Still chugging along

We're still in the process. Social worker visits were going well, then we hit a snag as our social worker was taken seriously ill on the day we were expecting another visit. Obviously we're concerned about her since we got on very well and had built up a very good working relationship with her, but it's also set us back a few weeks. This came after we had been shown the details of a child who's on the books of the local authority. It may have been too early in our process, but we were immediately smitten by this kid. The details had a picture of a really happy, pleasant looking boy. The life story didn't hold any obvious problems from our point of view, though there were possible allusion to some issues so we requested the full report. We also asked if we could see the details of another boy on the local list who also matched our (for want of a better term) requirements. This was just so we could get an idea of what might be said and, more importantly, what might be omitted and let us read between the lines. This was a useful thing to do since we saw immediately why he wasn't a suitable chld for us and we certainly didn't get the instant affinity for him that we did with the first one.

The full report on the boy we first saw the details on makes for horrendous reading. Not so much for this boy(though at his young age he has seen and exerienced far more trauma than he should have), but his parents' stories also show that these things are clearly a cycle that goes round every generation and that by going to adopt a child we might be able to make a difference and actually stop it happening again to that little person and give them a real chance in life
A couple of weeks later we resumed with a new social worker. We had been progressing nicely and had covered a lot of ground in the homework we had to do, but she still insisted on going over the same stuff again.

We heard that we originally would have had our panel date some time in June (this is the date when you go before a group of people who decide that you are suitable to be adoptive parents) but this is now towards the end of July so adding between 4 and 6 weeks. We don't know at the moment where we stand with the child we were shown the details of earlier on, whether the delay we're having means socil servies will be loking elsehwhere for a family for him, but we live in hope. If we don't get matched with him, sad to say, there is no shortage of children waiting for their "forever mummy and daddy" in the local area or further afield

Let's see who you could have won

Paddington is out there somewhere (as I've mentioned numerous times already). I could go on like astupidly twee Google advert about what their life might have been like up until they arrive and how they won't have to go through any more of the stuff they've been through again, but that's not really my style. What I really want to know is who will they turn out to be. I don't mean what there name is, as such, but will their personality be like some child from off of the telly. Let's look at some possible scenarios.

South Park
Stan and Kyle are reasonable kids, normal and quite well balanced so they would be OK. Kenny would be a problem because of the speech thing (speech therapy is a long, drawn out process) and the snorkel jacket that seems to be grafted to his skin. Then, not forgetting the fact that he seems to die an awful lot which I think would contribute to some serious issues. However, you'd really hope that they'd be like Butters, though you'd always be worried they might end up as Eric Cartman. This is of course the worst-case scenario: a fat, selfish kid

Family Guy
Chris is a bit dumb, Meg a bit morose. Stewie would be fun, provided it was Stewie from the later series when he was more rounded and not trying to kill Lois. Could develop personality problems through things like time travel and occasional abandonment and being raised for large parts of his life by a dog that vaguely resembles Snoopy

The Simpsons
Bart might be a handful, but I could work with Lisa. I think her geekish tendencies would compliment my own. Maggie is too young to know what trouble might be geting stored up for her in later life

William Brown (from the Richmal Crompton Just William books)
This boy has clear attachment issues, probably due to parents who seem to hold the Victorian idea of kids being seen and not hurt and that he's best looked after by the servants. He'd be a nightmare

Kids on Coronation St and Eastenders
Children in soap operas almost invariably tend to be born on Christmas Day which means you could stand to save a good deal of cash in present buying. On the other hand, they often arise as a result of some sort of extra-marital affair/underage sex and one of their parents usually ending up to be a murederer or dead (or both). I'd be inclined to avoid adopting any child from Weatherfield or Albert Square on this basis

10 reasons to adopt that social workers don't want to hear you say

Obviously we want to have a child because of the joy it brings and stuf, but there are reasons you might think of that you probably wouldn't actually want to tell a social worker

1: I want a child so I can justify getting a dog

2: I'm doing it so I get shit loads of karma Nectar points. After this I'm sure to come back as something really cool like a dolphin and be a good half way along the route to Nirvana (if you're into that stuff)

3: Someone's got to look after me when I'm old and decrepit

4: An adoptive child might be more attractive than my own and may get sort of lucrative child modelling contract. It sounds cruel, but with some of the thinking of our current government and some of the ideas floating around the Republican candidates in the US, any of whom who could be leader of the "free" world, it's got to be better than making them clean chimneys.

