Linking - how do you know they're "the one"?

[AKingdomForAUsername]

Did you feel an instant connection with your child (or, rather, their paperwork)? If not, how did you know you'd be right for them, that they were "the one" (or ones) and that you should progress?

At the beginning of the week, our SW told us about a child they think might be a potential match, and we really need to get back to them to say if we want to progress.

This is actually the third time they've talked to us about a child. The first time, it just felt right straight away. Head and heart knew it was right, and as silly as it is, I couldn't stop myself from imagining us as a family. Sadly, due to reasons to do neither with the child nor us, the link didn't go to matching. The second child, we knew we wouldn't be right for as soon as we had spoken with our SW just briefly.

This time, it just feels weird because we have no strong feelings either way. I don't feel a connection of any sort. We're trying to think about it rationally, but we won't really be able to make sense of most of the things which make us hesitate until we've spoken with the Medical Adviser - which, of course, would only happen if we were to progress. The heart just seems blasé and doesn't seem to want to chip in.

Of course, I'm also aware that SW might not suggest any more children to us - but it feels hugely unfair to the child to progress unless we feel pretty certain, I don't want to delay things for them if we're not the right parents. Just not sure whether we should feel sure this early on already, or whether it'll come along the way...?

I think when you’ve had things fall through before, you almost protect your heart to make sure you don’t get hurt again. It’s very difficult not to do this I think - I know I didn’t believe my match would go through until I met my DC…

I think you need to meet with social workers etc about the child to learn more. Remember at any point you can back out if you feel you learn something you don’t think you could cope with or provide the best home for…

I think it’s all very clinical reading words on a page - so it’s actually quite difficult to form an attachment to a child from a profile…

I hope if you decide to learn more it goes the way you want it to!

Our first was our second potential link, having been rejected by the SW of the first. OH says he fell for first straight away. I protected my heart right up until the point when I found out birth family were going to contest when it went to court and at this point I was in bits and realised just what first meant to me.

Our second we were both neutral towards until introductions when we saw the 2 playing together and as we got to know second we both fell head over heels.

I am also a foster carer and sometimes got gut this child is right feelings when reading their paperwork. However our lovely son we only agreed to place him as it was a short term arrangement! We fell head over heels with him in person but didn’t ‘feel it’ when we read his paperwork.

I think a tricky part of adoption is that it’s easy to expect to ‘feel’ something but this isn’t always the case. Love takes time to grow. The same goes for when a child is first placed with you, you won’t necessarily get those warm gushy feelings, sometimes it feels like you are suddenly entirely responsible for ‘someone else’s’ very demanding child! It doesn’t mean anything you will grow to love that child completely but I think adopters can easily feel it’s all ‘wrong’ if it doesn’t happen quickly.

All the best of luck with your parenting journey

I think your heart is protecting itself. The reality is matching is a head and heart decision but the heart may take a while before it gets involved.

We were presented with a number of profiles of siblings, the “head” process was thinking was there anything that fell outside our matching considerations, were there needs that we felt we couldn’t support, what was their journey thus far in terms of removal, foster care etc and what impact might that have beyond the reason for removal.

The heart saw these two little people who had lost so much and who needed a forever family, who looked like they belonged in our family, who I could see myself parenting. Love, bonding etc came much later but I did feel a draw towards them over others.

If you think they’re for you, follow the process, try to get an early discussion with the medical advisor and see how you feel. It would be a shame to say “no” if having further information might allay your fears.

Matching and linking is hard though so do what you need to do for you. Pulling out shouldn’t mean you don’t get any more profiles, matching is an art, not a science, and sometimes it takes time - a good social worker knows this.

Agree with what others have said here about matching. For us we were also protecting ourselves a little after seeing other profiles and it is obviously a big decision. We went with head first, was there anything that didn't feel right or questions we had looking at the profile, then took it one step at a time, looking at it rationally but the heart and hope crept in more and more as we progressed. I think I almost felt like I should be feeling this massive heart pull and felt worried when i didn't, but also worried that it wouldn't progress all the way through. Progressing doesn't mean it has to be a yes in the end, take another step and see, if you feel your social worker knows you well, what they think may help too. The heart really came later in hearing from those who knew our LO as a real little person and the heart keeps on growing. If its the medical holding you back, ask to speak to them as soon as possible too.
It is a hard part of the process but so worth it. All the best x

Thank you so much, all, for your very helpful and understanding replies! It's so wonderful how your comments show your love for your children.

