Zoe’s beautiful products help us celebrate our children and acknowledge that although they’ve had a traumatic start to their lives, they aren’t defined by that and are loved and celebrated by all of their family. They also help us say thank you to the wonderful social workers and foster carers who keep our children safe until we’re able to bring them home.

In this article, Zoe shares some of her journey to becoming a mum through adoption, and why she started Mumaduke designs. You can follow her on Instagram

I wanted a baby for as long as I can remember. When my sister and I were smaller, we often joked that I would have a house full of children and she would give birth to a monkey or some sort of animal.

I always had a doll, buggy and handbag! I couldn’t wait to grow up and have a  family.

When I was in my teens my aunty went through IVF and had twins. My eyes were opened then to the difficulties one may have in conceiving. I did used to say, if I have to have IVF, I will have twins too! Little did I know then that IVF doesn’t always work.

Skipping forward many years, I married the boy from the top of the road (true story!). We decided that we were ready to start a family. I’m an impatient person at the best of times, but waiting each month to find out if I was pregnant was hard. I knew straight away something wasn’t quite right.

Fast forward five long years, two rounds of IVF and no pregnancies, we started the adoption process.

Adoption

Adoption was a route to parenthood I’d thought about long before trying for a biological child.

We heard a radio advert for our local adoption agency. They were having a drop in event. So, we gathered our parents and headed over. Apparently it was the first time prospective adopters had brought their parents along! For us it was about everyone finding out the same information at the same time. It was also a chance for our parents to ask questions.

Our journey through the process was pretty straight forward. Our only hold up was one reference and overseas checks. From start to approval panel was nine months (the assessment should now take around six months). Any delays I found frustrating at that time were nothing to the feeling of being out of control and impatience when we were waiting for our match.

I took matters into my own hands and scoured Link Maker. We enquired about several children, but we weren’t the right parents for them.

Three long months later (I’m aware matching is taking a lot longer at present) we had a call from our social worker. She told us about our soon to be little boy. That night I slept, properly, and dreamt about him. Any concerns I had were laid to rest and as we found out more and more about him, the more he sounded like our son.

We had a very positive two weeks of introductions with Cub sleeping over earlier than planned. Then he moved in forever.

Being a new mum

Adjusting to being a mother took me longer than I thought it would. In hindsight, I put far too much pressure on myself and I do seem to look back and remember more of the tough times, mixed in with the wonderful.

We had a tough time with sleep for three years. I won’t go into now, or this will be pages long! I talk about it in my blog and will no doubt speak about it again. All has now settled down and Cub is generally amazing. So all our hard work has paid off.

A year into being parents I found myself feeling like I had lost who I was. I was everything I had always wanted to be, but surely I didn’t have to swap one life for another? I started hobbies such as crochet and sewing, which I loved. They gave me a bit of myself back. Me time. Which looking back was really me needing to look after myself.

Mumaduke Designs

One day, five years ago, I looked high and low for an appropriate card to send birth family. I went into 13 different shops and couldn’t find anything. So, I went home and made my own.

I then got thinking, I wanted a bauble with Cubs special dates on, and milestone cards specific to our journey. I couldn’t see anything available. So I chatted with a good friend and started getting Mumaduke Designs off the ground.

I started with prints celebrating adoption, then brought out the adoption milestone cards and then greetings cards. The last five years has been a huge learning curve. Every year I tweak the products I offer to ensure I am being as inclusive and respectful as possible.

Running a business with no business background at all hasn’t been easy. Everything is learnt from scratch, but I do love it. Hearing stories and messages from my customers is wonderful. I’m sometime the first person to know they’ve decided to adopt which is so special. So, thank you all for supporting me.

Cub loves my shop, he has stolen each of the sample teddy bears! He also wants to help ‘teach’ people about adoption.

I have virtually and physically met so many wonderful families through adoption and I couldn’t be more grateful. I am excited for the future, to learn and to see how Cub grows and develops.

Adoption hasn’t been easy, but I put a lot of that down to me being a first time Mum (I would also say a very anxious and stressed first time Mum). I have made heaps of mistakes, but I have also got some things right.

Community

As we say in our home, its ok to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them and always try your best. I am definitely stumbling my way through (I also don’t think I’m alone) reading books, listening to stories on Instagram and from friends. But I don’t feel alone. Not anymore.

Having a community around me has been vital. I have a blog about setting up your own adoption support group. In the early years of being a Mummy, I needed those other adoptive parents. Other families like us who understood.

I feel like I’m finally finding my feet. Getting a work life balance has been hard, but I feel I am getting better at it (famous last words!)

I can’t thank you all enough for your support and guidance over the last five years. I can’t wait to see where the next five takes us!

If you’d like to read more Small Business spotlight features, click here

That was over seven years ago and things have moved on a lot since then. There’s some wonderful small businesses creating gifts and cards to celebrate that families come together in so many different ways.

