Anyway, as I said in my previous post, Lily came home forever on the 9th March 2016. It feels like a lifetime ago now and hard to believe we’ve been a family for 6 years already! If I think back to those early days it was a mix of bliss and hard work.

The first few weeks were very low key. We got to know every park (7 of them!) in our local area and if we weren’t at the park, we were at home playing and bonding. Daytimes were easier than the nights, except for when Lily would start crying and we had no idea why, and the crying would last a long time. She would look at me sobbing her little heart out but wouldn’t accept cuddles. I just had to sit beside her, reassuring her I was there until the crying stopped. For the first couple of weeks she tended to wake, screaming, every night around 9pm. Again, she would not accept comfort. The foster carer had warned us not to pick her up if she woke in the night but after a couple night’s seeing how upset she was, I just had to pick her up. The foster carer was right. Lily went rigid and the screaming became more intense which in turn upset me that I couldn’t comfort her. Still, I didn’t learn, and did the same the following night! I felt awful, we both did, and we began to wonder how we would cope if the intense screaming and lack of allowing comfort continued long term. Nevertheless, we went back to following the foster carers rule of not picking Lily up and it eventually paid off a month or so later when she would mostly sleep through but wouldn’t be so upset if she woke.

Looking back, Lily was grieving for her foster family but couldn’t tell us that because she was only 13 months old. We persevered and gained Lily’s trust and that bond eventually came, and she started accepting cuddles from us when she was upset. Fast forward to now and she is a tactile little girl who loves cuddles all the time and not just when she’s upset.

We followed social services advice not to introduce Lily to ‘outsiders’ too soon and to do it slowly. It was hard when family and friends all wanted to meet her, but it was definitely the right thing to do as it allowed Lily to form a bond with us first and meant she wasn’t overwhelmed. She met my mum after about 4 weeks, then my mother in law a week or so later, followed by a close friend and our siblings. We started introducing extended family and friends a few months down the line. I would say to anyone in the early days of placement now, if you can introduce people slowly it will help to not confuse your child or overwhelm them, and allow for you to have a more secure attachment with them so they know you’re their safe space should they feel uncomfortable at any time during those introductions.

Life beyond those initial weeks, after Mr R had returned to work, was filled with more trips to the park and eventually attending a local toddler group and meet ups with friends. Of course our time was also filled with monthly social worker visits and review meetings (3-monthly I think). Thankfully Lily’s social worker had no concerns and everything was going well. We had our difficult days but those were outweighed by the good days. I know we were lucky and that not everyone has the same experience when their child is placed with them. Looking back, it was about the 4 or 5 month mark that I can honestly say we had a secure attachment with Lily and she knew we weren’t going anywhere.

In the week between matching panel and introductions starting, Lily’s foster carer, Debbie (not her real name) emailed every evening to let us know what Lily had eaten that day, what groups they’d been to or activities they’d done, and how she was in general. Debbie sent us some photos of Lily to put up in our home, and a picture of her and her husband to put somewhere at Lily’s eye level; this helps the child(ren) to know that the foster carers are still around and haven’t just vanished from their life. Following matching panel Debbie had been given, to start the transition period with Lily, the Lamaze butterfly (if you can get hold of one it’s brilliant, but sadly I think they’ve been discontinued) that we’d recorded messages onto with our pictures, some individual photos of us and our cats, the DVD¹ we’d made introducing ourselves and giving a tour of our home (actors we are not!), and a special soft toy² we’d bought for Lily.

As much as we wanted to get started with introductions it was nice to have that week to prepare and get any last bits that Debbie had recommended, and to make sure we got plenty of sleep!

Lily was two days shy of 13 months old when we first met her. I remember walking into the foster carers’ living room and seeing this rosy cheeked, blonde haired, smiley baby and every ounce of nerves I had just vanished. That first meeting only lasted an hour and although it went really well it felt a bit like being in a goldfish bowl as Debbie was there together with her social worker and Lily’s social worker too. Lily’s social worker had only met her once before (the social worker who had the case was moved to another post just before matching panel) so that made things a little awkward as she had no rapport with Lily.

The next few days of introductions went better than we could have hoped, and Debbie and Dave (not his real name) made us feel so welcome in their home. We expected nothing more than a cup of tea and biscuit but we enjoyed lunch or dinner with them every day including a full roast dinner with apple pie for dessert on the Sunday! Debbie and Dave made us feel like we were part of their family and I truly believe that helped Lily settle so well with us.

Before the end of the week we had a meeting with our temporary social worker (ours was still off sick) and the foster carer to discuss how the transition period was going and check we wanted to continue. Of course we did!

After a week of going to the foster carers’ home it was time for Debbie to bring Lily to our her new home. It didn’t take Lily long to start exploring, and she noticed the pictures of herself low on the wall and she couldn’t stop touching them and pointing to herself The second day at ours we tried naptime which was tough and I’m glad Debbie was here with us for that as she guided us in what to do to help Lily settle and eventually, after what felt like eternity, Lily fell asleep and slept soundly, for 30 minutes! But that was a win. The next day Debbie didn’t stay so it was down to us to tackle naptime alone. Again it was hard to start with but Lily settled and slept for a whole hour, yay! The next few days was a mix of exploring and playing at home, and trips to the local park. All in all it was amazing.

