The end

My adoption journey is over. The reasons are personal. I thank you for your interest and support over the last 18 months. I won't visit the blog after today other than to delete it in a few weeks time, but wish all those still on the journey good luck and best wishes for the future.
LL

The view from our villa's terrace.

We have had a great holiday, very relaxed and recuperated, which is a good job as at 9.05am on our first working day back home, we had a phone call from Bonnie as she wanted to send us 2 full CPRs and 2 profiles. She has been very busy while we have been away. Of the 4, we discounted one straight away with 2 favourites and another a close 3rd. Having had a meeting with Bonnie, for various reasons which, due to confidentiality I cannot elaborate on here, number 3 is now favourite and we are going to wait and see if the childs SW wants to meet us. At the same meeting with Bonnie, she outlined another child whose report she had received via adoption register contacts. The SW for this child has not yet had our PAR but we are interested enough to want to read further, and if the SW wants/likes our PAR to see how it goes. We have had loads of interest from the adoption register,which means Bonnie has been filtering lots of information for us, but I think we are finally beginning to realise exactly what sort of child we want. That sentence sounds really harsh, but by seeing more CPRs and talking them through we are beginning to see which children will 'fit' us and our lifestyle and wider family - not as easy as we thought it might be when we began the process!

not to be.

Had a visit from child's sw and family finder this week. A long 4 hours in total preceded by manic cleaning tidying and finishing off some decorating. Tempers got a little frayed but on the day all was fine. The visit went well but at the end we decided that even if offered, we would say no to the link. I won't detail too much here, but there were several issues that for us were not clarified and contact in particular had us worried. We felt it was being pushed less for the child and more for the birth family but that was only one thing. We must have been giving some ambiguous or slightly negative body language as the next day we were told that they had decided to go with another family visited a couple of weeks earlier, so in the end our decision was the right one. On reflection it is hard to say what the problem was other than our instincts were telling us that this was a lovely child, just not our child. So the search continues, but with no sense of disappointment and some learning of the process under our belts.

but actually........

We may not have lost out after all. Bonnie rang at the end of last week to say that although the child's sw had visited the other family, they still wanted to meet us as well so a date has been set for when Bonnie gets back from holiday. Still a 50:50 chance we won't be chosen, but looking at things positively, there must be enough about us to like if ,having met another family, they still want to meet us. So now we have a definitive deadline for finishing the kitchen and dining room. BIL is working like a trojan and doing a fantastic job, it just makes you want to continue with the whole house. Unfortunately Mr Bank Manager would object to that and with uni fees looming for Flip it really is a case of having to save up before doing stuff, rather than relying on the little plastic friend!

Sending lots of hugs and good vibes to Minnie and Micky who should hear the outcome of their family finder visit very soon. And huge congratulations to Donald and Daisy who have had a successful matching panel and will be meeting their new little duckling in a few very short weeks.

probably lost out...

Having talked it through we decided to say yes, we are interested in the child whose details we received last week. Their sw was also happy with our PAR so we arranged a provisional date for week beg. 20th July after Bonnie's holiday. Bonnie got a call back at the end of last week to say they wanted to meet us one day this week. All well and good, except for the fact that Flash could not make the days that Bonnie could due to work commitments that could not change at short notice. But more importantly, the work in the bedroom which had spread to the kitchen has now spread to the dining room due to some unexpected structural issues. Namely that the floor to the bathroom (above the dining room) was balanced on beams that were not properly tied in to the frame, and could have fallen in at any time. So the job we thought could be finished by last weekend is now carrying on for another couple of weeks and what with the dust/tools/rubble everywhere there is no way we could get the house any where near ready for a visit this week. Here it is partially restored, but still propped.

This means that we may not get a visit as they have another family to visit and may not want this family to have to wait another 2 weeks for our visit before they get an answer. One part of me is gutted as I am really smitten with this littleun, but the other, more fatalistic part of me is saying, what happens does so for a reason and if it is not meant to be it is because this was not the right child. I suppose there is always the chance that they don't choose the other family after the visit, but I am not counting on that.

Bonnie says we should keep looking while she is away - the mags come out next week and if we see any potential children we will be contacting their sw direct to start the information ball rolling.

beginning to feel real

Been v busy at work over the last few weeks what with it being exam time and lots of marking to do, then a visit to a conference with Flash. Came back and caught up with Bonnie to find she had been very busy in our absence. Bonnie had seen a child in the mags that she thought would be of interest so had decided to contat the child's SW for further info. To cut a long story short, we have read the CPR and there is nothing in there to scare us off and the more we look at it and the pictures, the more drawn we are to this child. Our PAR has been passed on and was well received at the first quick read by the SW so we are just waiting for more feedback following the thorough read. Bonnie doesn't know how many other families are being considered, but to use the fishing analogy, this is our first nibble at the hook, so child could still get away! Also had a SW contact Bonnie having seen our profile and really liking us so some info on another littleun is in the post to us too. Don't know anything about this one other than the name at the moment. So exciting times!! And at just the right time the bedroom should be finished and ready to decorate in the next couple of days (BIL has had to prioritise the day job for the last few weeks and has needed his weekends to recover lol!)

Had another great evening on Saturday with Mickey and Minnie, catching up at a 'microfestival' aka bbq and twinkly lights in a back garden with some good music - back garden of a house in the middle of nowhere, hence the festival analogy!! Thye have also had great news and are actively chasing a link for a sibling group. They are a bit further along than us as they are at the stage where they are trying to reorganise work patterns to fit in visits from SW and family finder. So our thoughts, love & prayers are with them for a successful outcome.

quiet

A quiet week adoption-wise but a week of hell work-wise. So much marking and the 28th was the deadline to get it all done. Not helped by the colleague who double marks my stuff not sticking to the deadlines we had agreed 6 weeks ago and so Thursday and Friday were manic days sorting out admin till late. Ah well. I have finished my blanket. I decided to make it child-sized on purpose so here it is:

And this is a close up of the edging I designed for it:

All we need is a finished bedroom to put it in. The bedroom is nearly finished; it is at the stage of nearly being ready to decorate and carpet, just being held up as my BIL builder is off to a family wedding in Ireland over half term and has had a big contract to work on during the week that has kept him away for several weekends. But he's getting there.

Had a wonderful evening last weekend with Minnie and Micky, catching up on all things adoption. The weather was great, the BBQ was great, and even if it did resemble an inferno at times, it meant that the cooking temp kept going till very late!!