The Five Little Ducks Blog

(Wednesday 16^th September)

My heart rate hasn’t slowed all day. I feel a little queasy, a bit jittery. My mind is a useless, buzzing haze. This morning I received an email from our caseworker with our draft transition plan attached. After nearly nine months of waiting for phone calls to be returned, so little progress, no contact visits arranged and not even knowing if we were going to be approved as carers- suddenly, it is all happening so fast.

We had training last Friday. In two days we have a two hour contact visit with our nieces at a park. Then another visit on Sunday. Full day visits scheduled on Tuesday and Thursday, a sleep-over on Friday. Then, if all is going well, the following Tuesday they will be moving in. YIKES.

I am scared about so many things.

I am scared about whether the children will get along. I am worried about whether the children will listen to me or respond to me.

I am anxious about how I am going to cope with the sound of constant fighting and screaming.

I am nervous about my mental health suffering; that I might snap and do something I will regret.

I am concerned about how my own children will cope and adjust to their lives being turned upside down.

I feel uneasy about how I will be able to provide each child with enough attention and not let any of them slip through the cracks.

I am wondering about how I will possibly manage to do all the shopping, cooking and cleaning for four, then five children.

I feel guilty about having “neglected” my youngest child, my precious unborn baby boy- I don’t think about him enough. Will I take good care of him in the midst of the chaos?

What if they don’t like me?

Mostly I am scared about one thing that makes me sound like a terrible person.

I am scared that I won’t like these children. I am scared that I won’t LOVE them. I am scared that I will want to give up on them and ruin their lives forever.

We are their last chance at being placed with relatives, and they have already been shoved back and forth between their mother, grandparents and various foster carers a dozen times.

Will I be enough to give them the nurture and stability that they need to grow and thrive?

Oh God help me-

I hope so.