Nickey and Tony, Sarah, Julie and Nick, Roddy and Alex, Hina Rajan, Robert and Marilyn, and Oona mention expectations
“I was adopted when I was 6 weeks old, and ever since I was a teenager I decided that I would adopt.”
How did you find the process of being approved?
“I didn’t think we had a chance actually of adopting when I first started, I thought, ‘Well, you know, we were…I was too old or…”
How were you matched with your child?
“We’re foster carers so we’ve had lots of children over the years, we’ve been fostering for ten years, and these two children arrived three and a half years ago and we just can’t part with them.”
How was it when you first met your child/ren?
“By the time we left, they…we were only there for about an hour and…by the time we left, they were calling us mummy and daddy. Which we weren’t expecting at all.”
How was it when you first met your child/ren?
“She’d sat there saying ‘what if they don’t like us?’, ‘what if they don’t want us?’, and, and it was lovely to be able to share that conversation that, that we had felt exactly the same way too. ”
How did you prepare for adoption?
“this child comes to you and they are their own person and you have to respect that. But also, it makes it easier not to put all of your stuff on to them. You know, all… load them with your expectations, or… or worry that their, their characteristics a”
“ ...it was harder to conceive naturally. We went down the IVF route for about four years and were unsuccessful so adoption seemed to be the next step. ”
How did your extended family feel when you told them you had decided to adopt?
“...the elder children were, were wonderful. Absolutely wonderful about it. I mean, obviously they, they talked about it and they needed to be reassured that they wouldn’t be cut out of our lives.”
“But we saw a little girl and Bob came home and said ‘she’s fantastic’, you know, ‘she … she would be really great in our family’, and I was saying ‘yes, however, we’re quite old and she’s only five’.”
Did you ever think of giving up?
“I had George Galloway on my back and all sorts of things and I thought, man having social workers, and IVF- which we had recently finished and George Galloway and so we did give up on adoption until well I lost the election ”