On the 9th March 2016, Lily came home.

Tips: I would imagine transitions training hasn’t differed much from when we went through it, but a couple of tips should these not be mentioned.
1. On the first day of introductions, wear the same clothes you wore in your intro video. This will help your child(ren) to recognise you. Similarly if you give the foster carer photos try to wear the same clothes in them too.
2. If you have a soft toy or blanket for your child(ren), sleep with it for a couple of weeks so that it has your (and your partner’s) scent on it. Again this helps with familiarity. Don’t underestimate the power of smell. We switched our fabric conditioner to the same one Lily’s foster carer used and washed all her bedding and clothes in it.

I never intended to stop blogging but, well, life happens. After we were matched the weeks whizzed by, through introductions, bringing our daughter home, just being parents… the more I got caught up in our new life, the more I got out of the routine of blogging. Then I didn’t know how to continue with this site as I was no longer a yummy mummy (I use the term yummy mummy very loosely) in waiting; it felt like that chapter had closed. I did try setting up another blog as a follow on, and taking more of a family lifestyle approach but quickly found that wasn’t for me. I know how to write about trying to conceive, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancy and adoption. I don’t know how to write about fashion and toys for kids, or days out as a family. I’m not saying I won’t incorporate some of that going forward but it’s not the main focus of my writing. The purpose of this blog has always been, for me, a kind of therapy, and to let others know they’re not alone in any of this exciting but sometimes difficult road to parenthood.

Once upon a time, when we were going through all the losses, I never thought we’d have a family. Now we’re hoping to grow our family of three to four, but more about that in another post

I was filled with a mix of excitement and nerves in the run up to Matching Panel.  Mr R was calm as always, and adopted a ‘what will be, will be’ attitude.  We arrived at Panel and were shown to the kitchen where the social workers (ours and Lily’s) and their managers were waiting for us.  Queue lots of awkward silence!  The Chair came to fetch us and we all went into Panel together (apparently the SWs usually go in first).

As per Approval Panel, all the Panel members introduced themselves.  Then they asked a question of the SWs and in that moment, based on past experience of this particular Panel, I felt like it was all over (a box was ticked that shouldn’t have been and a report which transpired doesn’t exist was missing).  However, they seemed happy with the answers from Lily’s SW and Panel continued.  After that ALL the questions were directed at us.  We were later told by our SW that was very unusual as normally the prospective Adopters are asked a couple questions and the rest are directed to the SWs.  Not this time!

They wanted to know the following:

Why Lily?
How would we handle the uncertainty in her ‘story’ and any questions she may have in the future?
How we would handle any health issues that arise from the uncertainty (although she is currently in full health with no concerns for the future, and she is meeting all her milestones).
What our plans are regarding work.
If we’d had any childcare experience of children of Lily’s age (she’s one).
A couple of questions that didn’t really make sense to either of us (we think our previous SW (who’s still off sick) had noted something on our file that wasn’t actually about us…) but we answered them as best we could, though I still can’t fathom what they were actually asking!

There were more questions than those above but I can’t remember what they were.

We left the room and went back to the kitchen with the SWs and their managers.  I’m sure we were only waiting for 5 minutes but it felt much longer, but then it felt like we’d been in Panel for an hour when in actual fact it was only about 20 minutes!  The Chair came in with the Panel Adviser and he delivered their verdict – a unanimous yes.  After that I haven’t a clue what he said.  As soon as they’d left the room Mr R and I looked at each other and I promptly burst into tears.  I think it was a release of the past few years; all the miscarriages, the ectopic, and most recently the anxiety the adoption process has given me.

We’ve still a long road ahead, but for now I’m just going to revel in the fact that after 10 long years on our journey to parenthood we’re about to be parents.  We’re going to have a daughter.

The nerves are really starting to kick in now, mostly because we’ll be meeting the same Panel that deferred us last year at Approval Panel, and I just don’t know what I’ll do if they say no.  Lily’s SW has assured us that it’s highly unlikely at this stage and that if there was any reason for anything other than approval it would have been flagged up ages ago.  I hope she’s right.

In the meantime we need to finish getting Lily’s room ready, take some head shots of us to go into the transitions book and make a DVD of us in our home, all in time for Panel.

Several phone calls and emails later and dates were agreed for Transitions training, and meetings with the foster carer and Medical Adviser.  A date has also been set for Matching Panel

Happy New Year everyone!

A date to meet Lily’s SW was agreed, and cancelled.  Then a further date was agreed, and cancelled. Frustrating but we understood the reasons why and they were unavoidable.  A third date was suggested, and we heard nothing more. I emailed our SW and didn’t receive a reply, so I called the office and was told that our SW was off sick and nobody knew anything about the appointment with Lily’s SW.  Thankfully I knew the SW’s first name so was able to get a message to her and she called back to confirm that the meeting was going ahead as scheduled.  Yay.

