After-panel thoughts

The letter from our local authority confirming the approval arrived by recorded post last Wednesday, exactly a year on from the first day of our preparation groups. It was really nice to see it in black and white. Although it’s felt like forever and quite a drawn out process, a year from prep groups to being approved doesn’t seem that long when you think about it. And we didn’t have to wait ages to get on the prep groups either, like other people have had to, it was only three months or so. When you compare us to the two straight couples we met at prep groups it’s not so different either. Both couples were approved last November, so it does feel like our process has taken a few months longer than theirs. But we did take a month or so to think about it after prep groups, though. And there was that break during the summer when I was working away. If we had gone to panel last February as planned it would have been more or less the same amount of time. And at the end of the day, what matters is that we are approved now.

Speaking of the couples we met at prep groups, as you may recall one of the couples, R&A, have been matched. They start their introductions in two days’ time. It’s so exciting. The other couple, S&R, came for dinner last Thursday. In contrast to R&A nothing at all has happened for them in the last five months. They’ve not even been sent one profile and they were approved at the same time as R&A by the same local authority. I guess it proves that no two couples are the same. They are getting quite frustrated about it, but there isn’t a lot they can do. We expect our wait to be quite long as well. At least we’ll know that it’s not because of being a gay couple, since other couples are also kept waiting for quite a while!

One really good thing at the moment is that we’re both feeling really positive. If you’ve been reading our story from the beginning you may recall that I used to worry that Glen was not as keen on adopting as I was. You should have seen his reaction when the letter confirming our approval arrived. He was so happy and excited. We were both expecting that after being approved we’d have an “oh my god what have we done?” panicky moment, but it hasn’t really happened. Which is not to say it won’t happen at some point... Of course we are sure that we want to do this and really looking forward to what lies ahead, but this is a life-changing process and it would be wrong not to wonder whether you really are prepared for something so major and so full of uncertainties. Like I say, so far we’re really positive, though. We’re going to be kept busy by work and the loft conversion while we wait anyway. And we should really think of making a list of everything we want to do before we’re matched with a child (or children), as we sure won’t have time to do anything after that!