Our little boy joined our family through adoption in the autumn of 2020 – we call him our ‘Gem’. We were going through the process when lockdown began. That was really difficult, because it felt like, very suddenly, our support network had been stripped away from us. It’s so important to have the people who love you and who you can rely on during the ups and downs of assessment and waiting, so to lose access to that overnight was a real challenge for us.

When Gem came home, it did feel like the restrictions worked in our favour a little. It gave the three of us time to bond, to truly get to know one another and to settle into the new rhythms of family life. But I felt the absence of people I could talk openly and honestly with. It felt awkward to share about some of the challenges we faced in those early days over the phone; I wanted to be face to face but couldn’t.

Throughout it all, I felt the need to find a way to release what was going on inside me, and poetry became that way. I used to write a lot when I was younger and picking up the pen again allowed me to process and express what I was experiencing.

In the year leading up to meeting Gem, I was writing about five or six poems a day. I started sharing some of them, just here and there, with different people. The response I kept receiving was, “You need to do something with these!”

Our son had been with us about six months when I decided to write a book. I went back over the collection of poems I’d written over the past few years, and decided which ones to include. There’s one from when we were waiting for a date for our panel meeting. There’s one from the day we met our son for the very first time.

As soon as I decided I was going to write the book, I knew I wanted any money it brought in to go in some way to support and care for other children in care. I initially contacted our local authority who we adopted with first and asked them if there was a way to support them. Unfortunately, they told me that they couldn’t guarantee the money I donated wouldn’t end up in another area of the council, like funding a new car park – I wasn’t sure how I could explain that to people who purchased the book!

I had known about Home for Good for a long time, and as I was considering where I could donate, three different people mentioned Home for Good to me out of the blue in a conversation. It felt like a little nudge from God, so I got in touch and came to the decision that every penny made from the book would be donated to Home for Good to help find a home for every child who needs one.

Writing this book has been an incredibly healing process for me. It gave me the opportunity to grieve not being able to have a child by birth, it helped me journey through that, and it created space for my now-son to grow in my heart. I really hope that the words I’ve written will encourage anybody who is in any kind of season of waiting to know that it’s okay and it’s important to allow yourself to feel, and to understand that out of feeling comes healing.

We are so thankful to Laura for her generosity! To find out more about Laura’s book and to purchase a copy, contact [email protected] or visit her Facebook (Penned in love) and Instagram (@penned_in_love) pages.