an OB etc.

I have taken some practical (and impractical) steps myself.  Yes, I have brought surgical garters to help me heel more quickly, because I am scared I won’t get my figure back.  Yes, the thought of stretch marks on my belly brings me out in hives, so I have taken out shares in bio oil so I can make some back some of the money that I am spending on their product.  Yes, the thought of aging another 10 years in the space of one month because of lack of sleep has had me looking at the cost of a facelift; not to mention the tummy tuck and boob jobs that I have reviewed.  But what petrifies me more than anything is knowing that I have to get that balancing act perfected quickly between the two girls.  The thought of either feeling left out as they grow up makes me feel physically sick.  Oh, this and the thought of my relationship with Ian being put back under strain that inevitably the introduction of a baby will bring…. Actually the list of these real fears is endless.  How do other mums do it?

In the past couple of months, we have been getting used to the idea.  We can’t wait for the baby, but the most excited of us all is our DD.  She keeps kissing my belly saying, “kisses for my baby sister,”- Yes we are having another girl.  I have taken the advice and taken it a little easier.  I am still working, but I have cut back on the work events to one or two per week.  I have also finally got my head around the issues I had relating to my body.  Don’t get me wrong, I still think the idea of carrying a baby is revolting – I can’t help but think of the scene in Alien when the Alien erupts from Sigourney Weavers stomach, but the thought of anything happening to that baby fills me with horror.  Also, very oddly, it is very comforting to feel the baby (continuously) moving and kicking inside me.  I am so excited for later in the year when out new addition turns up although happy to do away with the birth.

What all this has also meant is that apart from work, I have literally been doing nothing else, aside from a cheeky trip back to the UK and Tobago.

Telling Ian was fun… But that’s a story for another day.