Today we had our Adoption Pre-Stage home visit, and she was late! She being the Social Worker, who we’ll refer to as Mrs Pink. How dare she be late when we’d worked so hard to be “ready” for our allotted appointment time. In other words we’d spent the days leading up to our appointment spring cleaning the house, nothing was out of place, we’d Mr R had even redecorated one of the bedrooms(!), and the cats had been banned from the sitting room for fear they’d leave a trail of black fur on our freshly hoovered floor.
The morning of the home visit I’d spent ages deciding what to wear and carefully painted my nails and applied my make up. I felt more nervous than if I’d have been going for a job interview, but I guess in some ways it was a job interview, for the greatest job of all – to be a parent. Minutes before Mrs Pink was due to arrive I artistically arranged some biscuits on a plate, and tried to stop Mr R from eating them. I should have let him go ahead because Mrs Pink didn’t eat one; what is wrong with the woman turning her nose up at shortbread and Foxes Crunch Creams?! Needless to say I ate quite a few after she left, oops!
When Mrs Pink finally arrived it was quickly apparent that she wasn’t as friendly as she’d been during our phone conversations. She wasn’t unfriendly, but she was no nonsense straight down to business, and my feeble attempts at witty remarks went unnoticed…
I’d read and heard from others going through the adoption process that we could expect the initial home visit to last at least a couple of hours, maybe even four. Mrs Pink stayed no longer than an hour. Initially this worried me; Mr R didn’t understand my concern, he was just glad it was over, but once I calmed myself I realised there was nothing more she could ask at this stage. We’d been so thorough in the information we’d returned with the registration form that all she had to do was go through her form about what kind of child/children we’d like and just confirming that we understood what backgrounds they may come from and the kinds of issues they may have. After completing the form Mrs Pink had a look around the house and was pleased with everything she saw. Plenty of room for a child/children and no dangers aside from needing new banisters but they’ll be fixed long before any children come to live with us.
I felt a little deflated after the appointment but Mr R thought it was all very positive. I think I’d got myself so worked up about things that anything short of her giving us a child on the spot I was always going to feel underwhelmed.
Now we wait for the report and decision from the powers that be to see if we can progress to Stage One. Keep everything crossed for us.
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