Will my child struggle with identity? – I really hope not.
Hi there it’s Fiona, I’m 56 with a six-year-old. Yes, I know a bit of a gap between us. God said I will give you a child at 50. I said can you not do it a little sooner? Along came Georgie six weeks before I was 51. He was right and I was impatient. After 33 years of longing for a child, I can be forgiven, maybe, for being a little impatient.
Me and my Tornado
So Why the Struggle for My Tornado?
In my narrow thinking, I will tell you why, I thought how wonderful that she was coming to live with us. We are her family she won’t have the struggles that I did. How naive? Georgie is my great-niece from the family I was adopted out of. So complex, I know. Anyway, my heart was to have Georgie until her Mum and Dad were better able to manage. I had wholeheartedly decided that it was temporary. The best-laid plans and all that. Five years on and she’s here to stay. My own personal tornado.
She has a zest for life that leaves me standing at times. I love her confidence. She has the most wonderful connections to her birth family. She goes to stay with Nana and Sisters regularly. I don’t think I could have had her without the reassurance that her birth family would be fully involved.
Will this make her issue free? No, I don’t think it will, she still has a lot to process but she has so much help with therapies and services to help her understand. She has a memory box with loads of things that she loves to pull out every now and again to hear the story of her birth, mummy and daddy. What made me think that she would be free from issues?
I am just thankful that I’m in a position to be able to share with her as we go along that what she is feeling is normal and that she is not alone. I have had the same thing happen to me. She is only 6 but already starting to show signs of trauma-related feelings. I sometimes think to myself, why did I not have any memory box, letters or anything that might have helped in some way to alleviate the stress that was going on inside my head, as I was growing up.
Why is Being Adopted Seen As Something to Graffiti About?
I was fuming at first when my lovely friend Anne sent me this picture taken close to where she lives. I thought to myself, so being adopted is that bad it’s now being spray-painted on local walls as an insult! There are a few other choice things on the wall, not for posting here….. Being adopted is not easy. I find it hard enough to say and then the inevitable questions follow. Did you find your real family? I think to myself what’s not real about the family I grew up with? They were the only family that I knew growing up. Even though I caused them such awful heartache by doing some of the awful things I did. I was their real child that they stood by through thick and thin, and that was not just my waistline.
I have actually found my biological family. Met Bio Mum in 1986. She passed away in 2005. I recently found my Bio Dad who unfortunately passed away 13 years ago. With this wonderful find, I have another 8 half-siblings. I am so grateful to the family of Bio Dad for making me feel so welcome into their lives and answering the myriad of questions that I have about who I am. There is a burning question I still have that can never be answered as neither of my Bio parents is alive. How did they meet? How did I happen? ( I know how IT happened ) I kind of mean Did they have a relationship? Was it a one night stand? It is good to know that so many of my quirky ways are down to my bio Dad. It does bring a certain amount of closure and peace to know where I come from. So much to learn and digest. It’s all very exciting. Bit nerve-wracking as well finding out so much about where I’m genetically linked . To see and hear people that are like me. Recently on a zoom call with two half- sisters my husband pointed out that it didn’t seem to him that we had only just met. I have to say that it was a great evening just getting to know more about each other.
Thank you for reading my blogging journey so far. Next Monday I will be sharing on grief.