Over the next few months, I’m going to be introducing some of these businesses and the wonderful products they sell. First up is Jeanette from The Brave Bear Collection.

I have created a brand called The Brave Bear Collection. This is a collection of jewellery and gifts for those on their journey to parenthood through IVF, Adoption, Surrogacy. It’s also for those struggling to get there. Everything I’ve created has been inspired by reflecting on my own journey to parenthood. And what a journey it was…

After numerous miscarriages, surgeries and a round of IVF which left me terribly poorly, we re-evaluated what it was we were doing. We thought long and hard about why we wanted children. It turned out none of the reasons were for us to create small versions of our genetic selves.

We wanted a family. I wanted to mother and care for a small person. I needed more in my life as it wasn’t complete. My husband wanted to be a dad. He wanted to play. Have a little best friend and go on adventures. So we questioned why we were putting ourselves through that pain.

In November 2018 we attended an adoption evening and that was it. We had found our place in the journey to parenthood.

We found the social worker visits intense. But the whole time you think they are being so intrusive, you just have to have a little word with yourself… they are planning on giving you an actual child so it’s completely justified.

I am a really impatient person so the journey to parenthood as a whole didn’t suit me. However, the adoption process was manageable because we were always working towards the next goal. The next social worker visit, then panel, then matching panel, then family finding.

Our first social worker visit was in November 2018 and we went to approval Panel in March 2019. So for us, the process was quick. I think we were lucky to get a really good and thorough social worker.

After approval panel we looked on Linkmaker and also at a few different sibling sets through our local adoption agency. Then in May we got an email about a baby girl. It was set to be an early permanence placement.

I will never forget the moment I received that email. I just knew. I can still picture myself in my office reading the email. It was like the world had stopped and everything was just happening around me while I read it.

Our social worker came round with her profile and I don’t really remember listening to anything that was being said as I was just looking at her picture on the front of her profile. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

We went to matching panel and the match was approved. The first time we met was in the waiting room of a hospital as we were able to go with the foster carers to one of her medical appointments. I remember being so nervous on the way there. I didn’t know how to contain my emotions at the thought we could be seeing our child for the first time.

We walked in and she was laid in her pushchair, looking up at me with her beautiful eyes. The foster carer looked at me and just said “you can push her now”. I took the handle and burst into tears. It was such a huge moment that I had waited so long for.

Having to hand her back was one of the hardest things I have ever done. During introductions week we felt the same. It was such a rollercoaster of emotions. By the end of the week it was getting harder and harder to leave her. On the final night my husband turned to me with tears rolling down his face saying he couldn’t leave her. Thankfully we knew it was just one more night.

The day she came home was a mixture of emotions. Taking a baby away from everything they have ever known and people that loved her so much was so hard. Yet taking home the baby we longed for was everything. The male foster carer had been incredibly upset on the day we left. I will always remember him turning back in floods of tears as we left and hugging my husband saying “please take good care of her – I love her”.

As we left the foster carers I handed over some gifts for them and they handed farewell gifts to us. I found it so difficult to know what to buy them. What do you get the person who cared for and loved your child before you even knew them? This is where my business idea began.

When we came home I dressed my daughter in a baby grow I had to get made from ebay and personalised with ‘Wanted. Chosen. Loved. Adopted’. Adoption clothes weren’t a thing.

A few months later we got our final adoption order and were able to have an adoption celebration. There were limited adoption gifts available so I made our daughter a keyring as a keepsake of the day.

After reflecting on our journey to parenthood, I started creating the Brave Bear Collection. I remembered back to the day I found out I couldn’t have children. A friend of mine turned up with a card in which she wrote ‘The greater your storm, the brighter your rainbow’.

She said she didn’t know what to bring or write and hoped it was the right choice of words. It was perfect. It was the most accurate representation of how I feel about our journey. Our storm was long and hard but we never, ever take our daughter for granted. We appreciate every little thing.

This inspired me to create gifts that say the right words, when you don’t know what the right words are. I’ve been there and lived it so I know what would help in that moment. I had to come out of the other side of this journey and reflect on it to start creating the collection.

My business represents the unrepresented. It gives people the right thing to say and gift. At times when you don’t have the words I hope it provides them.

For anyone still on their journey remember nothing worth having comes easy.

My collection is available at www.bravebearcollection.etsy.com

As parents, we all have favourite outfits that we loved seeing our little ones wear. When you become an adoptive parent, those clothes hold a lot more than memories. They’re a reminder of the journey you’ve been on to find each other.

The clothing worn on the first day of introductions is so much more than material. The outfit will have been picked and probably bought by the foster carer. The amount of thought that was put into the outfit choice doesn’t matter. What does matter is the memories it will hold for you. A reminder of the day you became a parent.

So, what do we do with all these clothes that hold so many life changing memories? Keeping them “safe” in a drawer seems a bit pointless. The whole point is they evoke memories whenever we see them. So they need to be seen.

