Yesterday I had the first interview with an adoption services representative at home - taking us a little closer to the review panel later in the year that will decide if we can adopt, how many children we can adopt, and what age range we can adopt.
While I don’t really want to divulge too much, I thought it might be interesting for others who stumble over this blog post to read a little about the process, and my perspective of yesterday.
Having attended a 4 day adoption preparation course last year, and waited for the adoption services to gather official records on both of us (criminal record, etc), we have finally started interviews - one every two weeks - whose primary aim is to assist in the filling of “Form F” - the official report on us as a couple that will be used by the review panel later in the year to make their decisions.
W had her individual interview 2 weeks ago, and I had mine yesterday. The rest of the interviews are done with us together.
In preparation for yesterday I had to prepare a “genogram” - a form of family tree chart, and an essay covering my childhood, upbringing, family relationships, experiences, education, talents, character, personality, profession, cultural identity, and so on. The beginnings of a character profile for me.
Overall I think the meeting went very well - we talked through the various elements of “me” as a person for a good couple of hours - and it was surprisingly easy. It’s not very often that you’re asked to look at your self - your own upbringing - your own experiences, and I found it really interesting.
The one admission I made that I will share that caused raised eyebrows was that I had been smacked as a child, and in extreme circumstances said I would have no problem with smacking a child. I ended up having to qualify myself - I had probably only been smacked a few times in my entire childhood, I have never smacked a child, have never been in a situation and could not envisage a situation where I might have considered it. I just wouldn’t discount it. As it was on my mind through the remainder of yesterday I talked to several friends who are parents of young children, and they all seemed to side with me - although they would try every trick in the book to avoid smacking a child, they would not discount it completely - purely for the situations you cannot envisage - those when you don’t have time to reason, or the child is too young to reason with.
So - we now have another two week wait. I’m wondering what the next barrage of questions will be - but strangely I’m not worried about it at all.