Lifestory work

We recently received Peter's lifestory book from the local authority. These days they aren't so much a "book" as a "chapter", covering the child's story from birth to adoption. The adoptive parents are encouraged to add a chapter of their own to the beginning and end to soften the impact of the difficult information in the middle. This is vaguely how they should go:

- Peter is a kind, loving and clever boy who lives with his Mummy and Mama and their two dogs Lady and Nana. He is seven years old and he enjoys playing tennis, going on adventures in the woods and drawing. His favourite colour is green and he loves to eat spaghetti! Here is a photo of his family out on a bike ride together.

- Peter was born on 01/02/2010 in Newtown Hospital. He weighed 6lb 5oz. Peter's name means "rock". Here is a photo of Peter as a baby.

- Babies need to be looked after properly so that they can learn and grow. They need to be kept safe, they need enough food to eat, nappies, toys, a warm bed to sleep in, and lots of play and cuddles. Babies need grown-ups who love them, keep them safe and give them all the things they need. Love is not just a feeling, it also means giving someone what they need to be safe and happy.

- When Peter was a baby he lived with John and Christine, his sister Lizzy and his brother Harry. John and Christine loved their children, but they were unable to keep them safe, give them enough food to eat and help them learn all the things children need to learn. Sometimes XYZ happened (age appropriate explanation.) John and Christine were given lots of help to stop, but it's very hard to make changes and XYZ kept happening.

- Peter, Lizzy and Harry went to live with Dave and Helen, who are foster carers. Their job is to make sure children are clean and safe, have enough food to eat and a warm bed to sleep in. They love the children, and help them learn and grow. The children couldn't stay there forever, so a wise judge made the decision about where they should live. He chose a very special Mummy and Mama for Peter. Here is a photo on the day they became a family.

- Here are photos from the day Peter first met his Mummy and Mama. (Bit about how we felt and what we did in the first few days and weeks.)

- Here are photos and descriptions of events and milestones since Peter moved in - first time at the seaside, first day at school, first lost tooth, birthdays, Christmasses, Summer holidays etc.

- Mummy, Mama and Peter are going to be a family forever. When Peter grows up, he wants to ride water slides and be a train driver!

Peter's seventh birthday is approaching, and to help him with his understanding of time we went back and looked at some photos of Peter from when he first moved in with us to now, including his fifth and sixth birthdays. Peter actually came into care (to different foster carers) the day before his fourth birthday, and the other day he asked me if he was going to move to a new home when he turns seven. Due to his autism, developmental delay and speech delay we're not sure how much he understands or remembers about his past but this was heart breaking. We reassured him that he'll be staying with us forever and make sure we openly talk about plans we have for the future together ("when you're eight we'll...", "when you're thirteen we can...") to help him cement that in his mind.

A family update

Peter has had a great Summer and has just gone back to school into year 2. He has put up with a lot of change as one of us has been at the hospital with Russell most of the time, and has thrived with all the challenges that have come his way. He's getting stronger and fitter all the time - he now regularly runs 1km at our local running club, his confidence has increased: this Summer he's tried rock climbing for the first time and has climbed right to the top of the biggest climbing frame at any of our local playgrounds. He's taught himself to read, he's constantly experimenting and enquiring, his speech has improved, he loves imaginative play and he's developing a real sense of humour. He has a keen interest in butterflies so we've been providing him with resources, he can now identify 6 or 7 different species and will spend half an hour at a time sitting in the garden watching all the butterflies visit our buddleja. He's such a little character!

Russell has also started thriving since he became part of our family. When we first met him he was seven months old but like a newborn in terms of his development, except for his utter disinterest in whether anyone was with him or not. He's now 9 months old and about 3-4 months developmentally, but his whole demeanour is different - he's interested in us, wants our attention and is starting to demand it which is great. We've completed our training in his care and do everything for him whilst we're at the hospital. We're hoping to be able to take him on outings soon (accompanied by his ventilator and all his equipment!) and work up to day leave, overnight leave, and then hopefully he can be discharged home by November. We have a lot to prepare at home before he comes, and it will completely change our lives (again!), but we're looking forward to it. He's definitely worth it.

