Been meaning to update this for a while but work is hectic this semester thanks to a stupid teaching load. One thing the adoption process has done is made me take a hard look at my teaching load and make a serious request for it to be modified.
Anyway we finished our SEF finally at end of January. It was an interesting document to write and I was grateful to my sister for giving me her chronology and schools stuff. Made writing mine a tad easier as I only had to ask Mum about one date – when we moved from where I was born to where N was born. A lot of the SEF made my finally put down on paper some of the issues I have had over the years with everything that has gone on in my life.
Anyway that went off to our social worker and then we waited for first meeting on 8th February. Well actually first we had a meeting with most of the rest of the prep group other than the one older couple. That was a great evening and it was brilliant to find out all of us there had SWs and most were 2-3 meetings into home study. Just us and one other couple hadn't started. Ended up with T inviting them all to our house in March for a meal.
Then we waited for first meeting that turned out to be a week later due to SW being ill on original start date. First meeting we discussed a little about process and then started on discussing us as a couple. How we met and so in. Explained about our friends schemes and how we just met and clicked. We married 11 months & 2 days after first meeting, and 6 years later are as happy as we were then. Talked a lot about what had happened in those years with my health and T’s job which as SW said covered a lot about issues. She asked a few questions about things we had put on form but that was it and it was relatively painless.
Second meeting was just with T and discussed his family, childhood, education & employment. He was done in just over 2 hours whereas with me it is taking longer. The third meeting last week SW and I just spent a lot of time talking about my childhood and family. How all the moving around had effected me as well as about Mum & Dad and my sister & brother. Also about other people who had an influence on me growing up and my closeness to my grandparents. A lot was talked about particularly with the issues my brother has and also Mum’s comment a few weeks back that she reckoned today I would have been diagnosed as autistic – high functioning that is. As I said in discussions my memories are poor on the whole although I do have emotional memories and photos can help trigger some. Talked about how difficult I find it to see Grandma in state she now is thanks to dementia, and how much time I would spend talking to Grandad over the years. Also how Mum is very much the rock on which the family is built and still provides support to us all. Talked about my issues with dealing with a room of strangers and how I gave developed strategies to cope. SW said I must have found prep group hard … which I did at start.
Anyway that took all the time so we will have to cover education (what we didn't in ramble last Friday on childhood & family) and employment at a further meeting which we both expected so had arranged for end of April. This week we are discussing support network and probably health. Ok my health is a big area but it is all under control – yes I am laid in bed typing this on iPad thanks to migraine this morning but had I needed to be I would have been able to get up just not drive safely.
Went to local adoption support meeting last night without N as planned due to Ofsted being in her school yesterday & today. Was an interesting meeting about contact which gave me a lot to consider. Once again importance of being seen to make effort was emphasised as well as need for care over photos in this day and age of social networking. Made me do a quick google on my name again last night where I only discovered two photos ( used for work stuff avatars) that need replacing. I shall do that later when I get on main PC.
Must try to update this weekly I feel after meetings given my tendency to forget stuff.
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