Episode 163, In which Claudia cannot manage to insert any text between the photos

 

 

 

So, this has been the last few weeks. I was going to provide a running commentary, but didn't for three reasons:

1. I'ts pretty much all cutesy babies, except for one train and one cat and one massive baby-led-weaning-FAIL. You're smart. You can figure out which ones these are, I suspect.
2. I've just switched blog editors and wow, I thought the photo uploading in the OLD editor was bad. Now I can't seem to insert lines for captions between photos, or paste in more than one at once.  I'm sure it's fixable with a bit of googling, but
3. I'm hungry, and need to eat my lunch. Like, REALLY hungry. Anybody else find that motherhood all too easily means 12 hours of starvation followed by four hours of chocolate once they're in bed? Surely that's not just me. Surely? I'm such a good role model, really, it's amazing I'm not on TV.

This should help clear up any confusion

We got a label maker. It's all kinds of useful.

Some Days are Better than Others

After the minor disaster zone that was yesterday, I've had to make a few resolutions to get me through today. Here they are:

1. I will not spill a box of cereal on the floor
2. I will not try to make both dinner and a bunch of baby food in half an hour
3. I will not, as a direct result of rushing from (2), cut my finger and sever a little vein
4. I will not allow the cat to push a lightbulb off the table and then play in the resulting broken glass. Actually, that already was today. I will not allow him to do this again
5. I will not stress if the babies smear orange food in each others hair, but calmly move their seats further apart
6. I will not go anywhere that means I will need to nod and smile along at about forty labour and birth stories
7. I will not worry that finding (6) difficult means that I don't really love the babies
8. I will not have any visitors
9. I will not try to get a double pushchair onto the bus
10. I will cut myself some slack.
11. I will limit myself to 10 resolutions for one day.

A fortnight of fotos

The last fourteen days or so have felt pretty busy. I'm keeping up with taking my project 31 photos, but haven't posted them for ages because I keep getting snowed under by the constant need to do... stuff. Lately I've been making a really huge effort to keep the house cleaner and tidier - I'm here a lot, and it seems that the cleaner the house is, the calmer I feel. And it's addictive. When it comes to cleaning, it seems that I have only two settings: 'zero', and 'hero'. While we were in the middle of the bone-crushing horror of waiting, I was definitely functioning at zero. Whereas now:

14 January

or something approximating that, anyway. I was very inspired by this post , which linked to this site, which is basically a crazy lady who leads what can only be described as an internet cleaning cult (she describes dusting as 'blessing your home', which freaks me out a little) but dangit, her weekly cleaning programme is fabulous and I'm addicted. A week in, and I hardly even had to clean up when the babies and I had a long awaited visitor:

16 January

they were very happy to see her, honestly, they were just a bit tired by this point.

(By the way - for those of you counting - 15 January's picture does exist, but has been censored by J as being too naked for the interwebs. And I'm sure he's right. But a crying shame - it was CUTE. And then he did the same to 17 January. Nevermind).

18 January saw us having a very tiring day:

at the hospital. We begged for, and were given, an appointment with a specialist paediatrician to do a general check on the babies' health. I know all babies have a paediatrician in the States, but that is not the case here and our GP took some convincing. But when we eventually did get to see a paed, he was truly fabulous, and was the first person to actually sit down and listen to the babies' history and then actually think about what the health implications might be. It. Was. Amazing. Not so amazing was the fact that he sent baby L off for an immediate X ray of her hips, and has now referred us to the hip clinic because he's a bit worried about her range of motion. Obviously if there's a problem we'd rather know as early as possible. And it doesn't seem to be anything major. But 'I think I should refer her on' are words that no parent really wants to hear.

The busyness continued with our official 3 month social work review on the same day. (Needing that X ray means we only just squeaked home in time with two INSANELY tired babies, which is a whole 'nother story). That wasn't exactly fun, but we seemed to get through it okay. The next day, I had to go to a weaning information session at our local clinic, which was not all that useful (are things like that EVER useful?) and afterwards I bit the bullet, went straight to the local supermarket and bought my first packet of baby rice.