The meeting went well, and Lily’s SW said “see you soon” as she left which we took as a good sign but didn’t want to get our hopes up.  We were asked to read through the Child Permanence Report (CPR) for Lily and have a think about if we’d like to proceed.  We did.  Lily’s SW informed us she wanted to proceed too but it had to be agreed by the Adoption Managers as well.  Nothing will happen until after Christmas now, so yet more waiting.

Then 4 months post approval we got ‘the call’.  A call from our social worker informing us of a baby girl who, on paper, sounded right for us. After listening to Sophia’s (not her real name) story and making quick notes to relay to Mr R later the call ended with me agreeing to email our SW that evening with our thoughts.  As soon as I was home from work I bombarded Mr R with all the details I’d been given about Sophia.  We discussed her ‘story’ and decided we’d like to hear more.  I emailed our SW, knowing she’d said we wouldn’t hear anything until the following week. However, the following morning I received a reply from her apologising that Sophia wasn’t suitable for us after all.  It turned out that Sophia had more complex needs than our SW had been lead to believe, and that Sophia’s SW hadn’t even read our PAR properly before contacting our SW.  If she had she would have known that we weren’t suitable, and could have spared us getting our hopes up.

For those of you reading this who I don’t know in real life, we were deferred at panel back in February.  I can’t go into the exact reasons here, but let’s just say we dared to disagree with our local authority which is a huge no no, and our social worker failed to ask us something very important to go into our PAR.  Hence we have spent the last few months in limbo, although to be honest our life has been in limbo for the last 9 years.

So more sessions with our social worker, more adoption meetings, more homework, and several months later we attended panel again.  Both feeling very nervous about what had happened back in February and also about what to expect second time around, we sat before panel again but the atmosphere couldn’t have been more different.  Last time we were intimidated, talked down to like we were naughty school children, and there was no warmth or making us feel comfortable.  There was certainly no jolly man, unlike in that BBC or ITV documentary (the name of which escapes me right now), putting us at ease with a warm smile; I think if anybody had dared to smile their faces would have cracked.  However, this time the people were human.  The room had a light atmosphere and there were warm smiles all round which helped us to relax, we even shared a laugh and a joke, and left the room with a positive feeling, albeit still nervous.  5 long minutes later the Panel Chair delivered the decision with a congratulations to us both: we received a unanimous big fat YES.  To say we were, and still are, over the moon is an understatement.

We’re still in limbo, but this is a different limbo – the wait for the right child, which due to our ‘criteria’ will be a long one, but at least we know we’re going to be parents.  After all the miscarriages and the ectopic, I can finally say that with some certainty.

Since the beginning of November we have endured (anybody who says it’s not an endurance test is lying!) the gruelling second stage of the adoption process.  We have attended the third day of training, had 7 home study sessions (each up to 3 hours long) with our social worker delving into every minute detail of our lives, started voluntary youth work, had a session with our social worker and an adoptive parent, we’ve read books and completed online learning, attended information evenings and a children’s evening (that’s one for another post), and been observed looking after our friends’ children.  Our home has been inspected and, despite the fact we’re currently childless, we’ve had to fit child safety locks to our cupboards.  Our referees have been visited and questioned about us, our relationship and our relationship with them, yet we’ve been told repeatedly that we’ll lose friends because people who don’t have adopted children just don’t understand them.  Add to that about 100 emails back and forth between us and the social worker for additional information, or information we’d already given but she couldn’t find or hadn’t written down during our sessions…. Then came the PAR (Prospective Adopters Report) all 70 pages which had so many mistakes, both grammatically and factually; I sat up until 1am two nights in a row highlighting our amendments and making comments to return to our social worker.  I’m told we should have had 5 days to read and return the PAR but we had about 36 hours, and the late nights aside, reading about yourself and going over things you’d rather not think about (namely the miscarriages/ectopic and Dad’s death) is downright exhausting.

We also had a ‘second opinion’ visit from another social worker as our social worker felt there was an issue which needed further clarification.  I shan’t go into the detail as I never know who’s reading this and it’d be obvious who I am from that detail, but let’s just say mountain out of a molehill on our social worker’s part.  Neither of us understand why she’s caused such an issue about this particular topic because if anyone should have an issue it should be me, but I don’t because there isn’t one!!

All of the above in order to prove our worth, and to hopefully be approved by the Panel.  However, even if the Panel say “yes” it’s not over.  Just as our social worker has recommended approval, the panel can do the same, or not, but the ultimate decision rests with the Agency Decision Maker (ADM), a person we’ve never met and one who only knows us on paper.  The person who has the power to override our social worker’s recommendation and that of the Panel, though I’m not sure what happens if the Panel say no or defer for further information.  The person who holds our future happiness in their hands.  Either way by this time tomorrow we’ll have the decision from Panel, and then we just have to wait a further 7 days to see if the ADM agrees.

If you’re the praying kind, then your prayers for tomorrow morning (and the following days) will be very much appreciated, and if you’re not then all positive thoughts and wishes of good luck will be equally appreciated.  Our lives are about to begin, or crumble (hopefully not the latter).