Give me your good new stories if you had a 12 month + matching wait!

[BatFird]

Feeling very sorry for myself.
2 years since we started the process. We've been approved for 14 months. Still no match.
With LA not VA.
Link maker not been any viable links so far.
We're not giving up but by god it's been a hard 2 years!

Seen five colleagues get pregnant and go on maternity leave.
Two in family pregnancies and births.

We've got a pretty wide matching criteria. Our SW says that we get lots of positive feedback when we're talked about, that our names come up pretty often but we just keep getting pipped to the post by other couples.

Anybody else out there who waited 12+ months for a match got any good outcome stories that I can sustain myself with? I'm starting to feel like it's never going to happen for us and I'm beginning to wonder when enough is enough.

We were approved for 15 months before our 2 came up, just had our 15th Christmas.

Friends had a 2.5 year wait for their first, and a much lesser wait for #2.

Better a wait for the right match than jumping in too quickly for the wrong one.

Hoping 2022 will be your year.

Hi there, thought I would comment as I’m in the same position.
Been waiting for a match through LA for 14 months now. No news at all. Using linkmaker but again no links so far.
I’m a second time adopter (now single). I think the climate is very difficult right now. I’ve also been told my profile looks good and is read often.
I do wonder if it’s time to call it a day? But what if it’s tomorrow?
Sorry I can’t offer more reassurance. But glad we are not alone.

From our being approved it took 15 months to hear about our little one. 3 months later and she had moved in. We felt exactly the same, hoping every time our social worker rang it'd about a potential match and it was hard and frustrating. She's been here 3 months now and the wait was so worth it, she is the perfect match for us. The wait was hard, we kept putting it out of our minds best we could and kept ourselves busy. When we did get a profile that seemed right, the excitement rose each time we heard more and when it kept progressing, we almost didn't believe it was happening. It is certainly harder in the current climate i think and everyone is waiting for longer. Try not to think of it as being pipped to the post but not the right match for you and you for them, the right one will come along.

It's agonising, isn't it? I can't remember how long I waited but it was well over a year from approval to matching. I found having a really good holiday helped a lot, but I appreciate that's hard at the moment. I had really open matching criteria, was getting a lot of interest but matching was so competitive. I got used to being passed over in favour of others. I really started to believe that it wasn't going happen. There was a real low point when a link fell through, quickly followed by the least promising activity day of the four I'd been to and my sw asked me to think about putting a time limit on when to give up so I didn't spend the rest of my life in limbo. It really looked dire. The following week I caught up with her and I was ready to discuss taking siblings as a means of opening up new possibilities. I definitely wasn't ready to give up. She wasn't really interested in discussing siblings. She just pulled out a cpr for a baby and asked me if I'd consider him. I told her I felt defeated like there was no chance I'd be matched with him. I'd always said age 3-5 and even extended upwards to look more flexible. I never for a second thought I'd be offered a baby, especially when I'd said 3+ and had been passed over for much older children. But he was in-house and she said if I was interested my chances were really good. Well, the rest is history. He's six now and an absolute gem of a little boy. He's brought so much to my life that I don't even feel like the person I was back then. I can't imagine what my my life would be if I'd actually just given up before being matched. If you really want this, and having come this far, I imagine you must do, then you have to hang in there.

Not a good news story (yet 😉), but just to say that you're not on your own: we've been in the process for 4.5 years and have been approved for 17 months of those. It feels like life is sort of on hold, even for all sorts of inconsequential decisions (like, what car are we buying?), and no idea whether to actually still hope for a match or not. We definitely want the right child rather than rush it, but are finding it quite draining emotionally and have set ourselves a deadline - if there's no tangible feeling of things moving forward by then, we'll pull out. Which, strangely, is helping me to feel less desperate and a tiny bit more in control.

So, just to say, I hear you! Hope things start moving for you soon. X

Just re-read the thread and realised I shouldn't have commented when I was in a rush earlier on! Sounded all wrong - what I meant was not that we'd just want the right child for us, but of course to be the right family for a child! (Just so hard when you have no idea what it is that makes SW think you are/aren't right for a particular child while time is moving on.)

Thank you all for your replies and I'm sorry to those currently in the same boat. If you ever need a vent or a rant; feel free to PM me. I know my IRL friends and family are all a bit sick of hearing it now.

I put my life on hold for most of this process. I've just this month stopped doing and have started allowing myself to book things and make plans but obviously between COVID and the hope that I will need to cancel the plans; plus trying not to be too frivolous with money so that we can enjoy a longer period of time off following placement, it's sort of a double edged sword as every plan I do make I end up second guessing.

Thank you for those with encouraging tales.

This waiting part is so so hard.
On paper I had so many positives but as a single adopter there was an unspoken barrier where 2 parents were favoured.
I had one link that broke down a week before matching panel and so after 2.5 years of waiting after approval I decided to heartbreakingly walk away as I couldn’t do this to myself anymore.

Well, the day after that call a link my SW had been perusing for 3 months actually replied and I’m so glad that the SW decided to call me even though I’d walked away. My Daighter came home just before my 3 year approval anniversary and she was so worth the wait.
Stick with it and go ahead and book the holidays to keep you going. Hoping you get some news soon xx

Loopylas123
It sounds amazing. It is an emotional rollercoaster.
We are still new to Linkmaker.
I am so glad to know everyone has a child(ren) to match in the end!
Let's keep going!

Well, we're still waiting. I hope some of you others who posted that were in the same boat have had some good news in the last few weeks.
Still keeping everything crossed.

Have decided i'm not keeping my life on hold anymore and have booked a fair few good, fun things in the next few months.

@BatFird hows everything going?

@Annie009 thanks for asking.

A bit of a mixed bag tbh .. we still don't have a LO living with us yet which I'm pretty devastated by. But I stuck with my gut and didn't keep my life on hold so have managed to do some activities and get some holidays in which I definitely needed.

Have been speaking about a potential match in the last week or so, so while not getting hopes up yet as it's still very early days - there's a least some movement!

@BatFird so sorry you are still waiting. You’re doing the right thing by getting on with your life and I’m sure your little one is out there.
We’ve been approved for a while now and recently had another rejection, it’s hard to take.