Happy Adoption Day and Playing for Change video link

January 06, 2012

Happy Adoption Day and Playing for Change video link

Good Morning World

Have a look at this...a friend of mine put this on facebook this morning.

I was mesmerised..sat watching all the videos on my phone,

with my coffee, sitting in my bed.

Hence a late start...worth it though,

as it will give you goosepimples,

or goosebumps as you say in the US.

One Love | Playing For Change | Song Around the World

www.youtube.com

/PLAYING FOR CHANGE

HAPPY ADOPTION DAY

6TH JANUARY

I sincerely hope my lovely Jay wont

mind me putting this on my blog, but I thought it would be

good to share with anyone who might be contemplating adoption.

I always wanted children and in the

traditional sense it was a baby.

Over the years my ex husband and I

went through all the normal stuff to achieve that,

but it just never happened.

We decided we would look at adoption as an option

and went to an adoption society in London,

for an information evening.

The social worker told the small group,

about3 case histories

and Jay's was one of them.

By absolute chance...or maybe not...after the talk,

when everyone was chatting and drinking coffee,

we were looking at Jay's photo

and I made a comment such as

" Oh look how beautiful he is"....

The social worker just happened to be behind us.

" Would you like to find out more about that little boy?"

The rest, as they say is history.

The social worker assigned to our case hadn't

met Jay herself at that point,

and on her return from seeing him for the first time,

stopped at a phone box...

yes.. we did use them, then,

to excitedly inform me

"You are perfect for each other,

your temperaments match each other completely."

Something happened..to this day I don't know what it was,

whereby, although we had met Jay a few times

he had never been to the house and

stayed.

I felt they were trying to move

him from his foster placement quickly,

for some reason known only to them

and on one of my visits the social worker

asked if I would take Jay home

the next time I came to see him.

This was only a few days later.

I trundled over in my yellow 2cv,

which was to later become such a huge part of our lives,

out and about all over the place.

I bought this lamp when I stopped off on the way to bring Jay home all those years ago..It became his night light.
In later years it sat in our window in our house in Tarrant Street and when it was on friends knew we were around and meant they could drop by for a glass of wine!

When I arrived he had pulled all his pictures off the wall

and was packed and ready.

Taking my hand he said

" Come on Mum, lets go"

He was 4 years old at the time.

It all happened it a whirl and when I arrived home I was almost in shock.

I was working at a play school at the time and thought I would be brilliant.

But brilliant doesn't happen overnight and I am now a firm believer

that post natal depression isn't entirely a physical thing.

Also, you expect, I expected, to feel a huge surge of love immediately.

It doesn't always just happen, like a bolt from the blue.

It grows and like all relationships, you get out what you put in.

Suddenly here I was with a little person 24 hours a day.

It was quite a shock to the system.

I was emotional all the time,

feeling I wasn't making a good enough job of things.

I didn't really know what he ate, his likes and dislikes.

I struggled to feed him...I had never really cooked convenience food

and found that he was used to stuff coming out of tins and boxes.

I remember in desperation asking him

" Well, what DO you like?"

and in a quiet little voice he replied,

" I like cheesecake"

Thanks be , I thought and proceeded to make the whole thing, as usual from scratch.

Jay didn't like it and barely touched it.

" I thought you said you liked cheescake?"

" Yes, but out of a packet!"

We got through those early hurdles and somewhere along the line,

actually very soon after,

I realised I loved this little boy,

more than I had loved anyone in my life.

And that's the point I wanted to make....I never in a million years thought you could have such strength of feeling for a child that you had not produced yourself.

Prior to that, I had spent years weeping and wailing and feeling such intense jealousy

for all my friends who seemed to be having babies with ease.

Jay and I went from strength to strength.

Our relationship so strong that when he was at college

he came home one day and proclaimed,

" My mates at college are so jealous of our relationship"

"Why Jay?"

" Because it's so strong and they don't have that with their own mothers"

" How do they know?"

" Ma, they just see us together"

Over the years, I have been so proud of my Jay's achievements.

From an early age he took a huge interest in clothes, loved his skateboard, loved to travel.

After doing a menswear fashion degree, he just went from strength to strength.

Determined to end up in NYC..against all odds he got there.

Not the first time, when he borrowed money to get out there for interviews.

On his return, he said they felt he was good, but needed more experience.

"So what are you going to do?"

" Get more experience , of course"

and he did...through sheer hard work, gritty determination,

and talent, he went to NYC via Ecko Unltd.

He not only gained experience there,

he gained himself the gorgeous Krista,

his wife to be.

Look at him now, a successful menswear designer in California.

When he first went there he was designing clothes for...a skateboard company..funny hey?

After all the years he hurtled round on his own board.