Officially Daddies

And so after weeks of sleepless nights and crossing off the days in my diary we finally awoke to Matching Panel Day. It feels like such a relief to finally be here as every day that we are waiting we are aware that our little boy is in foster care and our life as a family is delayed.

I didn't really feel nervous ahead of panel as the views and support from the professionals around us has always suggested that its almost a done deal - that said once we were an hour away from the start of panel all of that changed and we were both feeling incredibly scared/vulnerable/anxious.

So we arrived at the placing LA's offices well ahead of time and found our way to the waiting room - the panel had already convened in the adjoining room and there was another couple ahead of us in the queue. They were called in by a member of the panel as one big group, including their various SW's; leaving us and our 3 SW's waiting. 45 minutes later they returned to the room and were celebrating - their match had been approved :-)

The same panel member returned to the room and called our SW's in. We were expecting for them to go in ahead of us as this is what had happened at our Approval Panel. The panel sometimes have sensitive questions that they would prefer to put to SW's rather than adopters directly and sometimes they need clarification on detail before they call in adopters. Each panel members would have been supplied with a copy of the matching report ahead of the day so it's likely individual members would also have questions for the SW's and for us directly.

After about 15 minutes we were called into the room. I hate awkwardness and silences so opened with a gag about how it looked like a UN Conference, my finance followed with a comment about the student SW in the corner being in the 'cheap seats'. It seemed to break the ice and created a 'Mexican Wave' of smiles from the very full room of people (there must have been no less than 20 in total).

Our SW had already passed the preperation resourses that we had made around the table for everyone to see (the talking Butterfly album, DVD and life-story book previously mentioned) so there were a few nice comments about these. The panel did have a few questions for us but they were by no means intrusive or pressing, and all really easy to answer things that we had expected. Questions along the lines of:

• What will you do if things don't work out with your dogs and the baby?
• Parental leave from work / Who is taking time off and how long?
• What is it about this particular child / Why do you think the match is the right one?

The last point we had prepared well for. My fiance had already created a well presented document outlining the needs of the child and how felt we meet them. We added personal photos next to each point to offer to further back up the statements we had made (i.e. photos of us visiting my finance's country of heritage featuring me in traditional dress vs. photos of my fiance with my family celebrating a traditional British Christmas etc). We felt the panel were satisfied with our answers and along with our SW's left the room whilst the panel reached a decision and were ready to present their recommendation (the matching panel make a recommendation which must then be officially signed off/accepted/rubber stamped by the agency decision maker before introductions can begin).

As we waited in the room (for what must have only been 2 minutes) our Family Finding SW gave a little wink to suggest it was all going to be OK and all 3 SW's were offering reassuring nods and glances to suggest they knew the outcome already (they must have all been here so many times before but you forget this then they are sharing the journey with you).

When we were called back in the room, the big smiles made it clear before the Panel Chairman spoke that it was good news. He said the match had been unanimously approved (YAY!!) and that they wanted to wish us all the best for our new life with our baby boy. It was just an amazing feeling, we were really going to be daddies and the beautiful boy we have cried watching on DVD's was going to be our very own son. I honestly never thought I would experience this as a gay man - what a special moment.

We can't leave the dogs overnight so it's the long drive home now but we'll be back here tomorrow to meet the team again, as well as the duty adoption manager and one of the foster carers to make plans for our introductions week which starts in just 1 week.

Note to readers: For anyone who has read my early posts as remembers my likening the adoption process to the X Factor, well this it is... vote lines are closed, the votes have been counted and verified and I can now reveal that we have won the X Factor! Our 'Winners Single' will be out (or coming home) in just 2 weeks time!!