It’s over 3 years since we started our adoption journey and I have to tell you it’s not for the faint hearted.
First there are the endless meetings where your life since birth is investigated and discussed. Then there are the decisions that make you feel like the lowest form of scum on the planet. Whaddya mean you don’t feel that you can cope with a child with physical/mental/emotional difficulties. What about foetal alcohol syndrome? What about drugs? What about abuse? You come out of that one feeling very grubby indeed. But then you astonish yourself when you reflect on it and realise that maybe Christopher Robin was right…you are braver and stronger than you ever imagined.
Panel is like the worst maths test in the world. Ever. With Russian grammar tagged on. Oh and that nightmare you have where you’re naked and they’re coming to get you!
But you jump through these hoops because no matter what you are feeling it pales into insignificance when compared with the challenges and traumas that the little people who are waiting for you have faced.
And so it goes until the day you meet them.
And hold them in your arms for the first time.
And every living second of it is worth it because they steal your heart away with one small smile.
But then there is more paperwork. More waiting. More delay. Until finally everything is in place and the adoption order is made and they are yours.
Then you meet the judge and you are finished.
On Friday we met the judge for The Boy.
We are finished.
Our adoption journey is at an end.
It was worth every single step.
Fantastic. Now they can both grow up in a loving and secure home.
Awwww! So glad all the burecratic **** is done with! But they are so so worth it! Two gorgeous babies that needed caring and loving parents. And two amazing parents that needed adorable babies!
A truly lovely thing to read on such a sunny day! A long and sometimes fraught journey with a very happy ending ! I’m so pleased for you all.
Love
Brigiite xx
Such a wonderful story, and just beginning!
Thank you all for your lovely comments. It does feel like now we can be a ‘proper’ family and just enjoy it. We are so very lucky to have found these wee folk and very happy to have them in our lives. Let the fun commence!
Congrats to you and your family!
That’s so wonderful!
The trials sound a right pain BUT I can kind of relate to why they are in place. Good people like you will go to the end of the earth to prove their worth: if someone wasn’t bothered/brave enough, and there were gaps in their history… imagine permanently giving a child to parents who couldn’t cope. Doesn’t bear thinking about does it.
Amen to that! When you start the process you spend two days on a workshop with other people thinking of adopting and you do wonder about their motivations.
Strangely the investigations were the least painless part….taking a year to get our boy home because of one persons inability to get a piece of paper signed was slightly more frustrating…especially as we then had to do the whole assessment again because it expired.
Still….it was most definitely worth it and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Just read this, Yvonne, after checking the blog because of FB memo on your dad. Congratulations on getting through the long haul. Comparison with Russian grammar is fitting: where did the Russian go? You there, me here…how time moves on
Your Surrey friend