The Modern Adoptive Mummy

More rejections came over the following weeks, again twice getting down to a final 3. We took some comfort in the fact that we are good enough for serious discussion and we know that profiles are hugely popular. Ultimately, coming 2nd or 3rd is no better than coming 20th as the outcome is the same but there is some comfort in knowing you almost won. It would be nice if it was a case of 'try harder' next time, but there is no option to 'try' anymore as we are not directly involved in this early decision making and cannot really influence it. We always reply promptly and have our details sent promptly and our social worker chases profiles for us if we have heard nothing. Everything is being done for us and we are very grateful for such excellent representation. We like to think we are becoming harder and try to not be overly hopeful with any profile and have learnt the next step- receiving child profiles- can also mean absolutely nothing with regards to outcome. One s...

Don't you love a good metaphor? Hmmm... We last week we had four 'interviews' and no jobs came from it. We had started the week with 5 open links- a really happy place to be, 5 sets of social workers interested in us...the first rejection I have written about in the last post (and this was the hardest to take) and then through the week 3 more rejections came in. It is fair to say that last week was a hugely depressing week that proved that law of averages is total hogwash and we were, unfortunately, not the average. Hope just kept slipping from our fingers as the days went by. At times I am not sure how I dealt with the more petty things of life as it carried on around me. Alongside this my dog, Gus was getting progressively more blind worryingly quick (we had already been to a specialist about a cataract operation, this culminated the following Monday in an emergency rush to the specialist dog hospital as things appeared dangerously worrying- fortunately it wasn'...

I was halfway up the stairs cursing at the difficulty of glossing the woodwork after carpet had been put in (nearly two years ago) when the phone rang I didn't make it to the phone in time but recognised the number as my social worker.I called back, paint brush in hand as I didn't have anywhere to put it... She has been sent a CPR for two children we had expressed an interest in ( and been linked to) and wondered when we would be able to pick it up to read through and let her know if we were still interested. After some deliberation, I decided I could do it right then and swing by and pick Karl up on the way. This was to be the first time we were allowed to read- this was one tiny step closer in the process overall. These are only shared with people they are seriously interested in considering as potential parents. By the time we got there the social worker of another set of children had sent their CPR through for us to look at. this felt very positive and we were excited b...

The next link had our hearts racing- we had an excitable phone conversation over whether to enquire or not- we initially both said no due to the age of one of the children but neither of us could let it go- the interests of the older child were exactly ours and the fact that they loved singing and dancing and dressing up and crafting was too much to ignore. The more we read through the online profile the more excited we became- they seemed perfect despite a slightly older age of one of them (they were a sibling pair). And they were adorable, gorgeous little faces and the video showed them to be happy and playing well together- they seemed a wonderful fit for us and us for them. So I enquired and within ten minutes we received a link back! This only fueled the excitement. Later our PAR was sent, our social worker agreed they looked a good match and even more exciting, the children's background details (CPR- Child's Permanence Report) were sent to our Social Worker to read ...

One of the social workers at our agency sent us two profiles- meaning they had identified  interesting children for us to look at. One profile was a child we had been discussing, so we took this as a hint to enquire (we were declined).The other profile didn't open and we couldn't work out why. They couldn't remember sending more than one. Oddly, there was a profile was waiting for us under the heading 'shortlisted' when we woke up the next morning. This set our heads spinning! Had we been shortlisted for a child without enquiring? Had a social worker seen our profile and wanted us and shortlisted us? Was it a social worker who had already seen our profile and declined us for another child but felt they wanted us for this one? It was all very strange and confusing. the child had no name listed or picture, meaning they were likely going through an adoption order but most excitingly- they were a baby- a proper baby- they were around 6 months old! A baby! we had never...

The next disappointment came with an exceedingly cute face. This particular child did appear to have some behavioural issues due to past experiences but nothing that we couldn't research and work with. We received a link back almost immediately with this profile and our details were sent over. Our social worker called the child's social worker a few days later for a chat (she is very good, she often does this without us asking). We weren't aware that this chat was happening and Karl received a phone call, He had gone home early for something, it might have been as I was in a meeting. I  recieved a message from Karl to let me know our social worker was on the phone and that there was bad news and good news...I was naturally very impatient and was glued to the phone wanting to know what had happened. I took a phone call from Karl and he explained it all... It turns out the child's background was far more intense and the behaviours far more pronounced than had been w...

One reason I wanted to write this blog was to highlight the current adoption process- for friends and family and even strangers to understand the difficulties and above all the commitment needed to go through it all. As said already, the 'new' process is totally different to any published book I have read. The onus is on the adopters to find children. So you become obsessed. You have to be. On Obsession I log on to the website when I wake up and stalk it from 9am to 6pm. Whenever I can I am refreshing the page to see if new profiles have gone on. I have email notifications set up but experience has taught me that sometimes it updates on the site earlier than an email and sometimes the other way around. Sometimes the email notifications don't seem to work and several profiles can go on and still no email- so they aren't reliable. Why can't I just leave it and check it when I get home?  Experience has also taught me that it tends to be very m...