Approved!!

We were recommended for approval to adopt at panel yesterday. Leading up to the event I had thought I wasn't nervous. But a bad night's sleep and not being able to manage breakfast for probably the first time EVER have made me think otherwise. Flash was Mr Laidback and went to work in the morning. Me on the otherhand had to indulge in a bit of retail therapy to keep busy. Came away with some nice clothes for work, but will have to reflect on whether my choices were informed and conscious as I bought stuff that I wouldn't normally!

The panel itself was not an ordeal. The whole process from arrival lasted 30 minutes. Bonnie went in first for 15 minutes to answer questions and them came out with the panel chair who introduced herself and told us the areas they wanted to discuss. These were pretty much as expected - how would we manage Flip's transition to uni and his bonding with a new child, how did Flash manage his sight issues and how would he keep track of a young child. What had we learned from the home study and prep group process. We were easily able to answer these, with a bit of humour that had the panel giggling politely and we came away feeling that we had presented ourselves well. Which was obviously the case as we had the good news within 10 minutes and the comment that the panel thought we were a lovely couple. We fooled them!! Only joking lol! We are also ecstatic that Micky and Minnie, our friends from prep group (sorry about the names guys if you are reading!!!) were also recommended for approval so a lovely couple of hours was spent at the pub celebrating with some beer, wine and chips!

So what now? Well, we will get a letter in the next week from the agency decision maker confirming the panel's recommendation and then it is all systems go in finding our new family member. Bonnie has enquired about 4 children already. We are looking for a little girl of school age. Of the 4, SW for A likes our details but a birth family member has cropped up wanting to be considered, so an assessment will have to be done on them meanin it could take several months before we know whether A will be in or out of the birth family. SW for B said they are still family finding in the local area but will keep in touch. SW for C and D have not yet answered so potentially have been on holiday over Easter. We are not in any hurry anyway - we would rather take our time to get the right match than rush into anything.

Have finally taken some crochet pics. Here they are. 2 panels waiting to be joined together, currently about 2/3 of what I hope the finished size will be. The blanket reflects the colour scheme (shades of lavender and cream) that we will be using in the bedroom when done. The single square is actually a lovely dark purple and not the brown colour that the camera on my phone has turned it into!

2 sleeps till.....

....approval panel. So nearly at the end of the first part of our journey. I can't work out if I am nervous or not. I am having very vivid dreams but sleeping OK, but my appetite is not as healthy as usual ( 2lb off at fat club this week) and I seem to be getting way more work done than usual - subconscious distraction technique maybe? The bedroom is nearly finished, but a side effect of the renovations up there is that we are going to replace the kitchen ceiling, as 2 floor joists had to be replaced as they were rotten. In replacing them parts of the old tongue and groove ceiling (which was falling apart anyway) had to be taken down and so, in for a penny.... here comes a new ceiling. This house really is like the forth bridge!!

It is exciting to see some positive news, and some anxious news from my fellow bloggers - I have been reading but not posting as this time of year is manic with marking and exam arrangements so most of my computer time has been spent on that. So m&m and Ali - best wishes, my thoughts are with you.

Flash seems to have got over his spell of the collywobbles but is still adamant that he will not be rushed into choosing the first child suggested and that we will take our time - which is what I thought we were doing anyway.

Still haven't managed to take any photos of my crochet efforts, but I have about half a granny square blanket completed. I will show it off eventually, I promise.

Good luck and best wishes to everyone else going to approval panel this week.

The PAR.....

......has arrived. Came in the post yesterday morning. On the whole it is a good reflection of our family, although as it is effectively a document which sells you to childrens' social workers, having so much praise and positivity in there felt a little weird. But I think that is down to the 'British', trait of not being comfortable accepting praise or compliments. It is much easier to be self deprecating!! There are a couple of minor inaccuracies but nothing that we feel strongly enough about to have to change, other than to point out where a couple of dates don't match up (same event but different dates given in different sections of the report).

I think the nerves are well and truly settling in. Flash in particular is having difficulty facing up to the change that is coming to our lives. He likes our life, he likes our lifestyle, he likes our freedom to do whatever he wants whenever he wants, he was ambivalent about he process and is doing it for me...... I could say the same thing, but at the same time, there is something missing and it feels as if we are in a 'comfort rut'. I can't explain how I feel, only that if our life remains as it is I will be bored forever. I guess I need a challenge and part of life's challenge to me is having a family, and I am ready to add to mine. But I also know I cannot do this unless Flash is fully on board. So (rhetorical question) do I put this down as pre-approval jitters or Flash admitting his true feelings? It is only with me he is like this. With our friends from prep group (we met up at the weekend) he was positive and bubbly and fully engaged in talking about all things adoption. I need to talk to him about it but he is away for work this week so it will be a weekend chat.

