This is the diary of Lynne and her husband Brian. Lynne is 30 yrs old and Brian is 32. They have been married for four years ,but have been longing for a family for the last 5 years.

Pre-cancerous cells 8 years ago,left them unable to conceive naturally and a bad experience with IVF left Brian and Lynne childless.

In September last year we were approved for 2 children up to the age of seven. It was a hard assessment period, but all worth while.

This is their diary following approval...

WEEK 5

The last month has passed in a blur of washing, cleaning, teachers waiting to see me at the end of the day, other kid's parents banging on my door, paddies and a horrid little boy.

Yes, a horrid little boy. but a very scared, emotional and scarred little boy. David has changed the last 4 weeks. He has become more confident and outgoing. The kids at school still won't play with him, they think he's a bully.

This is upsetting for him. His confidence is growing at home though. He has gradually stopped asking if it's okay to do certain things. Is it okay to have a biscuit when he wants one.? Is it okay to get a drink of juice.? Is it okay to play with his toys.

This is hard for Brian and I to understand, as these are things we took for granted as children ourselves. David has also started to open up to me at bedtimes.

This is 'our time' to talk about the day, and any worries and problems he has. Some nights, he will just tell me about his schoolwork or what his teacher has said or done to him that day.

Other nights, he will open up to me and tell me all his bad memories. He has a scar on his bottom lip.. This is when his birth father cut him with a knife. A scar on the back of his head is off being thrown downstairs by his birth father.

He tells me things a child of his age shouldn't know about. He is slowly learning to trust me. I promise every night that I won't tell anyone what he tells me but secretly, Brian and I talk about it.

I find it impossible to keep these things to myself; I need to talk to Brian about it. David is an extremely emotionally scarred little boy. He has so much hatred for his birth family. I found out that month that he hates girls.. anything to do with them.

His birth mother was the main one who didn't feed him or look after him. He blames her for a lot of things. He won't look at his life storybook. He won't acknowledge he has a past with another family. It was a hard subject for him to talk about this month.

He despised his birth mother, and as far as he is concerned he came from my belly, he is my birth child. He tells me I am his only mother. It's sad, I find this hard to come to terms with, as I know the truth. I have tried to tell him the truth, but he will not acknowledge it.

David's bedwetting is not improving. He has been referred to the enuresis clinic, but there is a waiting list. We change him on average 4 times a night, and in the morning David brings his own washing downstairs and showers himself. It doesn't seem to be bothering him, so we just ignore it and hope it gradually stops. We don't make a big issue of it, but we do think he needs help with it.

We have seen no improvement at school with David this month. His teacher rings me every day and complains about him, I go to see the head teacher about it, but I get no satisfaction there.

This school hasn't had 'adopted children with emotional problems' before. I had to do something, but I could do nothing until they got their previous school records from their old school. Then they might understand about David's behaviour.

At lunch times, David has started throwing food around the dinner hall. He is made to clean it up, and go out to play in the yard. His teacher thinks he is, quote, 'a greedy little boy', who keeps going back for more and more food.

She stopped him doing this, and would only let him have one helping, then go out to play in the yard. David told me about this, and I saw the teacher. I said, "David's meals are paid for by me, not you. If he wants seconds, let him, its nothing to do with you how much he eats".

After that, she didn't interfere with him again at lunchtime. This teacher of David's was a challenge if nothing else. She had a really bad attitude towards David, and thought he was trouble because he has 'been in care'.

This was becoming a problem, and over the last 4 weeks it grew worse. I got in touch with the kid's social worker and asked her to come back to the school with me. Since the last meeting with the school, David has had a relapse.

He has gone back to his old ways. We saw an improvement in him after the last time we went to the school, but the last 4 weeks, we saw him go right back. We went to the school, and the meeting was tense. I voiced my opinions about the teacher, and filed a formal complaint about her.