@Jellycatspyjamas, thank you also for setting out your 'head' questions. We considered all these, but helpful to have them set out so clearly. I think for this child, it's really just a number of medical concerns and uncertainties in terms of 'head' questions. Our SW has kindly shared all they know with us, but as you and @Kitkatcrunchie have advised, meeting the Medical Adviser early on would be very helpful.

@Notmenotme and @ifchocolatewerrcelery, you're right about the heart protecting itself, though not sure that's the case for me with this child - it's not that I don't want to let myself believe the match will go through (well, at least not right now - ask me again in a few months 😉), but that I just don't feel much of a draw at the moment. I'm aware of love taking time to grow as @SFCA has said and it's good to be reminded of this for when a child moves in, but I just don't seem to feel anything right now...

Thanks also for the reminder that we could pull out at any time if need be. It just feels wrong to potentially hold up things for the child to find their forever family, just wish we could speak to the Medical Adviser sooner. And, I know this sounds terrible, what if the child to whom my heart might say 'yes' would be needing a family soon? (Our SW mentioned they'd be looking for a few more families with roughly our matching criteria soon, but of course wouldn't say anything about the children in question so it doesn't influence our decision about whether to progress with this link. It would be awful to compare children, but something in me wishes we could - not sure if that makes me completely unsuitable to adopt! 🤔)

Actually, no part in me wishes we could compare children, but that I could compare my heart's reaction to them to see if I 'm ready to love this child.

In all honesty having a number of profiles initially really helped - because it crystallised for us what we were really hoping for and seeing the various issues side by side so to speak brought some issues to the fore in a way that seeing them in isolation might not have.

I remember a good friend (also a social worker) saying to me that adoption is hard enough without making it harder, so to process with the children that seemed the best fit, rather than the ones who pulled my heart strings because of their history, vulnerabilities etc. It was really good advice, my kids have very complex stories and their own challenges but I knew I could cope with them, whereas there were other kids I was drawn to with very different complexities that I knew I couldn’t have coped with, but might have pushed myself to try if that makes sense.

As it is my two are perfect, they physically look like they belong (as in they have similar colouring and appearance to my siblings when younger). Lest you think I’m being superficial it is important to me that my kids can tell people they’re adopted if they want to - I didn’t want a situation where they defacto disclose every time we’re together because of their appearance.

I do think the right kids come along at the right time so if this link doesn’t feel right it’s ok to say no.

@Jellycatspyjamas, thanks a lot, really appreciate your advice. I've read some of your other posts on here before and they've really helped me in seeing things more clearly.

Also interesting that you were shown a number of profiles at the same time (?). Our LA was clear that we had to be sure about a specific child (as we're only hoping to adopt one rather than a sibling group) rather than pick one from multiple profiles, hadn't realised it was different with different agencies!

We were on Linkmaker so had a number of profiles suggested to us, 5/6 if I remember rightly, we got some more, limited, information about three of them and from there chose the children who were later placed with us. It was a good system for us and helped clarify our thinking a lot.

Matching is so hard isnt it. I think that on some level there has to be some 'pull' factor towards a child or children. Not necessarily an emotional responses, but some sense that you could be that child's parent.
Its not clear to me what information you have. You say the SW spoke to you but have you seen their. CPR?
It seems to me that you have a lot of information missing. Progressing doesn't mean that you find yourself at panel next week, at this stage its gathering the information to make an informed decision.
You won't be delaying things for the child by asking for information and any SW worth their salt won't want you to make a decision without the information you need.

It’s so hard. In the first few months I would look for something I could relate to within the child’s profile, so eye colour, likes. When there were actual links I did see a lot in myself with the one but it fell through, looking back I think I tried to find relatable things to make it work, if that makes sense. When that fell through my barriers went right up.
With my daughter I just went with my head and at each stage kept asking the one question ‘is anything I have heard or found out a reason not to progress with this?’ and that got me through, no great green light moment, I even cried on my way to introductions as I didn’t know for sure. But as soon as I met her in person my barriers came flying down and my heart loved more than it ever has in my lifetime.
So don’t panic about knowing for sure, trust in what is meant to be (that’s hard while you are waiting and in the link phase I know)

Thank you, @Jellycatspyjamas, @Ted27 and @Loopylas123!

