Well isn't that lovely news for a change

We received an official invitation from the LA to apply to adopt. It is a twelve page document and we both have to fill it in. We called the SW who paid us a visit and said we would like to go ahead and she was very excited.

- Kind Regards, C xx

Is this time convenient for you?

We had arranged a pre approval visit with a social worker for the 18th July, it was after I put down the phone that I realised that I'd be free the following week.  I phoned to rearrange and the lady was extremely concerned that the date was convenient for us.  There are new targets in place to make sure that people get the appointments that are suitable for them.  

I spent a couple of days panicking about the visit and making sure that the house was immaculate and I knew she would want a tour.  We talked about everything, excluding our own birth stories.  How we met, our childhoods and families, why we want to adopt and our experiences with children.  For me the most interesting question was whether or not we had experienced trauma in our lives.  While we have been luck enough to have survived our respective childhoods, I was keen to stress that I had suffered my own traumas.  As a forces child, every couple of years I would leave the friends and routines that I has come to know and love, pick up sticks and move to another town or country.  I know this doesn't compare to a bereavement but the SW was keen to highlight that I would have an empathy with children who were leaving their homes and family.

My current thought processes

For about a year now, actually if I'm honest, for my entire adult life, I have been seriously considering adoption. It kills me inside whe I think about the time I have wasted, waiting....

Initially I wanted to provide GO a biological child because, as I have always said, I wanted to see what our DNA would make.  I had visions of little curly red heads running around, creating mischief and just being loved.  Over time (7years) and after many, many, procedures and agonising weeks of waiting it just hasn't happened for us and I think there is a reason for this.  

I think we were meant to open our hearts andhome to the many children who are alone, for whatever reason, in this scary world and who need love, guidance and protection.

We had planned to start the proceedings in January, to give ourselves the chance of being a family this year.  I/we decided to postpone after a lengthy discussion with my GP.  We also made some pretty massive geographical decisions.

I have now come to the conclusion that we are waiting for nothing.  We are not going to conceive a child naturally, I don't want to go down the IVF route, it is painful, expensive, and there is no guarantee that it will work. 

I suppose the epiphany I have had is that I want to be somebody's mother, I want GO to be somebody's father.  At the end of the day we are not blood related (that would be so very wrong) but we are family.  We have the love and time to care and raise a child, there are thousands of children who are living without love who could fit perfectly into our hearts and lives.

What now?  Well I think we need to resettle and then start the process, it's a new chapter in the Murray house, a scary and exciting chapter.  I will have to let GO take the lead, I can't pressurise him, he needs to feel comfortable about all of this.

I once asked him if he wanted to move on from me, to find a wife who could provide him a child, he's younger than me, he has plenty of options. His response was one of confusion; "why would I do that?  You're the one I love. We will be parents however it happens they will be our children and we will love and raise them together."  

That's the man I love.  That's the man I married.  He's my hero