two country dads

Sorry this didn't get posted last night but we needed to go out for dinner together just to relax. Yesterday was an amazingly overwhelming and powerful day for both of us. I'm lovingly the course and wish it were longer. I think we're so lucky to be involved with Cornwall adoption agency. Everyone we've met and interacted with from the team have been supportive, passionate and engaging. Day two started with some videos about the children currently in care - a little more about this later. This was good to understand and see how they are behaving now. We then did a session on memories and objects. We brought in items from our childhood and talk about them and our memories. Was lovely to share and to think about any little ones that would come to us and about the fact they may not have those objects or they may have objects that trigger other negative memories. Then we had an amazing foster carer come in - she was like a blond Brenda Blethyn, this isn't importa

Just got home after our first day of prep group. Really interesting day with a huge amount of info given over. It was mainly sitting a listening today with the day being split into sessions on who the children in care are. Abuse and it affects. Attachment. then there was supposed to be a session on medical histories but the Dr couldn't make it last minute. In a way I was glad because by that point I had reached information overload. The group were fun and fairly mixed. Two older couples each with birth children, one older woman looking to adopt on her own. Three 30 something straight couple and us. Good cross section of experiences and wants. I will try and go into more detail after the course is finished and I have had time to process it all. The main thing that struck me today was how hard it must be for younger straight couple to go thru this process. The impact on the women must be huge and there emotional desire to give birth. It must be difficult for them to hear about

I haven't posted for a few weeks as we have been on holiday for a week and then our social worker cancelled a meeting as she had to go to a funeral. I have to say that a few weeks "off" have been really helpful. It gave us time and a bit of perspective. When you are in the process of home visits it is full on with weekly meetings and writing up the sections for the next meeting. We didn't really have time to stop and think or process how we were feeling. I should also explain that we are in the middle of a major overhaul of our business and hoping to relaunch and new shop and product line int he spring. So things are full on for us at the mo. Whilst we were away we had a really good talk about the adoption (and everything else) and both felt that we should talk to our social worker about pausing the process here and maybe starting up again later next year. We are due to go to panel in March and that is the same time as the new shop is being planned to open. We

We had a really nice session yesterday, finishing off Ben's family history. Very relaxed feeling and there is definitely a change I how we feel around SW. She is very positive and seems to be happy with how things are going. We have a week off from visits as we are on holiday in the sun (hopefully) next week. Booked in sessions for when we get back and we have new homework to fill in. Have to do this bit together so should easier. We talked about reasons why we possibly wouldn't be approved. Sounds silly maybe but I've been wondering about reasons you wouldn't get approved but still go to the panel. SW reassured us that if we go to panel then it means she can see no reason for us to not be approved. We also know we are going to panel in march so is starting to feel a little more real. I have also ordered some books to read about child development. It is an area that I'm interested anyway having worked with special needs children for seven years. I have held off