5: Lurking round Toys R Us, playing with toys I want and not looking like a paedophile*

6: I can't be arsed to demolish the child's play house we have in our garden

7: It's going to force me to curb my potty mouth around the house

8: I eventually get someone to do chores round the house. After a few short years I need never pick up a lawnmower again

9: Hot chocolate at bedtime, seeing 3D Pixar films, getting all sorts of stupid kids cable channels, cartoons and sweets. Lots and lots of sweets. Real sweets like sherbet lemons, Kola Kubes, and Matlow's finest like Swizzles, Refreshers and Drumsticks. Not sure what the kid's going to have, mind

10: Christmas, Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night, Easter, birthdays. Actually, sod it, since one of the things we have to be is how sensitive to multiculturalism we are as a family, we'll also celebrate Eid, Divali, Hannukah, Chinese New Year, St George's, Patrick's, David's and Andrew's Days American Independence Day, Singapore National Day and May Day. Basically, any excuse to eat shit loads, give presents and have a good time.



*The "P" word is definitely one that I think will set off alarm bells in social worker's heads, whatever the context

Wanted on voyage?

As the adoption process trundles on, it's difficult not to find it's become the whole focus of your life. Before we started there was just us, two adults doing what we do: going to the pub at the drop of a hat; going on holidays with lots of travelling between destinations and doing things like spending three hours in art galleries; going to fitness weekends and going out to restaurants whenever we felt like it. Now, though, the changes that the adoption will bring start to become more tangible. The thing is, we are aware of it and still can't wait. I have daydreams of taking Paddington on holiday to places with great beaches or to theme parks or to where they have places like great zoos and other attractions that are child orientated. I would be thrilled to give them the chance to try all sorts of foods, and trying to instill in them the genuine wonder at the world in nature and the people and cultures of the world that I feel.


Now, I know there are a lot of similarities to getting a child the usual way, and that every prospective parent has the same hopes and fears, but there is a major difference. Paddington is already out there, biding for his or her time until their new "forever mummy and daddy" brings them home. They already have their own personality and their own likes and dislikes. We might not be able to get them used to things like foods that we enjoy or (God forbid) they wouldn't like travelling by plane, say, for long trips. Our own biological child would have the same genes as we do and you wonder if that means they would have had the same tastes. On the other hand, where does nature stop and nurture take over? How much will we imprint our own lifestyles or (for want of a better word) culture on the new little member of our family? How much will we even want to? As I said, Paddington has his or her own developing personality which makes them unique and not a little clone of either of us and it's always going to be difficult to tread the fine line between giving them the opportunities and all the support and encouragement they need to be who they can be and over-egging the pudding or, more aptly, overbearing the Paddington, by being pushy and expecting too much. It looks like we've got a lot of playing things by ear and plenty of trial and error over the next few years

"While a generation digests high-fibre ignorance...."

Apologies for the delay since the last post. We've had so much stuff to complete for the social worker once the regular meetings began. Our first meeting lasted about 90 minutes and covered our support network. We then agreed to have meetings every fortnight, at least for the beginning. On this first time we were given homework to do to cover all of our addresses, education, work history and significant life events as well as a family tree. It is quite fun when you really get into it, I suppose, working over your past life and digging up memories that you'd not realised you'd remembered. If nothing else it reawakened my liking for old Marillion which I now can't get out of my head several weeks later. This is awkward because the intellectual snob in me thinks the lyrics are pretentious nonsense where Fish uses too many words he probably doesn't actually know the meaning of. Still, here's a version of Fugazi from Youtube, for no other reason than the fact that this blog doesn't have any pictures or stuff to make it look nice



Thing is we now feel like we are making pogress so Paddington starts to look like a more realisitic thing though at this stage he or she was still a vague, almost abstract idea.

Wheels in motion

It all started by looking up the local authority adoption procedure on the internet. You get yourself booked into an introductory meeting/presentation. They tell you what you might expect. Fair enough, it's all about the worse-case scenario. After all, children don't get taken away from their parents because they forced them watch X-Factor (though, in my opinion that would be reason enough). They usually get taken away because they are being neglected, abused or are deemed to be in danger in in some way, so they are likely to have problems and are not going to be the easiest kids to deal with.

Next up they send a social worker round for a home visit and go through a basic form to look at the basic requirements for adopting a child, like having space for them, making sure you have a sound financial footing, support network and that sort of stuff. It's all frothy and light at this stage, a bit like a social worker decaffeinated cappucchino. The social worker who visited us was a nice woman, enthusiastic and helpful, if a bit scatty in an endearing way. I think this is going to be the way things go. The people we deal with are, I'm sure, going to be lovely, but the mechanism that they work within causes the hold-ups and the general stress. I'm sure this will become more evident in subsequent blog entries. Saying that, there are horror stories on various fora online of people being rejected for what seem to be arbitrary reasons, so we must remain fairly detached from our social workers as they aren't actually our friends, however much they seem to be. Anyway, this initial visit seemed to go well for us and we got onto the next stage that very day when the social worker called the office to see if there were any places on the next initial training session and discovered that indeed there was. We received written confirmation a couple of weeks later so the ball was properly rolling.

