And now we are official!

It seems like every post I have apologised for not blogging for aaaaages, but I genuinely do not get onto the computer very frequently these days, and only then to clear down my emails!

The rest of our lives is fun, noisy (quite often smelly) family life with a toddler in the house. This blog title is about us being official, because all those legalities are done now, he has our name, as well as an extra one we gave him for good measure. To be honest, though, we have considered him officially part of our family since he came to us and the little bit of paper has actually had less of an emotional impact than I otherwise thought it might.

We have had some hiccups, attachment related (or perhaps, just toddler related?!), and mostly on my side because I am the one away at work all day. I do find that hard, but just have to remind myself that it is nothing personal. Every so often I get a hug and a kiss and I'll take that as well earned!

We have had very few frustrations with the system in these last few months and I would have to say that pretty much all that we have had are court related. From ridiculous forms with guidance notes that don't match (the clerk subsequently told me that they changed the form but not the guidance notes) to another form that had no relevant option for us to tick so we were told to 'write whatever is relevent in the margin' - genius. Frankly, I am unsurprised that delays often are referred back to the court system because it is clunky and disconnected and just... a bit... vague.

I'm now at the stage where I meet people who haven't seen a toddler just turn up on the scene, who come across me as a mother of two and who don't need to know. That seems to be a little strange and I have to stop myself from leaping into the conversation with a bad case of 'too much information'. In the meantime, everyone who meets our two little men are charmed at their obvious fondness for each other and comment what wonderful brothers they are. That, to me, already sounds like we are getting there and I look forward to our little family growing up together.

I'm not going to pretend that I will blog again any time soon, lets face it I don't have the track record. I hope that perhaps a quick read of an adoption journey may be as much use to people as some of the fantastic, more in-depth, blogs that are out there, and perhaps I will be back with more as we reach the talkative stage! In the meantime, though, you can find me on Twitter @adoptiondiary and now I better go and update my blog description...

Meanwhile, in amongst the toys...

I just looked back at my last post, and our little one had only been with us a week. Now it has almost been two months and I wish I had a blogful of experience to pass on about tips and tricks for attachment, issues and how we dealt with them, and all that. Really, though, taking from our experience with our birth child, it has been no different than dealing with normal toddler stuff. Perhaps that is us being extraordinarily lucky, and we do realise that we have had a child placed with us that has no major underlying issues (although there are still some), but we haven't seen any spectacularly strange behaviour, or bonding problems. We have just had fun being a family, laughing a lot, pulling faces at spectacular nappies and having cuddles. I could go on a bit about the system of professionals that have orbited this little one and how they have missed, or misinterpreted, several things, but we are here now, we can see and we can help. We have our little one and he has us. That is all we wanted and we have been the happiest family this Christmas.

National Adoption Week - what a difference a year makes!

Last week we were in the midst of introductions, thoroughly enjoying it but mentally exhausted and, if I am honest, the fact that National Adoption Week 2011 would begin on the very day that we brought our new little one home almost completely passed me by.

When I did realise (and joked about it a bit with friends), it made me think of the 2010 national adoption week when we were only at the very start of the assessment process and had no clear idea of how long it would take. If you had told me then that I would be grabbing what time I could to write a blog page, leaving other half to deal with a messy lunchtime toddler, then I would have been astounded. Even had we been approved by now, I was expecting to sit for months and months waiting for a match.

I keep going back in my head to last week and the introductions. I was told that the transfer of attachment process (such a serious phrase!) was an almost magical process and it kind of was. Within two short (two hour) meetings, we had little arms reaching up to be picked up and a kind of resigned 'ok then' face when we changed nappies.  Within three days we were going out on solo trips, and four days had us home alone all day. Before the end of the week we all knew we were ready to be home and, frankly, we were all fed up with the driving, including the little one.  I can't tell you that we did anything special, because we didn't. We just hung out together and played.

And here we are, almost a week into placement and it is like we have always had this small person here. We haven't been inundated with check up visits by Social Workers, but they are on the end of the phone.  Thankfully our 8 year old loves his little sibling and is adored in return...

Again, I have shortened what could have been several blog posts into one but, you know, I would rather be playing with the little person in the other room...!

Two months later...

Imagine that title in a Jacques Cousteau voice...