We were really pleased to receive an email from Belle's adoptive family recently, telling us how well she's doing, with some photos from their busy Summer. It's so lovely to see how happy they are and hear about their new life as a family of four, it sounds like Belle is keeping them on their toes and is making loads of progress!

We have more change on the way as we've decided to move house to give Russell a downstairs bedroom, Peter more space to play, and our dogs Lady and Nana a bigger garden to run around in! We're in the process of packing boxes, and since we're moving over county lines we're visiting new schools for Peter too. Our local authority accepts foster carers from neighbouring counties so we don't need to change fostering agencies thankfully.

It's a busy time but we're sure everything will settle down by Christmas... perhaps it will then be time for us to go back on the lists for a third placement!

Six years old

Peter is nearly six! Here are six things we love about you, Peter.

1) You truly follow your own interests without an awareness of the outside influences of "gender" or "age". Your favourite colour is pink, and you count butterflies and Tinkerbell amongst your favourite things, alongside cars and trains. Many of your toys have an age guide of 12-36 months on the box, but they make you happy and you couldn't care less.

2) How much you love books. "Read together?" you say, and when I agree, you skip off gleefully and return with a handful. "Five stories mama! This one first!" I have no doubt that the hundreds of stories we've read together (including several hundred repetitions of the same ones!) combined with your incredible memory have contributed to your awesome word recognition. You're starting to read before you can speak fluently - that's skill!

3) You still love to sing and can now hold a tune which is so lovely to hear (although maybe not at 5am at the top of your voice...)

4) You have no understanding yet of winning or losing, you can still just enjoy the race.

5) You find the world a confusing and frightening place much of the time, but you're happy to go to new places and try new things as long as we're with you. We're so proud of you!

6) You have no idea how significant every one of your achievements is when we think about the dismal prognosis you were given when you first came into care, and you continue to amaze us daily. We were asked in a meeting recently whether we understood what your limits would be in terms of what you could achieve and what your adult life will look like. For a moment we didn't understand the question as to us you have no limits whatsoever! We hope you will see yourself the same way as you grow up and will never allow another person to tell you what you cannot do because of your disability.

It's a privilege being your mummy and mama, and we couldn't ask for a better foster son. We look forward to the next year with you!

The urge to nest

Pregnancy and parenting magazines talk about the urge to nest all the time - giving the house a spring clean, washing, organising and reorganising piles of baby clothes, buying furniture and decorating the nursery (even if they plan to keep the baby in the parents' room for the first year!)

Adopters talk about fighting the urge to nest - knowing that it's logical to wait until after matching panel before mentally moving a child in, buying things for them and decorating their room, but finding it extremely difficult!

It's a good thing - apparently nesting comes with great bursts of energy in what would otherwise be a tiring, frustrating waiting exercise, and it's not irrational in the slightest - it is all about the desire to protect and prepare for the child who's about to arrive, so that there's a safe environment to facilitate bonding between the child and it's primary carers. This bonding and attachment is crucial whether the child is born to you, arrives through adoption or as a foster placement.

As foster carers we definitely get the urge, and these days we just tend to go with it rather than fight it. We are desperate to rearrange Belle's room ready for Alice, and have already bought her a few bits even though we don't know what will be coming with her from her current carer. We also may or may not have purchased some adorable baby vests the other day for a baby who we're having discussions about, and they haven't even gone to court yet. We've kept the receipt so we're not completely crazy…

Forever families

We're in the middle of a very busy few weeks where two stories are playing out simultaneously in our house, as two little girls are meeting and moving in with their forever families.

Belle is meeting her new parents tomorrow for the first time. She has gone to sleep in her cot tonight oblivious, but tomorrow is the start of a new life for her. She'll spend more and more time with her parents as they gradually take over all her day to day care, and then in about a week she'll go to live with them and their lives will never be the same again.

Another little girl, we'll call her Alice, is also oblivious to the changes that are about to happen. We haven't met her yet, but in just a few weeks she'll be living with us. It might be a tough transition as she's been with her current carers for several years, but we're going to be her final move as she'll stay with us until adulthood.

