Lost count of days and posts

I’ve not written in a while……. not because I haven’t wanted to but because Aysha is forever curled up against me, curling my hair around her nose

Ali got back yesterday after his holiday, he brought me back a rather stunning silver and amethyst ring. Didn’t see him for long as within a couple of hours he was back out partying. Yesterday was a particularly difficult day. I woke up with pangs of excitement to have my baby back home, skimmed through facebook on my phone and read that a friend had just lost her only child, a strapping 20 year old boy

The journey to the airport was riddled with guilt, as I was about to hold my son close to my heart again my friend would never ever again hold hers. As I was planning how to welcome my son back home my friend was planning a funeral. I shed many tears yesterday, as I ordered flowers to send her I wanted to howl. Why is life so cruel sometimes?

She has lost her child forever, she loved him from the moment of conception, she carried him in her womb for 9 months and then spent 20 years doing everything she could to keep him from harms way…….. and all I can do is send her flowers

Shafelia Ahmed has also been playing on my mind. She’s gone, justice has at last been served but what about the hundreds, possibly thousands of girls still alive, Still living in fear of their lives, still gagged by a false sense of loyalty to parents who want nothing but to fuel their own pride

The world is an unjust place and I’m still sitting on a mountain of paperwork which I am ignoring on my road to fostering. In my mission to make the world a better place I seem to fail miserably x

Day 7 blog 7

I did write yesterday but just as I was about to post it everything went off on my phone, watsapp, email, facebook, text and a missed call. Well it certainly caught my attention at close to 1am……. It was Ali from some remote island in Thailand, lost his debit card and needed it cancelled. How many times had I asked him to leave me his card details just in case

It also happens to be his 18th birthday today, I am now officially mother to one child and an adult. Strange not to have him here on his birthday especially on such a momentous one, but hey I’m sure this is the first of many to come

The fostering’s gone a bit manic my in-box is full to the brim with forms to fill, people to meet, medical checkups to be had, bits to read and points to ponder….. it doesn’t seem to be happening though. In-boxes can be ignored. Family interviews are pending and I’m getting nervous about how everybody, namely Aysha actually feels about this x

 

Day 5 blog 6

Out of the 10 individuals/couples that attended the two week course 5 of us were selected to move up to the next stage…… we were elated at being accepted but with the elation came the realisation that this dream was becoming reality

Fostering, if it happens, will impact our lives in every way. Will it be okay to visit friends with our foster child? Will people want us still to visit with a child they don’t know? Will people who matter to us accept our new family member the way we would like them to? Will our foster child feel welcome amongst our friends and extended family? Will our social life as we know it come to an end? After all our fears of failing to be the ideal foster parents, questions do arise about how our own lives will change and there are times when we wonder whether we are capable of such a responsibility and sacrifice

Aysha still doesn’t want to talk about it and I wonder when we have further home visits and the children are interviewed whether she will speak up and end this dream x

Day 4 blog 5

How lovely to see the sun, how comforting to feel the sun on my back. Maybe summer has actually arrived

I felt sorry for Aysha today, I spent a lot of the day catching up with housework while Aysha just followed…… it’s not easy being Aysha, it also isn’t easy understanding Aysha, why she feels the need to wear a jumper with a cardigan on top when the weather is warm used to frustrate me, now I just accept that if that’s what she’s happy doing then that is what she needs to do and that is how it is. I’ve spent 15 years making sure she isn’t feeling too hot or too cold and now I must resign myself to the fact that the weather does not dictate how Aysha dresses. I can’t understand what goes on in that little head of hers and maybe I never will. I do understand however that her happiness is paramount and if it’s a woolly scarf and 2 jumpers in mid summer then so be it

Ali contacted to say he might be off to an island in the middle of nowhere, where there’s no internet therefore no contact…….. I must accept this too. Dinner was difficult tonight, a few tears splashed into my biriyani. He’ll be 18 this week, maybe that will change everything

We heard back from the fostering team to say we passed their initial assesments and are one their shortlist of invitees to another meeting which I attended last week. The meeting was full of formalities for criminal record checks and followed by some heavy confessions about life changing events…….. it had been a loooong time since I had opened up about the passing away of my dad 23 years ago, what I was saying didn’t even seem to be coming out of my own mouth, I started spluttering and wishing the ground would swallow me up. I didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to be spilling my life out to them and I think it showed……… it was then that the social worker looked me in the eye and said “Maybe you can understand how the children that might come into your care will be feeling” x

The certificate, taking pride of place on the fridge x

Day 3 blog 4

Life is good……. Ali called, he’s well, happy, and most importantly safe. I haven’t really stopped smiling since I spoke to him, it’s almost as if the sun hasn’t set today

Aysha is snuggled up next to me playing on the ipad, and Rehan next to her sipping on the freshly brewed coffee that perfectly fragrances the room

