Motherhood and the lifesaver NHS

so what do you do when your 4 year old has a fit? You call an ambulance! They come, they sort everything out, they hold your hand and make it better.
I share this because I needed to write it, I wanted to thank the NHS for everything they did and how they did it. With adopted children we often travel blindly, not having a full history or a history that is very different to ours so when our children are sick we often feel out of control, Not sure what is normal for them.

I had left child 4 sleeping on the sofa, he had been up in the night with a raging temperature, we calpoled and nurofenend through the night and decide a quiet day with mummy was needed. So when he finally fell asleep just before lunch, I rubbed my hands with glee and headed off to sort the washing, empty the tumble dryer, sort the clothes,squeezing in a hot cup of tea - heaven.  I heard a funny gurgling noise and put my head around the living door to see my baby foaming at the mouth and spasmodically moving his body, the terror that ran through my whole being can probably be understood by someone who has been in a position where their child is in trouble and you can't fix it.
I grabbed him off the sofa holding him upright, terrified he couldn't breathe, snatched the phone from its cradle and called 999. The operator was calm, efficient and soothing, I could feel the terror level drop to very scared. Yes he was breathing, she promised an ambulance was on its way and she would stay with me until they arrived.
Child 4 then quieted and as instructed I lay him in the floor turned him on his side and stripped him out of his clothes to cool him down.
The operator said the ambulance was nearly here, could I shut any dogs away, the fit had ended and she said goodbye and hung up. Of course that's when it started all over again but not the with the violence. I lay down on the floor facing him, murmuring over and over its going to be ok, open your eyes baby, look at me. I heard vehicles pull up outside, I flung open the front door and rushed back to where child 4 was still gently fitting.
I phoned child 1 explaining calmly what was happening and asked her to pick up her sister on her way home from college.
It was going to be ok the paramedics were here. He took one look and had an oxygen mask on my baby before he did anything, child 4 was 41 degrees! The paramedic asked me the time it was 2.20pm (funny the things you remember). He gave child 4 diazepam to help stop the fit. "What is the time?"  "2.31pm". His temperature was still 41 degrees, the diazepam had yet to take effect. He talked on his radio, then he turned to me and quietly and firmly informed me that he had called for a helicopter.
The bottom of my world fell out.
I shouldn't have left him, I should have woken him to give him calpol because he was a little warm.
"Stop. The paramedic said, "why would you have stayed with him, he was sleeping, calpol would not have stopped this" he sent the community responder to sort out the helicopter landing in the school field at the bottom of our road
How I had the presence of mind to call my parents and ask them to collect the girls so that they didn't see us being put in the helicopter I don't know. How I down played the whole affair so they didn't panic like me I don't know.
An ambulance arrived and more paramedics filled my living room. They were all so calm, so kind. The fit had at last stopped but child 4 wouldn't wake, I carried him out to the ambulance and lay him on the trolley. Two paediatricians in orange jumpsuits walked up the hill, they joined us in the ambulance and set about catching up on the information, whilst setting up an intravenous drip. They couldn't find veins in either hand and eventually found one in his foot. The aggravation brought him round and you could feel the tension in the ambulance disappate, with the tube in they could push through paracetamol, fluids and antibiotics. The paracetamol brought his temperature down and the antibiotics were just in case it was meningitis. Child 4 was grizzling, no longer fitting and his temperature was dropping. The paediatrician decided we could travel to hospital in the ambulance. I nearly cried with relief.
We were off, only to have blue lights if the traffic was heavy. 40 minutes later we arrived, child 4 awoke from a natural, if drug induced slumber to throw up.
We were efficiently taken through to Resus, where I had to tell the story again and the my husband arrived and I wept with relief. Two hours later we were on the ward and number 4 was awake, making eye contact and then he spoke. I cannot explain the relief, he was going to be alright, no brain damage and no meningitis.  Leaving child 4 with his daddy, I headed home to my other children. Lighter of heart but racked with irrational guilt.
There is nothing we can do, this is how child 4 will probably react when he has a high temperature,  all we can do is monitor him very closely when he is poorly. He will grow out of it though - hopefully very soon.

Joy

Joy

4 children
1 husband (all I can cope with)
Springer spaniel, cat, chickens & a tortoise
My Parents
My Siblings
Grandparents
Christmas Eve
Christmas dinner
Potty training
Christmas carols
Baking
New oven
Child 1 -exam results, returning home from Borneo, Panto
Cuddles
Washing on the line
Fresh clean bedding
An open fire
Gatherings with friends
Family gatherings
Child 2 - Oliver, parkour, taking responsibility and Panto
Dog walks on beach, in the woods.
Bright sunny days
Raspberry and blackberry picking
Going On A Bear Hunt
Star Wars
Child 3 - taking part in her first proper gymnastics competition, singing carols at the Cathedral
Helping others
Bedtimes
New friends
Longleat
River walks
Sunday roasts
Pyjama mornings
Trampolining
Barbecues
Child 4 - potty training, love you's, actually doing as he is told.

