We want to throw in the towel

I wish I could say something positive, upbeat and helpful here............ but I can feel what you are thinking by reading your post.

There must be something that can be done, I wish I knew what.

Someone?

So very sorry and sad to hear this. Adoption is a hard hard process. You have sat through endless courses and meetings and panels to get to this point. The reality of parenthood is huge never mind adoption parenthood. Can you have a think about what you thought would be the reality of parenthood and the actual reality and see if there are ways of matching to or connecting the both? Many of us have thought I can't do this/I don't want to do this. It does all depend on where you were coming from in the first place. Were you going to be a mummy and daddy and wanted children to fulfill that dream or did you want to parent damaged children and to give them the best opportunity in life? This could possibly help you to your answer. If it's the former then perhaps adoption wasn't/isn't for you. If it's the latter then accepting it's the hardest thing you will ever do but also the Best thing you could ever do and that you just have to keep on keeping on. Sending you supportive hugs. Don't do anything rash just go through all the reasons and scenarios as to why you are both feeling like this after all you've been through to get here. Honestly most of us have had similar thoughts we just didn't or don't act off them.

Oh so difficult. I struggled and battled on for two years to parent Min but in the end had to disrupt. Luckily we hadn't got the adoption order so in practical terms it was easy. The emotional cost was immense though and, almost 3 years on, I'm still struggling to come to terms with the whole experience. I still feel gulity that I put Min through another rejection but he was so damaged and the support wasn't forthcoming (too expensive for SS) our lives had turned into one long exhausting battle and, despite my rational self knowing it wasn't Min's fault, I did start to resent him. and his inability to function 'normally'. Horrible situation you are in. Call an emergency meeting with the social worker, lay your cards on the table, see if there is anything they can come up with to help. Whatever you decid be prepared to get support for yourself. If you carry on you'll need all the help you can get. If you disrput you'll also need bucketloads of support, once the initial relief wears off they'll be guilt to contend with.

So sorry you are in this situation. Feel free to pm me if you want to 'talk' it through with someone who has lived through the 'terrible mistake' scenario.

hi ruby
it sounds so hard for you at the moment, i can feel the agony in your post.
i can't tell you what to decide, but some of the things that may help you get to the right decision are

meetings with your sw to see how they can support you in coming to the right decision for everyone
to see if you and dh could have counselling both separately and together to really decide things what is pushing you to this point.
is it realising that your old life is the one you truly want
is it that you don't want to parent
is it that you feel you can't parent these children (this may change with support and time)
is it that yiu feel scared about the future

and really work out exactly what you ae feeling before making a decision that you can't reverse.

i think that the beginning bit having more than one child is extra-ordinarily hard because you don't know how either child well enough to know what is for the best, could a helpful measure be considering things like respite with one child while you intensively get to know the other, so you get to work with one child at a time and just break yourselves into parenthood more easily.

i know that when dd1 came home she was v rejecting of dh and he was devastated, it also played on all his previous insecurities about not being able to parent and this being all wrong. he felt v unsure about what we were doing in the early stages and whether this was right. although it felt like a very long time at the time, with hindsight this stage passed reasonably quickly and they have a v strong relationship now. i think what helped is that we didn't both feel like we were drowning, so i could support him. it sounds like because you both really need support, its v hard to support each other

could we help that, im happy to be a buddy to one of you if you want to pm me and im sure someone else would be happy to talk to the other. sometimes it helps to emotionally step outside the situation which can feel like a v claustrophobic pressure cooker at first.
im so sorry yuo are finding this so hardxxx

Everyone has already made such good suggestions so I'm just going to add to Choti's offer of personal support and chatting on the phone. Whatever decision you make, you will need to reach out for support (as I think you are already doing with this post) and then embrace it with both arms.

Will be thinking of you and hoping you are able to be kind to yourselves.

Ruby
You're in my prayers tonight, whichever way this goes.

