The night before

Cannot believe we are now at this point. Trying to go to sleep night before matching panel - and in a weeks time it should be night before Intros start. I have 4 days left a work till I finish for at least 41 weeks. I had 2 weeks annual leave left which I am using up for first 2 weeks. Plan is the boy will be moved in by 21st Oct but both T & I are hoping for Friday or Saturday before then in our hearts if things go well. Should know more about plan tomorrow as our SW was hoping to have basic plan for us to see then.

Panel not till 2.30 pm so got to occupy ourselves for morning but we have plans that may involve car buying. T was a little shocked by how much boot space buggy took up. After some test diving have found car we want & hopefully the guy who has sold us last 3 cars will be able to do us a good deal on 18 month old version we have found which is specked as we would like at a price we can afford. Now to see what he offers for my current car which he sold us 4 years ago....

Short post today and not on theme unsurprisingly given we are not adopters yet.

 

Relaxing

Well the theme for todays #waso is relax. Which is a good thing to tell me at moment as I try to get everything done in 4-6 weeks less time than I thought I had. 3 weeks today (13/9) by this time (7pm) I will have finished work for at least 41 weeks....

Relaxation at moment for me is usually playing computer games (MMOs mainly with our friend P) - nothing better than hitting stuff after a bad day at work :D I started playing MMOs about 7 years back with Lord of the Rings Online (big Tolkien fan) and have played a number both seriously (raiding regularly etc.) and these days much more casually (pottering around levelling and doing bits & pieces). We brought lifetime subs to LOTRO so have nothing to pay there and tend to stick to free-to-play MMOs now.

However beyond MMOs relaxing is also reading and various crafts: cross-stitch embroidery & card-making mainly. Reading has been one of my main activities since I was 2 1/2 & Mum taught me to read as she apparently got fed up with me correcting her when she made a mistake reading to me (I have a very good memory). As she puts it I haven't stopped reading since - it is something I still enjoy doing and I always have at least one book on the go - often 2 or 3 - one actual book, one on the Kindle and one on the Kindle app on my iPad.

Embroidery is something Mum started me on when I was 10/11 and I nearly always have something on the go. Takes me forever to do one but it is something I tend to do while watching the little bit of TV that I do. The picture in this post is of an embroidery I finished a few years back (2007) which I gave to Grandma for Christmas that year. it has come back to me after her death earlier this year.

Card-making is something I just have periodic blitzes at - made a load of Christmas cards a few weeks back so we had a stock before Christmas crept up on us. This was when we thought our boy would be moving in with us mid to late November. That all changed when we got the phone call last week.

Still playing odd bits of MMOs at moment but we are using a lot of our spare time getting jobs finished round the house. The boy's room is mainly finished - other than something for him to sleep in as we are waiting to hear from FC about that. But we have sorted out the three laundry bags of clothes from my sister (whose elder son is 2 yrs older and younger son is 10 months younger). So there are clothes in the wardrobe, in the chest of drawers and in the cupboard. Plus many more (larger sizes) packed away in vaccie bags on shelf in wardrobe. We've installed and got working an IP camera to monitor room and got two of the Ikea Trofast units in and fixed to wall. Expecting to need more but waiting to see - will sort early on in Intros if needed. Plus we want one in dining room for toys downstairs. Today's (Sunday 15/9) plan is a quick trip out to local outlet place as I need more casual shoes - I own one pair of walking & my walking boots and that is it other than work shoes. Come back via Costco as we need coffee beans for machine, and then loft sorting time. We brought this house of my parents and there was stuff left in loft then (mainly children's stuff I will admit). Plus my brother lived with us for about 2 years split over two periods so we have several boxes belonging to him that he can have now he has his own house. This should free up some space for stuff we will need to store. Little worried how much the boy will come with as been told my his SW that his FC is not planning to take any more little ones - just to see out the 2 she has on long-term foster care. So we could end up with loads - hence the need to make sure we have space. My in-laws laughed yesterday when we were discussing this with them. Thankfully after my sister's experience they seem to be more accepting of what we are saying about things like not picking the boy up initially or giving him anything. Then again my sister-in-law is a yr 2 (was reception) teacher in a deprived area of Liverpool so has experience with the social services & foster care system. She also seems to be getting herself clued up on adoption which helps us no end. Ok this post has veered somewhat around and taken me nearly 2 days to complete (now Sunday morning) but that is my life at moment. 13 more working days to go before it all starts.....  

Reeling once more

T has decided the adoption process likes to confound us. There we were happy we had a link and expecting a late Oct/early Nov panel date. That was until today when in Conwy. T tried to answer a call from our SW but failed - she left a message asking him to ring back which he did promptly.

Our son's SW wants panel on 30th Sept and Intros to start a week later as his FC is going away for a week from 26th Oct and they feel respite to Intros would not be a good thing - could we mange this. Cue two people on Conwy harbour front hurriedly phoning work while on holiday. Fine for me - T has the complication of Eid-al-Adha which is predicted to be around 15th Oct. One cannot get pharmacist locums where we live around either Eid. Cue call back to our SW who understood this and went away to talk to her manager and also medical advisor as the short notice might mean going to panel without meeting her.