Even though the legalities of permanency for the two children are very different, the process from the child's perspective is very similar - once plans are made the child is prepared in advance as much as their age and level of understanding will allow. We have received a special talking photo album for Belle from her new family to help familiarise her with their faces and voices. They've also sent videos including all family members and pets, and taken her on a virtual house tour - technology is a wonderful thing in preparing a child for permanency! We've done a similar photo album for Alice and are thinking about recording a bedtime story for her carers to play for her.

There are quite a few good products to help out there, here's a selection:

Whoozit photo album

Lamaze hear me see me photo album

Sparkup magical book reader

We'll all miss Belle but her new parents are lovely, and hopefully it will be a good week. It would be awkward if the foster carers and adopters didn't get on at all, since most of the "action" is in the foster carer's home, for the first few days at least! Once Belle has moved on, we will take down the cot, rearrange the furniture, put away the baby toys and start decorating the room ready for Alice.

That's something we've learned in fostering - there's always another child who needs a safe home, so rooms are never empty for long.

Speech update

I thought I'd post a little update on Peter's speech as we recently noticed how much he's progressed. He came to us 18 months ago aged 4, able to count to ten and say circle, square, monkey, water and car. None of it was clear, but you could just about work it out. Apart from that he communicated only in screams, or by leading us by the hand to whatever he wanted.

We recently decided with the lighter nights it was a good time to make his bedtime later as part of a new “grown up” routine now he’s nearly six, and he now gets a couple of hours of play time after tea rather than going straight up for his bath. My wife puts Belle to bed and then goes to work, and we do Peter’s choice of activities with my undivided attention until it’s bathtime. The chosen activities have ranged from reading stories, to rolling back and forth together on the trampoline for half an hour giggling, to building an awesome train track or marble run, but more often than not at the moment he wants me to draw on his magnadoodle. It’s fascinating getting an insight into his mind and the things he thinks about, and his speech is getting better and better as he has to find the words to describe what he wants me to draw. He looks forward to this all day and we spend at least half an hour every evening with me drawing whatever he asks, often things from books or from his own experience with a happy rectangle taking the place of himself. There’s a lot of imagination going on there too.

Examples to test my drawing skills have been:

– Caterpillar on a skateboard. A big fat one. No, now a little one. Five little caterpillars on skateboards. And then chocolate cake. Caterpillar eats it! Ha ha ha!

– Rectangle in the sea. Feet. Eyes and mouth. Armbands on. Swim pants on. Splashy toes. BIG SPLASH! Good swimming, rectangle!

– Thomas and Rosie and James and Percy. Eyes. Happy mouth. Wheels. Tracks. Tracks round the corner this way (gestures). Now left. Tunnel. Clouds. Stars. It's night time, goodnight Thomas. Thomas going to bed in Tidmouth Sheds.

- One hundred beautiful butterflies! (I think we got to about 20 before the magnadoodle screen was full.)

Amazingly, he has had no direct speech therapy as the school therapist has been unable to engage him, although we may find a private one in the future. We put him on fish oils early on to help his concentration and focus, and we believe that weekly music therapy has had a positive effect on his communication. Other than that, it has been mainly about finding what he wanted to talk about, following his lead and providing the vocabulary for him. A lot of his speech has come from echolalia - repeating phrases from books, TV programs or things that he's heard us say. Over time he's been able to adapt these, adding in or replacing words to fit new situations.

We're meeting Belle's adopters tomorrow and she'll be moving to her new family at the beginning of May. We're not sure yet how Peter will take this, I gently broached the subject for the first time tonight and we'll do some visual photo work with him to prepare him, and hopefully reassure him that he's staying with us. He's clearly fond of her and calls her "my Belle", but she's been going through a phase of crying a lot lately so he might just appreciate the peace, who knows! It won't last for long as we have more than one potential placement on the horizon. Watch this space!

Mixing foster carers and adopters

Friends of ours who foster are going through the assessment to adopt and have shared some of their experiences so far with us. It's interesting to hear about things from the other side, as of course Jack-Jack was adopted from our care, and Belle's placement order has been granted so family finding for her is underway.