Anyway, where were we?  Ah... that's right. Suddenly plunging headlong into a joint approval/matching panel. I've felt ever so guilty about not blogging. I could have, but suddenly got so superstitious about putting anything out there when I felt it could all go horribly wrong. So that's my excuse and here we are.

After the flurry of emotions on being told about littley, I think we went entirely the other way. Friends would get excited, and tearful, at our news and we were there, almost impassive. Everything we said, we qualified ("well, you know, if we get approved, if it all goes well, still subject to panel, obviously...") and I don't know if we even came across cold. The truth was, though, that we wanted this so much that we didn't want to open ourselves up to the rejection that might, still possibly, be there.

It got harder and harder, though, as we had to sign more bits of paper, see more people, see more details about our little one. We met the carer, sat in the home that littley was living in, and saw photos that made our hearts leap. Before we knew it, in our minds that small person belonged to us and no-one else.

So, when panel came, in the back of my mind I knew it was just a formality, but I still had my heart in my mouth as we entered that room with all those people. I don't know if they genuinely looked stern, but I had already decided they did so that was that. The questions were almost perfunctory, nothing we felt we had any problems with, and before we knew it the chair was offering us her congratulations and I was a bawling wreck. And that was before we had to do it again 5 minutes later for matching. It wasn't a day for mascara.

So there we were, panel had said yes. This big build up, the big barrier between us and our child was down, they were ours. Well no, hang on, they were ours when some supreme being had agreed and signed a bit of paper. In about two weeks...   Wha...?

I did know this, I knew I knew this, but that was still the worst two weeks of the whole process. We had comments such as 'well they almost never disagree with the panel' which obviously made me think that sometimes they DO, and what if they did with us...?  I still refused to tell friends that didn't already know until we had that bit of paper, so it gained almost more importance than panel.  When it finally came, I have never felt such relief.

Once we started to tell our wider friends group, I suddenly found a whole host of people who were either adopted themselves (three of them, who knew?) or had family who had adopted, or even people who had family who had children removed. Apart from this there were the friends who were clearly in awe of the situation and who are genuinely interested in the mechanics and real details of the process. I fear I have become quite the 'expert'. I also fear I have found another soapbox topic...

Which brings me to this week. This week we met our little one for the very first time. That moment when we arrived and a little face peered around the door frame will stay with me forever and every difficult moment of this last year or so vanished.

May I point out at this point that I do appreciate that having done this in a year or so might not make it sound very difficult to some people...

I now feel bad that I have condensed what probably should have been at least two or three or more blog entries into one - maybe I should have given more detail about the panel or about the introduction planning. But, a bit like the birth of our older child, we spent all those classes in the lead up to the birth worrying about the birth and not what came after. When you finally realise that what comes after is more marvellous than anyone could describe, then the pain of the process before suddenly pales into insignificance.

Thats a bit grandiose. Sorry.

Anyway, I will write more about the introductions because this process genuinely fascinates me. But that's for another blog. For the moment we are very, very close to our happy ever after ending!

And... whoosh.. it happens.

Last time I posted, we were in homestudy. We are still in homestudy. We thought we were in homestudy for a little while longer, then were prepared to reach panel some time later this year. We anticipated a little wait to be matched, but not too long, we keep being told how many children are waiting. Realistically, then, we were looking at introductions in the new year/spring.

At times, in the back of my mind, I even thought this was probably optimistic, as we are only now a little over a year since starting on this process. I thought we probably still had a lot more homestudy to do - exercises to work through, etc.

So, we are slightly surprised/taken aback/gobsmacked/amazed/thrilled that we are, apparently, now only weeks away from panel date. Even more jaw-dropping to us is that we had the extraordinary news that there is a real little person out there with an imaginary label on them saying 'Ours'. They want this little one to be with us as soon as possible (dammit, I want them with us as soon as possible) but we obviously have to go through the appropriate steps.

So here I am, one part of me waiting for it all to go horribly wrong and for something to get in the way, or for someone to say, 'Actually we decided you weren't quite the right family after all...'. The other part of me (after having some serious words with that other part and telling her not to be so defeatist) has already started to mentally catalogue all the toddler equipment and clothes we still have in storage. In fact, that part of me is already watching a pushchair on ebay, for shame...

Being slightly superstitious though, I'm not going to blog about this little one in detail just yet. I don't want to jinx anything.

