Thankfully, there are a lot more books on the market now, written by adopters, sharing their experience of the process. They cover the highs, lows, and everything in between, giving anyone thinking about adopting, an accurate picture of what to expect.

I’ve put together a list of eight books that share what the process is like from adopter and adoptee perspectives, as well as a novel that captures the emotional rollercoaster perfectly.

I was gifted some of the books so I could read and review them, and please note that some of the links to buy the books are affiliate links. That means if you click on the link and then buy the book, I get paid a small fee from Amazon.

Meant to Be by Lisa Faulkner

When Lisa learned that she couldn’t have biological children, her plans and expectations for her life were derailed. But, in the months and years that followed, she discovered that there was more than one way to build a family – and that there is a lot of joy to be found in life’s unexpected detours.

And Then There Were Four by Emma Sutton

And Then There Were Four is an unforgettable, unputdownable rollercoaster through the hilarious highs and pass-the-gin-now-the-tissues lows of infertility, adoption, and parenting.

No Matter What: An Adoptive Family’s Story of Hope, Love and Healing by Sally Donovan

This book tells the uplifting true story of an ordinary couple who build an extraordinary family, describing Sally and Rob Donovan’s journey from a diagnosis of infertility to their decision to adopt two children who suffered abuse in their early lives. Heart-rending, inspiring and hilarious, Sally and Rob’s story offers a rare insight into the world of adoptive parents and just what it takes to bring love to the lives of traumatised children.

The Adoption Paradox: Putting Adoption in Perspective by Jean Kelly Wilder

Adoptee Jean analyses the adoption industry in America from the perspective of a transracial adoptee, and also through the lense of birth mums sharing their experience of being coerced into relinquishing their children.

Whilst the book focuses on the American adoption system, her insight as an adoptee and the message she portrays from her own experience and other adoptees quoted in the book, is one that anyone thinking about adopting in England needs to be aware of.

Honesty and open conversations are key and creating an environment where it’s normal to talk about heritage, birth families and (in an age-appropriate way) the reasons why adoption was felt to be the only option.

Jean not only shares her story and experiences, but those of other adoptees and birth parents which are the two sides of the adoption triangle that are often heard the least. The experiences give a lot of food for thought and insight into how to support adopted children understand their birth history.

One quote she shares from Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE, really stuck out to me, which is “Adoption loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful.” It shows how far we still have to go, to raise awareness about adoption and the impact it has on everyone involved.

A powerful book and one that all adoptive parents-to-be should read.

How I Met My Son: A Journey Through Adoption by Rosalind Powell

When journalist Rosalind Powell and her husband wanted to start a family, they had no idea of the journey that lay ahead. Encountering fertility issues and gruelling IVF treatment to no avail, but still determined to be parents, they set off on the adoption route. After many false starts and dashed hopes they eventually, and luckily, found their son. A candid, compelling, and inspirational book about what it means to be a parent of a child that isn’t, biologically, your own.

My Adoption Journey 2015-2019 How My Dream Became A Reality, Yours Could Too by Christopher A Gaidhu-Withell

When Chris and his husband were researching adoption, trying to find hints, tips, and general personal experiences on how other same-sex couples had found the process, there was nothing out there. Most of what was out there were the happy elements such as family holidays or days out now that everything has settled. They didn’t show the negativity from the stresses of assessments or the stresses of adjusting to the major changes going on. This is why he decided to write this book, to provide help and advice to those who are going through the same journey that myself and my husband went through.

Me, the Boy, and The Monster: Exploring the psychology of adoption and trauma by Cat McGill

The book is a personal, thoughtful, and touching tribute to a family’s journey through the world of adoption and trauma. McGill has a background in developmental psychology and uses this to great effect; the theory sections of MTBTM are relevant, researched, and related to real-life examples from McGill’s own experience with her adopted son.

The Girl in the Purple Dress by Jo Horsely

Always, always carry hope… This is Jo’s adoption story, which begins with her as a small child being rocked by her mother, who is struggling to hand her over to the adoption agency. Through school and work, heartbreak and marriage, love and loss, Jo discovers more about herself and builds a life that embraces all definitions of the word ‘family’. Her story hasn’t ended, and there’s so much more to come…

The Prep Group by Eloisa Hope

“The Prep Group” is a novel about three hopeful couples who have embarked on the challenging journey of becoming parents through adoption. It follows the couples as they share the highs, lows, and everything in between the adoption assessment process, matching, placement, and beyond.

There are parts of the book that made the hairs on the back of my arms stand up. Becoming a parent via adoption is something you can’t imagine unless you’ve been through it. It’s a journey like no other, and Eloisa has captured that brilliantly. Although the book is fiction, it’s a must-read for anyone thinking about adoption because it captures so accurately the rollercoaster of highs, lows and everything in between when you become an adoptive parent.

Siblings: Emma’s Story by Hilary Coombes

A novel about the complexities of families and how lies can shatter trust.

“Emma has always longed for love and honesty, but her world has been built on betrayal. Her parents lied. Her partner deceived her. The people closest to her turned out to be strangers hiding secrets.”

This is a real page-turner and provokes a lot of thoughts around honesty and the impact lies about birth history can have on children (and adults) when the truth finally comes out. It’s a brilliant story that raises a lot of issues that adopters should be mindful of.

What Makes a Mum? by NFM

This book had me in tears, nodding along in agreement and gave me goosebumps. A memoir that raises a lot of important issues that are too often swept under the carpet. NFM shares an honest account of her rollercoaster ride from being in the care system, to becoming mum via adoption.

Head to the book review section to read my full review of the book. It’s definitely a page-turner and a book all adopters-to-be should read.

