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!!

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!!

Note to readers: Thanks so much for reading my blog, I do hope you find it useful. If you are a regular reader please become a 'follower' on the right.

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.

The Stork Is Getting Closer...

This morning we had a home visit from the placing Local Authority. After answering a couple of their questions and asking a few of our own we gave a short tour of our home, pointed out our plans for a nursery and chatted more about the baby's health/background/birth family history.

They seemed very openly positive about the match and so our Social Worker asked if they had already reached a decision and if they were able to tell us there and then. They had and they were... they said there and then that they wanted to go ahead with the match! We were both a little overwhelmed at just what that meant. We are going to be parents and there is a beautiful baby boy waiting to be our son! They had brought a short DVD with them for us to watch... it was just surreal, for the very first time we sat and watched our baby moving on the TV screen. Crazy.

Our Social Worker was quick to enquire about dates for matching panel and to make a plan for the next steps and it seems they already had a timeframe in mind - almost as though they knew we were the right family before the met us in person. Our little boy is just 8 months old so they are keen to have him with his 'forever family' ahead of his first Christmas and birthday in January - OMG... how exciting. This is the most wonderful Christmas present we could have wished for!

So a matching panel date is set for early November, with a post-panel planning meeting the next day and introduction dates will be scheduled to begin a weeks after, meaning he should be with us by the end of November. We can't quite believe we only began our prop group training in January; just five day after our baby was born.

I would like to take this opportunity to say a HUGE thank you to our Social Worker and the team at Ealing Council's Child Placement team who have all been so amazing and made our adoption journey so far very slick and professional.

Wow... So much to plan for now!

Linked!?

After an unbelievably anxious two weeks waiting to hear if we would be chosen by the placement team for a home visit we found out today that it was good news! Out of the three families we had been shortlisted with we have been chosen as the first choice family to meet and we have been told that they have not picked a 2nd family (which we are hoping is great news!).

We were both SO excited to receive the call today, it felt like a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. My fiancée is away for work so we haven't been able to celebrate the news together but this evening was the monthly New Family Social drinks meet-up in Soho so it was lovely to be around fellow adopters and share the news.

So, we have a home visit scheduled now with the child placement team as well as our social worker for early next week - so excited/nervous/excited/anxious! Some sources say this step is just a formality whilst others say it's like another mini home study and feels interrogating so we shall see - I guess it depends on the LA and SW. Either way I'll post as soon as we hear next week and let you know :-)

We are trying really hard not to get our hopes up and also trying not to keep looking at the photos of the child but it's so hard - also because we don't want to miss out on feeling this excitement if it is good news and we are matched. Emotions are certainly running high at the moment it's just a case of trying to keep focused on work and other things and hope for the best! But we do have a good feeling - positive thinking eh!

So I guess this means we are now linked?! Keeping everything crossed for a good home visit :-)

Shortlisted

It's been really nice over the last few months to make friends with other couples in the same situation as us. Not only is it lovely for us to expand our social circle but we feel like it's going to be really great for all of our children to have lots of friends with same sex parents too. This will really help to normalise our family life and give them the confidence to confront any negativity towards them at school and from their peers.

We are in the middle of house hunting at the moment in preparation for our new larger family. We currently own a two bedroom garden flat which would be ample for a young family, even if we were to be matched with a sibling group. However we really would like a larger family home with a big garden for the dogs (as well as the children) and spare rooms for family to visit and stay with us. We have seen a few places a bit further out of town than our current place (we are looking to get more house for our money) and last weekend we made an offer which was accepted - so we are now waiting for the vendors to negotiate on the place they are hoping to buy.

On the Family Finding front, our spreadsheet now lists 26 children! It's felt like a really slow summer with our Social Worker (SW) and many of the SW's looking after the children on our table being on holiday, however we managed to pull in full CPR reports for four of the children we were interested in and spent a full evening reading thought them all.

There was one profile that really stood out for us. I'm reluctant to say this child immediately felt like 'the one' because I'm fully aware how the process works and have to prepare mentally for the very realistic chance that he may not be, but we had a very good feeling and were both really keen to let all parties know we wanted to be considered and progress. As our SW was on holiday we decided to call the child’s SW directly and let her know how keen we were to be considered as a suitable match for this child and offer a few key benefits and criteria that we felt made us a perfect match based on our profile and what we had read in the child’s.

This phone call and direct approach really helped and we came away with a very good feeling about it as the lady enthused about us as potential candidates. I should say this match actually came though via the National Adoption Register based on our mixed heritage/culture matching the child’s as well as our search criteria. We received a phone call from the child's local authority a week ago saying that we have been short-listed! Amazing news... this is the furthest we have been so far in the process. This means that that the local authority (LA) have selected three families out of the profiles they have received and there will be a meeting next week to choose just 1 or 2 of us to make a home visit to. We are so excited but also very very anxious at the moment. It's fabulous to have been short-listed but being so near and yet so far makes it all the more terrifying. I'll keep you posted.

