Preparing the Nursery

It feels like the calm before the storm at the moment as we wait eagerly for our matching panel appointment in just 2 weeks time and the exciting events which are set to follow.

A couple of weeks ago we became the proud owners of a pushchair - I can't tell you how strange it felt wheeling it empty out of the store. This was the first item we have bough of real value so it felt strangely symbolic and kind of cemented the fact that we are soon to be parents to a baby boy. Weird.

My brother is currently staying with us until the end of the month so we are on standby with the cot and other furniture, just itching to get started and turn our spare bedroom into a nursery. We have chosen some beautiful wall stickers from a company called Spin Collective (inset) which we plan to place on the sky blue painted chimney breast so he can see them from his cot as he drifts off to sleep.

Our paperwork for panel is all complete now and has been submitted. We have produced the talking photo album, DVD and a mini/child friendly adoption story to compliment the fuller life story work his Social Worker has prepared. All that we can do now is wait.

Last week we went along to the New Family Social Soho Drinks, it's always really nice to catch-up with fellow adopters and talk shop - sometimes when you are feeling a little stuck/in limbo or just wishing the weeks would go a little quicker we find these social drinks really help to keep us focused, inspired and and share our experiences.

And so the Stork continues to get closer. Now just two weeks to go until panel and the introductions planning meeting the following day, three weeks until we meet our son and four weeks until we bring him home!!

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Child Appreciation Day

Today was our child appreciation day, though with our son being just 9 months old the day just consisted of 2 meetings. 'Appreciation Days' are generally a chance to meet with key figures in the child's life so far, so in some cases this might be the foster carers, health visitors, teachers and such.

Our first stop of the day was to meet the placing local authorities health advisor / Pediatrician to hear an update since his last check up at 6 months which took place yesterday. Whilst in the waiting room we both commented to the matching Social Worker who we attended with that it was strange to think that our little boy had been in this building just yesterday. It was a really great meeting, we had printed out a whole page of questions to ask and we were able to get reassurance and information straight away. In short, everything looks good, there are absolutely no health problems and he is on track and developing well - in some cases even advanced for his age with a keen interest in whats going on around him and a good attention span. 

Next we were off to the council offices to meet with our baby's SW, one of the foster carers, their SW and also the matching SW. I have to say this was a very emotional meeting - absolutely wonderful and made the whole things even more real but we were both fighting back a few tears. At one point early on the FC got a bit choked up and had to step out of the room, though on returning he assured us that they were tears of joy and he is just so happy that the little boy he has raised since birth is going to such a wonderful family and knew he was going to have a great life with us.

We feel so privileged that our little boy has been placed with such wonderful FC for the first 9 months of his life and this has enabled him to grow and develop in a loving and caring home without having witnessed any of the early life neglect and trauma etc that we know so many other adopted children were subject to and indeed our preparation course taught us about. My fiance said to the FC just how grateful we were to them for this love as it was just so clear how much they love him and also how hard it is going to be for them to let him go.

We were also delighted and really grateful to be given a new batch of photos of our baby today, he is just too cute, so lovey that the FC's have taken so many lovely snaps for us. They have also recorded a few home videos each month since he arrived at their place from the hospital so it's really nice that the 9 months we were not present for are all documented and we will be able to re-live his early life story with him as he grows up.

So we are on track... lots more dates in the diary now. We are going to panel in early November, assuming the match is approved we have a meeting the next day to plan the introduction week then a week later we start introductions and the following week our son will come home. It seems our wait for the Stork may nearly be over.

Butterflies & Penguins

Following our very positive visit from the placing LA and ahead of our matching panel date in early November we have homework... to prepare a couple of bits and pieces for our baby to see and play with during the time between panel and introductions to help him become familiar with our voices and faces.

The first thing is something that many adopters have used before and our SW highly recommended, it's the Tomy Talking Photo Album. This fun album can hold eight photos and a short voice message to accompany each, it lights up, plays a cute noise when you open and close it and has tactile page tabs. It's perfect for our little boy at 9 months as even thought he won't understand what we are saying he play with it and hear us over and over again.

The next item we were asked to prepare is a video message, and it's harder than you might think trying to make a video for a baby. What should we say? What should we do? I posted a message asking others who had done this before on the New Family Social message boards and received loads of really great ideas and inspiration. One kind adopter even went as far as to send us a copy of the DVD they had made previously which was just brilliant.

In the end we decided not to focus too much on making a suitable video for his age range and just to send something that had lots of colourful pictures in as well as our voices and faces so that it can just be left playing in the background and hopefully will just reinforce we he is hearing from the butterfly album.

So... our video package consists of us reading along 'And Tango Makes Three', a book we just love and actually bought back in February based on a true story of two male penguins in a New York zoo adopting a baby penguin. We start of with a little hello to camera and then turn the pages of the book whilst images from the pages also appear on screen as closeups. We decided to also buy a soft penguin toy so that we could hold it in the video and then give the DVD, book and the toy to the foster carers so that he can see the penguin on screen and play with it at the same time, plus the foster carer can also read along with the book making the whole experience more interactive for him.

One tip which we also received from another New Family Social member was to give the toy our scent before sending it so that he is familiar with our smell before meeting us and also, to wear the same clothes as worn in the video so everything is really familiar.

Homework now completed the next even in our diary is our 'child appreciation day' (of sorts) which we are really excited about as it's another step closer to panel. With slightly older children these days are a chance for adopters to meet key figures in the child's life, like the foster carers, doctors and maybe even teachers to get a full understanding of their character and to ask any questions etc - also for them to meet you. Though with a younger baby there are less people to meet so it will just be the foster carers and health advisor this time.

After this week we only have just over a month to panel... exciting times ahead. We are hopeful that introductions will start middle of November all going well and we might even welcome our little boy home by the end of November in time for his very first Christmas.