The head-teacher promised that things would change. for the better. I was dubious about this, as these promises had been made at the last meeting. I will have to wait and see if it has worked.

Ashleigh is settling in really well at school and at home. She is a happy, healthy, smiling child. Her teacher is really good with her, but Ashleigh doesn't give her the problems David's teacher gets. She is teacher's pet, the classroom monitor, holding the teacher's hand out to the school gates and has been nicknamed smiler.

Brian and I are really pleased with her progress. She has made lots of new friends and is so confident. She eats her school dinners, does what is asked of her and is always playing with other children. We sometimes wonder how David and Ashleigh are brother and sister.

Her behaviour at home is also improving. Her tantrums are still happening, but not as often. She will still throw herself on the floor, kick, and scream and hold her breath until she passes out. This happens about twice a week, instead of every day like in the first month.

She has become a daddy's girl, she loves her daddy, and tells me every day she loves me also. Her schoolwork is also improving. Her teacher is really good with her, but thinks she may need some speech therapy in the future as she has a stammer. This is improving every day, so maybe she won't need it after all.

The beginning of this last month saw me driving to Liverpool to meet the birth mother. This was her choice, she asked to meet me.

I was wary about it at first, but when I got there, I felt it was the right thing to do. I was led to a room in the social services building where she was. She had brought along her own mother and a sister in law. The kid's social worker was there and an adoption worker also was there.

I felt a little intimidated at first; they were all staring at me except the birth mother. Her name was Mary. She looked at the table, and didn't look up at all. Mary's mother, Irene, stared right into my eyes, and I tried to hold her look, but a great feeling of guilt swept over me.

In that split second, I felt guilty. Guilty for being a mother to her daughter's children. Guilty for witnessing her grand children's lives growing up. I shouldn't have these children, they didn't belong with me, and they belonged with their birth mother.

I had taken them away, and she wouldn't see them grow up, or have the experiences with them that I would have. I cried, and went outside. The adoption worker came outside with me, and I told her how I felt.

She told me I should never ever feel guilty about it. I didn't take these children away, social services did. The birth mother couldn't and wouldn't look after them; she wasn't prepared to be a mother to them. She had every opportunity to do this.

Social services gave her a house with 6 months rent paid. They sent her to parenting classes, gave her all the help possible. But, she didn't care about any of this. She was more interested about being with her mates, getting drunk, having money for cigarettes, and having different men back to the house every night.

I began to understand it all, and I went back into the room a stronger woman. I showed no emotion towards the birth mother, answered the questions and gave her a couple of pictures.

Mary didn't talk to me; she just looked at the table. She was a large woman, dressed in black leggings and an oversized T-shirt. Her coat was torn and filthy, she smelled of dirty bodies, her clothes were dirty and they had a foisty smell.

These children once lived with this woman, and she couldn't even look after herself, never mind 2 children. I began to feel good about myself, for saving these 2 children of mine from this life they once had. I began to understand where David's hatred and anger comes from.

She was a horrible woman, and she showed no emotion whatsoever. She didn't even look at the pictures I gave her. She just crumpled them up and shoved them in her pocket. I found them in the dustbin in the foyer later.

The grandmother asked me if I would look after them, and would I ever abuse them????

I was shocked at this question and I felt like shouting at her, "OF COURSE I WILL LOOK AFTER THEM.. SOMEONE HAS TO.. YOUR DAUGHTER COULDN'T". But I knew this was not the right thing to say.

The meeting ended after I gave the birth mother a gift. It was a silver photo frame, and I promised to keep it full every year. This was also found in the rubbish bin in the foyer with the pictures I had given her.

I was sad for her, she didn't have to be like this, it wasn't my fault, but I still felt a pang of guilt, and I couldn't help it. I came away from that meeting feeling really down. I drove home on the motorway, and I had to stop at the motorway services.

