You can get it if you really want

There are three pieces of advice I would pass on to anyone who’s working through the process of adoption.

I’m talking here specifically about all the stuff you have to do, to complete, to write, to listen to and say yes to so that you can be approved – not the actual bit you’re presumably interested in: being matched with a child and bringing her/him home.

It is good, practical advice I’m passing on [though I say it myself]. But just one thing to note: G- and I- were approved by a local authority and it may be different in some detail for those going through a private agency. However, I’d be surprised if it differed in essentials.

1. Preparatory groups.This is the bit after your application is accepted and before you are approved to be an adopter. G- and I- attended a half-day training session on trauma and loss, and then four days’ worth on adoption practicalities. Bits of it were interesting. Other bits less so. Anyhow, the main thing is you are being watched. Whatever the social workers say to the contrary, they are assessing you, and it pays to be the school swot. Ask lots of questions. Bone up on the theory, the books, so you can impress them with your knowledge. Be keen. Make yourself noticed.
2. Home study. This bit comes after the prepatory groups and is supposed to make you ready for the approval panel. It can last anywhere from 6 months onwards, though in the UK you’re supposed to have it completed within 8 months. Expect to find the questions, the comments, the invasion of your privacy difficult. Expect to be embarassed, upset or annoyed at least sometimes. If you find yourself sailing through it may be worth asking yourself why you think that is. If the social worker is being easy on you she/he is not doing you a favour because if the panel isn’t completely satisfied it has the power to defer your application or even reject it completely. Likewise, the report the social worker writes on you at the end of the home study should challenge you or at the very least surprise you in one or more of its findings. That means the social worker has done his/her job and investigated you, thoroughly.
3. Brochure. This is your task at the end of the home study: producing a colourful, child-friendly, attractive and interesting document on you and your home life that your social worker will use, along with his/her report [see above], to try to get you matched with appropriate children. The brochure is actually a difficult thing to put together [much more difficult than you might think: we had 3 attempts at it] but don’t give up on it. Ask to see other people’s brochures and get your social worker/adoption agency person fully involved. Above all, get used to the idea that you have to ‘sell’ yourself. [Don't fool yourself about this: once approved by the adoption panel you become a commodity - or as they put it, a resource - for your agency, and you need to make yourself as valuable as possible.]

So, those are three of my ‘key points’, though I have written elsewhere about the process of adoption. I’d love to hear what other people’s experiences were/havebeen/are like or if there are any other pieces of advice that may be of use to others.

Shout!

Where it came from I wouldn’t like to say. I was tired and I’d been unwell for a few days, but my reaction was, in retrospect, a little over the top.

It didn’t seem to worry S- though. At least not too much. She looked at me wonderingly with those blue eyes as I stood over her and gave her all six barrels.

‘No,’ I said, the decibels rising with every syllable. ‘No, no, no, S-. Don’t do that. DON’T do that. NO!’

What was it that had set me off? Something major, obviously. Something earthshattering. Something that threated to tear the fabric of our family apart.

Well, actually it was that she’d just spilt her drink all over the kitchen table.

For the third time, admittedly. And deliberately, yes. Challengingly, for sure. But for the Lord’s sake it was just a few drops of juice. A miniscule amount of housework. And I’d absolutely blown a gasket.

When I look back I think she was trying to reassure me because when I picked her up from her high chair she clung to me and patted me on the shoulder. ‘Aaahh,’ she said. ‘Aaah’. [Her version of 'all better' or 'come on, old chap, it's not as bad as all that', I think.]

But I was still steaming. A few minutes later, changing her nappy [diaper] ready for her afternoon sleep, I almost boiled over.

Instead I stood up and walked out of the room [shutting the child safety gate behind me, obviously]. I went down the hall and into the kitchen, where I bellowed out my frustration for a good couple of minutes – luckily our neighbours all work during the day, so no one could hear my rather unbecoming vocalisations. Then I went back in and finished her nappy and put her down in the cot.

Later, when I was supposed to be washing the dishes, I stood and stared out of the window, feeling very ashamed of myself.

There’s a school of thought that says adoption gives you the chance to be better parents because you can put theory into practice. You can be more considered. You can apply what the social workers teach you to call a therapeutic approach to your parenting.

I knew that the next time she knocked over her drink [and there would be a next time, of course] I’d have to come up with something slightly less apoplectic. Something that an impartial observer might consider more suited to the occasion. Something – actually almost anything would be better, come to think of it.

One of the hardest things seems to be learning, as the cliche puts it, how to lose a battle so as to win the war.