Our friends have said that one of the strangest parts of their assessment was going on the adoption training course and being the only foster carers amongst a sea of fresh-faced adopters. It struck us as odd to have adopters and foster carers on the same course (foster carers are not invited to adoption training to speak and share their experiences, so the only time foster carers would attend is if they were themselves adopting.) As foster carers we know the system. We've cared for the traumatised children they're talking about, we've met birth parents, we've heard countless histories of abuse and neglect, we've gone through adoption introductions ourselves.

Foster carers, as a group, can be somewhat cynical and matter-of-fact when we get together at training or coffee mornings. We have so many shared experiences, we understand what each other are going through, we're quite difficult to shock, and foster carer coffee mornings usually involve a lot of moaning. It's a frustrating job - we work extremely hard for the children we care for and come up against so many barriers as social workers are overworked or services are oversubscribed. Sometimes it's a case of laughing otherwise we'd cry, and we need a safe place to unload and vent.

The adoption training usually comes before the full assessment starts, so the adopters may have little to no understanding of trauma, loss, abuse and adoption at this point.

Our friends said that one of the group exercises was "write down as many examples of physical/emotional/sexual abuse or neglect that you can think of." An upsetting exercise, but the point of the session was to make the adopters think about what their future child may have gone through before they were taken into care. In their small group, the adopters wrote down a few examples such as not keeping the children clean, not giving them enough food, hitting them etc. and then the foster carers joined in and rattled off twenty or so examples from the various histories of children they'd cared for, ranging from relatively minor to extreme. They suddenly noticed the adopters faces going ashen and toned it down, stepping back from the conversation.

It must be extremely hard as a social worker or experienced adopter delivering adoption training. You don't want to scare off the group of keen and eager adopters in front of you but it would be doing the children a disservice not to tell the truth and pretend that life was going to be rosy. Adoption is not for everyone and it is so different to parenting a child born to you - the child's past is always going to be their past and adopters need to feel comfortable sharing it with the child at an age appropriate level throughout their childhood. Most adopters these days are expected to write letters to their child's birth parents, grandparents or siblings once a year and there may be face to face contact with the child's foster carers if they were with them a long time, or with siblings who have also been placed for adoption. Relatives and friends may not understand and may even unknowingly undermine the child's placement with their forever family at first, and it can feel extremely isolating needing to parent a child in a different way to meet their needs.

I do think it would be a good idea to involve foster carers in the delivery of adoption training to give another view point, but perhaps separate training sessions should be held for foster carers who are adopting - taking out all the information we are already well informed on and focussing on the future - letterbox contact, talking to your child about adoption, the differences between caring for a foster child and an adopted child, and continuing to foster after adoption. Time for a letter to BAAF perhaps!

Belle turns one

We had Belle's 1st birthday last week, and although she spent the majority of the day at contact with her family, we had time to help her open her presents and take some lovely birthday photos. She of course had no idea what was going on but very much enjoyed the attention and the cake!

So Belle, on the occasion of your 1st birthday, here are the things we love about you:

- Your determination. You already get cross with yourself when your body doesn't move the way you want it to yet, and you definitely don't want our help. You practise and practise, getting stronger each day, and were very pleased with yourself recently when you started to crawl.

- Your independence. You decided when you wanted your feeding tube out, we listened to you, and you've been in control of your feeding ever since. We're amazed by the way the tiny tube-fed baby with an oral aversion has embraced eating every flavour and texture that comes her way!

- Your voice. Belle, you are LOUD! Nobody really likes being shouted at, but for you we'll make an exception because we're so proud of how far you've come. You were silent when you arrived, but you are now more than able to make your needs and feelings known, with great gusto.

It might sound strange but although we'll miss her, we're really looking forward to Belle's adoption. We know she's not destined to stay a part of our family and we're looking forward to introducing her to her parents and telling them all about her. Belle's social worker is particularly fond of her, and we're confident she'll take extra time finding just the right family for her. Our part to play in her life will soon be coming to an end, but we know with the foundation we've helped to give her, she'll go from strength to strength.

Family likeness

Today I noticed something fascinating.

As Jack-Jack's birthday is coming up we've found ourselves missing him more than ever, and today I decided to look his adoptive parents up on Facebook to see whether there was a recent photo of him. There he was as soon as the page opened, and it was astonishing how much he's changed! He no longer looks like the baby they collected from our house at the end of the introductions, he's now a little boy, and even more than that he really looks like his adoptive mum and dad.

