Adoption

It's a big emotional day but good luck on the next stage of your new journey :)
 
So then: move in day has arrived.

You'll be fine. I can see why people make such a fuss of parenting, but honestly, you just get on with it and often figure it out as you go. Humanity's survived well enough for thousands of years with very basic facilities and knowledge, I'm sure you'll be absolutely fine nowadays :thumbsup:
 
This isn't parenting.....it's parenting+. There are so many more things to think about when you know the journey your child has already been on before even meeting you.
 
I'm so happy to read others success. For us its going to be a bit of a longer process I think. We had our opening telephone interview with an adoption social worker a little while ago. It seemed to go pretty well and the social worker went away to present our file to her boss for approval to move forward. A few days later we heard they want us to wait 4-6 months which at the time felt like a kick in the teeth but a few weeks on I'm more understanding of their reasoning.

Having recently moved to a bigger house (so we have more spare rooms which we hoped would aid this whole process - more spare rooms meaning more options) they want us to have settled in before the home study starts. This makes sense but I'm hoping it wont take 4 months though we are still decorating and unpacking, but hope to finish by Easter weekend when the inlaws are coming to stay.

They also want me to loose some weight, I'm overweight certainly but was probably harsh on myself during the interview as I have put a stone or so on over the winter which I am disappointed with but only have myself to blame. But they never actually asked me how much I weigh or have they seen a picture of me. I'm not too worried about this as I generally loose weight over the summer as my cycling increases though with the house move I am behind on my usual progress. Im logging my weight weekly (2 lb lost last week) so hopefully I can demonstrate a downward trend over the next 4-6 months.

They want us to get more experience of being around children. I have been volunteering with children since Jan and I had intended to keep going until the summer at least so again I'm not worried about this. They said this will help with our support network as they were concerned that we live away from family and many of our friends as we have moved from the north east to the south east. That's all very well but I'm technically not suppose to be "friends" in the social networking sense with any of the parents whilst I am still volunteering. I guess I will have to make friends the old fashioned way.

Finally they want us to build up our savings. This is a little frustrating as moving has eaten a fair chunk of it. I'm hopeful this is more of a budgeting thing, i.e they want us to demonstrate we can budget for saving over the 4-6 months and hence afford a family with our new increase in outgoings (new more expensive house).

So a little frustrating but at least we have things to work on. We will probably try again in August/September.
 
I can understand your frustration, but the positive is it wasn't an outright No! it appears they just want a period of stability which it sounds like your working towards.
 
Can you believe....it was one year ago yesterday that we first met our little girl [emoji15]

What year it's been. So much has happened I just can't describe it but she's just so so special and makes us laugh every day.

Thank you again for all the support we received along our journey.
 
So glad to hear it has gone well :)
 
Still cant believe you hijacked my thread and didnt get a warning @Desmo :)

How time flies :)
 
Yeah, sorry about the hijack :D
 
Me and my husband are about to embark on the long journey to adoption. Being a gay couple we are told won't make any difference.

Have a social worker coming next week (18th) to meet us. They've said to allow 4-5 hours for it. I'm not nervous but husband is so nervous bless him.

They seem to think if all goes well, we could be matched with a child by this Christmas :eek:
 
Good luck :)
 
Good luck! We went from starting the process to bringing our daughter home in just over a year, and we had a 8 week break due to my Mum passing away.

Best piece of advice I can give is to just open up and go with the process. Remember they are not looking for perfect people (does not exist) They are looking for people with life experience. If you have any questions please do PM me
 
Thanks for the support.

We had our initial at home visit yesterday from the social worker. Probably spent about 3 hours with him. Told we will hear back within about 5 days whether we then progress to stage one. Although he didn't say much, he didn't seem to think there would be any issues at this stage.

Advised we would need to get our medical done ASAP and will need to find a local nursery where we can volunteer to get hands on experience with younger children.

We have phoned and got both organised for the end of this month, but just waiting for the go ahead hopefully by Wednesday.
 
Fingers crossed.
 
We had our initial at home visit yesterday from the social worker. Probably spent about 3 hours with him. Told we will hear back within about 5 days whether we then progress to stage one. Although he didn't say much, he didn't seem to think there would be any issues at this stage.
Good luck to you both :)

Get used to the visits....you'll be having plenty and they go on for a while. We spent hours talking to our SW but we got on very well and enjoyed the visits. You'll learn as you go through the process to just go with the flow as, at times, it can be quite frustrating but the more you learn the more you understand the whole process and why things are done the way they are.

@Sinead and I are very open with the whole adoption process and always happy to talk about it so feel free to fire away with any questions, either here or in private :)
 
Good luck to you
Been fostering on a permanent basis for 7 years here 3 boys in placement here very rewarding and very busy, especially with 3 boys from 3 different areas with differing rules!! Lots of meetings but it’s worth it
 
Thanks both for the support. It really means a lot.

Hopefully we will hear by Thursday if we are through to stage one.
 
After a delay of getting back to us, we are on to stage 1. They had absolutely no issues with us as a couple and happy to take us forward.

I’ve got my medical tomorrow and husband has his on Wednesday. A local nursery is going to let us volunteer a couple of hours a week to gain more experience of younger children. That should start within the next two weeks.

Now the tough stuff really starts
 
fireworks-620-x-3490_64373381-5056-b365-abb0e9fe00c0124c.jpg
 
^^^ What he said, or rather, didn't :clap:
 
Both medicals went fine and we sent those back with our formal register of interest which has been accepted. They couldn't believe how proactive we have been and reckon we are a month ahead of where we would usually be.

We are booked for our 3 days of adoption training on the 26th, 27th and 28th Feb and been sent our 12 pages of homework to start working through.

My aim is to have it done in time for training. Also in the meantime, the social workers will follow up on our references.


I'm now researching what I would be entitled too in terms of adoption leave.

It's all happening
 
Being genuinely committed like this it really makes a difference.
 
We are booked for our 3 days of adoption training on the 26th, 27th and 28th Feb
Get ready for the rollercoaster...it can be a very emotionally tiring few days.
I'm now researching what I would be entitled too in terms of adoption leave.
I'm pretty sure it is now the same as maternity/paternity leave.
 
Slight setback this past week.

We had got our DBS check all completed with the adoption agency. Got all 4 of our references sent back within 2 weeks and done our 12 page homework.

Then after the first day of stage 1 training days, they cancelled day 2 and 3 because the snow was apparently too bad to run the course ( it was absolutely fine and the course could have easily run)

Now because of the trainers annual leave then kids being on holiday, we've been told it could be 6 weeks before we can finish those 2 days off.

I was furious when she told us as that's all we had left to do before going to stage 2 but this is now going to push us back massively. Stage 2 training days were set for the end of April but we don't think we will have enough time after complete of stage 1 now
 
Sorry to hear that, not sure how I would deal with that kind of frustration.
 

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