Introducing us and the start of our adoption journey.

Just a short introduction to get started. I met Flash 10 years ago on a blind date, introduced by a mutual friend who thought we would get on very well with each other. He was right! My then 8 year old son (let's call him Flip) was there for our first and second dates - a good start I thought! We married in 2005. In our ten years together the subject of adding to our family has come up a few times, but in the earlier years it just wasn't the right time - work, sport and general family life needed to be put behind us first. So by the time the topic was seriously discussed again, we both felt that with a now 18 year old son and the pair of us straddling 40 (me the wrong side, him the right side!!) adoption rather than birth child was the way forward. We have enough nieces and nephews to have satisfied the cutesy-baby-turns-into-terrible-tot years and both feel that an older child would 'fit' well within our family.

Our journey so far - and we are not very far - has been relatively simple. I rang two local adoption agencies, one local authority and one voluntary. The local authority phone call left me feeling that they weren't really interested. The VA call however was much different. After a half hour conversation which was hugely helpful they said they would get some info in the post to us and would very much like to meet us. A couple of weeks later we had our first meeting with the agency manager. A hour and a half later we walked out of the meeting feeling as if we didn't know much more about adoption and the agency concerned than our research had already told us, but that the agency manager knew a heck of a lot about us! Which I guess is what it is all about.

Fast forward a couple of months and our medicals are done, our referees have submitted their references and our first meeting with our allocated social worker has been booked.

This is where I explain the title of this blog. We met several weeks ago with each side of the family to tell them of our plans and to ask a couple of family members to be referees. My 8 year old nephew was fascinated by the conversation and had his own questions, which went something like this:

"are you having a baby?"

No we want to adopt an older child. It will be a new cousin for you.

"Why don't you want a baby?"

Because I'm a bit too old now ( stretching the truth a bit to reduce length of explanation).

"Where will my new cousin come from?"

Well, some children have to live away from their old mummies and daddies because they weren't looked after properly, or their mummies and daddies might have died and so there is no-one to look after them. So we will adopt a child who needs new parents.

"Oh. So do you choose who you want?"

No, we have lots of meetings with people who decide what sort of child would fit best with our family and then together we try to find one who would fit in well.

"So will it be a boy or a girl cos I would like a boy cousin"

We don't mind. We will have to see.

"Oh. So when is my cousin moving in?"


And every conversation since then where the progress of our adoption is mentioned we get "so when is my cousin moving in?"


So that is us: Lindyloodles, Flash and Flip. Hoping to add to our little family and in the process provide a loving and nurturing home for "my cousin".

I hope you enjoy following this diary. It will probably gather a fair amount of non-adoption detritus along the way, but I reserve the right to ramble on about (in no particular order) American football (yes, the season starts again this week - go Packers!!) Horseriding (just been on board again for the first time in about 15 years and could become my next obsession!!) weightwatching, cats and chickens. I also reserve the right to add or subtract from this list according to league positions, soreness of bum, pounds on or off and relative cuteness respectively.