The Application / 1st Audition

November 2010 I would say was the first significant step in our journey. I sent the email to Ealing Council to say that after the two events we had been to we felt ready to start the process and would like to officially apply to become adopters. We waited, and waited and didn't hear anything for a week. Which in hindsight is not long at all when you are dealing with a busy department which is no doubt under staffed and under preassue but when you are sending such a life changing email it's hard to think about anything else. All sorts of things go through your mind (or my own paranoid mind) and you wonder "Is it me?", "Is it because we are gay?"... all sorts of things. So I decided to pick up the phone and check if they had even received my email. The lady I spoke to was very apologetic and assured me that we would get a call and a letter within the next few days to arrange a time for a social worker to make a home visit.

So they had our application and this was it, we were going to formally start the ball rolling with a home visit. This made the whole thing even more real and felt really nice to get getting started. Over the past few weeks, well since May I guess we had discussed parenting a handful of times every week, all the time reinforcing our want to have children now whilst we are both young. We have heard through all of the book that we have read, websites we have trawled and events we had been to just how long the whole process can take so even though we are both relatively young adopter we are of the opinion that if it does take three plus years we definitely want to get the ball rolling now.

We had a date and were so excited in the days before the visit just dying to get started. Not rushing things and expecting too much too soon is one of the biggest expectations that you have to manage with the adoption process, everyone's is always reminding you how long things can take even if you are prepared and have all of your paperwork completed on time you are always waiting for some council office, a social worker or a panel worker to do their bit - but that doesn't really go very far when you are embarking on such an exciting life-changing journey and it's hard not to get a little carried away and swept up in it. In fact it's hard to think about anything else in the run up to each milestone. Anyway, the day before she came we cleaned the house from top to bottom, bought flowers, fresh coffee and croissants which I left in the oven on a tray to heat in advance.

One of the first things the social worker did when she arrived was to go through and fill in a first application form with us. When she got to taking down our date of birth I mentioned about the information evening and feeling that we were the youngest couple there by a good stretch - I asked her if this could be a potential issue in presenting us to the adoption panel and she made a good point which put my mind at rest... the majority of heterosexual couples who adopt come to adoption as a 'Plan B', after trying for many years to get pregnant themselves, where as gay couples, especially gay men come to the conclusion a lot sooner that having a biological child isn't an option for them and so are ready to visit adoption a lot sooner.

The rest of the form consisted of lots of general questions - she wasn't there to probe too deeply, that would come with future home visits if we were accepted by the authority as 'potential adopters'. The purpose of this visit was just to take down the basics that she would then take back to the team before deciding to take our application further. We answered basic questions about our attitude towards parenting, our own childhoods and family structure, what we do for a living, how much we earn, how long we have been together and that kind of thing. I say basic questions, it was still quite a long visit - she arrived at 9am and didn't leave till after 12pm, which was something we have now come to expect with home visits!

We got on really well with this social worker as she was one of those speaking at the 'Pink Families' event we went along to so we were really pleased when she turned up at the door. We were actually hoping that she might be our social worker but that idea was quickly finished when she declared that she was actually leaving after Christmas to move to Thailand! Nevermind.

The other really good thing for us is that she got on really well with Jeffrey and Andrew our little dogs. It's really important for us that the social workers during this process liked the boys (our canine children!) and see how gentle and loving they are and on this visit the both (after the initial barking to welcome visitors) lay down and went to sleep on her! She reassured us again here agreeing that pets can really make a home and it's a nice thing to be able to say to children who you are matched with that there are two little doggies at their new home etc.

It wasn't until we closed the door that I remembered the croissants were still in the oven!!