What Drew You To The Children?

That was the question we were asked at the ill-fated meeting I have written about in previous blog posts: Under Repair and When Things Go Wrong It was a weird question for us to be asked because of how we had come to be provisionally linked to the children. Even stranger was that the person asking us was the person who approached us about the children before we were even approved to adopt. It was a question that we floundered on, that we failed to answer or even give a half-hearted response to. Many prospective adopters who have been linked to

The Introductions Experience

Introductions are a very strange part of the adoption process. They are the final step before you become full time parents. You are taken so far out of your comfort zone that there really is no going back to it, yet at the same time you seem to be required to behave like well-rounded, calm, experienced parents. You also have to put your trust in the foster carer who has the child or children you are being introduced to in their care. It’s fairly normal for you have already met the foster carer, whose house you are going to be camped

When Things Go Wrong

In the current adoption climate adopters being linked with a child and then having that link severed is becoming all the more common. I’m going to revisit the worst part of our adoption journey from a less emotional point of view, in the hope that our experiences will help others that may be going through the same: The time when our provisional link fell through and we managed to retrieve it again. During our adoption training we were given the impression that there are 3 fundamental things which will help lead to a more stable adoption: Communication, honesty, and trust. The three things

What Happens Next?

So, we have our children Placed with us. That’s the technical term ‘Placed’ – as in they have a Placement Order so they can be Placed with prospective adoptive parents. Yes, that’s technically what we still are. When does that change? The answer to that varies depending on the age of the children, how settled they are, and what your personal circumstances are. The children need to be Placed for a minimum of 10 weeks before the prospective parents can apply for what is called an Adoption Order. This is when the case goes to court and if successful the

And so it continues…

A few more observations: 9. Driving on a dual carriageway (highway for those of you across the pond) whilst doing a full family rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (with actions for the non-drivers) is a common occurrence. 10. Replace Twinkle Twinkle with any other nursery rhyme/song and repeat point 9. 11. Associating video with audio from a different source is learnt behaviour, young children just don’t get it. 12. Proper names of parents no longer exist. Forget them and go with the parental titles instead, regardless of whether children are actually present. Unless of course you want to be

Introductions

Introductions have been an amazing experience. Wonderful, exciting, nerve wracking, and tiring. One thing is clear though, if you have a good foster family helping you things go a lot better than they otherwise would. Introductions are customised to the age of the child/children that you’re being introduced to. Younger ones tend to have a shorter period, older ones slightly longer. Sibling groups longer still but again depending on their age. They are structured so that the first half is based at the foster carer’s house with them showing you the routine that the child/children is currently in, and slowly

And so it begins…

Introductions are over and we are now in full Parental Responsibility mode. Before I say anything about the introductions in general I have a list of observations. 1. Get used to drinking formerly hot drinks cold, or only half of them, or not at all. Certainly get used to searching for randomly placed cups with full or half drunk drinks in them once the children are in bed. 2. Children somehow generate crumbs. Even if they have not had anything to eat, they are just there on the carpet inexplicably. 3. Forbidden things are nectar to children. Nothing is sacred,

Introducing Introductions

One year ago today we officially got accepted onto the adoption agency’s books, and entered The Process. One year later we met our children for the first time. From the outset it was clear that the foster carer had been preparing them for meeting us and the first words spoken, fairly unprompted, by one of the children was “It’s Daddy and Dad”. Definitely heart melting! We only spent a couple of hours with them today, and an amazing couple of hours it was. We saw a little bit of foster carer discipline which was very good to see, did a

Matching Panel

So, just before being able to write a post about Matching Panel I was “advised” to stop writing my blog publicly. This post is the first one I’ve written since then and is intended to be privately published. Despite having been “advised” for a good 10 minutes about why I shouldn’t write it I am still unclear on the precise reasoning behind it. Anyway, we had Panel. We were asked a few questions about how we will cope, including about recent losses and how that will affect OH. We were asked about how we would deal with questions about birth