A new jar of JOY

Cyber concerns

In an article I read recently a quote struck home. "Our children are the natives, we are the immigrants" the article was about the Internet and Social Media. What a brilliant analogy, our children have such a good understanding of how social media works and we as parents don't understand the language, the culture or how the younger generations society works. How are we supposed to protect our children if we don't understand the world that they live in. All four of our children use computers, they all watch I player, Netflix, Amazon Prime. Child 4 plays games downloaded onto my IPad and can navigate CBeebies to watch his favourites like Andy and his Dinosaur Adventures and My Pets & Me. Child 1 and 2 have "group chat" which is on Facebook messenger or I messenger with their school/college friends. They both have Instagram, uploading photos of things, events etc that interest them.  Child 1, 2 & 3 have stories with Snapchat, interacting with their friends via pictures and comments.

As a child my communications with my friends happened in the playground, at the park, via an old fashioned telephone, later in the pub, restaurants, cinemas, nightclubs. This is how I met new people, usually surrounded or at least with a couple of good friends, who would step in if they felt something was odd or I had drunk too much. We always arrived together and unless we knew they were completely compus mentus or relatively safe we left together.  Nowadays social media means that our children can be in communication with their friends, acquaintances and strangers 24/7.
Bullying that would often happen before the school bell rang, during break times, on walks between lessons and on the way home (my memory of being bullied like this have I believe, shaped who I am today - good and bad) is now able to happen all day and night, every day. No let up at weekends and holidays.  Meeting new people happened in places we generally knew or with others we knew and trusted. We could actually see who we were interacting with, it was face to face. Nowadays unless we know who we are talking to we could be speaking to anyone over the Internet. A keyboard adds a barrier and people are more likely to write things that they wouldn't say face to face.

We have had to deal with a cyber bullying situation recently and I was surprised by a many different things. Firstly, the vitriol teenagers can post about someone, the spite in ensuring that the victim can read it and the lack of understanding of the effect of their behaviour. Secondly mine and my husband's lack of understanding as to how social media now works is. group chats, instant messaging. Thirdly the lack of knowledge in schools and our community.
 In fact it has led me to research more into children and social media, especially when we have an adopted child in our midst. I already worry about social media particularly Facebook as our child 4's birth parents are but 2 clicks away but it isn't just the worries of children in care hunting out their roots before they have the maturity to deal with what they may find. There is sexting, cyber bullying, grooming and the knowledge that whatever you may post is potentially there forever. Our vulnerable children are so open to over stepping the mark just because they want to belong, or they feel that, that is what they deserve.

I have come to the conclusion that as a parent I must ensure that I understand this new society based on wifi, I am lucky that I have older children who are savvy and open, it was child 1 that told me about the cyber bullying. Hopefully child 1 and 2 will be able to educate me and keep me upto date in this information technology world enabling me to in turn educate them and their younger siblings in how to stay safe and just as importantly what to do when things go wrong.

This is a brilliant link (a little American but the information is useful) watch and learn.
http://www.rsaconference.com/about/rsac-cyber-safety/rsac-cyber-safety-videos

Peace

It is difficult times that  we live in, with such easy access to media and with the world becoming such a smaller place, the ability to share tragedies that happen all over the world is so much easier than when I was growing up. I remember those first harrowing pictures from Ethiopia in 1984 when Bob Geldolf started his campaign to "Feed the World" but that was just the beginning.

Now we see pictures of dead children washed up on European holiday beaches, we see the aftermath of mass shootings, we see the wreckage left behind after drones have bombed areas supposedly hiding terrorists. Young girls who have been abducted to be sold on as slabes and brides smile from school photos plastered over the front pages of our newspapers. And that is before we read about bush fires, land slides, flooding etc etc.

So what to say to our childen. Do we explain what is happening in our world or do we attempt to keep it away from them?

 Child 3 asked me where God was on the 13 November when the world was shouting about the Paris tragedies . Our Twitter feeds and Facebook feeds were full of comments and photographs. The news on radio an TV were describing, often graphically what had happened. And my 9 year old just could not understand why someone would want to hurt people out having a good time. Why did God not just stop it. This led onto so many more questions. Questions that I couldn't always answer as I sometimes ask where God is, has he washed his hands of us?

