Adoption

This week has been a busy one for Mr R and I.  In between work, emergency visits to the vets (one of our fur babies was bitten by another animal and ended up with a nasty infected wound on his head), and catching up with some of my family who are visiting from abroad; we’ve attended an adoption information evening and also had the follow up appointment with the recurrent miscarriage clinic (I’ll do a separate post for that).

Adoption is something Mr R and I have discussed many times.  It’s something we said we’d like to do to expand the family we thought we would have had by now, and of course just to be able to give a deserving child the chance of a happy life.  We never thought we’d be discussing it as an alternative to having our biological family.  However, it’s a reality we must face, that maybe our dreams of me carrying a pregnancy to term and having our biological child(ren) isn’t to be.

A few weeks ago I started properly researching adoption online, and also contacted 3 local authorities for further information.  We received information packs from each one, and it was interesting to see that although the basic content was the same, the amount of information sent varied.  Only one followed up our initial enquiry with a phone call a couple of weeks later, and suggested we attend an information evening.  This was the same authority I had a “feeling” about, and had already decided that should we go ahead, we’d go with them.

The information evening is held every fortnight and covers our entire county, which is quite large, so as you can imagine it was well attended.  I was initially nervous, not knowing what to expect from the evening, or what the other prospective adopters would be like, but whilst looking for the building another couple stopped us to ask for directions.  It was a relief to see they were just like us, in fact most of the couples were about our age and “just like us”.  We even bumped into a couple that were customers of Mr R’s when he worked for himself; small world!

The evening itself was very informative, although a lot just recapped on the information we’d previously been sent, but it was good to have it explained properly and have the chance to ask questions.  An adoptive mother also gave a talk, covering both the highs and lows of her experiences so far. It was great to get the perspective of a real person who’s been through the process rather than just the views of the social workers.  But oh my goodness, it’s so much to take in.  So much to think about before we decide if this really is for us.  If we do go ahead with adoption, it’ll be a long, hard process and we have to be prepared to have our entire lives dug into, but if it means we get to have the family we’ve been dreaming of then it’ll be 100% worth it.