Lumpy mums and thyrotoxic dads

So we've relocated and are doing our best to settle (the thousand-meaning word). An important step is school, very important, not the a, b, c's and one, two, threes, it's all about mom, the screwdriver and the plastic sheeting waiting on the kitchen floor.
We finally parted company after nine weeks of 24/7; SA winter holidays run directly into the start of UK summer holidays. But we were all still alive, talking to each other and even snuggling in the morning.
After leaving one at school and one at playgroup I suddenly felt like a deer in the headlights, I wanted then back ... and then I came to my senses, tootled off home for plunge coffee and more wondering what to do with myself.
School's a hit until I'm hit with a birthday party invitation. Grossly unfair – day three: don't know the boy, don't know the parents and will need SatNav to find venue. I rearrange my attitude: a party is good, it's an opportunity for our son to make friends, to socialize, so I message the mom and ask what her darling is 'into'. "Spiderman, or anyfing Marvel." I twitch, roll my shoulders and then, roll them again; but I'm being open-friendly-receptive mum.
I find the bus and the toy shop. I ask, but no Spiderman, no Batman no, wait a second, we have a puzzle. Excellent, checks both my boxes (educational and Marvel) plus it's £5 and I have a £4 voucher. Wrapping paper was £3.50.
All very exciting, our son has chosen his outfit himself and is looking suave. We arrive, as one does, to find a gargantuan Spiderman jumping castle in the community hall and spot the birthday boy, who spots us, runs up, snatches his gift and runs away. The mum comes over, "Sorry, he's really shy." But my mind had moved on, uncommon is this type of scenario.
You see, I have found the most intriguing species, it is not concerned with its shape or size, only with the size of the garment it is wearing. If it wears an 8 it must therefore be an 8. Hence, this species spends a considerable amount of time, as it pauses or stops in its perambulations in pulling UP the bottom garment and then pulling DOWN the top garment, over what is frighteningly common, a large expanse of not-insignificant lumpy posterior. The top garment is in itself note worthy. Thin shoulder straps, low necklines, stretchy fabric and the requisite size 8. By the laws of science if the pulled down to cover one area, it must reveal another.
That was the mum; and the dad seemed like a pretty bulk standard, "Yea, Yea!" kinda guy so I took my seat along the wall and smiled to my left and right. On my right was a nice mum who was timing her party shift. She does half, her husband does half. He came in reeking of the nicotine he needs to get him through, I can't say if it was the two at a time fags or a medical condition but his eyes bulged and conversation was tricky, much like conversation with my husband, you start talking and just at the point when you don't want to have to say it again, they turn and say, "I'm sorry, what?"
So I turned to my left. Safer ground, women. A kind, friendly mum introduces herself and me and I learn who their children are; the most precocious little girl belongs to the mum trying to look like Maria Carey, her bum wins out though and there's a girl who looks just like Abigail Breslin in the role of Little Miss Sunshine.
Time is ticking by and I'm starting to lean ever closer to the right to imbibe a little nicotine when the left-hand mum say, "Your son's very tall for his age. Five is it?" I say yes and she says, "Well, you're quite tall."
Bless her, not for a minute did she assume that he is adopted. She made no assumption.
Their bums may be lumpy, they may be tattooed from head to foot with blue hair (and they really are) but her first impression, whether conscious or not, was that he was my biological child. And why wouldn't she? My husband wasn't there.
So perhaps I need to stop running and spend more time on the couch watching Eastenders eating junk.

