It's an odd title for a post but after a long hiatus caused by the summer holidays, my starting a new job (yes, I'm going back to work) and my Mum being in hospital for an operation, I thought it was best to start a new month on a positive note.
Then I realised that this would be my three hundredth post. Wow! 300 posts over three years.
I decided that was something to be proud of. Watching my little blog grow from a few readers each month, mainly friends who knew us, to a few thousand from all corners of the globe.
I completed a book version of our story, hopefully it's different enough from the blog, and managed to secure a really lovely literary agent almost immediately, which I'm also very proud of. Whether it goes any further rrmains to be seen, apparently adoption is a hard sell, so the publishers tell us, and as for gay adoption, well, the supermarkets wouldn't stock it, so that won't do - those have been the rejections from publishers we have had so far. But, on the plus side the editors all love the writing style and the story, it's the marketing people who reject it. So I can be proud of that. As my agent put it, I just need to find that one editor who is stronger than their marketeers and believes that readers aren't as homophobic as supermarkets are, apparently. When I showed my friend that rejection she simply laughed and pointed out the fact that 'erm.. Gay people use supermarkets too.'
This year has seen us signing contracts to produce a possible play version of the blog as well as seeing a pilot TV script, which is now being shown to those in the know. Again, I don't know if anything will come of it, but the pieces I've read so far have been beautifully written (not by me I hasten to add) and I'm really proud of that as well.
As we approach this year's National Adoption Week, which seems to be in disarray after the shocking collapse of BAAF and where last year, this blog, and some other work I do with BAAF and other children's charities promoting 'Families that are different' in primary schools, saw me winning the title of Adoption Champion, which I'm still surprised by and proud of, I was thinking of how we could change the adoption week format to include those who have already adopted.
And then it hit me.
Pride.
Just as the LGBTQi community celebrate Pride in who they are and their achievements in cities around the world, surely we as adopters and our families are entitled to take a day where we can look back at our lives as an adoptive family and say, 'yes, I'm proud of what I have achieved' without feeling guilty or focussing on all the negatives and hardships that often fill our day to day lives but just to sit down, raise a glass to ourselves and celebrate 'Adoption Pride'. Perhaps that could be included within National Adoption Week, amidst all the pictures of children and Lorraine telling would be adopters to sign up.
After all, we all have plenty to be proud of.... We only have to look at our children to realise that.