We wandered round the Castle at Conwy and then down to Bodnant Gardens. Driving back through Snowdonia at a point we actually had signal, we got an email from our SW telling us she had spoken to her stand-in manager (annual leave for actual manager) who felt we could manage without T for 3 days during second week of Intros and she had also got us a medical advisor appointment the week before proposed panel. We then went looking for phone signal around foot of Snowdon - ended up in car park in Llanberis. Promptly spoke to our SW again as she phoned following up on email to check about FC meeting times. Then T forwarded email to his line manager and company boss, following up by speaking to line manager directly. Meanwhile I finally told my mother (issues with her spreading too many details round family so is kept a bit out of loop) that we had a link and the timescale. Phoned Dad (he is away for work) before sending emails to three people at work who needed to know.

Given work a fine conundrum to solve - I was teaching 2 modules in 6 weeks - now I am not with under 3 weeks to go before term starts. The decision to go with new timescale is absolutely right as we do not want our son disrupted as much as respite could do. Ok have around 4 1/2 weeks to do stuff we thought we had 9 weeks+ to deal with but we will get there. What happens happens for a reason and this match just feels so right to us.


 

Reflections on today

Well I have finally found time to blog again although it isn't going to be a long one. I hate Clearing...... Well actually I don't it just takes a lot out of me and involves me working 8 days solid - finally got some time off today. Shall see how we are doing when I go in on Tuesday - it's been tough again this year but we were getting there as of yesterday.

Anyway enough of my work life - time to talk about what this blog is supposedly about. We had the meeting with our potential link's SW today. In fact as T put it later we had SWs in our house today for the longest time thus far in the process as ours arrived at 1.15 and left at 4.45. She came early to discuss the child's SW questions with us before she arrived at 2.30 - which we both felt was valuable. Also finally managed to show her the fence round the patio which was partially her suggestion in the first place. It is now partially painted so doesn't quite look like it does below.

The pre-discussion made the subsequent 2 hr discussion go a lot easier. Not going to talk much about the questions as a lot were pertinent to our potential links story - and it is his story. Did talk a bit about his age and why we were not dead set on having a very young baby (honest answer - ever since I started thinking about adoption as a single mother 11 years+ ago for some reason I always envisaged a toddler). We also discussed a fair amount about attachment and we would foster the breaking of current attachment to foster carer and making attachment to us. Also got to here a bit more of his background and talk about contact (which is a bit of a minefield in this case).

His SW assured us he is still developing at the right pace and is a lovely little boy. He is well attached to his FC, and seemed to cope ok with his respite placements. Indeed apparently every FC he spends some time with wants to keep him. After it was all done and his SW left ours said she felt we had presented ourselves really well and answered the questions as she expected. Just got to wait with everything crossed till next week. Hopefully we should know on Tuesday after his SW has spoken to her manager. Then we should get some photos of him which means we can start talking a little to our families about him - well ok my sister & brother-in-law know a fair bit but they are adopters themselves.

I am feeling more positive than I did before - this does feel like the right match for us so just got to hope his SW agrees.

Meeting date

Well we have a date for meeting with our SW and the SW of the prospective link we hav. Not till 3 weeks to or row (23rd Aug)  by we have it :) Family finder for the boy has been talking to his SW as well as our SW. As it happens FF is the SW who did our initial visit and recommended us to go forward. She is friends from uni with some of our friends (T decided later he did remember her vaguely as we discovered this towards end of first visit) so as T says not only do we blame them for us but now for our potential son as well. She apparently approached our SW about this boy some months back and we would probably have heard about him sooner if it wasn't for my wobble at start of June due to losing Ricki & Grandma within a few days of each other.

Anyway we are getting more paperwork about the boy soon so should get a much better idea about him on paper anyway. Just hoping his SW likes us and our house as I am starting to feel a real connection. Looking good for our preferred panel date (end of October) at moment as our SW said 2 months from initial meeting. Just means I have 6 weeks of teaching to do....well it will keep me busy anyway:)

Excited & nervous....

Following last night's meeting with our SW we have the CPR for a little boy who we both have had a gut reaction of 'he's the one' to. Little older than I hoped for...but only by a few months, but he just feels right so we are taking it forward to gain more information. So we have a potential link - before we are approved adopters :) We were round with my sister and brother-in-law last night (who are experienced adopters) after SW left to discuss things through. Got a lot of useful tips from them and also warning that attachment beyond 24 months can be more difficult which I sort of knew already from my reading around.

I have had this week off (still got far too much holiday to use) as we originally planned to - spent a lot of it catching up on sleep - my version of end-of-termitis. Yes ok the students finished back before Spring Bank (at end of May) but I have been busy until graduation last week. Indeed am still busy - got bits an pieces of work I really should have done this week but decided week off not thinking about work would be good for me.

Reeling again

And not for the first time during the process (back loaded some of my blogs from private blog covering the process thus far).....

We saw our SW on Wednesday to discuss our PAR - only a few factual changes to make as we both felt it was a good reflection of us. Although T did say seeing everything written down that we had been through with my health and his job fun since we got together makes him realise quite how much there was. The reassuring thing for me in report was that medical advisor just commented that my ongoing (well-managed) chronic conditions would need discussing through the home study. Our SW commented that I had never had to cancel due to ill-heath and had seemed pretty good throughout the period - which to be honest is true. The last 18 months or so I have felt so much better - many less migraines which I can see from the lack of sick days on my planner at work. Ok had a bit of a blip recently thanks to a very bad hayfever season - but the nasal douching my doctor suggested has made a real difference to me in that I am no longer living with a  low grade permanent sinus headache. This does make a difference to my migraines as well as the build up could trigger them at this time of the year. At least roses (my favourite flower) do not give me any issues - given the number in our front garden at moment.