Opting out: Firsts in the Free State

My husband and I had always said that Jo'burg had a lifespan for us. From time to time the city would reach its zenith for us, the traffic, the noise, the fact that you could no longer pop out on a quick errand, it would take you all morning. Then there's the lifestyle; before we got married we threw a tent, two guitars and a couple of jerrycans in the back of an old 1981 Hilux, stuffed 100 US dollars in the cubbyhole and waved goodbye, heading north across the Limpopo.
We craved the bush, mountains, creeks, anything but the drunken neighbours, hooters, sirens and the exhaust fumes I ingested every time I ventured out for a run.
The city of gold was fast turning into a city of plastic, faux, faster, better, bigger, more ... everything we're not ... is there really a need for another mall?
But every time we'd had it with Jozi something came up and we'd push it all aside for the moment. Life doesn't stop happening , it doesn't stop for you to stay, "Oh, there's a gap coming up in our life where we will have the time to comb the countryside looking for a gorgeous house in a gorgeous town."
Then something bigger than life did happen. Suddenly and for the most part unprepared. We'd been trying in vain to start a family and had decided to go the adoption route – specifically the trans-race adoption route as the waiting period is shorter and it made not a jot of difference to us – once your intense screening process is complete you wait for the phone to ring, for a voice on the other side to say there's a baby ... it rang three days after our screening was complete.
We wanted quicker ...
The day we took our son home my husband started house hunting online.
Our little boy was four months old when he came home and we spent the next eight months finding heaven via Marquard.
Heard of it?
It's a very small town in the eastern Free State that is desperately trying to be something that it will just never be. The kind of town where the only cafe's cappuccinos are filter coffee with frothed milk and they're okay with that.
The issue with moving outside the three-, sometimes four-hour ring of ugly that surrounds Jo'burg is that you have to maximize towns and house viewing. All this happens online and via email, you see a few possible likes, you scour the map book and ID towns in the vicinity, then scour the online property sites for anything in those towns, then email some over-zealous agents (are there any other kind?) and set up a 4-town, 24-house weekend.
I learned two things: how to change a soiled nappy on the back seat of a moving car with a child in a supported standing position and that estate agents are, in the main, hard of hearing.
On the Marquard weekend we were breathing deeply in the shade of a large tree in the agent's garden, she was trying to flog us her house. I was probably breathing far deeper than my husband, rolling my shoulders back over and over and occasionally adding a head roll in an attempt to stop myself telling her that a) we specifically said no Randpark Ridge-style face-brick houses b) no old houses with visible steal supports running the length of the room just below the ceiling (banks don't like those) and c) no clearly industrial-type offices complete with lengthy passages and meeting rooms. This last was the straw that had me seething under the acacia. I knew while waiting for the door to be opened I didn't want to go inside. And wait we did, for the caretaker (and a hundred of his closest friends), one of which had just used the amenities after what must have been a rough night, to open up.
I was hot and irritated and then our son crawled, for the first time. He was sitting and then he was crawling.
We were delighted, totally chuffed, as parents are, as though they had anything to do with it, and the estate agent? beside herself.
The following morning, before following her to view two houses in Hobhouse, we told her he had held his bottle on his own for the first time. Bless her, she took it as a sign that we were destined for a life in Marquard.
We do not live there but our boy is a seasoned traveller.

Black Like Me

No it's not time for another Caucasian vs Ethnic hair diatribe, although Black Like Me is to most of us a common hair care brand. No, this runs skin deep and is in the words of Mastercard "priceless".
My husband and I were sitting on the stoep (veranda for my US readers, to whom I am very grateful for their audience) when my daughter was a lot younger, probably nine months or so. She was sitting on the floor playing and my son, a couple of years older was sitting close by with his large box of assorted plastic building blocks.
A word on this box of blocks; he could not live without it, he builds Dr Seuss-style houses with a fervour quite rare in one so young. He can spend hours building the most elaborate pieces of architecture, or a minute, one can never be sure. One of our most feared sounds is the clamorous tipping out of the entire box onto the slate floor at 5.30 in the morning. It elicits an involuntary, lengthy groan from our bed in which we are still stubbornly ensconced, denying the inevitable.
I doubt we were sitting quietly reading that afternoon on the stoep, this is a pastime denied the new parent, we may have been watching our new baby girl and marvelling at the incredible coordination displayed by one so young – smiling contentedly, nodding to each other knowingly – but more probably we were listening to an endless, mind-numbing stream of questions and commentary in a language that takes infinite concentration to understand from our son – answers are demanded so attention must be paid – and trying to stop the Jack Russell licking her in the face.
From nowhere he stops and says, "Hey!"
We look up to find him pointing at his sister's neck in sheer amazement, "Ella's black like me!"
For a moment we're dumbstruck and both venture a tentative, "What?"
"ELLA! SHE'S BLACK LIKE ME!"
He couldn't believe it and there it was right before his innocent two-year-old eyes.
It was so random, so left field, so out of nowhere that we guffawed, then laughed and giggled; much later we were still sniggering. It was his sheer surprise.
Of course we knew that at some point our children would realize our skin colour was not the same as theirs – every older child at his nursery school had and as children do had inquired extensively about this anomaly – but when it happened we weren't prepared even though in our adoption screening we had been extensively prepped.
But this, as with most things to do with our son, was on its head; he had identified with her, rather than comparing with us.
When we'd gathered ourselves my husband asked, "What colour am I?"
He thought a minute then referred to what he was most familiar with, his blocks, rummaged carefully through the box and triumphantly produced a block, holding it on high.
"Red!"