When he lived with us, people used to tell us that Jack-Jack looked like us all the time. They'd stare at us each in turn and exclaim how he could have been born to either one of us. He doesn't any more, he looks like his new family.

Esmeralda was at a training course a couple of weeks ago where all the participants passed round a photo of their child as a point of reference. No one knew that she's a foster carer and not related to Peter at all, but when she passed his photo round all of them said how much he looked like her.

It's all down to a combination of picking up turns of phrase, sounds and accents, facial expressions, body language etc. from the people you spend so much time with, but I found it amazing that it's happening so quickly, enough to be noticeable in a photograph!

Fostering before having your own children

When we initially looked into fostering, we wondered whether not having previously had our own children would count against us in the assessment, but in reality we found the opposite was true. Our social worker Jane and her manager both seemed quite excited by us - here was a couple who could focus all their attention and energy on fostering as they had no other children to distract them. We were convinced of the benefits too, and looked forward to a new life as foster carers whilst planning to add to our family by other means later on.

Now that we're getting on for our first annual review and have said goodbye to two foster placements our outlook is somewhat different, and at the moment we would caution anyone who was considering short-term fostering without also having had their own birth/adopted children, or without any foster children on permanency.

There's very little I can say that can accurately describe how it has felt since Jack-Jack has moved out. Of course we miss him, but it's much much more than that. The house feels empty and too quiet. There's no one shouting at us to wake up in the morning so we keep oversleeping, we've both been absolutely shattered (the intros really take it out of you) and haven't had the energy to cook so we haven't been eating as healthily as usual, plus there's no one to set a good example for! Without a child we both feel a bit like frauds right now and we've been avoiding the friends with children we've made since starting fostering.

Of course there's the practical aspect too - fostering is my full time job so between placements I have not only nothing to do, but no income, which makes it rather more difficult to do the things we haven't been able to do with a baby in the house, like going out for dinner, to the theatre or the cinema.

We didn't have any of this when Andy left. It wasn't easy and we missed him, but our routine didn't change as we still had Jack-Jack and his routine to focus on. It's made us want to look at bringing forward our plans for starting a family so that as we continue to foster and placements come and go, we'll have our own children to hold that bit tighter and appreciate that bit more.

An end and a new beginning

Jack-Jack has now moved to his new home, and although it hadn't been planned this way, we ended up meeting the little boy we hope will be our next placement the same day. Peter is four years old and has a high level of additional needs, but we're confident that we would be able to help him blossom and reach his potential. He's lovely, sociable and talented, and at the moment is functioning at around the level of a very young toddler, with all the frustrations and tantrums that go along with that. It's not definite that he'll move in with us yet as all the social workers are still involved in negotiations around the arrangements for school, contact and support services if the move was to go ahead. Fingers crossed, we have his room ready for him.

When Jack-Jack left, we started to get the house ready for the next child. With Peter in mind, we packed up all the baby toys, got out bits and pieces for older children like jigsaws and imaginative toys and reorganised the living room. We cleared out the larger spare room upstairs (it had been Andy's room but had turned into a bit of a dumping ground over the Summer,) made up the bed and put out a few books and ornaments to make it look welcoming. We took down the blackout blind from Jack-Jack's window, aired the room and moved the furniture. Overnight the house felt strange and empty, but it really helped that when we woke up, Jack-Jack's room wasn't just how he left it and there weren't loads of reminders around.

We've coped surprisingly well - we held it together throughout introductions and the final handover, and had a big cry whilst sorting through the old baby toys once it was all over. I'm sure we'll have many more over the next few days and weeks, but it's lovely to have someone new to focus on. Lady has actually been the most affected in the household in many ways as we couldn't explain anything to her - she was extremely unsettled over the last few days of introductions, and has been moping since Jack-Jack left. It feels very odd having so much freedom again (we took Lady for a walk after 6pm today which was absolutely unheard of whilst Jack-Jack was here as we were all about the bedtime routine), but we're trying to enjoy it and rest as much as we can before we embark on the next great adventure.