So where were we? Making the decision to foster and bringing the subject to the dining table, I was actually expecting a lot more opposition than I got. Rehan listened and was agreeable, Ali laughed saying he’d come home from uni to a houseful of children that we refused to return and Aysha was quiet

I made the call to the council to register my interest and within an hour had my first telephonic interview. A week later a home visit by a senior social worker and a week after that Rehan and I were enrolled on a skills to foster course. I was nervous about the course, I thought Rehan might make excuses not to go and that I would freeze up as I do in front of strangers……. as it goes Rehan loved every minute of the course and I actually spoke to people I’d never met before without spluttering and making a complete fool of myself

I got my first certificate since school and it takes pride of place on my fridge…….. we all deserve a certificate now and then, it made my heart swell with pride. I’ll post a picture of it later x

Day 2 blog 3

My brain’s a little tired right now. I haven’t managed to speak to Ali……. he left for Bangkok 35 hours ago, he called a few hours ago but I couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear me, I called him back and it was the same and now 67 or so calls later his phone remains switched off

All sorts of thoughts have been running through my head, no proverbial stone has been left unturned. Is he in trouble? Did he get to Bangkok? Was it something important he needed to say?…… I don’t even want to think about it, but needless to say tonight will be a very sleepless one. Yes he might have turned his phone off to go to sleep BUT ON THE OTHER HAND HE MIGHT NOT HAVE!!!

At the dinner table Aysha looked sad and mentioned that she didn’t like the house being this quiet, it’s not the first time Ali’s been away, far from it…. but maybe like me she’s thinking about when he goes away to university, the quietness and incompleteness is all we’ll be left with

Her comment got me thinking though, maybe the decision to foster is a good one. She is a major factor in me taking the steps towards fostering yet she remains my only obstacle

While everybody in the family warmed to the idea Aysha is still unwilling to discuss it. I understand her fears completely. But I know that she can’t live her life haunted by the silence and taking herself off to bed early every night

Not an easy decision, not a decision taken lightly and dependent on Aysha or indeed any of us…. not a decision that can’t be reversed x

Still day one, second blog

This whole blog thing was supposed to be a record of “our” journey on the road to fostering. The thought came to me perhaps 5 years ago or so, I made enquiries but refrained from discussing the matter at home as I knew the time wasn’t right

It was when our first-born, Ali decided it was time to spread his wings and move out to university that I decided to bring the subject of fostering to our dining table. I could be accused here of trying to get a replacement child but nothing could be further from the truth. My first and foremost concern at the prospect of Ali moving out was 15-year-old Aysha. A shy child with limited social skills and mild learning difficulties who dotes on her brother was about to lose daily contact with her best friend, her life line to the real world, her only sibling, the only young person in the world who she confides in and trusts

Like most siblings Ali and Aysha have a love hate relationship but there are aspects of their relationship which are unique. A bright and academically gifted child Ali offered on numerous occasions to take a year out of his own education to coach Aysha through her GCSEs…….. it was this kind love and devotion within the house that Aysha was to lose

I couldn’t get my head around how Aysha was going to cope living a life with Rehan and myself. Nobody in the house to keep her up to date with the latest trends and music instead her weekends would be spent trudging around garden centres and strolling by the riverside for pleasure. We had anticipated that by this stage Aysha would have her own circle of friends, her own social life but it was quite apparent that outside the home there is little acceptance of a teenage girl who is somewhat different to the others

I’m still not sure why writing all this is so very difficult for me but the tears are now very much out in force. Maybe it’s because we all want our children to be popular and happy and have lots of friends and do well at school, maybe many of us just take that for granted. Maybe one never anticipates the pain of having a child come home expecting to go the cinema with the rest of the class but not being invited….. maybe just maybe

The aim of fostering was initially always to help a child who needed the stability and security that our home could offer…… it now became a combo of this mixed with the aim of a new life line in for Aysha, somebody young who she could help nurture and in this perhaps find herself .Someone who might keep the fun and enthusiasm for life alive for her while she taught them to able to trust again

It’s very complicated and I’m not sure if through my tears I’m even making any sense……. x

Blog day 1…… it can only get better x

Maybe the best way to start is with ME……. I’m a 42 and a half-year old mum of 2 and wife of 1. Married coming up to 19 years with an almost 18-year-old son and a just turned 15-year-old girl

The washing machine is on its final spin and I’m wondering if that’s enough time to introduce myself…….. truth be told I feel like somebody has wrenched my heart out of its rightful living space right now. Ali is on his way to Bangkok for a 2 and a half week post A’level holiday. Part of me is thrilled that he has the desire to travel, to see the world, to live and explore while the other part of me wants to smack the first square in the face and shout “What’s wrong with you woman? Have all these layers of post maternal fat taught you nothing? He’s not even 18, he doesn’t even know how to double knot his laces and you’ve sent him three-quarters of the way around the world on a mission to learn what exactly”. Then I feel nauseous and “bad”

The machine has finished spinning while my heart radiates its turmoil through to the pit of my stomach