"Don't touch the hair"

Who has the the unequivocal right to say this?
If you can wash your, or your child's hair and then pull a comb through it – you don't.
If you are a man with short hair that has been gelled into baked Alaska peaks with an up-standing, side-waving flick at the front – you don't.
Who does? Me.
When we adopted our first child, a boy, I took cognizance of two things, ethnic hair is different and I know nothing about it except 'Black is Beautiful'.
Stand in front of the shelves of ethnic hair products in the shop and ask yourself one question: What is your intention? Stimulate root growth, moisturize the scalp, moisturize the hair, relax, detangle, soften, shine, and if so, with what? Olive oil? Avocado? Coconut? Mayonnaise? (really) ... "I don't know," I said loud and petulantly (why aren't these products white folk friendly?) I just want to be able to comb it without him screaming and wailing.
The rational answer is to ask someone. For this you have to prepare yourself mentally, practice your pranayama and move into a deep state of calm and serenity ... in Pick 'n Pay.
Once said state is achieved you look around for a friendly face ... then you look around for a less rushed-looking face ... then you ask the nearest person.
The first look that crosses your adviser's face is disbelief, not that you have a black child, but that you may not know what black actually is. Thinking this can't possibly be the case the next expression that crosses said face is suspicion, as though I am asking her to let me in on her hundred-year-old matriarchal chakalaka recipe.
Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo and detangle spray was what I needed and an Africa comb.
What my boy has is a No. 1 cut.
Ah! But what about the girl? Advise here is freely dispensed as though one does not concern oneself with the minutiae of boy's hair but the importance of girl's hair cannot be overstated and you clearly know nothing.
NEVER CUT IT! LEAVE IT TO GROW!
If you cut there will be no braids, no cornrows, no cute twists and little dreads.
For this hair must be washed and combed so my angel doesn't look like a Mau Mau who has spent two years in the Aberdares. So back to that vast intimidating shelf.
Night one: Wash, rinse and massage in conditioner, but do not rinse. Wrap hair in scarf as sponge-wet and to prevent conditioner coating bedding.
Night two: Rinse and massage in moisturizer then comb.
I have been blessed with a little girl with the thickest, curliest, most beautiful mat of hair that takes a full hour to comb through. I then wrap her head in a scarf and the next morning, GORGEOUS! A perfect sphere of soft, glistening, thick pile adorns her head.
I'm showing off, gloating, boasting, "Look what I've done!" "What I've accomplished!" Then I remember she was involved too and add, "What a clever girl, you were so good, look how beautiful you are."
No one may touch THE hair, no one.
Three days later I'm exasperated, she has been recalled to the Aberdares.