@Jellycatspyjamas, sounds like a good way of clarifying your own thinking! I wish our LA would allow it, but I can see their reasoning for not doing it, too.

@Ted27, yes, we've seen the child's CPR, but it seemed to have been written in a bit of a hurry. Our SW is going to speak to the family-finding SW to try and clarify the omissions. That way, even if we decide not to ho ahead, the information will hopefully be added to the CPR - so, at least, us taking extra time now would mean less delays for the child in future as future families wouldn't have to ask for it again.

@Loopylas123, glad your daughter was 'the one' for you! Sounds incredibly hard right until introductions, so glad meeting her in person brought you certainty. I've been repeating your advice of trusting in what's meant to be to myself every day. 😊

@AKingdomForAUsername Just to let you know if you have been approved more than 3 months it's considered poor practice to discourage you from joining linkmaker or attending things like activity events. Also, they can't actually stop you so if you feel it would help it's something to consider.

@Pastnowfuture, thank you! We've joined Linkmaker, but haven't gone further than expressing interest a couple of times. The child our SW spoke to us about is within our LA. We know that there are a number of other children who are within our matching criteria for whom they're looking for families currently, but they want to make sure we commit to a specific child (or not) rather than showing us multiple profiles at once. It makes sense to me that they want to make sure that we feel right for a particular child rather than "shop around". However, as @Jellycatspyjamas has mentioned above, I would find it helpful to look at more profiles to clarify our thinking, especially given that we don't have much of an emotional draw towards this child - and to see if we might have more of a reaction to another profile. After all, we will have to be 100% committed for the rest of our lives! We are looking through profiles on Linkmaker for this reason, but are finding that a lot of them seem quite biased towards the 'easy' bits about a child rather than potential challenges, so not really helpful to compare to the child we're considering. Which is why part of me (the selfish part? the rational part? Not sure...) wishes our SW would speak to us about two or three of the in-house children they might consider us for at the same time rather than one after the other. Anyway, just to clarify - as this is their policy, we just have to roll with it.

I.e., we've only seen children's public profiles on Linkmaker, which for obvious reasons don't have as much information.

I found the profiles were a bit of a beauty parade - “Sara has blonde hair, blue eyes and a winning personality” rather than what you’d actually need to know to take things forward. To clarify we didn’t get much more information about the children’s profiles, more a case of “this is what we know about their background” and from there I could make an educated guess about potential issues in terms of age they were received into care, number of foster placements etc. I certainly didn’t get sight of their CPR for example.

@Jellycatspyjamas, thanks! Beauty parade is exactly what it feels like! Even though I can see its benefits, the way Linkmaker is set up does make me feel queasy...

I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable seeing multiple children's CPRs. Our agency seems to let potential adopters know age, sex, vague reasons why permanent placement is sought, history of foster placement(s), any big medical issues, contact arrangements - no names, photos, detailed or identifying information etc. The former is what I would find helpful to hear about for two or three children - but I can also see why they don't do it.

As it stands, I'm hoping that we'll get a better feel if we could be the right family for this child or not once we've spoken with their family finder (if they're interested in us at all) - I don't think I even dare hope for the heart saying 'yes' or give us a steer until much later...

Thanks for everyone's help and advice!

We were told about dd about 6 months after panel. She was the first profile we were shown. Honestly, there was no Wow moment or big feeling. More, there was no reason to say no. The pictures we saw weren’t great. Foster career wasn’t the best and dd looked a bit undernourished and had an uncared for look about her. She didn’t look like either of us or how we imagined our child would look. Neither of us felt a great connection but as there was no reason not to, we proceeded. She was a baby that, on paper, we could care for.
Then it took a while for feelings to grow even after we met her and brought her home. There was definitely no big immediate connection.
Now, 6 yrs later, I cry at the thought that we might not have ‘got’ dd. It took a while but our love for her blows us away.
So don’t worry about initial feelings, they don’t always matter.

I didn't have any instant feelings about our son being "the one" - my wife did though and our social worker was really keen on the match. I think I was so cautious and in my head about research, medical info, will the match go ahead that I was protecting myself by not feeling "the feeling." It took me a few months to bond with my son but when I did it was amazing and there's a few particular moments I'll remember forever.