I remember the sheer exhaustion of a 5 and 6 year old coming to us.
I lived one day at a time, or more accurately half an hour at a time.
It was alien, difficult and mostly straight unrewarding. They were strangers and affection was missing while dependence was all too plain.
Everything had to be so carefully managed, and it felt like there was no spontaneity. Left to play together, they would get nastier and nastier. What gave me hope was that the children were so much nicer apart.

Now, 10 years on, with one child at home and one in foster care, we've lived through cycles of wanting to throw the towel in.
Sometimes it was one child, sometimes both. But by the time I had the courage to admit what you are admitting, my children were woven into the fabric of my life.

xxx Damson

Sorry this is looking and feeling so bleak Ruby.
Fwiw;
. I asked for a place to play with Moptop our first from when he Was quite young and early on in placement too. I really wanted a neutral place away from home with someone else to witness us together and affirm our relationship,bond, difficulties etc. I'm not sure Theraplay would have done that exactly but I wish we'd had it then not six yrs down the line. It would have made a massive difference I think to things now. I say this as it seems you may have some 'growth room'yet.

I wonder if you can just get together as a family away from it all perhaps with a playtherapist or music/art therapist ? It maybe a private payment but I know from my previous professional experience it can really help families 'feel' one another.perhaps it's this intimacy you and dh are missing or mistakenly thinking it to be something else. Our children do express stuff in wildly different ways that are hard to read at first, especially as yours are 6 and 3. There's that huge imprint on them before you two came along. But it does weather and your own begins to leave a fresh mark on them bit by bit until they feel like yours.

Even now I feel a distance from mine at times and I think that's because I can't erase their hurt.
Lastly look at some good news stories. Even your own positive points across these boards? It's easy to get entrenched in negative doldrums especially if you feed off another's even the children's own insecurities . It's even possible you both have post adoption depression.?
If you really don't want children do give them a second chance elsewhere, God knows enough people are waiting for a match.But let them go with a positive ending not your own needs as paramount in their minds.
I find your posts honest,brave but panicked and torn, probably like the children feel right now settling in.
It's hard this family life if you're both not sure it can rip you apart and could do even in the aftermath of the childrens' return to care If you don't get the right decision for you both equally.

With best wishes and prayers for you all.Lankelly.

Hi Ruby..
take a minute... we will all support you in what ever you do. we all know how hard it is.
don't feel alone. please give the same message to your husband..I know Mr M would be there to talk if it helped.

we are all feeling for you. xxxxx xxxx

Just another plea not to make a decision in haste, panic and under stress. I think Choti posed some really great questions about getting to the bottom of what you are feeling. If you do decide not to carry on, your lives will still be changed for ever. But you probably realise that. Particularly if you are both not in total agreement about your feelings.

I can identify with a couple of things you say. The loss of identity, it's hard when you suddenly stop being you and become Xs mum. Several of my friends with birth children found this very difficult, and I gave struggled with if at times, still do now and again. It was over a year before I left Simba with a sitter and went out to a gig and had a bit if my old life. I gave up a job I loved to adopt, am pretty miserable in the curent job and it's hard sometimes not to resent him because if it wasn't for him I'd leave it. But we've just had a weeks holiday in Morroco, very like the holidays I used to have in the old days. in time a new identify emerges, parts of the old you, and some new elements.

Bring cold to them. I think this is one of my biggest character flaws, when I'm pushed to the limit I can become very cold towards people, simba often pushes me to that limit, and I have to wotk very hard not to let it go on, but somehow I push through it.

I think you probably know you could work through a lot if these things, but you have posed the key question yourself. Do you really want to?

Good luck with whatever you decide, no one here will judge you, we all know how adoption pushes you to your limits and beyond.
Be gentle with yourselves and each other

'Lovely, complex , clever little girl', just about describes Lapwing who is also six, and I also recognise that feeling of not being 'drawn' to her.
Why am I not drawn to her? It is because she is the more traumatised of the two( her brother is 4)and she is spikey, difficult, oppositional, and lots of the time doesn't want a 'mummy', its hard to feel 'drawn' to someone that doesn't really want you.
Even now 18 months in there can be days where I still do not feel drawn to her.