Moving on up

Jack-Jack's introductions with his parents are underway, and are going very well. His parents are honest, open and friendly which has made the process so much easier (they say the same about us!) and we're stepping back gradually to allow them to take over his care and start forming a bond with him. He's going through a wonderfully cuddly phase at the moment and Mummy and Daddy have both been treated to cuddles already which was so sweet to see. Everyone acknowledges that the situation is a bit awkward at times (who jumps up if he's touching something he shouldn't or is about to fall off something?) and will be hard on all of us in different ways, but we can already see what the life he'll lead might look like, and it's full of love which is ultimately all we ever wanted for him. Jack-Jack will meet his older sibling for the first time today and will spend the day together as a family, which might be a bit of a shock for both of them!

It turns out we didn't need to worry about having an empty nest - we've already had a call about another little boy who we think could be a very good match for our family. It would be a planned move as he's already in foster care, but he has various additional needs so we've got lots of questions for his social worker and current foster carer before we agree to take him - we need as much information as possible to ensure that we could make the placement a success and do our best to avoid any unnecessary moves.

Lives touched

Lately we've been having to tell people that it's probably the last time they'll see Jack-Jack. We chatted about it a while ago as so much in fostering is on a "need to know" basis, but decided that it would be unfair in most situations to tell people after he's gone, to give them the opportunity to work through their feelings rather than just saying out of the blue that he's left us. It's amazing how many people have been involved in his life since he's been here, even people we wouldn't previously have thought of. Most of these know we foster, but hadn't really put two and two together and truly realised that Jack-Jack would have to leave one day.

Our neighbour who has a child of a similar age was moved to tears when we told her, our cleaner who's known Jack-Jack since he was six months old was quite upset, our hairdresser who's been rooting for us since our first visit from our local authority and who did Jack-Jack's first haircut was shocked, Esmeralda's manager who's never even met Jack-Jack got emotional when she authorised Esmeralda's annual leave for the week of introductions, and friends and family who've welcomed Jack-Jack into their lives and love him as we do are obviously very affected too.

It's pretty awful every time. There seems to be an even split between people who try and put a positive spin on it - they look horrified and don't make eye contact whilst saying things like "oh how lovely, a new family", and those who have pity in their eyes and say "oh no" and "it must be so difficult". To the last comment we've just started saying "yes it is" and leaving it at that.

We've got the planning meeting for the introductions coming up, I think we'll both feel much more at ease after we know exactly what's happening and when, but right now we're a bit all over the place.

Life on hold

With Jack-Jack's upcoming adoption always in the forefront of my mind, I've noticed that I've recently stopped trying to help Jack-Jack progress. Almost unconsciously, I've taken a step back from actively teaching him and encouraging him to practise new skills (numbers, animal noises, body parts, signs etc.), as it would be so nice for his new parents to teach him these things and share in his achievements. His walking is coming on in leaps and bounds, but I've caught myself thinking "not yet!" as I'm imagining how much his new parents would love to hold out their arms and have him wobble and totter into them, as he's been doing with us. It might sound silly as you don't want to hold them back, but I've heard of foster carers holding off on weaning, moving from bottles to beakers, potty training etc. to allow the adoptive family to go through that milestone with their child.

I sat down to make a plan for how we're going to pass on all the photographs and other memories we have saved for him, and in doing so went through all the notes we've made each day on Jack-Jack's progress, outings and behaviour. It made me realise how many of Jack-Jack's "firsts" we've been there for - first food, the first time he sat up by himself, starting to crawl, the first time he babbled, the first time he pulled himself to a stand, his first steps, first visit to the dentist, first holiday, first shoes, first haircut, first birthday... We were so excited about each one, celebrated it, documented it with photos and video, and talked about it with pride to family and friends. Now when I look back, although he will have the photos we took, it seems so desperately unfair that neither his birth family nor his adoptive family were there for these special moments in his first fifteen months, and I do feel disappointed for his adopters that it's taken so long to get to this point. Adoption was mentioned as the mostly likely outcome for him when he was placed with us, and we've known this specific family was on the radar from that point too. It's almost like the courts forget that you can't put a young child's life on hold whilst you wait for decisions to be made and meetings to be held, however much you might want to.

