We are Approved!

28th July

Today we received a letter saying that we are 'Approved to Adopt 1 child of either sex, aged 0-4 years old'.

There is a form to fill in and sign to be put on 2 Adoption databases, so we need to send that back......

(Approval) Panel

We set off early for our '11.30am, get there for 11.15am' with the Panel, as there had been an accident on the motorway and we worried that the traffic would be bad in the towns.

About 10 mins into the 20 min journey my mobile rang and R asked me how far we had got, which we thought was a bit odd, but thought she was panicking unnecessarily.....  

We arrived in reception at 10.55am, signed in, and were then met by a very stressed looking R.

It turns out that admin had given us the wrong time slot and we were in at 11am!

So we had 5 mins in an office to prepare before the Chair of the Panel came in.

She did offer us 5 more mins, once she knew about the time slot mistake, but we said we were fine.

She told us the 4 questions that would be asked, and we went into the big room of 12 people...

It was actually really fine, very professional, and I wasn't nervous at all.

They asked:

1) What did we think of the process and training?

2) They wanted to know about a previous job title and what the job was :-)

3) A question for Steven, was, How did he feel at being diagnosed Type 2 Diabetic during his Adoption Medical?

4) They asked me if we could afford for me to work less hours when I return to work.

We were in there about 10 mins....then they sent us back to the room we'd been in before.....

15 mins later R came into the room and said 'Congratulations, the Panel have unanimously recommended that you should be approved'.

And that was that......what a relief after worrying about what it would be like.

I had such a headache, from the relief that I went to bed.....

Next step is a letter from CEO confirming whether we are approved or not.

How Many Pages???

29th June.....I'm putting the date because this is a retrospective post due to me being a crap blogger....

Today we received our PAR (Prospective Adopters Report).

75 Pages!!!

Wow, that took some reading......there are a handful of small errors, which R will correct.  She's coming to see us on the 2nd July.

2nd July

R came in the evening this visit. All our other visits have been at 8.15am. R was incredibly surprised at how talkative DH is when he is awake.....DH is not a morning person :-)  
So she is changing her report as she had said that DH was quiet....

We also passed the H&S checklist....

So, we are on for Approval Panel on 19th July!!

References and Parents

After seeing us for the last 'home work' discussion, R went away to start writing our report, and for that she needed to look back through all her notes and visit our referees and parents.

Our Referees were:

DH's sister and her husband.

My brother and his GF.

Our best friends. and their daughter.

One of my colleagues at work who I have known for 10+ years.

One of DH's colleagues at work who I have known for 10+ years.

R needed to visit parents not because they were acting as referees, but because DH's Mum and Dad and my Mum will be offering child care when I return to work.

Medical, Social Worker Visits and Homework

From December 2011 through to April 2012 we saw our Social Worker R, every 2 weeks.

We covered a multitude of topics from discussing our own childhood and upbringing, what our thoughts and beliefs on certain topics are, and how we would deal with certain situations, through to an exercise where we assumed that we were the adoptive parents of a child called Mac, and had questions to answer based on him at 5, 7, 11, 16, 18, 25 and 28 years old.

We got to know our SW very well and she got to know us very well, although at first she struggled to 'get' DH :-)

A number of Health & Safety Issues were identified around the house and garden....This sounds bad, but most parents would fail the exhaustive list someway or other.

Next step....she sees our referees and we carry on with DIY....

We needed to have radiators fitted in the two spare bedrooms, which in turn led to DH having to fix the floor that the plumber was supposed to have fixed.  

We had to do some work on the bannister of the stairs and landing because in the early 70's when our house was built, it seems that no one was overly bothered if small children could fall through large gaps :-)


We had to put locks, latches, shelves, etc etc on pretty much everything.  We had to build fences, gates, soakaways, drainage channels etc etc.

We also had to each have a Medical. Mine was fine, and I wasn't charged the £80 either :-)
DH had issues actually getting an appointment, as they do them so infrequently, but he was finally seen.  One of the things that they test for is a urine dip test for Diabetes, and DH was found to be Type 2 Diabetic, but only just over the threshold.... This is not a problem for the Adoption though.

What a Terrible Blogger I am....

Well, it has to be said that I am the worst blogger in the history of bloggers....no update from November to August....I will try to do better.....

Hope No one thinks we have 'controlled drugs' here...

Well, we now have a lockable medicine cabinet on the bathroom wall, and all medications are in there including any cat and dog stuff.

It looks quite smart next to the bathroom cabinet......the only thing is, because it has a key it looks like someone who lives here is on methadone or something :-)

Now I actually know exactly what I need to order prescription wise too.