It's worth mentioning to any potential adopters reading my blog that the telephone conversation we made to this LA was not the first. A couple of weeks ago I received a call completely out of the blue from another child’s SW who was unable to reach our SW due to her being on holiday and wanted to run a few things by me and get a better picture of us as a couple. I was totally not expecting the call and as I was at work at the time it really threw me. I had to leave the office to speak to her and wasn't at all prepared to answer the kind of questions she asked - I said to my partner and our SW that it felt like being back at panel all over again.

On the plus side thought it felt really good to be able to 'sell ourselves' directly and get a bit of personality across in persona rather than through a printed document. There was also another LA who we hadn't heard anything back from after making an initial enquiry via Be My Parent who I decided to call and am really glad I did – they had misplaced our profile during an office move and again she was able to give me loads of info on the child in question and I was able to tell her more about us, our lifestyle, situation and search. So I guess my point is that there is a lot we can do to focus the 'Family Finding' search ourselves and be proactive to find answers to questions, get more information and present ourselves direct to SW's and LA's – don't be afraid to pick up the phone and speak to people in person. The process is inherently slow anyway, so if there is something you can do to speed it up just do it!

We were also lucky enough to come across a list of over 450 email addresses this month for LA's and SW's across the country so if the match we have been short-listed for doesn't bare fruit (or child!) we are on standby to spam the UK with our profile once more whilst we wait for the stork.  

Carry on Family Finding... With a view to Camping!

So the child profile I mentioned in my last post didn't progress any further for us. We registered our interest but unfortunately the child’s Social Worker had other potential patents short-listed ahead of us. One reason cited for us not making the short list was that they thought my partner having appeared in a reality TV series several years ago may make us easy to trace given the child in questions birth parent spends much of her time online?! Bizarre. Anyway...

In the last week our SW has drawn up a 'Family Finding' table which I have turned into an all singing all dancing spreadsheet to manage the progress of all of our child enquiries so far. It's amazing that in such a short time since approval in June we have already enquired about 20 children. It's useful to be able to see them all in one place now and see the progress of each enquiry and colour code those red that we are no longer pursuing, amber for information pending and green for those we are hopeful about. Sounds a little clinical but it helps to keep things organised when you have a lot going on.

One of the children on the list (now coloured red) is an Asian baby girl. She was within our preferred age range and we were looking forward to reading her profile, however it turned out that her birth family has stated a preference for her to be raised within an Indian/Sikh family. As I am white British and my partner is Indian/Hindu we were ruled out. I still find it funny that the birth family's wishes are given such thought when they are unable to care for the child themselves. My partner has a good understanding of the Sikh faith and it's something that we could have raised the child to appreciate but alas it wasn't to be.

Through New Family Social I was actually contacted a month ago by a journalist from BBC Asian Network to speak about this as contribution towards a wider article on adoption within Asian gay communities. In the end we didn't end up speaking for various reasons (we have said we are happy to help with anything else in the future) but this story was referenced in the published article. See the article here.

One other thing to mention in terms of our family finding search, over the last month we have also tracked down email addresses for local authority adoption services across the country and personally emailed out single page profile out to around 30 of them... with mixed results. Some LA's have been welcoming and agreed to circulate our profile within their team, whilst others have missed the point completely and replied with generic 'Thinking of Adopting?' packs, and 'Come along to our opening evening next week'  letters. 

Each year New Family Social organise a camping trip for members and their children to get together - we know a few people who have been away on the camp this month and it sounds like so much fun. Such a great opportunity for lots of LGBT families to come to together and for our children to meet other children with families just like theirs. It's a great feeling and really inspiring to think that maybe next year we might be their with our new family.

In Limbo: Family Finding Starts

It's been a couple of weeks now since our panel approval and a bit of a strange limbo feeling since. I am well aware that we have progressed through each stage of the process pretty quickly until now, much quicker than we had anticipated in fact (given that we expected to go to panel in October!) so with everything having happened fairly rapidly for us so far, 'Family Finding' is a bit of an unknown stage without any set milestones to work towards, hence the limbo feeling.

Two weeks prior to our panel date, we received an email from our social worker asking if we would consider a brother and sister sibling group, we said yes and that we would be keen to learn more about them and see their profile (which of course we would not be able to do until we were approved) - I didn't mention this update in my last post as I wanted to wait and see what happened after panel with regards to this. It was pretty hard actually, hearing just a few short lines about 'real children' who could possibly be a mach for us and then nothing else... nothing else for almost two weeks after panel when we have since heard that they are now not a viable match for us due to changes in their current CPR (Child Permanency Report).  

