Not booking trips

I've been considering a work trip for October and wasn’t sure whether to go ahead with the planning or not. I didn’t want to arrange the whole thing, book tickets and hotels and whatever else and then have to say to work “sorry I have spent all this money on this trip and I can’t go because I’m going on adoption leave”, but I also don’t want to let our lives (in and outside work) grind to a halt on the possibility that we may be matched. So I rang Miranda to ask if she thought it would be OK to book it. At the end of the day, both Miranda and the social worker who did our second opinion interview have told us repeatedly how because of being a gay couple we should be prepared for a longer wait once we were approved. Miranda’s response when I asked what she thought about booking the trip was “I wouldn’t do it”. She said that as long as we’re still considering two children then we may have a shorter wait, October is six months away, and she thought that left quite a gap in between for things to happen. I rang Glen and told him and we didn’t know how to take her reply. Is she planning something and not telling us? We found the possibility both exciting and scary! Of course if come October we’re still waiting I’ll be most unimpressed that I won’t going on this work trip.

On Friday we filled in the evaluation form we were given asking for feedback on the panel experience. We mentioned how nice most people had been and made a couple of suggestions of how we thought the experience of going to panel might be improved. We both reflected on how different our responses would have been if hadn’t been approved...

Glen spent Saturday on a Beavers training course. He’s going to become a Beaver leader! The current leader is leaving, and he’s been asked to take on the leadership.

It’s a safe and regulated world we live in

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that when we were out playing with the kids at the school field, the teacher brought out their sun lotions. Each child has their own. If a child hasn’t brought their own sun cream then they are encouraged to play in the shade, but they cannot be given another child’s sun lotion, in case of allergies. Moreover, you can’t apply the cream on the kids. You spray it on their arms and legs and they have to rub it in. Then you put some in their hands for them to do their faces. All this to avoid any possible accusation of touching a child.

I don’t know whether (once / if we have a child) I think I would feel safer about my own child(ren) being “protected” this way or just sad that if my child(ren) didn’t have their own sun cream they couldn’t play in the sun like everyone else without running the risk of getting burnt... Maybe it’s a generational thing, or a cultural thing.

Catching up with our fellow adopters

We met R&A last Friday for drinks. G&S were there as well. R&S, the third couple that make up our local adopters’ group couldn’t make it as it was all decided at very short notice. It was meant to be a quick drink round theirs, but we ended up staying nearly five hours while we caught up with everyone’s stage in the process and R&A showed us pictures and video clips of their little girl. They started introductions last week and their little girl should move in permanently this Wednesday. They told us everything they could about the linking, matching, and introductions process (some of it is obviously confidential and they can’t tell us) and they showed us the nursery they’ve managed to set up and decorate in two weeks. R&A were beaming, with smiles as wide as their faces. They are really happy and everything seems to be going really well.

One thing that almost surprises me is that we are genuinely happy for them. This may sound awful, but I feared that when one of the couples in the group was matched, the other couples would be unable to avoid feeling like “why them and not us?” But that hasn’t happened at all. Of course we’ve only been approved for just over two weeks, so if we had been waiting for several months it might be different.

Today I was back at the school where I volunteer. It was a lovely, sunny and warm afternoon so we spent the whole time outside playing catch, throwing balls, painting with water... we all had a great time. I told the teachers the news that we’ve been approved and they were worried that that would mean that I wouldn’t continue volunteering, which was nice to hear, but I intend to continue until we have a match. I really enjoy it and Glen really enjoys his Beavers work as well. Today he’s been arranging stuff to do with them for St George’s day as well as a visit to a Buddhist temple (you can’t complain about diversity, can you?).

Good news for our fellow prospective adopters

Yesterday we had dinner with our small local prospective adopters’ group (two mixed-sex couples: R&A, one of the couples we met at prep groups, and G&S, two friends who started their adoption process a few months before we did). Both couples had good news to share: G&S have identified two sets of children that they are interested in and their social worker agrees that they would be a good match, so she is going to get in touch with their respective social workers to arrange visits if possible. There is even better news for R&A, who were approved after their panel was undecided and were left hanging around for about three weeks before the decision maker finally said yes: they are going to matching panel next week! We are so excited for them. They will actually go to panel just before us, so we will probably see them on the day. All this talk of panel started to make us a bit nervous about it, though.

Today Glen is on an all-day first aid course with the scouts. It’s part of his beavers training. He’s been doing a few courses and continues to go every week. He’s really getting involved and enjoying it.

