Letter of Recommendation
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By Michelle Thompson in About an Adoption Published: Monday, 11 June 07 - 08:03 PM (GMT) Last Updated: Monday, 11 June 07 - 08:28 PM (GMT) |
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Last week we received the initial social worker's recommendations and report. It seemed quite surreal to re-read everything which was discussed during her home visit. Almost everything, that is. There were a few minor mistakes in understanding, not enough to bother to correct.
The report did suggest that Peter had not told his own family about our adoption decision, which wasn't quite right - his parents are all primed to have another grandchild. In fact any time we see them they bring the subject up now, without trying to pry that is. I think perhaps, that they are sensing our frustration in this slowness of the process itself also.
The report was as a majority about me. There was so little of Peter in it, that you would easily think I was a single person applying. It's all about the mother's family life, history - in my case my state of being adopted and the feelings recognised there.
My frustrations remain with one little sentence found halfway through answering whether we had experience with children. Answered with a simple statement that we are parents already.
I presume the majority of couples out there are not parents already, and have limited experience raising children, let alone children with some manner of problems associated from their medical or past life. I think that being parents already should have a huge bearing on our selection process (and some problems admittedly, with welcoming a new sudden sibling into the fold). So seeing it dealt with via one very minor sentence like that, whereas the rest dwells on my own family background of some many years ago, seems slightly wrong to me.
But obviously right enough to allow us to proceed further down this road. The report was signed off by ourselves with a statement that it had somebody elses' names in it in one paragraph, but I don't think it was a matter of cut and paste, simply the social worker working on two reports at once. The biggest recommendation out of it, overtop of the fact that we are recommended to continue on with the process, is that we should both have "early" medical screenings.
Um, perhaps I shouldn't have admitted that weight problem quite so readily. How exactly do I prove that at the tender age of 40, I am not capable of bearing a child anymore, despite the fact my doctors don't actually want to say exactly that, for fear of being sued for medical negligence. Instead, it's been hinted around so much (and whilst I was drowsy with anaethesia, no less) that you'd have to be slightly hoping for another immaculate conception from god before this particular body might hold a child again. Instead, I have to do something almost as miraculous, and convince my doctor to actually admit I can't have another baby, and it's all okay, because I'm going down that adoption path.
My hubbie has something wrong with some fluid in his spinal column. It's not something they want to operate for, and not something altering his current ability to be a big boisterous parent for our daughter. It doesn't stop him lifting her up and over his shoulders, and it doesn't stop him giving out big squeezy huggles at her demands. What it does appear to be doing is stopping us going forward (like my own medical problems) until assessed towards whether we could be parents or not from a medical sense.
It's now been six months since the month when we initially applied for this, and it seems such a long journey - especially for our little girl, is waiting so patiently to be a big sister and show her new sibling around the place. I hope all our dreams come true soon. At least we have passed through one minor milestone at the start with that report.
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