In some ways we probably would have preferred not to hear anything until their situation was clear and their was a profile to swap with ours, but it seems that's not the way it's going to work and we probably need to get a bit more thick skinned during this time as there will no doubt be lots of emails, glimpses and near misses flying around during this stage. Actually, there have since been another two emails mentioning other possible matches and asking if we would like to know more, and again no profile has followed. I should point out this is in no way the fault of our social worker, she continues to be really great and proactive. I guess when she is hearing about these possible matches she is contacting us straight away as one would expect, but then not hearing anything more from the other end.

In other news... our adopters 'profile page' is now complete and has been sent to the National Adoption Register and we have also joined the Be My Parent website from BAAF where we can search profiles of children waiting to be placed. There is also a profile swap event happening in London this week where agencies and authorities from across the country will meet to swap  adopter and child profiles for possible matches. We are unable to attend in person but our profile will still be present.  I have also sent our profile off to my home town in the North East, where I know there is a high percentage of Asian children so I was keen for their family finding team to keep us in mind. I'm not sure if I have mentioned already but we are a mixed race couple and keen to explore all single or mixed heritage avenues to widen our search criteria!

That's another great thing worth a mention about Ealing Council for any perspective adopters... Unlike many/most agencies and local authorities who keep approved adopters exclusive to their own placement/family finding teams for a period of 3-6 months, Ealing actively encourage adopters to send out their profile to other agencies and to be proactive in their search. We are in the process of putting together a list of all agencies/LA's in the UK whom we will send our profile to personally over the next couple of weeks. I will make this list available via New Family Social as it will be a valuable resource.

And finally... Whilst on holiday in Italy this week we received an email from our Social Worker who finally had an actual profile for us to view and consider. We confirmed our interest to find out more and were then sent the CPR for further reading. This report is slightly out of date with an updated version expected in around 2-3 weeks time when we will read it again and decide if we think we should take further steps... Exciting times! I'll keep you updated future posts :-)

Approval Panel / Live Finals

This morning was our panel meeting and we both woke up feeling a little anxious about what was to come. We set off for the town hall in good time and met up with our social worker half an hour before our time slot for breakfast. Well... we ate breakfast and she briefed us again on what to expect and went through any possible sticking points that the panel might bring up.

We crossed the street to the town hall and made our way to the waiting area, I had already been to the little boys room twice so I passed on the tea and coffee that awaited us. We seemed to be sat for ages, at least 20 minutes after the allocated time which did nothing to settle nerves. Eventually a member of the panel came to say hello and took our social worker through to the panel room to discuss our application and question any areas where they felt more information was needed. We waited.

After another twenty minutes of pacing up and down the corridor the same chap returned and showed us to the panel room (that's where they keep the biscuits I noted) to sit alongside our social worker where we faced a crescent of ten panel members, a few of whom we recognised from our preparation group including a birth mother who came to speak with us, the manager of the adoption team for our agency and a psychologist. After they all introduced themselves the head of the panel handed over to three members who had raised questions.

It was time for us to hear their concerns and respond. A lot was resting on this and we had already decided not to get defensive and if there was any question that we didn't agree with we would humour them and answer respectfully anyway. The questions were:

1. Why had we stated on our matching application that we were not willing to consider a child with any potential attachment issues or developmental needs? Errm... we didn't say that! We have heard that the panel don't always have time to read the reports in full. I was quick to respond to this question (whilst trying to remain calm)  and corrected the lady by saying what we had actually said (I'm guessing she was the first not to have read the report) is that we are open minded and would consider each child on a case by case basis. It would be impossible to give a general yes or no when there are so many variables and every child's needs are different - we want to be realistic in what we can take on and what we can offer our child.

2. Why we had decided that my fiancée would be the one to take adoption leave from work and not me when I was supposed to be the most maternal one? Again - I don't remember at any point in our assessment saying this so we assured them that we both feel maternal in equal measure and the decision for me not to take adoption leave was because I am a business owner and it would not make financial sense for us for me to take unpaid time off when my fiancée would get a good package from his employers.

 3. As we are a mixed-race couple, how do we feel our cultural heritage and different family backgrounds would affect our ability to raise a child? Well living in West London we told the panel that our child would certainly not be the only child in such a family given the diverse ethnic community we live in.

We were asked to return to the waiting room whilst the panel discussed our answers and made their recommendation. We certainly felt that a couple of members may have not been entirely comfortable with approving same sex adopters as the questions they had asked were not direct and clear, either way we were able to answer their questions confidently and genuinely. It was only about five minutes later that the chap returned to collect us again to take our seats in front of the panel to hear their verdict. That's was it...

The head of the panel said that the panel were in full support of our application and recommended that we were approved as adopters! We did it... we are approved! We were so happy. Each member of the panel said why they supported our application and wished us well. We said thanks you to each of them and my partner said a special thanks to our social worker and told the panel how supportive and flexible she had been with us during our assessment. 

So that's it! We are through the the 'live finals' and we look forward to the next stage of the journey waiting for the stork to deliver our children..