It was our first outing in our new side-by-side double pushchair:

19 January

and I have to say, I was absolutely NOT prepared for the difference in the attention we would get - until then, I had been taking them out in one pushchair and a sling. Probably not helped by the fact that the babies' warm outfits are little bear suits and they do look undeniably gorgeous. But I was followed around the supermarket by an audible wave of sighs and whispers about the cuteness. I have never experienced anything like it. I think I unintentionally spread a lot of happiness that day.

What did not spread happiness was the introduction of the baby rice. Notice anything different in my standard 'two babies on a changing mat' photo?

20 January

My two little messy-mouths were not at ALL impressed.

Please, mummy, don't make me taste that again. Look how cute I am. Would you want to make this little face unhappy?

21 January

Well yes, it seems you would. You can torture us as much as you like, but we still have each other. (I came back from washing my hands to find them in this tragic pose)

22 January

I gave them a day off the evil solids for their six month birthday:

which they were pretty happy about. As was I, because it also gave me a break from the horror of cleaning up their new vesuvius-style poos for a day or two. (And seriously. SIX MONTHS? Where has the time gone? And then I remember - oh yeah, we haven't actually had them all that time. So I guess that's okay. Sort of. But SIX MONTHS? Already?)

I took so many pictures of them in their 'january' outfits that I could pretty much hear the camera shrieking in protest. So I declared this week to be kitchen macro week:

24 January 25 January
26 January
27 January

which was fine, but when I was reduced to photographing my dinner on Wednesday night (in my defense, another crazy busy day) I thought it might be time to switch gear again.

I've decided that the last weekday of every month is going to be 'sort out the clothes' day, where I jettison anything that they don't fit anymore. I knew that this month, I was going to have to say goodbye to my favourite outfit of baby I's. It's stripy and velour and incredibly cuddly, and it's baby gap but I got in on ebay for 99p. So yeah, I love everything about it. It was far too big for him when we brought him home, but now it only just skims his knees and is increasingly difficult to button. But oh, it's so adorable. Saying goodbye to this outfit feels like officially saying goodbye to the tiny boy that we brought home.

28 January

See? You can see most of his legs.
And that brings us to today. We have to go back to the hospital for follow-up blood tests, and I'm wondering where on a baby you can draw a significant amount of blood. I guess I'll know by this evening. I think I'd rather not.

Mother's Milk

I've always been very, very pro breastfeeding. It's just so obviously such a good idea. Baby cows eat cow milk. Baby monkeys eat monkey milk. Even baby dolphins eat dolphin milk. It seems like a bit of a no-brainer that baby humans should eat human milk. This is something I have never questioned. Occasionally, newspapers here run 'freak show' stories about women who are still breastfeeding their children at a much-older-than-normal age. When these stories were discussed, I was always the person saying 'more power to her!' rather than making grossed out shuddery noises. I was never in any doubt that breastfeeding was a Good Thing.

And then we decided to adopt.

When me made this decision, it felt like a big deal to me that this meant I wouldn't be able to breastfeed my baby*. I mean, how was I going to bond with the baby if I didn't get to experience this?For a while during the waiting, this was one of the things that could send me from zero to sobbing in about 10 seconds flat. But, onward and upward. Formula it would have to be. And when we got our referral I had so, so many questions about the best way to feed our babies. For example - what is the real difference between 'newborn' formula and 'hungry baby' formula? Would 'hungry baby' be better for malnourished babies - does it have extra calories? And what about 'follow on' milk? Is that the same as newborn, with added iron and vitamin D, or pretty much powdered cows milk in a fancy tin? How are the brands different? How do I know what teats to choose? Then later, after they were home, why does my child's poo smell like cat poo on one brand of formula, but not on another?**

So I asked my health professionals, and they were incredibly vague. Everyone seemed to think that someone else should know about bottle feeding, but it certainly wasn't them. I looked on the side of the formula packets. Information there? 'Breastfeeding is best for babies'. Which it is, of course, but what the? This is all the information you're going to give me? A health warning? I'm just trying to feed my children, I'm not starting them smoking.

So I did what any sensible girl would do, and googled. Put 'Formula Feeding Information' into Google, and the first link that comes up is the formula feeding information page at 'Ask Dr Sears'. This pleased me - he's a man who knows his onions, right? Well. Here's a snippet of what Dr Sears has to say:

One of our concerns is that even though formula-fed infants appear to grow normally, are they really thriving? Thriving means more than just getting bigger. It means developing to the child's fullest physical, emotional, and intellectual potential. We just don't know about all the long-term effects of tampering with Mother Nature.

