3 Years - A Countryside Carer

I am not sure that a year will go by without wanting to make sure I mark the anniversary of our young people joining our family. Three years seems so short, yet, I can’t really remember a time when they weren’t with us. Our family has changed and blended and moulded over the last three years to accommodate each other and all of us have made immeasurable changes to make our lives work.

I am quite a nostalgic person and I can easily fall into a rabbit hole of sentimentality, where quite often, my life reality goes out the window and everything becomes rose tinted and magical. When the kids have gone to bed I find myself scrolling through photos of them; starting from way back when and they first arrived to present day and just marvel at not only the physical changes but also the obviously visible changes in confidence and attitude which shines through in the photos. The candid shots are often my favourite, where I’ve caught a mischievous grin or a giggle that has come after sharing a secret. What is also obvious within the photos over time is the development of relationships between all of the children in the house. The activities they like to do together and the fun that they have. The bond of siblings, whether blood related or not is incredible and one that should never be taken for granted. 

I do like to celebrate the years as the anniversary draws in and yet as I have said in previous blogs, it’s a fine line, a tricky date to mark. The day they came to us changed our lives forever, and theirs, but for them it must still hold an element of sadness, of loss even if they don’t overly understand these emotions yet. Usually we eat junk food and have cake - a tradition which we will continue to uphold until the children ask us not to. 

I spend the day thinking about what has changed and what has happened over the last year and this year will be full of both incredible memories but also a lot of heartache surrounding trying to gain momentum with EHCPs and diagnosis which are just not forthcoming. The year has been littered with frustrating meetings of professionals where we have tried so hard to gain ground, but it has been fruitless. I have to remind myself regularly that these meetings, these setbacks are just drops in the ocean of the progress we have all made as a family and individually. The birthdays, the Christmas, the holidays, the days out, the hours spent on the side a football pitch will never be dampened by the setbacks. And no matter how many setbacks and difficulties stand in our way in ‘Year 4’ the memories we make will always, always outweigh the bad. Someone asked me recently if I regretted fostering, if, given the chance I would go back to ‘my old life’. There would only ever be one answer to this… absolutely not. No regrets, never. 

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