How do you not get your hopes up?

[Purplemac]

Our approval panel is early October, and our assessment is mostly finished. We met with our social worker last week and looked at some profiles, and we saw a very brief profile of a child they are doing early family finding for, whose legal proceedings are due to end in the next few weeks. Our social worker is going to talk to the family finding team to see if we might be a good fit and talk about potentially linking us up.

Of course I know that the chances of this working out are slim, but how on earth do you manage to not get your hopes up in these situations? We obviously haven't seen a CPR yet, nor a photo, and we don't even know their name - but I already feel like "yes, this is the one". No doubt I will think that about countless other children in time when we see their profiles, but still.

Any tips on how not to get emotionally attached to a piece of paper with a few sentences on it describing a child that you so badly want to bring home?!

I'm not sure there really is a way to do this, it's such an emotive process.
Try not to look at photos initially (I know you haven't in this case) so you're basing your decisions on what's written about the child rather than the cute photo.
It helped me to write pros and cons lists.
It's ok to be excited!

It's really hard and I don't think there's a perfect way not to get too attached or to get your hopes up. I had the same problem and got loads of advice...I'll see if I can dig out the thread later.

I don't think it is possible. I have loved DD since I got a phonecall saying we had been matched with a 9 month old baby!

Found it! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adoptions/2756433-Matching-hard

Now DD is home 6 months and playing happily with her grandmother as I type. It doesn't go on forever!

I found it really hard not to get excited yet now when I look back at children we were very excited about (who had needs we had previously said we couldn't cope with) I realise that pursuing them would have been a mistake for them and us. I think at the time I was swept away by beautiful faces and a desire to have a family. When we had expressions of interest on Link Maker (for children who I knew deep down we weren't a match) I spent a long time and invested a lot of energy in thinking about them. We were approved for two and I was adamant we were looking for two-so much so that at various matching events, we focused solely on sibling pairs. However at the final matching event we attended we picked up a few profiles, went through them together and shortlisted them. They were all (bar one) sibling pairs. We then independently ordered them, from the one we felt strongest about and wrote a list in order. When we compared the lists we had both put the only single LO at the top. He wasn't (on paper) a perfect match but he felt so right. We both felt a strong connection to him. We weren't initially selected for him, and we were disappointed but kept looking and expressing interest in other children (all sibling pairs) - but none felt quite right. Two months later we were contacted to say that the couple they had selected had not progressed and were we still interested. 7 months from that first look at our LOs profile and he is sleeping soundly as I write this and has been home 2 months. I strongly believe that when you know, you know even if the child isn't (on paper) what you thought you were looking for. Try to keep an open mind, not rush into anything and remember that this is a huge decision for everyone involved and not something to be rushed. Good Luck!

I still often think of the little boy whose profile we first saw. Me and my partner both remember certain children. The family finding process is emotional and as stressful as any other part up til that point but I honestly think the right child will stand out to you. It will click and you will just know, as cliche as that sounds. We were looking for a sibling group of older children but when we first saw this Bundle of a ten month old we had to rethink our whole idea. Fast forward to tonight and our nearly two year old has run circles round us all day and I'm currently sat holding her hand as she falls asleep. It's all worth it

You can ask your sw not to tell you about potential matches until you have been chosen in a matching meeting and have a firm link.
Personally I couldn't cope with falling in love and being rejected. You also don't have to go on link maker.

Another perspective here....in some respects you need to be emotionally attached. I tried to protect myself by not being being too attached as I was scared things wouldn't goto plan. In the end I got criticised for not displaying enough emotion. Good luck with your plans. Even if you have to pretend to throw yourself in emotionally because you want to protect yourself then do it.
Hope that makes sense xx

Our SW didn't tell us about children unless we were being actively considered.

What she did do which worked for us is every 8 weeks or so say 'oh there was a little boy but there was XX issue so I said not you' which let us know we were being considered, and gave us an opportunity to say 'oh that would be fine' if she had misread things (which she never did).

We had 2 competitive situations where SWs visited us and another couple and chose the others each time. After that our SW wouldn't let us be visited unless we were the only ones being seen and were the preferred couple.

15 months after approval and 4 'near misses' (the 2 above, plus one we said no to, plus one where family member came forward late) we heard about our lovely girls.