Really, really staggeringly unhelpful. Because unless he wants to drive over to my house and donate some of his own breastmilk to me, formula is what these babies are going to be getting. And I was already unhappy about it - I don't need a lecture about it - I need to know how to do it the best I can, and that doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I have, in the end, become rather tired of the moral posturing of the breast-is-best brigade, and nobody is more surprised about that than me. I'll spare you any more links, but the Sears page turned out to be typical of the information I found online about feeding with formula. It seems that a quick summary is always 'So, you want to know about how to feed with formula? Well, lady, here's why you shouldn't'. It began to seem like I might as well type 'information about feeding with inferior, nutrionless, baby junk food that I have chosen because I am selfish and a bad mother and want my breasts to stay perky' because that was pretty much all I could find.

I was already sad about not being able to breastfeed, and this kind of 'information' really wasn't helping.

And then something amazing happened. In a matter of weeks my babies went from this:

27 October

to this:

18 January

because of me, and this:

and I'm finally starting to let go of the assumptions I had about feeding. I am in no way anti breastfeeding, and I never would be. And I would never, ever encourage formula feeding as some kind of easy option - nutrition aside, all that sterilising and boiling is a total pain. But now, I am anti breastfeeding-as-a-moral-imperative. I am anti the idea that breastfeeding is the only way to have a happy baby, or be a worthwhile mother, and that bottle feeding is some kind of tragedy that must be avoided at all costs.

I was carrying around so much guilt about not being able to give my children this good thing. But I'm realising that just because one thing is Good, doesn't mean the other thing is Bad. I used to assume that feeding from a bottle would somehow be automatically less than breastfeeding, but now I just don't feel that way at all. I know I haven't ever breastfed, and apparently the hormones can be terrific, but I no longer feel like I'm missing something primal. Apparently, it's a wonderful feeling to know that you are the only person who can provide the nutrition that your baby needs. Well, I'm not the only person who can provide food for my babies, but most times I'm the only person who does*, and that feels pretty wonderful too. When I was grieving about losing the breastfeeding experience, I never realised that they would do that face-reachy thing with bottles, too, that she would grunt adorably or that he would love to run his fingers through my hair while he sucked. And I don't feel like I'm missing out at all.

I know that breastfeeding is nutritionally superior to formula milk, but no longer think it is somehow morally superior. I have come to believe that whether breast feeding or bottle feeding, it should be less about the adjective and more about the verb. I would have hoped that Dr Sears would have celebrated with me that my babies are thriving rather than... well, you read the extract.

I never would have thought it, but I've come to be absolutely content that my babies are fed with formula. It's not perfect, but like so many other things in my life, it's good enough, and that's good enough for me. Finally, I am happy to say that I am a mother. And drink up babies, because this is my milk.

*And yes, I know that adoptive breastfeeding is technically possible, but after researching (because I was pretty keen to do it) it became clear that women who have never previously lactated should not expect to produce significant quantities of milk. So it might be a nice experience, but it probably isn't actually going to be what feeds the baby. So we decided no.

**The answer to that last one is that she was on a high-fat formula and her pancreas couldn't handle it. Thanks to my Dad for explaining that one.

***Except when J happens to be around at feeding time, and oh mercy me when they are twins involved I am SO glad I can hand one baby and a bottle to a man.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

After about four weeks off (remnants of annual leave + paternity leave), J has had to return to work. It didn't feel like we were on holiday while he was off - I got used to having him around and two adults caring for two babies felt about right.

Ha, ha, ha. Because now he has gone back, and needless to say, I am already absolutely fried. Not helping is the fact that we have the deepest snow I've ever seen in the 9 years I've been in the Northern Hemisphere, and I can't leave the house because two babies is one too many to fit in my sling, I can't use the pram, and now isn't the right time to take the car out with the babies for the first time. I am getting bored, people. Very, very bored.

Anyway, enough moaning, more of the wordlessness.

09 January

10 January

12 January

13 January

I took a picture on the 11th, but it's part of a series which needs a separate post.

