Looking back, 5 years on.

The last 5 years have been an incredible journey, becoming Dads to our two boys. Our journey started back in 2018 when we attended a Yorkshire Adoption Agency’s open evening and also an open evening with our local authority.

After attending the YAA open evening, we knew this was the right agency for us and the following day submitted our official pre-registration paper work to begin the ball rolling.

From the first time we spoke to the agency, we found them to be a warm, welcoming agency and this was certainly true of Vanessa, our social worker.

Stage 1 was a lot of forms and waiting about, mainly for our doctors to complete our medicals and for various paperwork to be returned.  Stage 2 is a real deep dive into your life, as well as some very good training. While within the extended family there are plenty of children and our nephew lived with us for a while, we decided to both do some voluntary work with local schools.  From the start we both knew we wanted siblings so as much practice looking after kids would always help.

Dan and I both have siblings and always imagined ourselves with more than one child.  As we went through stage 2, we explored the possibility of siblings; making sure that siblings were right for us, as well as what we think would suit us more, boys, girls, or one of each.  The more we thought about it, we thought two boys would be perfect. We went to panel asking for the recommendation to be approved for a sibling group of 2.

While there’s a lot of work for stage 2, it all flew past and onto the dreaded adoption panel. I remember feeling quite stressed about this stage despite Vanessa’s reassurance, then coming out after our questions and wondering if that was it all.  I had built it up in my head to be something big, but in reality, it was more of a sit down with a group of people who had a few questions to ask.

We began family finding towards the end of stage 2, and was put on Linkmaker a few weeks before panel.  There were a few children who we wanted to explore and sent them over to our social worker, she’d also done the same and our boys were on both ours, and our social worker’s lists.

Vanessa reached out to the children’s social workers and that’s when things become very real.  Over a few weeks we went from 2 guys who were approved to adopt siblings to looking at 2 boys that could soon be charging round our house and lives.

Meetings started to happen, looking at the boy’s medical history, at the nursery they were in, meetings about what they liked and what they didn’t like. All leading to matching panel.

When it came to matching panel we were less nervous, I think I’d overthought adoption panel that much that I knew this one would be ok, even though the stakes were so much bigger. A few days later we got our formal link and before we knew it introductions started.

We spent 10 days slowly taking over the care of our children at their foster carers house.  Luckily our foster carers were amazing. It felt quite strange taking over the care of 2 little boys in someone else’s house, but we were made to feel so welcome and put at ease straight away.

The second part of the introductions was at our home, and before we knew it, our children were in our house, playing, charging around, and then fast asleep in their new home.

5 years on and things are now amazing, our boys are thriving though we still have some things we are working on, mainly around regulating emotions.

Our eldest had lots of issues around sleep after moving and had regular night terrors that lasted on and off for a few years, luckily these seem to have now stopped but he can still struggle with his emotions. He’s not a fan of change and really struggles at the start of school terms with new teachers and new classrooms, but our school have been really good with him and we have a good relationship with them. Despite this, he’s really clever and regularly points out my spelling mistakes! Our youngest is the cuddliest child I’ve ever known and just comes up for a cuddle, something I hope that never stops.

Being a gay male, growing up I presumed I’d never have kids but adopting was the best thing we have ever done. The rewards are so amazing. It’s hard work at times, as raising any child is, but the good easily outweighs the bad.  To date we have not had any issues over our sexuality, school have been brilliant with us and the other parents have always been so supportive. I would definitely recommend adoption to anyone, regardless of sexuality.