I guess that the story of Adam and Eve was where he gave humanity the power of choice, we choose how we behave and of course that means that we live with the consequences of those choices.

So I have taken to telling my children to look for God in those that help. The Muslim police man Ahmed who tried to help those attcked at Charlie Hebdo, the people helping the refugees in Greece, Hungary and Calais. The paramedics, the doctors and nurses, the teachers, the everyday person that gives money to UNICEF or children in Need. Those of us that buy goats and chickens from Oxfam instead of Christmas cards. The unassuming person on the Street who just steps in to help because they were there.

A simple small act of kindness goes a long way.

Blessed are the Peacemakers.

Hope

Advent for Christians is the preparing for the arrival of Jesus. Hope, peace, joy and love is what advent is all about.

From a world wide view, to a more local one of Europe and the U.K. Right down to what is happening within our homes, hope has become an integral part of how we live.

Our social worker dropped by this week to discuss the Theraplay session child 4 & I were Guinea pigs for. It was fascinating, if a little uncomfortable to watch myself on film, but child 4 loved it, when I showed him it later. The Theraplay team were particularly interested in child 4's avoidance of nurturing and his desire to be in control of the activities. So they have provided me with a list of activities that we can play as a family, as parent and child 4 and as 1 on 1 to help. Many of these we already sort of do but I am always up for new ideas and new games to play. I've photocopied it already so that I can share it with the pre-school and the school as there is loads that they can use too and not just for my little man.

It was lovely to see our social worker, we always got on well and she was telling me about some of the changes happening and explaining about the adoption fund given by the government this year. Her job has changed and she is much more involved in post adoption support now.

She told me about a young man she was working with, he was adopted as a baby. And yet his adoption was breaking down and he was currently in foster care because of his self destructive Behaviour. She had requested his PAR to look back into his past and have an understanding of his background. When she read about his birth mother she was struck by how similar their behaviours were. As a teenager she was in foster care and was being self destructive in exactly the same way as her son was now. How? Why? How much of teenage behaviour is genetic? This child was brought up by a loving couple from about a year old so where did he learn these self destructive baviours, you would have hoped that the nurture would have outweighed the nature. But attachment just doesn't work like that.

Our social worker asked me how could social services better prepare adopters for these types of outcomes, the courses we have to do tell us about the difficulties many adopted children have, there are often adoptive and foster parent speakers who talk of these difficulties and yet we carry on and adopt. I couldn't answer her, at the time of waiting for matching I didn't concentrate on the difficulties we may face once we had adopted I was worried that we wouldn't be suitable. Once child 4 arrived I was too busy settling in with new routines. I told her that I didn't think social services could prepare us better, I think they have to be able to support more once children have been adopted. Pre schools and schools need to be better educated in attachment to help our children.

I think HOPE is what adoption is all about, I think that the majority of adopters know it's not going to be easy but until you are actually living it you cannot understand how tough it is. I know that there are no guarantees that child 4 will make it through childhood and adolescence without any difficulties and being adopted means that life is a little weighted against him. I can only hope that we can hold his hand whilst he walks that path.

Adoption choices.

Adoption has been a journey of choice for my husband and myself, one that is full of joy, sorrow, difficult moments, worry and a fair bit of laughter. For our children though it is not of their choice or of their making. I speak often of child 4 as he is the one that is adopted, certainly not his choice. That decision was made by social workers and a judge and I guess because his birth father wouldn't take responsibility for his own choices and actions and his birth mother couldn't.   But what of our three birth children, they didn't make the choice in adoption as a means of gaining a brother, they didn't have the knowledge that us parents had (which, in reality is just bare bones - I am pretty much self taught in the trials of tribulations of attachment, adoption training really only gives an outline, even if some of it is hard hitting.) Our birth children took on this little boy as their brother pretty much from day one. Young children and babies, I believe are very good at that, they pull you to them, they heal family divisions, they offer new beginnings. But that doesn't mean that it is easy.

Our eldest sometimes struggles with other people's perceptions, most in our immediate community are aware that child 4 is adopted and comments of "how lucky he is," surprise that we have contact with his birth family and that assumption in now that he is adopted everything is ok is difficult enough for me as an adult to manage, but for a teenager who wants to change the world it leads to anger and frustration. On top of that she has left school and gone on to college to study A' Levels and of course in the making of new friends and discussions in tutor time or class, adoption has come up. She is frequently asked if her parents divorced and her mum remarried because she has a brother 12 years her junior, when she has explained she is sometimes asked if her baby brother is a different race or if she is also adopted. The there are days when tutors/students make off-the-cuff remarks about society, children in care, birth parents etc and she doesn't know whether to comment or not. Her opinion is often sought if anyone knows that she is part of a family that have adopted, sometimes  she is listened too, other times she is totally dismissed as a New age hippy.