I'm going to try to restrict posting these to Wednesdays from now on - I promise this isn't about to turn into a photoblog. But doing this has really made me regret that I didn't take more photos in the first few weeks we had the babies with us. And yes, I know that I was having a total meltdown, but I still wish I had more of them looking really tiny. And it made me realise that often, it's only with hindsight that you think 'oh, if I had done xxxxx every day / week / month that would have created so many nice memories'.

So anyway, I'm wondering - those of you who are ahead of me in this game, what have you done in terms of memory-making that you have been really glad you did? And those whose babies are yet to come, have you got any fabulous plans that I can steal? I've ordered some stickers from here that I plan to use for a 2010 January to December 'watch us grow' series, which should be fun (and will take care of 12 of my 365 shots, if I continue this madness). But I would love more ideas. Save me from my snowy boredom!

(By the way, thank you so much to those who delurked, as well as those I've already grown to know and love over the last year or so. I've now got some new blogs to follow!)

(Okay, this turned out to be quite a wordy wednesday).

Go on, you know you want to

So, three different blogs I've been reading have announced that this week is International Blog Delurking week. Actually - four! Just found another one. (Gotta say - I'm really wondering - who decides these things? I mean, if I decided that it was international 'send money to Claudia' week, would that work?)

Anyway, I feel a bit shy about this but I've decided to join in. I've got statcounter (there's a little button at the bottom right) so I know that people read this from all kinds of crazy places. And hey, you all know a lot about me by now. And I know nothing about most of you. My own fault, for writing a blog I guess, but I'd love you to say hi. Who are you and where are you from? How did you find me? Are you my social worker? (Please say no).

It won't hurt at all. I promise.

And I've done my homework - here are the next set of pictures. I'm already finding doing this every day more of a challenge than I expected. In a good way, I think. I wouldn't have any of these photos from the last four days if I hadn't decided to do this, and already it's hard to believe that it was really THAT SNOWY earlier in the week.

05 January

06 January

I swear, my head isn't really this big. I think the lesson here is don't take self-portraits with a compact camera.

07 January

best coffee in town. Also shiniest bar.

08 January

Can I have a price check on a disgruntled baby, please?
(By the way, it turned out that the checkout assistant you see here is a twin! She liked our babies. Her twin lives in another country and she misses her a lot. It was a nice conversation).

Project 31

Okay, so inspired by Rana, I've decided to have a mini-crack at Project 365. The idea is that you take a photo every day. Fortunately, on 01 January, by the time I read her post and thought of doing it, I just so happened to have already taken some shots that day. This was fortunate, because the babies were already in bed and I am glad I didn't have to explain to J why I just HAD to get them up at 11pm to pose.

01 January

At the moment, I'm not going to commit myself to a whole year, because a whole year just seems too much to think about. Also, I'm in denial that this year will ever end. See these babies?

02 January

They are just that at the moment - babies. I can't believe how much I love having babies to love. And I keep on torturing myself by thinking about how quickly they are growing up. Already, they are just changing, changing, changing. They have fat rolls now!

03 January

and adorable personalities and I just don't want them to change. I know I'm a walking cliche, but I want them to stay this way forever. They are giggly and squidgy and a lot of work, but they are absolutely perfect. I was going through clothes they have grown out of and I kept wanting to cry because I know that they will never be that small again. And trying to figure out what to do with their baby clothes tears me up inside. Will I ever need these again? Will we adopt more? Or maybe pursue some way of making some homegrown babies? Is this it for me and dribbly, cuddly, roly-poly bundles? I find myself thinking about this all the time, and the bags of outgrown clothes aren't really helping me to feel peaceful about it. Should I keep them, or give them away? J says give them away now, because if it is hard to do at the moment, it would be a lot harder in five years time if we never need them. I think he might be right, but I don't know. What do you think?

(No, really, I'm asking for advice!)

But back to the project.

04 January

At the moment, Im' just going to sign myself up for a mini version I'm calling project 31, and try to take a picture every day in January. I won't be posting them every day, but I will try to post them every few days. If it starts to take over this blog, I might move it to another one, but for now I'm going to post them here as I go. Anybody else want to join in??

