Mia’s Story.
The mother of two adult sons.

“I was never a big fan of babies”, says Mia.  “I wasn’t the kind of person who looked at babies and thought they were all beautiful; in fact, sometimes I thought the exact opposite!”. This statement may seem at odds with Mia’s desire to become a mother, as it had been a long and arduous journey for her. “I had to force myself to ooh and aah over new-borns when they were born to friends and family. For me, it was different; I wanted a child, a family. I rarely thought about pregnancy, babies or breastfeeding.  I just used to imagine myself standing at the kitchen bench making school lunches, and having conversations with my child. That’s what being a mum meant to me”.

Mia and her husband discovered they couldn’t have children early in their marriage.

There were many tears, and years of sadness as they processed their aching grief in not being able to get pregnant. After eight years of infertility and going through the adoption process, they had a good understanding of what it would mean to become parents to a non-biological child, and what this might also be like for the child. Despite this, Mia had one nagging concern; “my biggest fear about adopting was that we would be offered a child, and it wouldn’t feel right. I naively reasoned that if you carried your own biological child, you would have some idea of what to expect! You would have an image in your mind of the child you had created together, and you would be developing a relationship with your baby during the pregnancy. In my mind, adoption meant we had no idea what to expect, and there would be very little preparation, as adoptions, when they occur, happen suddenly. Even though I really felt adoption was the right choice for us, the unknown was terrifying”.

However, Mia and her husband had been told by adoption services, that the possibility of being offered a child was slim, because there were, now, so few babies requiring adoption. It was a huge surprise then, that only a few months later, “we got a call from our social worker, out of the blue, telling us that we had been chosen to adopt a 10-day old baby boy”.  

Mia’s excitement about meeting their new baby boy for the first time, was mixed with excruciating anxiety as she entered the nursery of their local maternity hospital to meet him for the first time – “we were told that he had just been fed, and was lying tucked up in a cot on the other side of the room.  As I walked towards the cot, I really had to summon up as much courage as I could, to peer inside. It seems crazy now”.  What waited for Mia was the biggest and best surprise of her life – “he was all swaddled up with just his little face visible, and honestly, I am not kidding, when I finally looked at him, he was truly, truly, hand on heart, THE most beautiful baby I had ever seen! That night my husband and I could not stop talking about him, and it’s fair to say, that we have never really stopped!”.

As Mia fell head over heels in love, she came to realise that this baby was not a child she had just met for the first time.

He was a child she had been holding in her mind, and heart, for the longest time. This baby had, in fact, experienced a long gestation; at least eight years. Psychologically, we know that the attachment process for intending parents, begins during the preparation for adoption and the waiting period, well before the physical presence of a child. As adoptive parents envision their future child, they begin to form an emotional connection with the idea of becoming a parent. This lays the foundation for a deep and profound attachment, that will continue to evolve and strengthen as parent and child finally meet, and begin their lives together.