One of the reasons I created We Made a Wish, was so that we could sell clothing keepsakes to help keep all those precious memories accessible. My favourite in our collection are our keepsake blankets. We have one for each of the girls made from the clothes they wore during introductions.

Seeing the blankets takes me right back to introductions. Eldest’s in particular brings the memories flooding back. Her foster carer used a strong smelling fabric softener and even though it’s six years since she washed them, they still smell of it. As soon as I smell the blanket, it reminds me of the wonderful foster carer. That’s a lovely memory to be able to share with eldest too.

We sell blankets / quilts, cushion covers, initials and bags. If you have one particular item that means the world, we can make it into you little one’s initial or a bag for them to play with. The bag pictured below is made from the dress eldest wore the day after she came home.

If you’ve got a few more items, a cushion cover is a lovely option. We have cushion covers made of the clothes both kids wore for their first Christmases at home. I put them on the settees every year. Eldest loves looking at the clothes and then finding pictures on my phone of her wearing them.

Keepsakes are also a great tool to use for life story work. If you have the clothes your child came home from hospital in, they could be made into a blanket or cushion cover. That’s then a great starting point to talk about their early life, particularly if you know which member of birth family bought them.

Eldest loves looking at the photos from our introductions. She also loves that she can touch and snuggle into the clothes whenever she wants. It often starts questions about introductions which then usually leads to a conversation about her tummy mummy and her brothers and sisters.

Another great way of preserving the memories special items of clothing have, is to get them made into a cuddly toy. Once Upon a Time Keepsakes make these gorgeous bears from eight items of clothing. They’re a great, child friendly way of preserving the memories special clothing items hold for us.

I hope this article inspires you to get your treasured items of clothing made into something special that can be enjoyed by all the family. I’d love to hear about it if you do.

Cards and framed pictures

The shop started off selling a few card and framed picture designs. We have a range of designs created using either stars, hearts or butterflies. The rainbow butterfly card is the most popular design. All of the cards and pictures can have wording of your choice added. They make beautiful gifts and keepsakes to say thank you or congratulations.

Clothing and shoe keepsakes

We then expanded our range to include keepsakes to treasure the special memories clothing holds. We sell cushion covers, bags, framed shoe pictures, letters, blankets and quilts. They’re a great way of keeping special clothing and shoes safe. You can have a blanket or cushion made from special items of clothing. Or a special pair of shoes made into a framed picture. They could be your child’s first shoes, or the ones they came home in.

We have a blanket made from the clothing our eldest wore during introductions. She loves to look at it and knows its made from the clothes she wore when we met her.

New products

This year we’ve brought out a new line of prints, mainly for children’s bedrooms. These come as either physical prints and a few designs are downloadable making them perfect last minute gifts.

After a long time in the making, I created an adoption record book which was also added this year. It comes as printed pages for you to create a beautiful keepsake of your journey to becoming a family. Again, the only one I could find was an American one.

Reusable wipes and gift bags

We’ve also introduced reusable wipes and Christmas gift bags. I had no idea until recently that single use wet wipes contained plastic. We sell reusable wipes that are perfect for keeping your baby clean. They come in a variety of colours.

The range also includes reusable kitchen roll and fabric Christmas gift bags. The bags are perfect for using every year to wrap Christmas gifts. They are better for the environment, and for you as they are quick to fill and clear up.

Click here to see the full range of products.

I’ve recently added some new products to the shop so I thought it was a good time to do a post about what we sell. Everything in the shop is handmade. I make the cards, pictures and I created the downloadable prints. My very clever sister makes the fabric keep sakes. We have a range of design of card and framed pictures, all of which can have your choice of wording added.

Cards

We have a number of adoption celebration,thank you cards for foster carers and social workers. The most popular card design is definitely butterflies

Framed pictures
I love making the framed pictures. They make a unique and personalised adoption or thank you gift. They are made from stars and butterflies in a variety of different designs.

Keepsakes
Clothing can hold so many memories but we often keep them hidden away in a drawer or box. Having special clothes made into a blanket or cushion is a great way of preserving the memories they hold. We have a blanket made from the clothes our daughter wore during introductions. I always get goosebumps when I look at it because it takes me right back to when we met her. We make blankets, cushions, bags and filled letters

We also have framed shoe pictures. These can be the shoes your child took their first steps in. I’ve made a few to display the shoes a little one came home in. Whatever the occasion, I can do a personalised picture in a range of colours.

Downloadable Prints
A recent addition to the shop has been downloadable prints. They make great last minute gifts. You can just buy, download, print and frame in a matter of minutes. There are a few different options for the prints but if you’d like something specific, I can create a personalised design.

I’m currently working on more products and will hopefully be launching an adoption record book and announcement cards soon. The record book is for you to print off and customise to create a beautiful record of your family’s adoption journey. So, watch this space.