our adoption story

In autumn 2005 we became the legal parents of twins - a brother and sister.

We married in 1991 and moved into our first home, which we had spent the previous year renovating with the help of our families. After our marriage we both continued working, enjoying married life and having lots of really exciting holidays to far away places. Life was good.

Eventually we got to a stage in our lives where we both felt that we wanted something more - we wanted to start our own family. We just never thought that we would have problems having our own children but after a year of trying and nothing happening the pressure was really on to get pregnant.

We started fertility investigations; this was a horrendous time of just more pressure. A counsellor left us with 2 options - sperm donation or adoption. We were shocked and so disappointed that we were not going to be able to have our own family. We both needed time to take all this on board and think this through together on our own. We knew we were not ready to do any more talking with anyone else. Time passed. Then our niece gave birth to a daughter and this was a trigger for us to start thinking about adoption. The media coverage of National Adoption Week 2003 was the next trigger for us and we decided to find out more about adoption and made contact with Family Care.

In February 2004 we finally started the assessment process with Family Care. The process was hard and after the group sessions our heads were buzzing. Being part of a group was not something we had ever done before - we had never talked about ourselves in a group of other people, some of whom were quite different to us in education, class and profession but we were all wanting the same thing - to adopt. We did relax! We still keep in telephone contact with some of the other couples from our group.

We only told our very close friends about us being assessed to adopt but after going to Adoption Panel, in September 2004, and our approval as adopters for 2 or 3 children under 6 we started to tell more people. The reactions of people when they heard what we were doing was striking. Neighbours with whom we had previously just passed the time of day began to talk more to us - we seemed to have more in common. Our family told us that some people were surprised when they heard of our adoption plans - they had thought all along that we did not want children - how wrong they were! Others said we would make good parents.

Our social worker who had been with us all the way through our assessment then helped us with the next stage of looking at children who were waiting to be adopted. This was hard as well! We spotted a family group of 3 and we were keen to know more. We mentally moved these 3 in straight away but it was not to be and these 3 children were placed with another couple. There were so many highs and lows at this time. We looked at other groups of brothers and sisters.

When we first saw the twins, then aged 18 months, they did not jump out of the page at us and we both felt we needed to find out a lot more about what was said about them. We read the forms and information about them and both decided we would like to go forward. We went to meet the foster parents who were then caring for them, to talk in more detail about each of them and hear about all their routines. The Matching Panel in February 2005 said "yes".

We then met the twins for the first time - our emotions were all over the place! We were also able to meet with the twins’ birth parents. This was very hard but something we both feel was right to do and it will help us in future to tell the twins about their adoption.

Life since the twins finally came to live with us a few weeks after our first meeting has just raced by. No two days are ever the same! We have learned as we have gone along. Our home now feels a very different place - it’s fuller and warmer and we are now much more relaxed. Over the weeks and months our caring for the twins has developed into deep love for them. We know that we have done the right thing.

Our advice to anyone thinking about adoption is - be honest with yourself, with each other and with your social worker.