On reflection, all these feelings aren't too different from the fears and worries and highs and excitement of being pregnant, as much as I can recall that. I remember wondering what I was going to think of our baby when I met him, what he was going to look like - and he wasn't anything like my expectations in the end! I should learn my lesson there.

Here we go, then. Off to panel. I will report... at some point...!

Oh, how we talked... and talked... and talked.

Finally. We started homestudy.

I'm not sure I can post in great detail about what the first session was like because we hit the 'massively personal' stuff square on. Oddly, though, far from feeling invaded, we relished the chance to talk and analyse, to reflect and project.

I don't know if ever two people seemed happier, talking about life the world and everything, it was totally self indulgent and very enjoyable.  I wasn't really expecting this! I was expecting angst and constant checking of how a traumatised child would be a world away from any of our experiences. In actual fact, we started to see that our experiences could actually help.

We were expecting more structure, perhaps, more of a checklist. What we got was a very, very, long chat over cups of tea. But, do you know?, I think that probably provided our SW with a far better picture of us, our personalities, our limitations, our experience.

I imagine the tough stuff is still to come, probably accompanied by tears! At least 10 more sessions, we think, probably more. But at least we are under way. I did a little happy dance about that.

A post about nothing

Because, nothing is what is happening! Still waiting for our homestudy dates although I hear tell that some of our peers from prep groups may have theirs... (pulls out 'hopeful face number 46')

In the meantime I have been reading, tweeting and reading some more. We have been getting the books out of the library as we didn't want to spend too much money on unecessary books and I had the intention of reviewing some of them on here. Trouble is, they go back to the library, we read more books, then I get muddled as to what was in which!  Lets say I will never make a satisfactory book reviewer...

We have also been telling a few people as we go along the way and they have all been very lovely so far!  We are also seeing friends who we told a while ago and the all start the conversation the same way 'So... how's the adoption thing going?' to which we inevitably answer 'slowly...'

Anyway, two months after prep groups here we sit. Fortunately we have plenty to be doing with a boisterous 8 year old in the house so we are not left to stew. Thankfully we are still very positive!

So, thats all about nothing from me. Here is hoping I get to blog about something more concrete soon.

Prep groups or 'how I learned to think different'

First of all, in a slightly ‘scientific paper’ kind of way, I’m going to start with a conclusion: Prep groups rearrange your head.

This is telling, even in the way I have approached this blog post. I haven’t dashed it out straight onto the blogger straight after the groups finished. I’ve cogitated, processed, sketched out my thoughts, typed them out away from the browser...

...and still I was really unsure what to write and it is probably why it has taken me a while to write it. And this is the nub of taking part in the group. All the information we went through is, to all intents and purposes, available to us elsewhere. We could have read it online, bought the books (we have actually read pages and pages online and, ok, borrowed the books from the library) we could have had the discussions on Twitter.

But the shared experience with other couples face to face, the exercises that tapped deep into the soul, the worst-case scenario bluntness of some of the questions slowly started to evolve the way we thought about this process. I’m not going to go through the exercises and the discussions we took part in one by one, because I really don’t believe that is the essence of what we have taken away.  In the interests of not seeming so airy-fairy about this though, some things we think we learned:

During part of an exercise looking at uncertainties with adopted children, we discussed how difficult it can be to, for example, diagnose autism in a young child if they are on the lower end of the spectrum. As all the traits were read out, they could have been describing our birth son. In fact, not long after, we took part in a teacher consultation for our son where the words ‘special educational needs’ were mentioned for the first time. Although an issue, we are doing something about it, we have practical steps forward. It occurred to me that we are already quite used to dealing with uncertainties and, although they will probably be more extreme in an adopted child, it is just a matter of doing your best by your child and planning a route forward. Suddenly a whole world of scary stuff was demystified a little and, yes, perhaps we will be willing to consider some children that we weren’t before the prep group.

We were lucky to speak to a few adopters and foster carers and, would you believe it, they aren’t saints with degrees in child psychology. Who knew?  I know, I know, it’s easy to put these people on a pedestal (and also wonder if the people running the course are just showing you their ‘superstars’) but they came with warts and all and it was brilliant. We all started to believe, just a little bit, that we could do it too.