Thanks to Ali, my fellow blogger, I have taken up crochet. With reasonable success. So when I get a chance I will load up my efforts thus far. I am sure they will get better!! Off to buy some more wool now!!

4 weeks and counting.........

........until approval panel!

The time really has flown since we first met Bonnie and started home study. And it has been very strange not having our regular appointment. The profile we have do do for sending out to other agencies/LAs is nearly done. I find it very hard to 'sell' our family and what we can offer a child.

The bedroom is coming on well:

from this................................to this............................and currently.........

Just a little decorating job we thought!!

Meeting up with friends from prep group on Saturday so really looking forward to that. If my car is fixed. I have been smelling a strange rubbery smell, so took it in yesterday to get it looked at and they wouldn't let me take it home. The cambelt casing has cracked, and the cambelt is rubbing against it, hence the smell. So new cambelt needed as a precaution against any damage that might have been done to it even though It was done only 18 months ago. Oh well. No Easter eggs for the boys this year then!!

busy busy

Just a short post. So busy at work with marking and so on, extra time at the computer is not my favourite pastime at the moment.

We have finished home study yay! Bonnie has gone off to write the prospective adopters report and left us with a list of things to get done before approval panel including getting a fireguard, batteries for the smoke alarms (they were working a month ago-honest!), cupboard and drawer locks, medicine cabinet etc... And we have to do a one page flyer to start sending out to social workers. This consists of a photo of the three of us followed by 3-500 words telling the world all about us! What to say.....

Oh, and the carpenter started on the bedroom today so I am feeling hopeful that we might actually get it done before panel!

last homestudy next week

Where has the time gone? Tuesday will be our last homestudy visit before Bonnie goes off to write up the PAR. I have been so busy at work that I have forgotted to update the blog so I haven't commented properly on the last visit. We again talked about parenting and really started talking in detail about what issues we would think we could cope with in a child. This is hard because your first instinct is to say 'I could cope with anything' as you cannot bear to think that these gorgeous kids should stay looked after. Then reality and practicality set in and you have to be realistic. I thought about the things I couldn't cope with when flip was younger and the biggy for me is sleep. In that I need it. Lots of it. Well, at least a regular 8 hours worth. I can cope with less occasionally so long as I get chance to catch up but I get really short tempered, stressy and unpleasant if sleep is lacking and would not want to be like this with our new child. Which brings us back to profiles. How do you decide whether one child who is 'full of energy' is not ADHD when other profiles actually state ADHD? etc. etc. So I started looking at the 'sleeps well' children thinking that even if they are energetic, at least we can all crash out together.

We are very open to considering children with disabilities so long as they are not so severe as to need one of us to be at home full time - no point in adopting if we can't pay the mortgage and provide a home! Which brings me onto the curveball. At the end of the session Bonnie handed us a pile of extended profiles sent to the agency by other SWs around the country. These were for us to look at and discuss in detail as to whether we thought we could consider any of them. Came away not knowing if this was an exercise or not (Bonnie said it was) but some friends who were on our prep course had the same only their SW indicated it wasn't an exercise..... and of course we have seen a profile for a little dumpling who has taken our breath away.

What to do?

parenting

At our last meeting with Bonnie we started to talk about parenting skills & styles and how we thought parenting an adopted child might be. I suppose you could say I have an advantage as I aleady have Flip, but I must admit I feel like I have had an easy ride with him. We had the usual teenage moods and sulks, but no drink/drugs or other worrying behaviours and on the whole he didn't do anything that caused us any great stress or worry. We know that this is not likely to be the case with an adopted child due to the trauma in the background of any child who has been taken into the care system. So we talked through a few different approaches to parenting but on the whole we know that we are likely to have to adapt our parenting style as and when a child is placed and once we know from the foster carers what is likely to work and what definitely doesn't!

To aid us in this we have been looking at back issues of BMP and CWW to look at childrens' profiles and discuss how we might approach parenting or what we feel the isssues are likely to be. Not easy. But on the whole I think we are beginning to get an idea of the issues we can and can't deal with. And by looking at the profiles separately and then coming together to discuss we have been able to see where we are in agreement and where we differ in what we think we could cope with.

We have also started redecorating the bedroom which currently looks as pictured above. Yes that is daylight coming through the walls and yes it is a bigger job than expected, but at least it will all be done by the end of March. Some remedial work to be done to beams by our carpenter and then it should be a fairly quick job to finish. Tell me, does anywhere sell childproof plasterboard......?