Newbies

[Italiangreyhound]

Hi I am a newbie and only just started this journey, officially made the call last week.

Just interested how may other newbies are out there who are still in the early stages. I keep coming across people and recognising names. Anyone want to let on what stage they are at?

Thanks Lilka I will watch the ITV one too.

It's nice to meet everyone!

We told our parents and closest friends just before we made our initial enquiry. We then told a few others as we started the assessment process.now, if were ever asked if we think we will have kids soon etc, we then tell people we are being assessed for adoption. So some people know, but not loads. As for Facebook I deleted mines when we started the assessment so can't comment on that, Lack of privacy on there is just too annoying, it's so easy for people to screenshot photos nowadays.

Good luck in your adoption journey, we are enjoying it so far and have panel in July so not long off

Hello keep, love and smoky. We are in stage 2 and hopefully going to panel in June.

We told referees when we were in stage 1 and most close family when we'd been accepted onto stage 2 and had also done the final day of training (which was only a couple of days later than our official acceptance). It was luck rather than judgement but in retrospect we actually found it really helpful to have completed the prep course because as much reading as we had done we were in a much much better place to answer any initial questions our loved ones had. We have also both told our line managers as work references are nec in stage 2.

As for telling anyone else I don't know how we will actually feel after panel, but at the moment I'm not planning on really telling anyone else (hoping that we get approved) until we are matched. But then both myself and DH are quite private anyway and also don't want to jinx anything!

Good luck - it's an exciting journey to be setting out on.

Just updating, the ADM has Ok-ed Panel's decision so we are 100% approved to adopt :-)

Woop woop! Well done Choccy :-)

Yay choccy! Frame that letter!

Fantastic Choccy!

Yay!

Fab Choccy :)

That's wonderful, Choccy!

Congratulations Choccy

Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go! Go Choccy Go!

Blimey

Im back! Have had crazy log-in problems.

Went to our first adoption info event today and posted the progression of interest form. Early days but feeling a bit excited!

Congrats Choccy!!! Wow!!! You must be both relieved and anxious all at the same time!!! Congratulations though! X

Hi
Having been lurking and reading here for months it's time to say hello and hopefully start chatting with you lovely bunch.
DP and I are asolute beginners.
We went to an information evening mid-March and have just sent back our 'short visit request' form, so we are expecting a call to arrange an initial visit from 2 LA staff members. So we haven't even completed a ROI form yet.
Potted history: It's over 2 yrs since our last (of 4) unsuccessful IVF cycles. We've slowly arrived at, got comfortable with and then got very excited about the idea of adoption.
We're limited to 1 child by having just one (not huge) spare room but otherwise we're very open to learning through the process what age/ needs etc we could cope with.
I'm looking forward to posting here and know that all your experience and knowledge is going to be invaluable over the next year or so.

That's great Pootle Very exciting indeed! Hope things progress quickly for you

Hello Busier and welcome Hope you find the board helpful, feel free to ask anything at any time or just use us to offload on/celebrate with etc!

WElcome Pootle and Busier.

I haven't posted here for a while but I could do with a bit of encouragement. At the moment we are sort of in limbo between stage one and two, and have been since feb. Everything was going really well and our sw started the stage two home study with us, even though we hadn't officially been approved to pass into stage two. She was confident there wouldn't be any problems. We then found out a few months ago that our gp had filled in our medical forms incorrectly, as he hadn't given any details about our medical history. It should have been straight forward for him to just add this onto the form and send it back to the medical advisor for approval. Unfortunately in that time we had moved house and registered with a different gp. It has completely over complicated the whole thing and for a few months we haven't moved forward at all. I know in the grand scheme of things a few months is nothing but it's just so frustrating and it's really getting me down! Luckily work is very busy at the moment so that is a welcome distraction, but only to a certain extent.Did anyone else experience these periods on inactivity and feel like things weren't moving at all? How did you deal with them?

Thank you for the welcome :-)

Lots to think about. I think things may progress slowly as 'technically' we are still 'trying' as we are not using contraception, but after 5 years of zero success and being 40-something's I don't hold out any hope. I guess they will expect us to explore contraception and maybe wait awhile (I hope not).

We also may have house issues as we have one huge bedroom and one tiny bedroom which may put them off as it would be so unequal. We thought they could share (we want to adopt a sibling group) but apparently this is not allowed.

Hopefully they will clear up our questions if they arrange a callback.

That sounds really frustrating about your gp issues :-/

32. Whilst we didn't have any long periods of inactivity apart from after approval which drove me up the wall, I can imagine the frustration of anything which may delay the process.

Hope it gets sorted quickly :)

32, I have always felt more comfortable in the phases where we were actually doing something, compared to the various stages of waiting.

Our first wait was for a SW to come to do an initial visit. They had already verbally accepted our ROI and told us the dates for prep group, but then suddenly realised that they 'technically' hadn't done an initial visit (the meeting they had told us would count as initial visit, they had now changed their mind about), so we had to wait 4 weeks for that, then another 6 weeks or so for the SW to write her report and discuss it with the team and get back to us. So when we finally got accepted into stage 1, it was 10 weeks after the proposed prep group dates... and in our minds, we should have already finished stage one by then. We were chafing at the bits to get started and already regretting choosing this agency...

There were a few more waits but that first was probably the worst!

However when there was a problem with one of our DBS's the SW we finally were allocated, was not fussed at all, and just continued her assessment of us while it was being sorted. And the home study was intense and moved forward quickly. It must be very frustrating in your situation, when you COULD be progressing with the home study, but have effectively been sidelined due to technicalities. Like when we thought we should be getting on with stage 1 stuff, but instead were waiting for someone to have a free spot in their diary to do a meeting that we had basically already had.

Later phases of waiting, such as waiting for the draft PAR (which we got nearly 6 weeks after last contact with our SW) have seemed easier to me, maybe because an end is in sight, and I feel that we WILL eventually be approved, whereas in the early phases of waiting, it was very worrying and made me quite anxious, as I saw all kinds of delays ahead of us and wasn't as confident that we'd get through it all yet.

Sorry for this being a bit of an essay. I'd say to you, you have an allocated SW, you're in the process, by the sound of it you have already been deemed generally suitable by your SW. In which case, if YOU don't remove yourself from the process, it is highly likely that you will get to panel. The waiting is tiresome and annoying and unfortunately there is little you can do about it. But you WILL get there in the end!

Thanks for all the replies. 64 what you said really made me feel a lot better. Everything was going well and there isn't anything in our medical histories that our sw isn't already aware of. Are you just waiting for a panel date now then?

yep, not long to go now! Unless it is cancelled of course... haven't heard anything from our SW since the frantic 2 days of reviewing the PAR.

Glad you're feeling better! Are things with the medical moving on, at least? Do you know what's happening and what is the delay? If not, perhaps a call to your SW to find out, and to remind her of you, would be in order...