CH. 2 – Adoption Agency or Local Authority?
One of the hardest decisions a potential adopter will make is whether to use an independant adoption agency (IAA) or adopt through local authority (LA). In this chapter I will explain our personal experience with both and how we made our decision.
Approximately 6 years ago Mr Lobster and I started many conversations around adoption and decided to contact our local authority just to find out more information. We definitely weren’t in the right place to start the process back then. But one of my biggest worries with applying was my BMI. (I will talk about that more in another blog post). So I made a phone call to the LA and spoke to a nice lady who had a long conversation with me about our background, accommodation, employment, interests etc.. at a guess I think we were on the phone for around 45 minutes. As the conversation came to a close she ended with “I feel cheeky asking but it’s something we are quite strict on, but can I ask if you know your BMI”. I told her and she became quite blunt “I am sorry you both sounded perfect but we have strict guidelines. Your BMI must be under 30, please give me a call back when you have achieved this”. I remember crawling into bed and sobbing my heart out for the rest of the day.
Anyway, years went by and things have certainly changed.
Coram Baaf now state:
Adopters need to be able to care for their adopted child throughout childhood and to continue providing support into young adulthood. In relation to weight, potential adopters must have a BMI under 40. If a BMI is over 30, the Medical Advisor will consider any potential implications for adoption.
F.Y.I. When we adopted my BMI was 43, but again I am going to talk about that more in another blog post.
We bought our first house in 2015 and moved into a different LA. Knowing that some of the BMI issues had changed and with a bit of weight loss behind me we decided to attend a LA adoption information session. Honestly I wish we hadn’t…. it was awful. Myself, Mr Lobster and my mother in law (who was visiting) went along to the session. Now I am not saying social workers (SW) should have to be sales people, and they’re not there to make adoption sound like a magical fun experience. But we left the session determined we were never going to adopt, even my mother in law told us we would be crazy to do it. The SWS didn’t tell us one positive thing about adoption or the children. Going through this process made me quickly realise that no one really ever talks about the positives.
Discouraged twice by LA we started reading and researching the differences between IAA and LA. It seemed like the IAA are generally more easy going, willing to give people a chance and if you are happy to consider older children, siblings etc a IAA could be a better option. Neither of us wanted to adopt a young baby and we 100% wanted two children. So both of us agreed we would approach an agency and see what happened.
A few days after new year in 2020 we filled out the application form for a local IAA. We read a few websites and this agency seemed to offer the best support and had some great reviews. We were so excited and nervous, but never expected to receive a phone call the next day!! I spoke with a wonderful SW (Who I will call Anita on this blog) who asked to visit us, the next day!!
This was it.. it was finally going to happen for us. I knew it, I could feel it in my heart, but before I could get too excited I had to clean!! That house has never been so spotless…. I will talk about our first meeting with Anita in my next blog post.
Chat soon, much love
Forever Mummy xx