The introductory training session is a two day affair when you met the other prospective adoptive parents on the current intake and go through some activities. There's the obligatory ice-breaker then there are the "let's get together and talk about the effects of X" group ativities. The main value of this session for us, though, was the opportunity to meet others in the same position as we are and to meet some of the social workers we will be dealing with. They also had a foster carer and a couple who had adopted three (yes, THREE!) siblings to give their slant on the adoption process. Otherwise, it is stating the obvious and, much like throwing a blunt javelin, is a largely pointless exercise.

The end of this came with our first setback. On getting written confirmation of our place on the initial training session, we were told that we would be allocated a social worker to commence the home study, which is the next part of the process. However, since their manager was off on long term sickenss, they wouldn't allocate any of our group a worker. This could have been partially due to the fact that the group contained 9 groups wanting to adopt (7 couples and 2 single women), which is a lot more than they are used to dealing with. Still, you can't help thinking that if it was any other sphere, work wouldn't just grind to a halt because someone was ill.

A few weeks later, after sending an e-mail since we hadn't heard anything (replied to by a stand-in manager) we were told that there would be some progress shortly. We had been concerned that we might have been put on hold, so this put our minds at ease for the time being. We heard nothing until a couple of weeks later when we got a call out of the blue from a kind of freelance, locum social worker. So we now have a date to commence our home-study in the New Year which means we might well be celebrating our last Christmas as a childless couple for some time. This year getting shit-faced, eating beef and out to the pub and parties till god knows when. Next year Santa, toys, turkey and still probably getting a bit drunk. It will be very, very different, but I really can't wait. Hurry home Paddington!

Wanted on voyage. An introduction

Hello all. This is the first entry of my blog to chronicle the ongoing saga of the attempt my wife and I are making to adopt a child. Let me explain something first. I initially wanted to write this blog to our incoming child, but decided it was way too twee, like that awful sodding Google advert with the guy typing stuff to his new-born daughter. So, I'm writing it in this way

I chose the name, 21st Century Paddington because we are hoping to adopt a child somewhere in the age range 3-5 years old and have no preference as to either a boy or a girl. As we hope the process will be taking sometime within a year (and this may be an optimistic time scale due to the obstacles put in the way by the various organisation we need to deal with), this means that they are somewhere out there right now. They have a name and a personality and they don't know we exist. So to refer to the child I need a name, rather than calling it "it". When I was young I loved the Paddington stories, by Michael Bond, mainly due to a boxset of his books that one of my aunties bought for me which I treasured and read over and over. For those of you who don't know who Paddington is, first of all let me be the first to welcome you out from the cave in which you were born and raised. Paddington was a bear from Darkest Peru who came to Britain by boat with a battered suitcase, a shapeless hat and a tag saying "Please look after this bear, thank you". He arrived in London and was found in Paddinton Station by the Brown family who took him home and made him part of their family. Adopted him, if you like. Therefore I thought Paddington would be a good name to refer to our child to come in the interim. Having grown up with these delightful tales, it's nice that the stories have some real relevance to my life now I'm a lot older

Why do we want to adopt?. Without going into too much detail, we tried to conceive a child the normal way but it just didn't happen. After a while we underwent medical investigations that were inconclusive, though we stopped short of the IVF (too much emotional, not to mention financial, investment in something that has, at best, a 20% success rate). We discussed the idea of adopting an orphan from somewhere like China, but were put off this by the bureaucratic assault course that adopting a child from overseas actually is. To give you an idea, imagine trying to pop to Tesco's but having to get over two Himalayan-sized mountain ranges to get over, separated by a bottomless chasm a few thousand miles across, and paying a five figure sum for the privilege. This was a few years back during which time we've moved to another part of the country and had put the whole adoption thing on hold for a while. Now the time seemed right to think more seriously about adoption but for a child from our own country. After all, it's not like there is a shortage of kids who need a home here. Since we are now a bit older than when we first thought about adoption, it just seems right to take in a child who is a little bit older which is where Paddington is going to come in. Not only that, but we don't have to deal with stuff like teaching them to walk, nappies and, quite literally, all that crap.

I think that pretty much sums up how we are where we are at the moment. I'll try and keep up to date on any progress we make in terms of the adoption process.