************edited to say*************
I posted too early with the photos. Have now replaced 01 and 04 January. Hope that's allowed. And no, I don't think you need a theme or anything so join in!

Welcome to the Club

One of the worst things about involuntary childlessness was the feeling that everyone else's life was proceeding at the proper pace, in the proper direction, while I waited on my own at a crossroads. Or at a dead end. Or, on the worst days, prostrate under a pile of rubble. If you have been there, you do not need me to describe the roaring pain and frustration that comes from being left out of every.single.conversation. that your friends are having, and the way that you feel invisible when you're standing in the same place as a group of people but they are discussing weaning again and you've just got nothing to add. Again. At that point, I always silently vowed to really put some effort into discovering teleportation, so that the next time it happened I could push a button and- poof - I could be away from the nightmare and on my sofa eating Doritos.

It never worked.

But now I have the babies home. I am officially a Parent. I am officially in The Club. I was really looking forward to this bit - suddenly, I would start going to mother and baby groups, and make friends on the bus! And at the library! And we would all have fun with our babies together! This club was going to be so much fun! But I've got to say - I am beyond disappointed. After all the waiting, it turns out that this is the worst club I've ever been part of.

The first hint that this might be the case was after I met up with two other mothers for a cup of coffee. First official mum-date. I was psyched. They were talking about weaning (of course!!) and I listened eagerly, thinking 'I have babies now! I could actually join in!' And the smile slowly slid from my face as it went on and I realised that I had been waiting to have this conversation for most of my adult life, and now that it was here.... it was really just incredibly boring.

Actually, scratch that. I wasn't just boring - it was boring and judgemental. And it's that second one that takes this motherhood club from tedious to terrible. This is how the conversation went:

[Scene - mothers in a cafe. One mother puts bib on child and gets out food]
Mother A: oh, what are you feeding her?
Mother B: a broccoli and blueberry puree.
A: Oh, that sounds nice. (Pause). But isn't the fruit a bit acidic?
B: No, it's got butternut squash in it as well
A: Oh. Isn't she still a bit young for blueberries though?
B: She's seven months, a month younger than your little Daisy. Isn't little Daisy eating blueberries yet?
A: No, she's not.
B: Oh well. Don't worry, She'll be ready for them soon. I suppose my little Susie was just ready a bit earlier.

And I'm finding that all the conversations - whether they are about sleep, food, development or whatever, follow pretty much the same pattern. It seems like every conversation is just an alpha-dog type jockeying for position - who is the best, most right-on mother? And who has the smartest, most advanced child? Who can slap the other person down with the biggest smile on their face? Who knows the most about how to cram the maximum number of celery sticks down their child's gullet? And who can top that by casually saying that actually, if you feed your child celery, you are putting them at serious risk of ear infections. Or hair loss. Or spontaneous combustion.

I've only had children for two months, and I am sick of it. I always assumed that those conversations I was shut out of were people offering each other support, but it turns out that isn't the case. A few times, I have opened up to someone to discuss some issue I was having with the babies, but every time I end up wishing that I hadn't. I say something like 'The babies are still at the very bottom of the weight chart' and get an answer like 'well, what you need to do is start giving them some baby rice' or (back when the babies weren't sleeping) 'The babies are waking up a lot during the night' and the answer was 'well, what you need to do is not talk to them or turn the lights on when you feed them at night'. And what made me most annoyed, during those particular conversations, was that the person never asked me if I actually WAS talking to them or turning the light on in the middle of the night (NO!) or if the babies were drinking enough milk yet to indicate they might be ready for solids (again, NO!)

And in any case, I only mentioned it because I just wanted to talk about it. I wasn't asking for advice. I'm a smart enough girl - If I want advice, I can get advice from the places I need to, like books, or people who have actual qualifications. Or Google. Or, I will end my sentence with 'What do YOU think I should do?' which I rarely do, because, well, I really hate advice. I just wanted to see if anybody had experienced what I had. And you know, how did it make you feel? I'm guessing those other mothers walked away from those conversations feeling 'wow, I really helped her!' but I felt like they were saying: You must be really stupid. I don't even need to listen to what your problem is to solve your problem, that's how much of a better mother I am.

Also, your kids are ugly.

