I've never talked about this on MN but after recently NCing so I could admit to my previous job I've decided I'm sufficiently anonymous now!
Two years ago my husbands sister died of cancer. She was a drug addict and well known to the health services so when she started presenting with some pretty serious red flag symptoms she was ignored. My husband did his best to get her listened to - he went to the GP with her, got her referred but it was too late - it's nit entirely her GP's fault as she did have a habit of going to the surgery stoned and then not telling the GP what the actual,problem was. She died 6 months later and in her final days asked us if we could take responsibility for her two children - then 11 and 15. We are childless ourselves, but had always been close to our nephew and niece and so said yes.
Two years ago these wonderful children came to live with us in London. We had pretty hard on jobs - at that time my husband was (and still is) a senior civil servant and I was a special advisor. It was a shock to the system for the children has they had grown up in a rural area, but they were excited by London and the anonymity of no one knowing they were the local druggies' children. We offered to move anywhere they wanted, but they loved London. We all made loads of mistakes along the way. I know it is hard enough to be a parent of the teenager when you have had them from birth, but when they suddenly appear in your life.....well, we fucked up many times. But we all muddled through and with lots of counselling, many tears, tantrums and arguments (some of them with the children!) we got through the first year.
Cutting a long story short, last summer we decided to move out of London and to Cornwall. I had quit my job and was doing freelance work and my husband was disillusioned with his and wanted to plan to leave too. The children and I moved in September and my husband visited each weekend. We acquired a dog and several cats. A rabbit also suddenly appeared out of no where one day and my niece has recently started whatapping pictures of a litter of puppies so no doubt we will be getting another dog before long. She has also, after years of objecting strongly to any and all education, decided she wants to be a vet nurse.
My nephew has discovered a talent and love for woodwork and is interested in training as a carpenter. My husband, who's hobby is carpentry, has handed in his resignation and plans to start a business making things out of wood with our nephew - though the latter is being encouraged to do an apprenticeship as well.
The best thing, however, was the moment, about a year ago when the children sat us down and said that they would like us to adopt them. That was, as you can imagine, a long process and one that involved several conversations with their deadbeat father who fucked off before my niece was born. After the initial posturing he gave in and gave permission......ams today, today we got the official news...,,,we are our niece and nephews new parents.
Of course, being teenagers during lockdown they were complete gits today 
and their response to our news was "you've been our mum and dad for the last two years and a piece of paper means nothing. But can we get a pizza tonight anyway?"
God I love them.
Apologies for the un AIBU AIBU.