After a couple of weeks of nervous waiting we were sent the children’s 2 CPRs, which showed much more detail on their back ground and families. These are 40 odd pages of information on each of the kids (see previous blog for more). S and I settled down with a cup of tea for S (and yes we had managed to re-stock since our social worker had last visited) and a cup of coffee for me. (White, with between zero and one sugar, depending on how tired I am feeling – in case you were asking and wanted to make me a cuppa :-))

After reading the profiles, S and I sat down to ‘express’ how we felt about the 2 kids and if the CPR’s had increased, decreased or had no affect on our decision. While there was a huge amount of information to process and absorb, and some of it really made us angad (*angry and sad together – ™ for that word pending 🙂 ) both S and I actually felt closer to them than we had before. Unsurprisingly, some of the neglect did make us pause and consider if we could be the stable home for them, but, overall nothing jumped out at us that we felt with some love and luck, we could not handle.

Of course, while we were waiting for all this information, we were still getting loads and loads (and did I mention – LOADS) of profiles to review. I think we were still very conscious of the need to not put all our eggs in one basket and jump at the first one you see (I can hear my mothers voice say) but in reality there were a number of delightful children that tugged at our heartstrings and made us cry on too many occasions for a 6ft 3 bloke to admit to the lads 🙂

One really positive thing we discovered was that through out all the process of profile filtering and reviewing, we kept going back to these 2 profiles, and even ended up using them to help us compare the pros and cons ….’ how does so and so compare to the 2 blondies’ – and we still were keen (and also still persuaded into 2 of them lol)

After a few weeks, we got the news – the local authority liked us too – WOO HOO – we are not freaks! people like us come across as normal! nothing stands out and says we should be avoided – phew! It may sound a bit odd but this was really a relief – we are acceptable, as however much we wanted to keep ourselves detached from the kids until we had confirmation, they do weedle their way into your heart.

MY TIP – When you have some that you really like, do try to re-main objective and realise that there are so many more hoops to jump – However, do not expect to have a stone for a heart – it will melt, even if you try to keep aloof 🙂

So once both parties had decided they like each over, then there is an introduction meeting with the children’s social workers at your home. Some authorities may have several family visits at the same time, which must be stressful, but ours let us know we were the only ones they were seeing (adding a second, or is it third phew in here!). This put the pressure on and as we were now 70% to our new kids (this is a completely made up figure, but one I calculated based on a finger in the air, some dice and a strong coffee (do you remember what I like – I bet you do (sorry, just slipped into kiddie talk – blame the training 🙂 )

Anyway….. So this meeting was set for a couple of weeks in the future, which just gave us just enough time to PANIC :- panic buy more safety stuff for the house, tidy, panic, not buy a bed (too early), panic about not buying a bed, read the profiles and CPR’s again, panic about what to say to them and what questions they would ask, tidy, discuss what to feed them and what they will be like and just to be safe, add in a little bit more panic about how long a bed takes to be delivered and put together….. and of course panic about everything else in between.

MY TIP – Relax if you can – Go to the pub, play golf and do other adult things as this is hopefully one of your last chances at to do what you want, when you want without some small voices calling for your attention 🙂  Don’t worry too much about the visit as they will be normal (I Hope) and are not looking to trip you up… or at least ours weren’t 🙂