Messing about with puppets

We need to produce an introductory DVD, so that the kids who become our kids, can find out about us before they meet us.

We are working with some puppeteer friends on this at the moment.  We have been working on a story, where 2 young puppets come to visit and do all sorts of fun things with us.  Our friend has taken our ideas and produced a fabulous script.  We spent some time yesterday recording the sound track.  They suggested that it would be helpful if we voiced the puppets, so that should we want to reproduce the puppet voices again at some point, we can.

Not as easy as I thought it might be!!  I will never watch the muppets in the same way again!!!

Here's Andy, messing about with puppets....

Information, information, information

We've been reading the Child Permanency reports on the two boys we asked for more information about.  Each one consists of about 40 pages of stuff.  On first reading, it feels like lots and lots of information.  All about their parents and their backgrounds, what's happened to them, why they're in care etc etc etc.

On reflection, though, it still leaves quite a lot of questions unanswered.

It's also quite strange, emotionally.  Bit of a roller coaster.  Given the last 3.5 years, this should come as no surprise, I know!!

We began with the 'cute factor' information and I fell in love.

Now we're beginning to get the detailed, nitty gritty stuff and all the warm feelings have completed evaporated.  I still think they could be our kids, but there are some hard questions we need answering and some thinking we need to do that is practical rather than emotional.  What can we take on, realistically?  What risks are we prepared to take?

Looking at profiles

We've been sent some real information about some real children really needing real parents!!

It's not hypothetical anymore!

There are 2 brothers, aged 4 and 2, we've asked for more information about.  Have coffee.  Sitting down just now to read social services reports.  Hooray!!!!!!

Oh! The irony!

Had a really excited 40 minutes yesterday afternoon.  Noticed on my lovely smart phone, that we had 6 emails from social services.  Profiles of children awaiting adoption, for us to consider!!!  How exciting!!!

I rang Andy to tell him to access my email account from home and download the information, as I was at work.  There is one email telling us they are sending us profiles to look at, in other emails, and 5 other emails!  That has to be AT LEAST five kids/sibling groups to look at, by my reckoning!

Why can't I tell you precisely?  Well, because the files are password protected.  They sent us the emails on Friday afternoon.  With a message to ring the secretary to get the password to open the files.  Couldn't get hold of the secretary.  Probably because it was Friday afternoon.  And now it's the weekend.

How frustrating!  I have laughed lots at the irony of this.  It won't kill us to wait until Monday.  There have been far worse moments in this process.  Needless to say, we will be on the phone to the office first thing Monday morning.  Deliberately not getting too excited.  We need to look at the profiles.  There might not be anyone suitable.  The fact they've sent 5 suggests a bit of a scatter gun approach, rather than a "we've carefully considered and think these children would be perfect for you" sort of thing.  But to know that information about OUR CHILDREN might be on my computer RIGHT NOW I can't just access it....

Enough second guessing!  It is Saturday evening.  Time for pizza and beer and a DVD!

It's official!

It's official!  We are on the list of approved adopters!

We got the letter from the 'official decision maker' this week.  On Wednesday.

Bizarrely, opening the letter was terrifying.  I knew what it was.  The franking on the front was from our social services department.  Opening it, my heart was racing.  I was genuinely convinced that there was a risk it was going to say 'no'.  That we would be the 1 in 1000 where the official decision maker disagrees with the panel.

But they've said yes!

They have, however, misspelt our surname.  So officially, they've said yes to a couple with a name that sounds the same as ours but is spelt differently.

The misspelling made me roll my eyes and shake my head in a mildly amused / exasperated manner.  Honestly!  After all the forms we've completed and information we've supplied, you'd have thought they'd know our name by now!  No clerical error could dampen my joy though.  It's just GREAT!!! to be this side of the approval process.

Panel: Hooray!!!!!!

We went to adoption panel today.

For the uninitiated, this entails an interview with about 15 people, who make a judgement as to whether or not one is deemed worthy to become parents.  Just to cut to the chase:

We have been judged and found worthy!!!


I have been in a bit of a state of anxiety over the last couple of weeks.  Trying not to think too deeply about it.  Attempting to stay calm.  I've managed outwardly calm / quietly terrified most of the time.

Andy and I drove to the town where the panel was held last night, so that we knew where we were going and where we going to park etc.  Good job we did.  It was in the council headquarters, which was in a little cul de sac off a pedestrianised street, surrounded by one way systems and pedestrianised areas, surrounded in turn by dual carriageway and ring roads.  Much better to have sussed out last night than to have been trying to find for the first time in rush hour traffic this morning.  The drive down last night was Andy's idea.  He usually does this before interviews.  I tend to be more of an "Oh, it'll be fine!  We'll find it!" mindset.  But he was so right... We found the office, sussed out car parks, made sure we had the requisite money in coinage for said car park, and decided on venue for breakfast/coffee in the event of being ridiculously early...

Andy was also in military mood this morning.  I got up for a cup of tea and a pray at about 6:30.  And was sauntering around in my dressing gown at ten past seven, to find Andy up, showered, dressed and chivvying me along.  He chased us out of  the house at 7:45.  Which gave us an hour and three quarters for a 35 minute journey!!  Mad! Usually he's so laid back...

I have to say, it was lovely to be so smugly early and able to sit around in cafe having breakfast.  And in contrast to the last couple of weeks, I had a profound sense of peace and of God being with us.  Two thoughts really helped.  The first was simply that we have been working towards this point, or waiting frustratedly for this to happen, for the last 3 and a bit years and it was just great to get to today.  Andy was also feeling quietly confident.  On the way, he suddenly said "I've taken the liberty of putting the champagne in the fridge..."

The second thought was that the panel event itself was not much different to other meetings I've been to.  It felt much more constructive to regard it as a work-like task than as a grilling from 15 people tasked to decide about our future.  I just thought "I know how to do meetings.  It's only 15 people.  I lead a church for goodness sake!  How hard can this be?"

I was somewhat amused that our social worker, who sat with us while we waited for panel to ask us in, seemed more nervous than we did.  The social worker who had done the second opinion visit, said that her policy before panel was to talk to her prospective parents about anything but going into panel, in order to help them to stay calm.  Chris seemed to have the opposite approach entirely!!  She evidently felt that an anxious, high-speed, coaching session was in order.  "You know they're going to ask about your health, Andy.  If I hadn't raised it in the report, they'd have wanted to know why... just be yourselves... Andy, you know what you're like.  Think before you speak.   Don't say anything politically incorrect...be child focussed...  if they ask about the garden, you can tell them there's a lock on that gate..."   Good job we were both relatively calm.  She could have sent us both into a blind panic...!

Once we'd gone in, and I'd said a cheery 'Good Morning!' to the sea of silent faces, who all chorused 'Good morning' back, it felt profoundly cope-able with.  The other thing that helped was the observation, as everyone introduced themselves, that some of the people round the table obviously weren't comfortable speaking in front of that many people, even just to say their names.  Andy was more nervous than me, I think.  They had quite a lot of questions, but I felt we answered them competently.  Chris, the social worker, felt we'd done a very good job.

The worst bit was waiting for them to come and tell us their conclusion.  And the panel chair, who came to speak to us, was particularly humourless.  She delivered their verdict with about the emotion of a railway station announcer.  Along with the dead pan statement that "We've decided this because we think you have a very strong partnership and a lot of skills."

Anyway.  We have been approved.  I am feeling numb.  Excited.  Pleased.  Brain dead.  Scared.