We met on a dry, cold winter night in November 2009. We were supposed to go ice skating on our first date but decided last minute to get pizza and watch the world go by. We talked for ages and a main point was where we saw our futures, and family plans.
It was evident we wanted the same thing: children – and we both already knew adoption would be the way we’d go.
1 in 5 UK adoptions are to members of the LGBTQ+ community
We started our adoption journey in 2014 with another agency, a few months after our November 2013 wedding. We completed the stage 2 process with the other agency but for various reasons the PAR was negative and our family plan was put on hold. Factors included money and length of relationship, but it also came across that being a same sex couple was something our social worker at the time struggled with.
We parked this to allow ourselves time to reflect and life took over: holidays, nieces and nephews, career progression and the property ladder! Finding our forever home has taken us to 3 houses, but we finally found it in 2022! We knew this one would be perfect.
The LGBTQ+ community make wonderful adopters
We approached Yorkshire Adoption Agency in February 2023. The feeling this time was immeasurably different.
The whole team were amazing and despite the previous report, our social worker, Sally worked extremely hard to evidence how we’d changed as a couple over the 10 years, how we were much better placed to have a family and what we could in fact offer would be greatly received by children.
The process of gathering information to allow social workers to write a report is not easy; it’s personal, intrusive, can often feel like you’re repeating the same things, but Sally was simply fantastic. She put us at ease, she got to know us really well and spent a lot of time ensuring our qualities – and personalities – came across.
We were always consistent on our wants: a large family, sibling group. Whilst the make-up changed back and forth, 3 children is what we remained resolute on. Yes, there were challenges to this from Sally, but we never waivered.
Panel finally came around in January 2024. It was a huge relief to be told yes. We knew we were that one step closer. By April we were matched with a sibling group and fully preparing for them to be moving in; we had decorated rooms, prepared our introduction books for the children and our family and friends had conducted a support meeting with the social workers, so were all fully aware of the impending placement. However, this subsequently stalled due to appeal a week before introductions were due to start and our family plan was again put on hold.
At this point, we took some time away to deal with this and went on holiday. Not only had we lost our family, but we suffered further loss with the death of a close family member around the same time.
our LGBTQ+ families consistently tell us that their children are embraced and accepted
We came back to the process in the November/December of 2024, ready to finally move on, and start our family finding process again. Still wanting a sibling group, still wanting 3 children. We talked to several adoption agencies regarding different siblings but nothing quite felt right. We finally found our children in February 2025. We knew as soon as we saw their profile. We had to make some changes to the rooms as the children were different ages to the previous sibling group; we needed a new beds, we had to make 2 beds fit in one room as we were told they’d need to share at first and our introduction books needed to be amended.
By the time we went to panel in May 2025, we knew so much about the children and had already met them a couple of times. We were building strong bonds with them all and felt we understood their individual needs well. Panel went without too many issues, and a unanimous yes quickly followed. The plan to bring them home by end of July was formulated and the waiting game began….again!
We’re now 7 weeks into placement and life is completely different. A journey which has taken over 10 years has been replaced with the next journey of raising our beautiful 3 children into the best versions of themselves.
To someone who is considering adoption, I’d say follow your heart, but follow your head too: if it doesn’t feel right, don’t be afraid to stop and re-evaluate. It’s a big step, for you and the children.
Read more about LGBTQ+ adoption here.
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