Child 2, has his own concerns, he finds it terribly hard to cope with his little brothers out going affable character as it means that he talks to complete strangers when we are out and about. This goes against everything he understands, firstly the "stranger danger" that child 2 learned early on, bypasses his younger brother and secondly for a teenage boy a member of the family who stops and talks to who ever will listen is an embarrassment. He understands why child 4 seeks acceptance and safety with other adults but it doesn't make it easy to live with.

Then, child 3 who was the baby of the family, has totally had her position usurped, not just by a dependent younger sibling but one that has the ability to hurt and torment, a sibling that does demand huge amounts of not only our attention but also that of those in the community.  How can we expect her to understand child 4's needs are different to hers and how we deal with those needs is different to how we would deal with her and yet often we do.

I am truly amazed by the resilience all our children show, not only that but they are so open minded about how we deal with every day life issues, they take so much in their stride, as a family humour, kindness, empathy and love have grown and grown, not saying that bickering, arguing even all out fighting is not a frequent occurrence. I've lost count of how many times I've heard "you love him more than me, you never have time for me, I want to be adopted by another family, it's only because he's adopted." However,  If I weigh those moments against the happy ones, the game playing, the puddle jumping, the scooting to school, the cuddles and the I love you's, those difficult moments are definitely out weighed by the joyous ones. Interestingly I think the children live in the moments of joy, the difficult times for them seem to fade away. Perhaps I should take a leaf from their book?

The Naughty Boy

 One of my biggest worries is that child 4 will become "the naughty child" you know the child other children talk about in hushed whispers, the child that classmates gleefully share stories about because he has been in trouble again, the child that doesn't get invited to birthday parties or play dates. I worry that I will be stopped as I walk into the playground because the teacher or SENco needs to speak to me. I worry that parents will stop speaking when I walk up to a group of them chattering away.

I have seen a child like that before and have watched as he becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was a child that didn't sit still, that didn't cope with school boundaries. He became known as the naughty boy and other children wouldn't play with him so he became desperate to make them like him and when that didn't work he pretended that he didn't care - I honestly don't know which was worse but, either way he became ostracised and ended up moving schools.

Until this week we were doing ok, but now I'm not so sure, child number 4 is over excited, over anxious, agressive yet clingy just different. Why, I wonder, his behaviour points to anxiety but I can't quite work out why. It could be that Christmas is on its way. They children have been writing their Christmas lists, this weekend we baked the Christmas cakes and I have started the shopping. Maybe he knows that something is coming and maybe he can't cope.

If we are doing something out of routine he keeps on and on and on and on until it's has happened. It could just be visiting Grandad after lunch but he will from the moment he knows ask when we are going and he will incessantly keep asking until it is time to go.  I suggested putting a timer on so that when it buzzes he knew that it was time to go but that resulted in a complete melt down.

I have noticed that he is following his friends blindly, they are happy to set him up to get into trouble and he merrily follows their lead, not understanding that there are boundaries, a wonderful example of this was when one of his friends had taught him the phrase "f***ing awesome" our initial response was to just ignore it, but the two boys were having none of that and kept hunting me down just to shout it at me. So, I explained that it wasn't nice and that we don't say that in our house and the tone of their voices were not friendly. They both stopped and carried on their play until the play dough came out. Child 4 sat there saying it again, this time when I commented he looked me straight in the eye and said "I didn't say f***ing, I said bucking" after a stronger discussion and a banning of anything except awesome they boys didn't say it again. Interestingly child 4's friend knew what was happening and knew that he had over stepped a boundary, child 4 just didn't.  At a meeting discussing pupil premium money his pre school manager shared similar experiences, Fortunately the staff understood what was happening and are dealing with the child that instigates the behaviour as well as Child 4 for over-stepping the boundaries.

And so again we are rethinking old strategies and hunting out new ones. A visual week showing the activities with a picture of child 4 that can be moved from day to day to teach him about time and provide security. A much more watchful eye on what he is doing, with quick, efficient boundaries put into place to help him recognise that he is overstepping the line. Closer communication with pre school staff to ensure he doesn't become " the naughty boy." And where possible quiet times, calmer evenings and a stop on Christmas excitement until December. Where possible is the operative word as we are busy every weekend until the new year.

Wish me luck..........