Finally, one of the most contentious discussions was that of birth family contact. If I’m honest, myself and my other half never really had a massive problem with contact. We both come from fairly ‘scattered’ origins. Since it was introduced by the social worker as something we would have to look into, we have got ourselves as comfortable as we could be with the idea. That’s not to say we were totally sold, we had just considered it as something we ‘had’ to do. What was fascinating was to see everyone go through the discussions, go through the exercises, question the adopters that came and come out realising how contact could be a positive thing, where appropriate. There were many ‘I had no idea!’ discussions in the coffee break after that one. ‘What, you mean the birth parents aren’t all monsters...’ etc.

Of course I have to mention the other people who are now sharing their own journey with us. A more fascinating, lovely, friendly bunch of people you couldn’t hope to meet. Taking them away as friends is one of the most important results of this group. A ready-made local support network.

Finally, while we wait for homestudy, we need to read, to talk, to discuss, to read some more, to google, to discuss a bit more...  We were shocked to learn that potential adopters could be halted in the process during homestudy for not being prepared enough. I must admit I was slightly self satisfied, however, to have already read some of the suggested list. My one and only bit of smugness, in my defence!

Well, then, are we prepared? Not completely. Our heads are in the right place, though, and we are prepared to be unprepared. We’ll be OK.

What the...?

Well, off I trundled to the GP, happy as a sandboy. As blogged before, I was going to sort out contraception. I thought it would be an interesting conversation as I was seeing the doctor who referred us to the infertility crowd.

I wasn't expecting my every motivation to be questioned! Clearly the GP couldn't understand why we would go for contraception and why we wouldn't 'keep both our options open' while we were going through the adoption process.

I tried to tell her that we had crossed that bridge and that this visit was part of that. I started to get frustrated and upset that she couldn't understand (she was saying things like 'well, do you want to spend the next 10 years using hormones?' and 'I have never met anyone who wanted to do something like this') and I think she thought that I was getting upset about not having a baby.

Anyway, she has given me my 'options' and wants me to come away and talk to hubby.  Who agreed with me that she just couldn't see where I was coming from.

I don't know if I could have explained any better, I don't think I'm doing a great job now. I tried to tell her that adoption is our path, we have accepted and embraced that and I want to close that other door now. It is fair on no-one in this process that we may 'accidentally' get pregnant.

Sigh.

Still, when it comes down to it, it is my choice. I will be calling back to arrange a new appointment but, whoah, I wasn't expecting that...

Time to ponder what is 'normal'

As we are waiting for our prep group dates (application for formal assessment posted, referees provided, passport photos sent) it seems to be time to start telling people what is going to be happening, as the opportunity arises.

These quiet opportunities occur haphazardly. I have told 'almost strangers' because the moment was right yet I have not had the chance to tell someone who I chat with every day and would consider to be a good friend. I quite like this slightly organic manner of letting the information escape, because it gives me chance to digest everyone's responses, and these have sometimes been surprising.

The response that sticks in my mind most, possibly because it has come from two people now, is '...but can't they find you a 'normal' one?' The conversation up to this point has usually gone like this:
1 - adoption is mentioned
2 - there is a rapid show of interest
3 - I am asked if we are looking for a newborn
4 - I tell them all about the process and the children that are looking for homes and their inevitable issues and how this means we have offered a place for a child up to 4 years old and that we are starting to prepare ourselves for their particular needs, which are likely to be different than other children...

...and this is when the 'normal' phrase came out, in both conversations.

It has made me stop and think, a lot.

Firstly, I'm not upset with these people, I'm taking the chance to explain, but it really brought it home to me that there is very little understanding of adoption and what it really means these days. Also, I'm quite aware that very few of these children could be considered 'typical' but branding them as abnormal really jars.

To be honest, under many definitions, our existing son is not 'normal' and, frankly, I like him just the way he is, but I do think that these days we are often too quick to define and pigeonhole.

And here is where I dither off in my thoughts, without a conclusion, just something to ponder - what is 'normal' and why is it so precious an ideal to people?

A little phone call!

It has been a while actually, but the phone call came and, as if there had been no third degree, we were told we were going forward and we would be invited to prep group held in January.

Well.. I say off we go to prep group, we have been told vaguely when it is but since then, we have received an envelope asking us to send some more forms so that we can go. Personal referees,etc. Even though we don't know when it will be. Not to worry. I will not question, I will do as I am told.

