The Lady Behind the Stork.......

Hello!!! My name is Gem aka.....  

Three Become Four.  

 

These days I'm a stay at home mum. I'm what is politely termed a Geriatric Mother which I find slightly offensive (take note medical community)!

My husband, otherwise known here as Daddy or TCM (This Charming Man - although he thought it meant The Cookie Monster so I'll leave you decide which one you want to think of him as!) and I have been together for 26 years.  We live in the south of the United Kingdom.  

 

Professionally

I am a trained counsellor, specialising in working with young people.  In my most recent role I was also a trainer and teacher for Sex and Relationships Education. I love dancing and am a keen tap and Mo-jive dancer and yoga enthusiast although a Vitamin D deficiency has resulted in me having chronic fatigue and I've had to take a break from my exercise pursuits for a while.  I am also a Reiki Master and Angel Healer which is a great passion of mine.  We have spent the past 2 years totally redesigning and extending our house and have recently moved back home again.  I now have my own healing room and will soon be able to restart my Reiki practice which I aim to build over the coming years offering Reiki treatments to humans and animals).

In 2011 I became a Champion for the BAAF and am passionate about promoting adoption because many people are put off by negative and often quite scary stories. More recently I have become an Adopter Voice Adoption Champion for Adoption UK working alongside my local authority to improve local adoption services.

Personally

TCM and I tried to start a biological family for nearly 15 years.  After losing 10 babies to miscarriage, and more heartbreak than we could have imagined, we decided to complete our family through adoption.  After an intense year in 2009 being assessed as adopters, we were approved to become adopters in December 2009 and matched almost immediately with our daughter, Katie, aged 2 years and 3 months when she joined our family.  Our lives were transformed beyong recognition in the space of two weeks!  In 2012 we decided to do it all again and Katie's brother Pip joined us aged 7 months in 2013. Our family was complete.

This is my family!

Daddy (TCM)



and 

 

Katie  

and Pip

We have two furry Maine Coon members of our family......

Leo and Willow

 The "Life With Katie" Blog

I initially started my blog as a way of keeping friends and family up-to-date with our introductions with Katie but decided to keep the blog going as a record of our lives together.

I share my blog to help adopters and prospective adopters get a sense of what our life is like as adoptive parents and to keep myself sane as I try to understand the challenges that being an adoptive parent brings. I also hope that, one day, this blog will serve as the story of Katie and Pip's life so I can offer them memories and a sense of their childhoods, something which is very important to adopted people.

I love connecting with other adopters and bloggers through this blog and Twitter and Facebook and receive emails from many different people who often share their adoption stories with me. "Life with Katie" almost has a life of its own now.

What are we doing now?

We are enjoying (mostly) life as a family of four which is definitely still a work in progress.  Life has definitely settled into a sense of normality now although Katie's recent diagnoses of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) are bringing new learning and new challenges every day.

Four definitely won't become five though (unless you count all the cats) because I know I've reached my parenting limit and my name definitely isn't Ma Walton!