The Honeymoon (and beyond!!) continued

Working with Social Workers One of the more difficult aspects at the beginning of an adoptive placement is that you still get lots of visits from social workers.  They come to see how things are going and will always talk to you and the child separately – just to make sure things are working out. 

The Honeymoon Period (and beyond!!)

It is usual for there to be a honeymoon period when a child first moves in with you for adoption.  For a period of time, it is likely that the child is going to try as hard as possible to make sure that you like them and that you will want them to stay.  This

The first week together

Lapland UK It had been decided that Mac should spend a few days at home with us before he started at the local primary school.  This was a chance for us all to bond and to start to settle into the rhythm of life as a new family. As we knew this time was coming

Becoming Mum and Dad

One of the things that most potential adoptive parents ask is, “What will I be called?”, especially if the child is older.  Of course, they already have a birth mother and father, and will already have someone that they want to call mum and dad.  I remember thinking that I didn’t really mind what Mac

14 November 2008

The introductions were complete and had gone well, and finally a date was set for Mac to move in.  Just before this we went on a long planned holiday with my parents and sister and brother-in-law – a cruise to the Mediterranean that was to be our last adult holiday for some time. Just before

How we found Mac

The Adoption Process The adoption process is not an easy route, and what is now over twenty years ago, was even more difficult.  It would be easy here to criticise social workers – actually I have a great deal of respect for many social workers and the extraordinarily hard job that they do.  However, it

How it all began

But before we come to “moving-in day” I’d like to go back to the beginning to explain something of the journey that Swee and I went on before we first met Mac. Growing up in an idyllic Hampshire village in the ‘80s it was easy to think that life would work out in the way

Further meetings and the importance of great foster carers

Now that the first meeting had gone well, all was on for our panel to take place to approve the match so that Mac could move in.  While we were waiting for that date, we were sent to meet Mac’s current foster carers, Sue and Mark.  It wasn’t billed as an approval meeting, but it

First meetings

It was a sultry Summer afternoon in a small village in Hampshire.  Two people were sitting on the bench outside the village shop.  To any passer-by it would have looked like a normal day – nothing seems out of the ordinary, just a couple enjoying a quiet, lazy, sunny afternoon in a beautiful picture-postcard village. 

The big bump in the road

I had always considered writing about our experience of bringing up Mac. When we were looking to adopt, there was not much that you could read that gave a realistic sense of what bringing up an older adopted child was like. I thought that there could be experiences that we had gone through that might