Foster carer support

Esmeralda and I are finding that time is really dragging at the moment. Fostering is not for the impatient, we've spent many weeks waiting for various things - waiting for panel, waiting for the decision to be ratified after panel, waiting for our first placement... but this is one of the hardest waiting periods of all - we're waiting to meet Jack-Jack's adoptive family so that they can get to know him and his routine, and then take him home. They've been through their matching panel and are waiting for the decision to be ratified until he is officially their son. I'm sure their wait is very hard too, but there is a world of difference between waiting for something wonderful and exciting, and waiting for something inevitable and awful. That's not to say we're not happy for them, we've received a photo album of pictures to look through with Jack-Jack, and they look like a lovely family for him. We're looking forward to meeting them and showing them what a wonderful little boy Jack-Jack is.

That said, the process isn't over yet and we already feel horrendously unsupported. We are new carers still in our first year, Jack-Jack was our first placement and sometimes carers foster for many years before going through adoption introductions with a foster child. The LA consider our social worker to be enough support for us. We like our social worker Jane very much, but we're not sure how she can support us through this as she's never been through it herself. Even aside from this, as it's summer she's been on annual leave over the period spanning Jack-Jack's matching panel, our first telephone contact with his adopters etc. and we had no one to call to talk through questions that we had.

I'm sure there are those who would disagree, but we feel that it would be more appropriate to talk to someone who has really been through it - who knows the process, can help us to work through our feelings, and above all understands how much we love these children who are not our own. In our minds, this has to be another foster carer. As we've asked to be put in touch with other foster carers before and nothing has been done, we're not going to mention this to Jane until our next supervision session, which will be after Jack-Jack has moved on, but we really hope a scheme can be put in place to help new carers in the future.

As we've said many, many times over the past year and a half, we're so glad we have each other for support and we're not doing this as single parents.

Toys

Yesterday we decided to write a list of Jack-Jack's belongings to make it easier to pack them up when the time comes for him to leave us and join his adoptive family. It's amazing how much he's accumulated since he arrived! We figured we might not be thinking as clearly during the week of introductions with all the emotions that go along with that - better to be prepared now so that we don't forget anything. We decided it would be easier to separate Jack-Jack's own toys from those that will stay, so spent a good hour reshuffling the living room.

We filled an empty plastic box with his smaller toys and games, and as we went through the various boxes that make up our toy collection, we realised how much we've already refined our toy purchase decisions over the time that Jack-Jack's been living with us. Some toys we found on the bestseller lists we'd never buy again (there's one particular toy we'll be thrilled to see the back of), others we'd highly recommend and will be replacing. Although we have a selection of each, we noticed a real preference for wooden toys over plastic for both Jack-Jack and Andy, the big exceptions being Happyland and Wow toys which both come out every day. The very few electronic toys in our collection have hardly been played with at all.

Over the years I'm sure the toys in the house will keep changing, as different children come and go, and even those of the same age will have different preferences, interests and skills, and will have toys that challenge them and help them to understand the world. By the time we've been fostering for twenty years we'll be toy connoisseurs!

Summer

Summer is a very busy time in the fostering world. We've had a huge number of calls about placements in comparison to the average we've had since we started fostering. Summer is when most families arrange to go on holiday and foster families are no different - about half of the calls we've had have been for respite whilst the child/ren's foster carers are away. We're encouraged to take the children we foster away with us on family holidays as they're part of the family, but in some cases that's just not possible - perhaps there are issues getting a passport in time, perhaps an older child doesn't want to go, perhaps there are issues with missing contact, or perhaps the holiday was booked long before the child was placed and they can't be added in.

Summer can also be a stressful time for birth families as they are not used to having their children at home 24/7 which can exacerbate issues. We've had several calls to place school-aged children at short notice over the last few weeks.

As this busy period coincides with carers going away, the matching process for placements gets much trickier for the duty team, and we've had quite a few calls for children outside our preferred age range of 0-8 (we're approved for 0-18), or even outside our approval category of 2 unrelated children. I'm sure we'll take teenagers at some point in the future, but at the moment we don't feel ready. We've only been parenting for about 8 months, whereas a birth parent gets 13 years to prepare for those interesting teenage years!

