I haven't posted for a while, and that has been due to the fact that I have had a very busy (and exciting) couple of weeks. Which I am going to tell you about now...!
The first thing was that I had to say goodbye to the little foster baby my Mother-in-law has been caring for for 13 months. I was sad as I have spent a lot of time with her and really watched her grow up into a [naughty] little toddler, and she has been my first real experience with babies. But I am so pleased she has a nice new adoptive family to go to, she definitely deserves to have a great life!
And speaking of adopting... I have never actually talked about this much as it is something that has had a lot of false starts, but my husband and I are in the process of applying to become adopter's. I have said how much we want a family of our own, unfortunately this has not happened for us. As you already know my husband's mother is a foster carer, has been for 26+ years, and my husband's youngest brother is also adopted. So the area of social care isn't anything new to us.
Unfortunately as adoption in this country is run by your local council (no private agencies) you are pretty much puppets on their strings of bureaucracy. It has been a frustrating process, we heard nothing - absolutely nothing - from Social Services for 8 months and then suddenly it seems to be moving forward.
Last week we attended a four day pre-assessment 'Preparation Course'. I am not going to say too much about this as 1, we can't (confidentiality), and 2, I will post about this and the whole adoption thing in more detail another time.
However, let me tell you, it was basically four days of sitting on very uncomfortable chairs listening to some very useful information and a lot of unnecessary information, as well as witnessing some rather hideous outfits worn by social workers!
My husband said it best when he described is as the parenting course that Marge and Homer have to go on in 'The Simpson's' episode 'Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily'.
!
But, our assessment should start in the next couple of weeks, which will last about 4 months and will be gruelling, but has to be done. We're now looking that, all being well, we could have a child matched with us by the end of the year! Very exciting!
The week was pretty stressful at times which brings me on to my next 'item'! On Thursday morning, the last day of our course, we woke up to a VERY cold house and realised that the heating was not on, and the boiler not working. After having a cold water wash and getting dressed in record time we left the house, hoping that the boiler would sort itself out over the day.
No such luck, when we got home it still wasn't working and by this time the house was so cold we could see our breath! Now luckily my Dad is a plumber, so we didn't have to call out a random person and have him charge who-knows-what just to step foot in the house! He said he would come up the next day to check and/or fix it. I was in a bit of a panic and convinced myself we would need a whole new boiler, which would take a huge chunk out of our savings. And with our kitchen and bathroom due to be re-fitted soon and a potential child coming soon, we really could do without that!!
Anyway, an hour before my Dad was due to arrive the next day, guess what started working again...? Yup, that's right! The boiler. Dad checked it to make sure it is all in working order, and it is, and has been working fine ever since (finger's firmly crossed!).
Remember when I mentioned it was cold, right? Well this weekend it has snowed, quite a lot! Saturday morning we got the bus up to mother-in-law's, but the bus home at 7.45pm decided it didn't have to turn up (it hadn't snowed yet), and about an hour after we had shivered back to mother-in-law's house with our cold tails between our legs it started snowing! Mother-in-law lives in a village, in the middle nowhere! So we we're stranded for the night. The next morning the snow was nearly knee deep (for me anyway, ankle deep for husband!) We had to get a taxi all the way home as no buses run on Sunday's!
Here is some photo's of the snow this morning -
View from my study
A section of our back garden
Some of you probably think this snow is nothing, but for us Brit's it is loads, our snow is usually crap and turns to slush after a couple of hours!
So, that was the last couple of weeks... Sorry for going on quite a bit.
All the best.
Xx
Good luck with the adoption!!! And fingers crossed the boiler experienced a momentary hiccup and will be issue free from here on out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Aimee, I'm sure you know all about the stress of the adoption process!
ReplyDeleteYes, let's hope the boiler was just having a bit of a tantrum and has sorted itself out.
Xx
Good good good luck with your adoption quest. I'm adopted and I thank the stars for my family every time I read a story in our National paper about another child that's been abused because they're so obviously not wanted and unloved. It really breaks my heart there's so many people out there who would give the world to have their own family and others who take the world away. Good good good luck xx
ReplyDeleteSO excited for you!! I hope everything goes smoothly and you're placed with your child soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments! :-)
ReplyDeleteTash- Wow, what a fabulously positive thing to say, and thanks so much for your best wishes!
Maisey- it is pretty exciting isn't it! I'm sure that there will be lots of bumps in the road along this journey, but oh I am sure the end result will be worth it!
:-)