It was just horrible. I mean, it is just horrible because even when I'm trying not to say anything at all, these conversations still happen. People say things to me like 'oh, considering what a hard start your babies had, they are doing really well, and I'm sure they will be doing [insert developmental milestone here] very soon. And I think 'hey! I wasn't worried about that developemental milestone' and then ten seconds later I think 'wow, should I be worried about that developmental milestone?' and then I can't believe they think my children are anything other than terrific just as they are, and I get upset and offended. Which is obviously very productive.

And at first I thought it was just me - that maybe people were treating me stupid because I adopted, and they thought I needed remedial mothering school. But then I realised that they are all doing it to each other all the time as well. Backhanded compliments abound. And to be honest, I am sick of the way that despite my best intentions, I have found myself being sucked in by the desire to do the same thing. A few days ago, I had to bite my own tongue and swallow my words when I realised: hey, nobody wants breastfeeding advice from YOU, Claudia.

All I can think of is this: when a woman becomes a mother, she becomes the autocrat in a little tiny empire. Suddenly, small people are entirely dependent on her, and the day is filled with the need to make tiny decisions and judgements. Most of these are trivial in themselves, and involve sleep, food or bowel motions. But she has to make every one of them, usually with no other adults around, and the sum of these tiny decisions adds up to a whole life. And when each decision is made thoughtfully, the decision-maker gets attached to those decisions, and her decision making process. In her empire, she alone is possessed of the wisdom to decide when it is nap time, when it is bath time, and whether or not the baby will eat blueberries. I think it becomes easy to forget that this sole possession of wisdom ends at her front door, and other adults do not usually see her as having the sum of all knowledge in the same way that her children do.

Well, I don't, anyway. And a cacophony of voices all finding different ways to say 'hey, I know a lot more about this mothering stuff than you do' just makes me want to retreat into my own little kingdom and lock the door and never go to one of these United Nations motherhood conventions at the coffee shop ever again.

And now I kind of feel stupid for expecting anything different.

Names

A while back, before we passed court, when I had already quit my job (well, temporarily. Maybe.) and had lots of time, I got all scrapbooky and posted what I hoped were 'safe' pictures of our babies with just their little feet / hands and no identifying features. These pictures also had their names - I'm not wanting to keep their names a secret, but I want them to be jpegs rather than text because I don't ever want this blog to be searchable by googling their names. This is what is behind the whole anonymity thing, actually - I don't want someone to type in my name, or J's name, into google (and considering the number of random people that *I* google, frankly everyone I went to school with and then some, it's not impossible that someone will one day do it) and find this blog. But if they do find it, despite my anonymising - it will be my fault, and I will deal with it. I write this blog after all. The babies, not so much. I think it will be a while before they write anything, and I don't want their peers at school finding what I have written in years to come and using it as a reason to make their lives difficult.
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The pictures were originally part of this post, but in the end, I took the pictures down because I had a small freak out and realised just how badly I would NEVER forgive myself if those little innocuous pictures were seen as inappropriate and jeopardised our adoption. But now that the babies are home, I can post them again so here they are: (exactly the same - no faces. I can post whatever pictures I like now, obviously, but making scrapbook pictures has gone WAY down my list of priorities which is probably not a surprise).






So, why those names? Naming babies is so personal. I guess that's why it's so interesting making the choices. Crassly put, it's your opportunity to 'brand' your child - what is this name going to SAY about them? And you? Because naming is so personal, the opinions I'm going to share are exactly that - my personal opinions - and it's no surprise that not everybody is going to feel the same about these issues. I guess that's why we find the issues interesting, too. But that's one of the best (and worst) things about parenting - choosing a name, like making every other choice, is YOUR decision about what is best for YOUR child. These are my choices and my thoughts - I am absolutely not saying that everyone should come to the same conclusions.

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When I started this adoption journey (o, long ago day!) I was adamant that having a family by adoption wasn't going to be any different from having a family the 'normal' way. I'm going to be cautious about what I say here (see above re: personal opinions - I'm really not trying to offend anybody) but this is what I've come to think of as the 'telling people you're paper pregnant' phase of adoption waiting. What I mean by this is - this is the phase when I was convincing myself that sure, the baby would come into the family differently, but otherwise it wasn't going to be a big deal that we were adopting. I think that maybe this is a necessary stage for those of us who come to adoption after fertility losses - I'm not sure that I could have faced starting the whole horrible process if I hadn't thought that in the end, the paperchase would get me to exactly the same point that a healthy pregnancy would have - home with a baby who was ALL MINE. We all know the poem, right?

