Got a bit carried away. ..

[dimples76]

My sw mentioned a potential link to me about a month ago but I've heard v little since. At the end of the day at work my sw called me to say that they had had a selection meeting today and that she, child's sw and ff think it's a great match and they have provisionally booked matching panel.

I am so excited but I won't see the Cpr until tomorrow. How do I sleep tonight?! Plus I feel that I have messed up as the call came when I was at a celebration at work and when I came back into the room I told my best friend at work (also one of my referees) and she jumped up and down and hugged me. Of course everyone else wanted to know what was happening - I feel rather foolish now but I told them...

Oh well I can't change that now.. bit frustrated with myself and lurching from wanting to dance around the room to crying my eyes out. Is this normal? !

All completely normal!! you must be so excited so of course you wanted to share the news with someone.

With regards to CPR, I found that an emotional roller coaster. I went from interested and eager to sad then angry and had to put it to one side to pull myself together. So be prepared for some potentially difficult reading.

Your reaction is perfect.
That child deserves a mother who wants him so much!

No worries about your reaction. But from now on keep tight lipped, it is easier and safer for you.

Good luck and hope it goes well.

Excitedmtb I now know what you mean about the emotional roller coaster experience of reading the CPR. It's definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to read. At the end though I still feel very positive about him and my capacity to be his Mum. I have a mammouth list of questions though and more keep occurring to me like just now in the supermarket queue. So glad it's the weekend

Congratulations Dimples- good luck with the CPR reading and I hope it all goes ahead for you :-)

On a personal note, I was surprised that matching panel has been booked before you've set eyes on the CPR- is this usual? We've just been approved ourselves and I had possibly mistakenly understood that the process would go: see basic profile, express interest, get chosen by child's SW, see CPR, then confirm that you want to go ahead, then arrange matching panel? We aren't on any of those stages yet though so I'm still v fuzzy about the whole thing!

Sorry- didn't see that you've now already read it! Good luck with the questions. Hope you find the answers you need :-)

Hi RBW, you read it right first time. My sw has spoken at length to me about the boy to see if I felt he could meet his needs. Then they held a selection meeting with my sw, ff, child's sw and booked the panel date
I think it's because the panel dates get booked up. They worked like that with approval panel too - I got my panel date at the start of stage 2, obvs it was on the proviso that it could be postponed.

I don't know how other authorities work though. I think in some circumstances it could lead to adopters feeling railroaded but my sw keeps assuring me that this time is all about me getting info and at the end of the day I feel it's not right then she'll just keep on looking.

So far though it feels right.

Ah- well it's good that they are planning ahead as, assuming it is the right match, it would be v frustrating if things got stuck because of the admin side of the process. Glad to hear that it feels right to you so far. Good luck with everything :-)

Dimples write all of your questions down - even those which might seem silly. I did and made sure I had an answer to everything I possibly could.
Of course, with adoption, there is always an element of the unknown and things that we will never know.
Good luck with the next steps. We also had matching panel booked before we had completed information gathering. Similar to you, this was because panel dates do get booked up. It meant the process went really quickly. The longest wait we had was between approval at matching panel and introductions.....it was only a few weeks really but felt like a lifetime.