This should all die down a bit towards the end of the summer as everyone returns from their holidays, children on respite return to their regular carers, and everyone prepares for the start of a new school year, but unfortunately it will probably get busier again shortly afterwards. Many of the referrals to social services are made by schools, so the start of the new school year is an opportunity for teachers and school nurses to keep an eye on their pupils again - perhaps a child's presentation has declined since they last saw them in July, perhaps their personality has changed significantly, or perhaps a child confides in a teacher about something worrying that happened over the summer holiday.

We've turned down a couple of open-ended school-aged placements recently as we think it wouldn't be fair on Jack-Jack for his last few weeks with us, being ferried around to activities that would interest older children, and their new school year would start around the time we need to be focussing on the introductions between Jack-Jack and his new family. We are open to taking a toddler or baby placement in the mean time though, so we'll see what happens. Around this time next month, our lives could look completely different and we might be joining the ranks of frazzled parents and carers trying to get everyone organised by 8am for the school run!

Emotions

Andy moves back to his carer in a couple of days - this month has flown by and it's really been a joy to look after him and see him learn and develop. He's grown both physically and in confidence since he's been here, he's learned new skills, had new experiences and tried new tastes, he's sturdier on his feet and has started to stand his ground with Jack-Jack. We'll be very sad to see him go, even though he's going back to his very experienced and loving carer. Over a 6 week period we will have been told about a child who needs a long respite placement, met him, moved him in and settled him, become attached, found out that our first placement is leaving us soon, and then moved the second placement back to his carer.

I'm working on a photobook for Andy's memory box at the moment, putting together a selection of the photographs we've taken of him over the month with captions about what we were doing, where we went and how much fun we had. A month isn't a long time in the grand scheme of things over the course of someone's life, but I still wouldn't like to think that he had no evidence of who he lived with and what we did.

No one ever said it would be easy, but emotions are running pretty high here at the moment as you can probably imagine. We're doing our best not to talk about what's happening in front of the children, and are mindful of who we do discuss things with. Quite aside from the fact that the children's histories (and futures!) are confidential, we don't want to overload our family and friends or give them an unrealistically negative view of fostering. It is hard work, it's completely different to parenting, and it can feel like it's just not worth all the emotional strain at times, but however well-meaning, we don't want anyone to suggest that we just throw in the towel.

Yesterday a little boy, who a month ago cried when he spilled anything down his front, successfully fed himself with a spoon all by himself and got absolutely plastered in yoghurt in the process. We couldn't have been more proud, and although it sounds cheesy, we're hoping that these are the moments we'll remember long after the children have moved on, not how hard it was for us.

Surprise inspection and moving on

We had an unannounced inspection today. I was just sitting down for my lunch when I heard a knock at the door, and a lovely lady stated that she was from social services and was here to check the children's rooms as part of our annual review. Our review isn't due until the end of the year, but apparently carers start to expect these visits around their review date so they have started doing them mid-year in an attempt to make them truly unexpected. We wouldn't have been expecting one at all as this was the first we'd heard of them! I cast my mind nervously around the house, mentally noting the state of the bathroom, whether or not the laundry bin was overflowing, and trying to remember whether I'd washed up the dishes from breakfast, but took a deep breath and invited her in. I needn't have worried as she was very nice, complimented me on our home and commented that any house with young children in shouldn't be tidy or they aren't doing it right!

We now know that the outcome for Jack-Jack is adoption, and although we don't know the official date he'll be moving on from us, we know that it's weeks away rather than months. We both have a mix of feelings about this. I must admit that when I first heard the news, the boys were napping upstairs and I went into the garden for a bit of a weep. It would be strange if I didn't feel sad as Jack-Jack is so deeply loved, attached and settled here, but I feel a peace about the fact that he's moving on to his "forever" home. We are a Christian family and have been praying for the right outcome for Jack-Jack since the moment he moved in, and we trust that the right decision has been made. I'm sure there will be many more tears shed after we've packed up all his belongings and he's gone, but right now it's up to us to work with his new family and help to make this transition as smooth as possible.