We had our meeting with Barbara, from the adoption agency, yesterday. We thought she was lovely when we met her a year ago, so I was quite looking forward to seeing her again.
This meeting was much more business like. We'd done lots of talking last time. She wanted an update on Andy's medical situation, and said, as we expected, that they would need an early medical (ie at the beginning of the process, rather than at the end). Which is exactly what we thought she would say. So it has taken us a year to get to exactly where we were 13 months ago.
The next stage, once we've had the medical and it's been looked at by the medical officer on the permanency panel (the panel of people who decide about permanent placements for children, and approve long term foster carers and adopters) is to go on an adoption course. The next course to be run by Staffordshire is in June. "But I have to tell you, there is no guarantee that you would get a place on that course. We have people who have been waiting since October that didn't get on the course we've just run. And even if you did get a place, there may be a delay in appointing a social worker to do the home study" (6 or 8 meetings with a social worker to assess one's suitability as an adopter).
"So if we didn't get on the course in June, when is the next one?"
"I don't know."
"If we did the course in June, how long would it be, would you guess, before we began the home study?"
"We try and allocate people a social worker within 6-8 weeks of a course, but there are delays at the moment."
"So how many places do you have on a course, and how many people are waiting?"
"I don't have that information."
Apparently the lack of social workers is the problem. I felt indescribably frustrated and ended up quizzing Barbara about why they organise the process the way they do and why we couldn't do the home study first, if there were no places on courses. On reflection, of course, if the difficulty is social workers, it's probably reasonably simple to put on extra courses, if you've got the social workers available to do the home study afterwards.
I was really quite stunned at how gutted I felt. June is quite a long way off, but would be a reasonable time scale. We're planning a trip to Africa in the summer for some voluntary work, so adoption course in June and then home study in the autumn would work quite well. But an open ended maybe / maybe not feels horrid. Very horrid. After some discussion, Barbara said that she would speak to her boss tomorrow to find out whether we would get a place on the course in June and ring us back.
Andy was really reasonable and chilled about the whole thing. When she'd gone, just at the point when I was wanting to throw crockery, he gave me a hug and told me how difficult it must be for them and how it wasn't Barbara's fault. He knows what it's like when he has to tell people he doesn't know when they can have their methodone script. So I shouted at him. "Darling, you've just had a disempowering experience" he said, completely unperturbed by my outburst. That so completely summed it up, and I was so stunned by this moment of insight from my husband, that I stopped shouting and we had a cup of tea and a chat.
The other interesting moment was when Barbara asked how many children we were thinking of. "3 or 4" says Andy. Which is what I'd said a few months back, when Andy was suggesting that one would be plenty to be getting on with. I asked him about it afterwards. "yeah well... 3 would be a good number. 4 is more difficult for transport."
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