This weekend will be form filling then! And considering who to ask to be personal referees. The form says that at least three of them will be visited!  I didn't know that. Gosh.

Finally, referring back to a previous post, I have made my appointment with the doctor for the bizarre experience of going back onto some kind of contraception. Now that is going to be an interesting visit, since the doctor I have booked with was the one that referred us to infertility clinic. I wonder if she will want to know what happened?

Onwards and upwards!

Dear SW - We really, honestly, truly can afford it. Truly. Honestly.

'The team' had their initial visit meeting and loved us. Despite loving us, they have more questions.

Will hubby give up work?

What adoption leave pay will I get?

When will our IVA finish? (we told them this already)

We wrote our own detailed breakdown of finances for the report and, I believe, proved that we have enough money to cope even if they found us a match tomorrow. Frankly, by the time that IVA finishes we will be lucky to have been matched at all anyway. Get us through the system now and by the time it is all approved and we are ready, we will have more disposable income than we have ever seen. This isn't a maybe - it is an absolute date that is all legal and stuff...

I still think they are thinking that the woman is staying at home and the husband works, you know. We have planned that hubby takes the leave as he only works 16 hours and statutory pay is about the same.

<insert big sigh here> Oh... I *know* they have to dot every i and cross every t, but I want them to do it really understanding us. If they make an informed evaluation of the facts and decide we have to wait, OK - I've already said that I am happy to wait if I must. I just really worry that they are misunderstanding us and I want to be able to stand in front of them now and explain.

So, I wrote an email. I have read it several times now before sending - it is proofread beyond all reasonable doubt. It is considered and balanced and worthy of forwarding to anyone who is there to make a decision. There are no excessive exclamations, a lack of desperate pleading and a straightforward statement of the facts and our intentions. It is good. Is it enough?

I don't know. I have pressed 'send' and crossed my fingers.

Smiling...

We had our second meeting with our SW yesterday and we already have our first report back to read over in time for us to be 'discussed' at the team meeting next week.

What can I say? It is lovely, so lovely. She has written some very wonderful things about us, about our son - it is really positive stuff.  The finances were raised, but we have written our own report which has been included and her comments are that we appear to have this well under control.

Really, who else gets the chance for someone to come in and give you such an independent overview on how you are doing as parents?

I'm going to be smiling for ages...

First visit and a potential spanner in the works?

We had our first visit and, if I'm honest, it felt a bit like hubby and me were a bit of a double act. I've never had to talk about myself for so long and, by crikey, we do digress the pair of us...

It turns out that this is first visit part one, part two will come soon when the Social Worker will meet our son.

Was it what I was expecting? Probably, just a bit of a fact find on her part, trying to understand our motivations, whether we had really looked into all the options or not. We have to go away and write a bit of a history of our childhoods (convoluted, in both cases!) and email them over to her.

Did I mention that potential spanner? We knew that honesty had to be the best policy (assuming that getting 'found out in the end' on anything would always be worse than being upfront in the first place) so we immediately told the SW about our previous debt problems and that we are in the final stages of an IVA (takes deep breath - that was some major sharing with you all there!)

I'm not sure she knew what an IVA was, and I think it was the scary word 'insolvency' that might have done it, but she thought that the team would probably not recommend us to go forward if we had not completely finished it.

There were valid reasons for us getting to that situation, but this isn't an insolvency blog and, frankly, I'm going to have to write it up for the SW anyway, I'm not doing it twice!

We did go on to explain that, in actual fact, the IVA was the kick in the bum that we had needed to completely re-evaluate how we lived. We have regularly paid the money that we have owed over the last four years, not missing one payment, not getting behind on our mortgage. Instead of expensive days out we go on walks and train rides, do some baking or have movie nights in front of the TV. We budget properly, save up for things we want and actually feel that we have a better quality of life now. We have even embraced that wonder that is the £9.50 Sun caravan holiday and we love it!

We think we can prove that we have enough money each month to provide for an additional child and, anyway, the process is so long that we will either be out of the IVA by the time we get anywhere near matching, or be so close that it makes no odds. We do have to be prepared, however, for them to say "come back to us when it is finished" If that is what we have to do, then so be it.