I sat in the car park and cried. I cried for the birth mother, for my children, for me, for everyone else who was involved in this. The birth mother would never see her children again. How must she be feeling now? After meeting the woman who was the new mother to her kids. I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She was left with nothing now, and I had it all.

Mothers day was this month. I was excited about it. Would the kids make cards at school maybe? I felt like it was Christmas. I was sooo excited. On the Friday before Mothers day, they came racing out of school with things hidden behind their backs. I knew what it was. Ashleigh was out first, and she threw it in my face all excited. I asked her what it was, and she said, "its for you mam, I made it yesterday". My heart burst as I opened it. I had to open it there and then, I couldn't contain myself.

It had a bright orange flower on it, and as I opened it up, she had written inside, "I love you mammy, thankyou for being my forever mammy". God, I was crying in front of all the other mums. They understood. There were a couple of other mums who read it and they, too, cried. David came out last, waving his card in the air.

He insisted I open it NOW. It had a red flower on the front with gold glitter all over it. Inside he had written in his best handwriting, "to my special mammy, I love her very much, happy mothers day from David". WOW. Once again, I cried. I took them home, and they stood on our mantle piece for 2 weeks.

I shed tears for their birth mother. She didn't have any cards this year. She didn't have any children run out of school waving them in the air. I had it all. I felt guilty all over again.

We took them for their adoption medicals this month. They were certified as fit and healthy. The doctor was pleased to see them. They were thriving children. I was pleased, as I worried at times if I was feeding them the right foods, or giving them enough to eat. I had nothing to worry about.

I went to see my doctor in that second month. I was getting depressed and down a lot. I was feeling extremely depressed, unable to handle things at times. I couldn't cope with simple things any more, and I was getting worried about it.

Brian took over a lot of the every day things, and I was grateful to him for doing this. I told the doctor about our situation, how I had never been a parent before, all of a sudden there were these 2 children depending on me. It was hard.

He wouldn't prescribe anything for me, but let me talk about things. I left his surgery feeling much better. After seeing him, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and got on with life. I no longer felt depressed and I was a much happier person.

My family rallied round and gave me as much help as possible, and I gradually got into a nice routine, and depended on only Brian and myself. I started feeling good about things.

We have got on with life the second month. It was hard, really hard. A couple of times I wanted to ring social services and tell them to come take them away for one day. just one day. Chances for my hair to grow back in, and have a good sleep.

We are seeing progress with them both. David is hard work, he is so aggressive and angry at times, and it's really hard to see it happen. He's only a child, and needs to be one. We tried all sorts of punishment with him from taking his toys away to grounding him. It didn't work, but we found a really effective way of punishing him.

We made our top stair the naughty stair. He couldn't reach any of his toys from there, and couldn't see the television either. All he could see was the walls and the other stairs. We made him sit there for 20 minutes and 'think' about what he had done. It was effective. It worked well with Ashleigh also.

After a tantrum, she had to sit there for 20 minutes and calm down. We also used the 1,2,3 method. They knew if we got to the count of 3, they were in trouble. We got to 3 many times, but over the month, we would only get to 2 and they would go and sit on the top stair. This is an effective way for us to use, and the children know that its punishment. Ashleigh, after 2 months, is there about 5/6 times a week. David is there nearly every day for bad behaviour at home and school. We have had some really good days in the second month, and rewards are beginning to come.

We can see the difference in only 8 weeks, and they are beginning to change into the children they should always have been. They're learning more games to play, and how to play.

The stabilisers have now been taken off Ashleigh's bike, (with more cuts and bruises), and David can now kick his football in a straight line.

Hard work and lots of love and attention have seen these 2 children change into the roses they are now. Brian and I tend to them, give them food and water, lots and lots of love, attention and care, and they have grown and still are growing, into 2 beautiful roses.

There is still lots of work ahead, but it's all worth it. Every single minute of every single day with these 2 children is worth the effort we make with them.

E-mail Lynne and Brian

See also:

Previous diary entries