Today we’ve received the letter from our local authority confirming the time of our panel, giving us directions, and asking us to reply confirming that we would like to attend the panel. We were under the impression that we would get a list of the panel members and we haven’t, though. We may ask about that, as it would be good to know who we will be facing.

Dinner with adopters and goodbye to one of "my" schoolchildren

Last Saturday S&J, the gay couple who live near us and we met at the New Family Social meeting in December (I mentioned them in a previous post), came over for dinner with their 6-year-old son. We had a great time and their son was very well behaved, curious, chatty, polite, and also a bit cheeky. They are a real inspiration to us and have clearly worked very hard to get to where they are with their son. They remind us that this thing we want to do is possible, which sometimes we need to be reminded about.

Today I went back to volunteering at the school after a few weeks away. The kids welcomed me as if I’d been missing for ages, and we had a great time making origami models. One of the boys is leaving the country soon and today was his last day at school, so it was a bit sad as well. It’s funny how attached I’ve got to the kids after 10 months or so. The group I see most is the top class, which means that they won’t be around for the next school year as they leave to go to “proper” school, and I will really miss them. I wish I could post a picture of them for everyone to see. Put together they look like a 90s Benetton advert, as each of them is a different colour, and they are the cutest bunch you could ever meet. If only I could get them to pronounce my name properly...

Nothing to report

I know it’s been over a week since my last post, but NOTHING’s happened since I last wrote. We had hoped that Miranda would have got back to us by now with dates when we can expect the home study report and for the second opinion interview (after all, it was all supposed to happen last week), but we’ve heard nothing from her. We don’t want to push her so we are waiting as patiently as we can.

In the meantime we are continuing with our volunteering. I was at the school on Monday. The topic of the week has moved on from “hearing” to “taste”, so we spent the afternoon talking about favourite foods, drawing them, and spelling them. We also played outside with huge wood building blocks, which was a lot of fun for the kids (OK, maybe me too). Glen’s still going to Beavers. This week they are doing electricity, so he’s bought some circuits, batteries and lightbulbs to make a demonstration. I wish I could be there to see it.

We’re also continuing with our reading. Glen’s reading “The Primal Wound” and I am reading “Building the Bonds of Attachment: awakening love in deeply troubled children”. I am planning to start a book review section for this blog so I won’t go on about them now, but suffice to say that they don’t make easy reading...

Hope to have some news to report soon!

Medicals, volunteering and NFS get-together

On Friday Glen and I filled in the forms to have our medicals done. We have read about people getting a bit worried about their medicals and indeed as I filled it in I kept wondering if anything in there would not be to the liking of the medical advisor. I think it’s unlikely, but of course it’s natural to wonder. I took the forms to our surgery and it turns out that one of their secretaries is on leave and the other off sick, so who knows when they’ll actually do anything with our forms. They really need to be done by January, so let’s hope there aren’t any delays. I do think it’s a bit strange that our local authority leave the medicals until so late. On the one hand I understand they don’t want you to spend the money (£73.86 each) until they are sure that they want to take you to panel, but on the other hand it leaves little room in case of delays. I know other local authorities ask prospective adopters to get them done earlier on in the process.

Also on Friday I went to the school where we volunteer and I was asked to help out with Class 3 (where the kids are either just 3 or still 2 coming up to 3). It was great to have the opportunity to work with younger children as I am usually with the 4 or 5-year-olds. I played games and read stories to them and worked mostly with J, who has CHARGE Syndrome. His face is somewhat deformed, he can’t walk or stand that well unaided, has a hearing aid and has to wear a bib as he drools constantly. His speech is quite hard to understand, but he is so lovely and so bright. It’s misleading, because when you first see him you feel pity for him and assume (mostly because of his facial deformity) that he will not be fully developing cognitively, but he is really on the ball, and clever. I really enjoyed spending time with him, but I have to admit that I wouldn’t want to care for him 24/7. In that sense, the fact that adoptive parents can (to a certain extent) choose what physical limitations they are prepared to cope with is really an advantage, as I’m sure J’s parents did not intend to bring up a child with CHARGE Syndrome.

Yesterday we went to the New Family Social gathering. It was a bit of a Christmas do as well and the kids and parents seemed to have a good time. We caught up with some of the people we had met last time we went, people whose messages we have read online, and also the couple that we visited last month. We also met another couple of guys who have adopted, live near us, and were really nice, which was great. Once again we came out of the meeting feeling really inspired by all these people who have successfully adopted and are getting on with their lives. It’s a really welcome shot of optimism about the process.

Had a call from one of our friends whom we named as a referee. Miranda is going to visit them this afternoon! Fingers crossed that all will go well.