Other than that, however, she said some really positive things about us as parents and as a family. While we described our son she said that he sounded very similar to some of the children that they have to place. He is a wonderful bright, sunny, kind boy but I have always wondered about some of his traits, that he may be on the very lower end of the autistic spectrum - without me voicing this the SW said the exact same thing. I am fascinated to see what she thinks when she meets him. She thought that this meant we already had a lot of the skills that would be required with some of the children that they have in care.

I haven't said this before, but I'm a bit of a blubber. Hopeless, in fact. I fully expected to be tearful today, I have been in the past when talking through adoption. In fact my only 'moment' was when we discussed how our son has dealt with the death of his grandfather just over a year ago. I thought that was probably forgiveable!

Spanner aside, then, a good meeting and a lovely SW, thank goodness. There may be more waiting than I was hoping for, but we are on the path finally.

What was I saying about waiting...?

That'll teach me.  All settled in for a nice long wait until after Christmas for our first Social Worker visit and... BOOM! Appointment for next week!

Already anxiety over what I say and how I say it has set in. While settling on a time for the meeting (could take up to four hours apparently?) I said that I didn't need to check with Hubby, I knew he would be in because "...he is the Mum" - it is a bit of an in joke in our house that he phoned someone up once and said "Hello, it's xxxx's Mum".

Now I'm worried whether I should have said it like that to the Social Worker before she has even met us! There was a bit of a gap after which she then said 'Oh he is going to stay at home, is he?' which makes me wonder if she has read our forms yet and perhaps doesn't know of the existance of Son.

Anyway, roll on next week and four hours of laying out our very souls for examination!

It's National Adoption Week!

There is some great press getting out there for National Adoption Week and I have been able to read some inspiring stories. I thought I should blog during such an important week, but blog what?

We are waiting, waiting, waiting, not even on the first rung, what could I possibly blog about? Then the lovely Twitterette @jinxi1 suggested some eminently sensible topics and it came to me that a summary of even such a short time as a prospective adopter would be useful. After all, it is becoming clear to me that 'waiting' is the very essence of the adoption process for a while!

So where is my head at? We ran full tilt at the process as soon as we knew it was something we wanted to consider and now it feels a bit like running through glue. The rest of the blog lays it out but to cut a long story short we have filled in our first forms and are waiting for our first visit. It isn't likely to happen for a few months. Surprisingly, though, I don't feel that frustrated any more. Instead, I feel a bit like you do when you leave your most favourite food until last, just to eke out the anticipation.

I apologise if you think that comparing a child that needs a home with a plate of food is somehow wrong, but what I'm trying to get across is that I know that there is potentially the most wonderful experience over there on the horizon and it's nice just to look at it for a while before I start moving towards it.

You can, of course, remind me I said this when I'm having a rant in a few months, by the way.

It isn't my head alone that I am talking about either. There is my wonderful, patient, caring hubby - already a fantastic stay at home Dad to our 7 year old son. I know that the two of them are going to deal with it just fine, as I have witnessed this conversation between them:

Son: 'lets talk about adopting a brother or sister'
Hubby: 'well, you know it might take a while, don't you, years even - it's not like going down to the supermarket where they have bar codes on their bums - "bleep - £10.99 please"'
Son: (much giggling)
Hubby: (mimes waving children at a barcode scanner a bit more, with slightly more frantic sound effects)
Son: (now actually laughing out loud) 'no... it's not like that'

There is also a wider circle (not that wide just yet) of people who we have told of our plans. There has been no rhyme or reason involved in who we have told and when, just the right time, place... Perhaps this is why those few people have been wonderful, they are getting excited for us, with us. They realise we are sharing something very special with them.

So, we are ready to wait, because we can see the amazing stories of other adopters unfolding before us and we can only hope that ours will become an amazing story too.

And we have a timescale at last!

Firstly, I want to say how much it means to follow everyone's comments and Tweets. I have even been put in touch with a local adopter and spent a good while on the phone to them - it means a lot to be able to talk to people that have or are experiencing adoption. We have told a few people in our own circle now and they tend to use words like 'brave', 'noble' and 'admirable' - I'm glad they think so well of us but, really, I just want it to be normal. And, if I'm honest, I want to be able to have a little bitch about it now and again without feeling like I'm scratching some halo that has been placed on me.

