CH. 3 – First Meeting With a Social Worker
It was the day Anita was visiting and to say we were nervous was an understatement! The house had never been so spotless.. even the fridge had been cleaned.. because clearly she was going to inspect it right? When I compare that first meeting to how we are now when social workers visit it makes me chuckle! Nowadays I can just about put a comb through my hair and run the hoover round and toys will usually be strewn across living room floor! It’s almost like we want the house to look “lived in” now rather than perfectly clean and tidy.
I am jumping forward a little here but I don’t want to forget anything. But I remember Anita telling me I would have to change and learn to live with mess. She told us our house was beautiful, but we would need to “put things away” because things would change. Oh how right she was! I used to be obsessed with DIY and making everything look lovely. Now I am just happy if the washing is done and there isn’t dirty socks all over the floor. If you are looking to adopt, get ready because your life is about to change forever!
One of the things I researched before Anitas arrival was should we have snacks and drink on offer.. cakes, biscuits, teas, array of coffees etc? Of course we purchased many different snacks and a selection of drinks! Seriously don’t bother people. These social workers couldn’t care less about what’s on offer. All Anita wanted was a cup of tea (Black, no sugar with a dash of cold water) and the most that our permanant social worker has ever had in our house has been a glass of water.
Let me just say at this point, we literally love Anita, I wish I could of adopted her. Her beautiful Irish accent mixed with her relaxing voice could send me to sleep (not in a boring way) I just wish she could read me a bedtime story every night. I think I would sleep like a baby. She also loved to chat.. we estimated a brief 30/40 minute chat for a first meeting, nope she was there for nearly 3 hours. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all on her, I am a chatter too! I think we could have nattered all day.
The second piece of advice I will give you for your first meeting is, don’t be scared to open up, don’t hold anything back. Because this is your first chance to make an impression.. this person will decide if you can move forward. So let it out, tell them everything and make sure you sell yourself. One of the things our own social worker has told us time and time again is how easy we made it for her. We have always answered every thing honestly and openly. This may be the reason we sailed through the process rather quickly.
In this meeting we talked about everything. Our childhoods, our past, schooling, work, family, friends, religion, health, diet, weight, previous parenting, finances etc. We were open, honest and above all warm. We really enjoyed our chat and she made us feel so much more at ease about adoption. Remember that awful session we went to with the local council? They could learn a thing or two from Anita! Don’t get me wrong she told us it would be hard but it wasn’t in a scary way at all.
Remember how worried I was about my BMI? I felt so much better after this meeting. Don’t get me wrong she told me I needed to continue to lose weight and we had to prove we could offer the children a healthy lifestyle. But I wasn’t worried anymore, I knew this wouldn’t stop me.
As we expected Anita asked to look around the house (and no she didn’t look in the fridge). We showed her everything and she was more than happy with our home. She even told us we could potentially adopt siblings (which was our dream) if they were able to share. But that was something we could discuss down the line.
As far I know from that meeting, Anita loved us. So much so that she invited us to start prep group the following week. When she left, lobster and I hugged and we just knew in our hearts that this was the beginning of our new life as parents. At this point it seemed so far away and we knew we had a lot of hard work ahead of us. But this was only around 2 years ago and we now have two boys who have been with us for almost a year.
Thank you Anita for putting our dreams in motion, we will never forget you and your beautiful Irish accent. We mention you regularly and you will always be part of our journey.
In my next post I will talk about our first Prep group session and how absolutely exhausting it was.
Chat soon, much love
Forever Mummy xx
