Approved

Miranda rang today to let us know that the decision maker has confirmed the panel’s decision and we are now approved for 1 or 2 children, ages ranging from 0 to 7th birthday. The letter should arrive soon, although with Easter around the corner it may not be until next week. I can’t wait to see it in black and white.

In the meantime, the biggest consequence of this is that we can make decisions again! We know that being approved doesn’t mean that we will be matched or that we will definitely adopt, but we are being positive and assuming that it will happen, if only for practicality’s sake. This means that we no longer have to have hypothetical discussions that start with “if we are approved...” On Friday afternoon we rang the builder to confirm we’ll be going ahead with our planned loft extension to make some room in the house. And I may actually say goodbye to my rusty 12-year old tiny car and buy something with rear doors (really, a must for strapping children in and out of car seats / booster seats)! We’ve been saving for a while for this and the bank has agreed to extend our mortgage, so hopefully we’ll be able to afford it...

We spent Sunday clearing the loft in preparation for the loft conversion. This involved me trying to convince Glen that he needed to get rid of some of the stuff he’s been hoarding for ages. He says a lot of it could be in a museum one day (anyone heard of a “Museum of 60s/70s childhood”? They could come and take it all!). I just refer to it as “tat”. I failed miserably for the most part, but we did fill three huge bags with old clothes and a few things went to the dump and on Freecycle.

We’ve had lots of phone calls, emails, and texts from family and friends. The common theme (apart from the obvious congratulations) is the same piece of advice: go out, go to the cinema, go to the theatre, go to concerts, go on a big trip (well we just came back from one) and do everything you ever meant to do, because once you have children you’ll never go out again.