First home visit...now two weeks to wait (eek)

So... first proper visit from the city adoption social worker. As always, it was more like a chat than a scary interview. I think this is because the social workers are good at their jobs and put you at ease so you open up and reveal what you are actually like rather than just showing them your scared "rabbit in the headlights" interview persona. We usually follow a policy of being as honest as possible and generally rambling on and answering questions in as much detail as we can. She was pretty positive actually, said there was no reason she could see why they wouldn't invite us on the training course. But it's her manager's decision and we'll find out in 2 weeks. Eurgh! 2 weeks feels like a long old time!

She did ask us why we didn't carry on with foster caring for a couple of years before adopting and I wondered if that might be something they come back to us with. Our answer was really simple; because we're ready to adopt, we're ready to permanently have a child in our lives, we're ready to change our lives completely and we're really looking forward to it. Whether that will be enough of an answer remains to be seen. I hope so. I don't want the fact that we wanted to be foster carers to count against us now, it's just the timing is a bit dodgy with having an extension and going through the long old adoption process. She didn't ask us much else. Briefly went over our childhoods, why we want to adopt, our relationship, why we've chosen adoption rather than anything else.

It's a fair point. I mean there's plenty of womb at the inn so to speak. Sorry, that's really bad but I couldn't resist it. We don't have anything against people using IVF or turkey basters or any of that but it's not for us. I like the fact that our child will have a sense of where they came from and how they got to where they are. I feel like it's important for them to have a clearer idea of this than telling them who their sperm donor was. Plus the fact that there are so many kids out there that need adopting and so this feels right. I'm thinking about it now and it's really quite exciting! Must try not to get too excited until we hear back that we're through to the next stage. Then the training course isn't until November so we can chill for a bit, although obviously we won't!

Ever since we started thinking about adoption we've been reading lots of books about parenting, gay parents, attachment, adoption etc. etc. and the social worker seemed really surprised and impressed. We didn't do it for that, we did it because we find it interesting and want to be as prepared as possible when there is one, or possibly two little people in our home and we need to be able to link their behaviour to our behaviour and their past experiences. But that's my top tip for today. Read a book! They will (quite rightly) love you for it!