Season Two, Episode One

If our first adoption was like navigating our way through a minefield then our second adoption, that of our little girl, was more of a ground offensive with us as the target suffering barrage after barrage of incoming fire. We were the French troops at Dien Bien Phu, Picket's confederates at Gettysburg – out-gunned and out-manoeuvred no matter which way we turned or to whom we appealed.
A 15-month long emotional assault with weekly incoming sucker punches. Finding our way to our daughter opened our eyes to the scandalous industry that is the South African social welfare community and its lackey, the 2005 Children's Act, to be fair it's the regulations that govern the act rather than the act itself.
You could comfortably say that by the time we had her in our arms we had seen it all, heard it all and felt it all. We were raw, frustrated on every possible level and in no doubt as to where adoptive parents feature on this particular food chain – they don't even make it up the first rung.
So, when in March I accompanied my son to his friend's fourth birthday party, and the mum's got talking, as is our want, and the conversation turned to sharing our boys with girls when they're older (every mother's nightmare), I was blindsided and struck cold with these words:
"I'm so glad I only have boys [three] because at least then when they're older and they impregnate [sic] a girl it's not their problem."
This mum has no idea how lucky she is that by this stage our daughter had been safely home and warmly bonding with us for a year and that this had not taken place at said boy's third birthday party.
Of course I was astounded by this archaic thinking (thankfully I wasn't the only one), but having lived and breathed every word of the Act and its regulations – which now grants equal rights to the biological father as the biological mother – my jugular began to twitch.
Both biological parents must sign consent for a child to be 'adaptable'. Once consent is signed, either or both have 60 days in which to change their minds and rescind said consent. How often do you imagine the birth father is around to sign consent?
In the absence of his presence an advertisement must be placed in one local, one regional and one national newspaper for a period of 90 days. If he does not respond to that he forfeits his rights as a parent.
These two chunks of the new born's life do not run concurrent to one another.
The above opinion on the boy's responsibility is not, unfortunately, unique. So the baby waits at a place of safety for five months. But wait, that's not all. The government in it's questionable attempt to place children with adoptive parents of the same race, "so they don't loose their culture," instituted a national register, known as RACAP (Register of Adoptive Children and Adoptive Parents). The Act states that this register is simply to keep a record of children who are adoptable and screened adoptive parents. It even makes sense: at any time an adoption agency or accredited social worker can have a look at the weekly updated list and know exactly where a child or parents may be found.
That's what RACAP is on the outside. Inside it is a festering cancer of racism, because the real purpose of it is to give black couples (who by the way can adopt from birth) an extended opportunity (a further 30 days) to adopt any black child on that register. Again this period does not run concurrently.
Six months. That's how old the baby will be before it may legally be placed with a loving couple – desperate to start a family and shower a child with love and opportunity.
So tell me Party Mom, when will that attitude change so that the millions of unwanted children can at least have a chance at a happy, fulfilled life? Because here's the rub: couples who want to adopt, want newborn babies, or babies as young as possible. They don't want to miss a moment. And they certainly don't want to miss three months of their child's life because 'it wasn't your son's responsibility'.

Dodging the mines to adopt in South Africa

Three years ago I became, not depressed, but flat, restless and unhappy. This is the antithesis of me. I’m upbeat, have more energy than I can use in a day and am a positive person. I laugh a lot and I had stopped laughing. I have a big smile and I had stopped smiling. And I felt enormously guilty.

I had everything. Perfect husband, a close relationship with my family, a small close circle of friends, the perfect job, a lovely home and yet I couldn’t get one thought out of my head: is this it? I felt so guilty about this recurring thought that I didn’t tell My husband because it would make me seem ungrateful and because, more importantly, make him feel awful.

After a while of this torture, just like that, in a flash I realized what it was: I had the capacity in my life for more and that more was children. Up to that point I thought I didn’t want children so the idea that I wanted to be a mom was farthest from my mind.

When I discussed this revelation with My husband he was excited and we immediately set about that dreadful word ‘trying’. Because that’s what it became, very, very trying. I’m the kind of person that when I want something I want it now. It takes me time to make the decision but once I’ve made it, I want it to happen now. And it didn’t. Not that month, not the following month, not the following year (or two or three) and not after four AIs and two IVFs.