I followed the advice from several of you and phoned the agency. I have to admit I used my son as an excuse (not very 'noble', eh?) and said that since we had discussed the adoption process with him, he was very excited and I wanted to be able to manage his expectations. I didn't want to hold them to any dates, but just wanted an understanding of the likely timescales. They were lovely. As it happens, then, they hope to get our first assessment done in the New Year, all being well get us to prep course by Easter and we should then expect home study in the summer.

I think that this is, therefore, another lesson to note down. Stop fannying about and just talk to someone and then problems that my overworked mind has built up suddenly become trivial.

Sorted.

Waiting... and a dilemma.

We are still waiting for contact from social workers to be allocated our first home visit. The twitterverse has told me that I should keep on them, so I probably will...

...in the meantime I'm batting a little dilemma around my head. On the joyous merry-go-round that was our fertility referral, they pretty much couldn't come up with much of a reason as to why we hadn't fallen pregnant again. There was particular scratching of heads as we had our son with no intervention, or any great delay in conception after the decision to 'go for it'. It's a little more convoluted than that (and involved some delightful tests, some of which were rather... chilly) but the upshot is that it is not outside the realms of possibility that I could still fall pregnant.

OK... it's pretty unlikely, after four years of trying, but it is possible. The dilemma is that to commit fully to the adoption process, I am going to have to head back to the doctors and talk about contraception. 

It really is such a minor thing, I imagine many people would think 'so what?' but one part of my head still thinks that the 'next time' could be the one. No matter how much I have embraced the thought of adoption, there is still this sneaky other voice telling me to delay that visit before I lock and bolt that door forever.

The sensible voice has put her foot down, though, and I have come to a compromise with myself. I'm waiting for the first appointment, waiting for them to tell us that they will continue with our application. Once they make that commitment to us, then I have to reciprocate.

Anyway, if I have to make that visit to the surgery, I will enjoy telling the doctor how rubbish the fertility clinic has been, I'm sure that she will appreciate that feedback if she is sending other couples (we were the first she had sent under some 'new rules').

Finally, I promise not to talk about voices in my head again - you never know when the social worker might be looking...

And so... we wait...

Wee received our first letter this week from the powers that be. They thank us for our completed forms however are sorry that they cannot allocate a social worker at this time. They will call us as soon as they can.

Cue raised eyebrows, reading of the back of the sheet to make sure we hadn't missed anything...

I understand that they are stretched and that we can't expect a social worker to turn up on the doorstep overnight, but there was not a hint of timescale to that response.  I don't know (I suspect) it is just a form letter sent out to everyone, perhaps they don't know the timescale themselves, but it leaves us in limbo and I imagine it is a taster of things to come.

I was pretty fed up. Then babies were brought in at work and I was more fed up. Then a friend finally had her baby and I was happy for her (then quietly fed up). I got on with my day being grumpy and then had a peek at Twitter. There was a lovely post by @adopting_dad talking about going to court and his adoption finally becoming 'official' today. It truly warmed the cockles... and I felt much better.

Lesson for this evening, then, is try to look at the bigger picture and focus on the prize (if you will excuse my buzzword bingo) - but I'm not promising I won't be fed up again some time soon.

Is that a learning curve I see before me?

Today I have been doing some reading about adoption and preparing siblings. And the reading has led to book lists and the lists to recommendations and podcasts and other blogs and... and... and...

A little while ago I had started to ask myself how our birth son (who is 7) would deal with a younger sibling, I was trying to come up with answers to any questions he might have before we spoke to him about it. I'm a bit of a detail person and, before long, I had started to stress the other way about how a new small person would deal with how many photos we have of our son, how many stories about him as a baby, about the family tree I have researched with him at the bottom of it. Every issue raised a question, every question an issue. At that stage we had only been to the information session and there I was tying myself in knots!

To be honest, I needn't have worried about him. In a bit of quiet time we had a little chat and he was beside himself with excitement, even talking about how when they were all grown up they would still be the best of friends.

But of course that started me off thinking about how we have to prepare him for it not to be easy, to talk about how they might be scared, or angry. And off I went on the merry go round of questions, issues, etc.

Which leads me to today, and the reading leading to more reading and more questions, etc.

So, I have come to a conclusion that I may as well accept that it is going to be a VERY steep learning curve, and I'm going to try not to sweat the stuff I don't need to sweat about just yet. And to try to take on board my son's attitude that it's quite an exciting adventure, actually, and imagine that future when they are grown up and best mates, just as he can see it now.