However in the last 6 months there have been huge flashes of real maternal love from me to her, sometimes that love stays for days some times it is only minutes. But I know it's there, I also know that although she doesn't 'want me' she does 'need me' , without me she would be lost.

I also recognise your struggles to maintain a good relationship with your husband, we also felt like we had sacrificed our relationship for the children. In the end my husband agreed to take a morning every fortnight off work so we could just be together without the children. It has been hugely helpful.

Thoughts are with you. x

Fantastic advice already given so I can't add much to it but i hope you are already sharing some of your concerns/worries with your SW and are not keeping them all to yourselves. SW are trained in placing children, they do this all the time, and they are used to situations like yours particularily where couples are struggling with feelings towards one child. You need to be honest with them about how you and DH are feeling right now. They can help and can advise you and hopefully allay some of your worries.

I have one question to ask you though. If SW said "we're taking them away today" how would you feel?
Relieved or devastated?

Ask yourselves that question, both you and DH, and think about your answer.

These children are not just for Christmas, they are for life.

6 is a difficult age - mine was 6 when she moved in - I found her so rejecting (wiped her toys or skin of I touched them) and controlling - she was terrified and terribly traumatised - SS wanted to disrupt as they said she was unadoptable and that they would place another child with me without hesitation - I had no choice in the matter really - despite feeling I didn't really like her when they said that I cried and cried as the thought of the real little girl underneath all the "stuff" having her belongings packed and feeling she was right, she was unlovable and unwanted , was just unbearable. To cut a long story short - she stayed - we have had very very rocky times - but she is now 17 - needs huge amounts of support and hopefully will be in supported living soon with her equally vulnerable boyfriend - actually fiancé!!!!!! We have a strong bond and she is as loving as she is able to be towards me.

Recently a Barnardos therapist - specialist in adopted and fostered children said there could have been 6 of me, she could have had therapy every day and still she would have many issues mentally as the damage was done in her first 5 years and while there is always potential for change some damage cannot be completely undone

If there is therapy on the horizon that might help you all find a way of living together - how about therapy for you? It could help you sort out your real feelings - our children project their feelings onto us - so it could help you both if it was someone who really knows about all this

How would you feel if you fostered instead of adopted them? I was offered that and took 2 1/2 years before I applied to adopt - it might take some of the pressure off you - get the feeling of being trapped lifted

Ruby, I'm going to add my bit here and from a different angle. I don't often just say it like it feels, but try and give a balanced view. However, I can't help but get the impression that you (personally) are struggling with the enormity of the task. That you feel you are not good enough for this. You say there is no connection with your little girl, yet you describe her as a lovely, clever complex little girl. This sounds rather affectionate to me and yet you'd rather send her back, because you say you do not want to damage her more. That is very protective in my view, even though ill thought through because for the mental shock you are in. You are a good enough parent, have been assessed as one and what you need to work on is being kind to yourself and hubby and recognising what a brilliant couple you are for doing this. I cannot speak for his feelings of cour we, but please do not do anything hasty.

You probably cannot feel a connection with your little girl because she won't let you at this stage. She is scared beyond belief and does not trust you. This will take ages to build, I'm not going to gloss over this. But your post also shows that you are already making a connection with your son. How brilliant is that after such a short time.

I know disruption may still be on the cards and there are a lot of unknowns to all of us on the forum. Just believe me when I say that with the right support you can pull through and not only make it work, but also enjoy it one day. Life is never going to be the same again. But it would!d not have been with birth children either and I have both. It took me 2 years on each occasion to really get to know them, to understand what makes them click, so please stop expecting too much of your self.

Please feel free to pm. Massive hugs and hope whatever decision you come to will be the right one for you. Xxxx