Infertility has been referred to as a complex life crisis, psychologically threatening and emotionally stressful. That single sentence blandly sums up a world of obsession, tension, financial burden, mechanical sex, weekly dietary changes, herbal remedies, blame, self-loathing, indignity, embarrassment, jealously … all neatly cloaked in the myriad things that accompany hormone treatment. It’s a living nightmare, hideous on so many levels. So much so that when our fertility doc said we needed to look at donor sperm my brain flipped. No. No more. Even though My husband was happy to continue I just couldn’t do it. And he respected that.

Over the years we’d touched on the topic of adoption, once, fairly seriously, around the dinner table with my folks. And in that minute when the doc was talking donor sperm and R80,000 I knew without a doubt that I wanted to adopt.

We went home and Googled ‘adoption’. Clicked the first entry, a private agency and phoned. We were told in implicit terms that they were no longer taking on couples who wanted white babies, their waiting list was just too long, and they were only doing trans-racial adoptions. Oddly the idea of adopting a white child had never really taken hold with us. The few concerns we had about adopting a black child were mine, not My husband’s. I worried about two things: would this baby feel like mine and would the child, growing up, experience unfair challenges about having white parents. Finally, what had become my mom’s mantra sank in: a child is a child.

At the introductory meeting with our social worker she said something, which I know she came to regret (and she’ll smile and concur): the process happens as quickly as you drive it. So I drove it. We completed the intensive screening process in six weeks. For the first time I felt empowered. I was now playing an active part in our starting a family and even if these activities were psych evaluations, medicals, affidavits, police clearances, extensive in-depth interviews, I was driving it and I was doing. In between evaluations on the strength of our marriage, financial status and individual psyches I was teaching myself how to sew, making my first, gorgeous baby quilt, sanding down and varnishing the wooden floor in the baby’s room, getting ready.

Then the bomb dropped and my world fell apart, again. I really wanted a little girl. I know why. Because my mom and I have such an incredibly close relationship, I wanted that too. The final step in the screening process is the home visit. After our social worker had ascertained that we actually did live in a house, we sat down to talk about ‘our’ baby and I asked how long it would take. She said that there was no telling, that we would have to wait; it could be six months, it could be a year.

That was it; the past three years came flooding out in uncontrollable, ugly, snotty sobs. Not wise in front of your social worker when you want to portray the picture of stability. When I went to wash my face and blow my nose she told My husband she was worried about me. Fortunately My husband, in his calm way, was able to alleviate her fears. When I came back she said it was because we wanted a girl. In general women keep their daughters so there are far more boys available than girls. She also told us about a four-month-old little boy – in fact she had mentioned him to us a few times over the previous few weeks – whom she felt would be a perfect match, but cautioned us against taking ‘second prize’. Discuss it and come back to me, she told us.

Three things happened. One: we went for a long walk and realized that what we’d hoped for and prayed for, for so long, was right there, in front of us, yet we were still looking all around it for something else. Two: Mom said, “Just because you might have a daughter doesn’t mean that you’ll have the relationship that you and I do.” Three, and probably the most important: before we left for our walk we phoned my folks and explained all that had happened. Mom said she needed time to mull it over and talk to my dad. Throughout the years of us trying to start a family my dad had not said a word; he kept his council throughout. When we got home I phoned. Dad answered – another thing that never happens – and he said, “Sometimes the things in life that are most unexpected work out the best.”

We met our little boy on a Wednesday afternoon. I cried as I held him in my arms and he laughed and smiled and gurgled as though he’d known me his entire four months. He chose us that day and we chose him.

Although I was mad about him and drank him in at every possible moment it took time for the feeling that I was looking after someone else’s child to go away and for quite a while I over-compensated with him emotionally; my mom straightened me out on that. A little while ago I found myself, quite seriously, explaining to My husband why Luke was going to be tall. Mid-explanation I realized that his height and physical characteristics had and would never have anything to do with us. But in every other way, he is our child and we could not love him more if he was biologically ours, In fact we believe we love him more because we chose each other on that beautiful Wednesday afternoon a week before Christmas.