.
Not flesh of my flesh
Nor bone of my bone
but still miraculously my own
Never forget for a single minute
You didn't grow under my heart
But in it

.
At this point, those were the kind of thoughts I was having. Except not usually in rhyme. So, J and I had always talked about having a little girl called Katy (full name Kathleen, maybe, after his mother) or a little boy called Peter (after his uncle and my father) and at this point, I guess I was thinking that little Katy or Peter was coming home, but they were going to have brown skin. .
And then time passed and I realised a few things. Firstly, this baby would not actually be born in my heart. This baby's existence would not begin when they started to have a relationship with me. They would not spring into full being in my arms. Instead, this baby would grow under somebody's heart - just not mine. Obvious, no? And yet it didn't really feel obvious to start with. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Don't misunderstand me - this baby was definitely going to be MY baby, or what's the point? I was definitely going to be his or her 'real mother'. But not his or her only real mother - there would always be another one who came first. And my love for this baby doesn't cancel that first real mother out.

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Secondly - this baby would not be white. I mean, I always knew that the baby wouldn't be white, but it took me a long time to realise that this meant they would not be White. Again, this should really have been obvious. But to my shame, I need to admit that white was never a big thing for me - it just always felt 'neutral'. And normal. It was other people who had colours. And if white was the default, why would I think about it? And knowing that about my own previous attitudes is all the proof I need that my black child is going to find their path in life less smoothly paved than mine was. I wish it wasn't true, but I know that it is.

These two things had a big effect on how we started to rethink naming. Firstly, we decided that if our baby had a birth name given by a parent, we would keep it if at all possible. This was hard to decide (*I* wanted to name the baby!) but it felt like it would be wrong to take away the last thing their birthmother had given them. The second was that if this was not the case, we wanted to choose an Ethiopian name for the baby.

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In the end, the second case is what happened: you can see from the names above that we chose Ethiopian first names for both of them. After all the thought we put into it, and number of hours spent making shortlists from My Ethiopian Name, it all made so much sense to us! And we're really pleased with their names - she has turned into L.u.l.u for short and the two of them now feel like they couldn't be anybody else. And of course, we have consciously decided that if at any point either of them want to use either of their middle names as their main name - that's great. There's a wonderful line in 'Does anybody else look like me', a book about raising biracial children, where the author's young son talks about how his three names are his 'three selves'. We had that very much in mind when we named them - their two middle names represent their past and their new family, and their first names are all their own. Whichever of their three selves they want to be at each point in their lives, I hope they find that they have a name that will help. (If they want to change their name altogether to Captain McSpaceranger, aged 4, I hope I will be equally understanding).

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One thing that has surprised me, though, since we have had them home, is this: many of our friends seem wary of their names. I know they are unusual, but they aren't difficult - that was one of our criteria. And lots of people have been great about checking pronunciation with us. But others? Well, one thinks they are called Isaac and Lolita (errrr... no, especially not Lolita, thank you Nabokov). But much more surprising is that a few have outright rejected their Ethiopian names and refer to them as Heather and Peter. I cannot tell you how much this weirds me out - one said 'oh, I just assumed you would use their English names'. I find this really upsetting, because no, they are English kids for sure but they are Ethiopian-English, and it really worries me that some people seem, very gently, not deliberately, and probably quite unconsciously, to want us to erase the Ethiopian part of them. And while they are young, it would be so easy for us to do this, and pretend they were white babies in brown skin. It would be the path of least resistance, and I do not want to take it. And that is one of the reasons I am really glad that we did give them the names that we did - every time someone says 'so, how do you SAY that?' I get a small shock of discomfort and am forced to remember that yes, their names are unusual. They are Ethiopian names. Because, more fundamentally, so are they. And calling them Katy and Peter wouldn't change this. They are from a different place. They will have a different experience from me. They are part of our family now, but they didn't grow inside my heart and miraculously turn white in the process.

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So, this is why they have the names that they do. But now I have to go and eat my dinner!