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to help keep the magazine free for everyone to read? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and wellbeing, and parenting, head over to the homepage and have a look at what’s new.

This article is written by Jane Foers who shares her journey from adoptee, to adopter and therapist. She’s a therapeutic coach and counsellor.

From adoptee to adoptive parent and counsellor

My adoption in 1970 had a familiar backdrop – I was the result of a one-night stand and adopted after being in foster care for two months.  My adoptive parents already had an older (adopted) daughter. 

Apparently, I was the perfect baby who never cried. However, our adoptions caused a generational rift as my paternal grandparents said my parents were ‘bringing up someone else’s child’. 

My sister and adoptive mother had a very turbulent relationship which worsened as my sister entered her teenage years.  My sister was the rebel; I was the peacemaker.  I became anxious that my sister would leave home and can clearly remember one day when I was a teenager, my mother asking me “I hope you’re not going to go and look for your birth records are you?”

My answer was ‘Of course not’ as like lots of adoptees, I didn’t want to upset her.  I didn’t give a thought to my own curiosities around my adoption.

Fast forward to my older teenage years and work. I befriended people easily and spread myself thinly.  I never ruffled feathers and didn’t speak my mind.  It had been instilled into me that sex outside marriage was wrong.  My sister explained the irony of this to me – that we were both the product of sex outside marriage, yet our mother was incredibly moralistic about this. 

I didn’t attend university and flitted from job to job, always feeling unsettled after a while.  I married in my late 20s and we decided to start a family but after tests, required infertility treatment.  Around that time I started to experience back problems and just short of starting the first course of IVF, my back problem worsened. 

I was advised to stop the IVF.

Navigating infertility

Over time, I underwent two surgeries and became both anxious about using my back and low in mood as I had to rely on others for help.   I resembled a piece of cardboard mentally and physically.  I was referred to counselling and started to become interested in the mind/body connection.   Eventually, I decided to complete the first counselling skills courses and then obtained a job in mental health. 

A decade later, I started thinking about starting a family again and the option that we could adopt. I wasn’t sure why this hadn’t been something I had considered before. Looking back I think we were swept along by the diagnosis of infertility and straight into IVF.   I now felt that adoption was some kind of ‘destiny’ and for the first time, I weirdly felt I was doing something within my control.   

Adopting as an adoptee

At our first introductory meeting with Social Services, we were told how children waiting for adoption had experienced loss and separation alongside possible abuse, trauma and/or neglect – a very different landscape to my own adoption.

Quite rightly, our application was a long and rigorous process. I was asked to explore my own adoption and for the first time felt I could be honest with someone who didn’t know my family. It was like therapy.  Then my father died and we were advised to take a break.  Eventually, we were approved and matched with a 10-month-old boy.

After the introductory week with the foster carers, we brought him home and from that day on it was like he had always been with us.  Initially, I felt like a fish out of water at the local playgroup. I befriended the grandparents to avoid talk of breastfeeding and new baby stories.  I loved the special adoption playgroups as I found I could relax and connect easily with the other adoptive parents.

My son has a life storybook and quite a lot of information about his birth family alongside indirect contact with his birth mother.  We also meet up with one of his birth siblings and he has a good age-appropriate understanding of his story. 

It will be for him to decide if he wants to make contact with his birth family.  I have and always will discuss his adoption openly with him and do not ever want him to be worried about our feelings should he wish to contact his birth family or talk about them.

Training to be a counsellor

I decided to continue with my counselling training and between lockdowns, we learnt about the many therapeutic models, a lot of which had a focus on childhood.  I began to join the dots about myself.

l started to feel differently towards my adoptive mother like she didn’t have the same level of control over me anymore.  I began gentle somatic work and felt it helped to release deep-rooted feelings (I had always been someone who never cried or expressed emotion easily). 

A huge shift for me was realising that ‘The Body (does indeed) Keep the Score’. I developed a better understanding of my adoptive mother’s upbringing which had been difficult.  She had lost her first child to a hereditary disorder and my understanding is that she was encouraged to ‘get on’ with her life and (as in those days) not offered any emotional support.

After completing my counselling training I worked for a couple of local charities in mental health and the LBTQ sector and more recently, have trained to become an alcohol-free coach for ‘grey area drinkers’.

Raft Coaching

I’ve worked with clients who have had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and who have disclosed something about adoption in their lives.  They described how they used alcohol to help fill a void,  drinking to cover feelings of loss, loneliness, shame, and abandonment. I believe adoption and alcohol are often very intertwined.

I’ve also completed training to become an adoption support counsellor and offer counselling and coaching to adoptees (over 18), adoptive parents, and birth parents. 

Adoption is complex and multi-faceted. It is something that can lay dormant and then appear at different points in a person’s life and I believe there is no one right time for counselling.  At times, I have felt like banging my head against a brick wall when adoptees (including my son) are described as ‘lucky’ …

I work as an integrative counsellor and bring different approaches to my work. Each client has their own unique and different experiences, thoughts, and beliefs about adoption. However, I believe the most important thing for any therapeutic relationship is that the therapist ‘gets it’. That they have an understanding of the client’s inner world and can help them explore not only themselves but also issues that may be difficult to discuss with family and friends because of the very nature of adoption.

You can find out about my services on my website, on the Counselling Directory website under “Find a therapist”, or drop me an email at remoteadoptionfocusedtherapy@gmail.com or remoteaftherapy@gmail.com.

Head to the home page to read all of the latest articles.

I think lucky is a word that means so many different things to those who’ve experienced adoption. I feel very lucky to have been chosen to be mum to our daughters. Our family are lucky to have our girls in our lives. But they aren’t lucky to have been adopted. Their start in life was full of loss and trauma.

It’s a term that people often use to describe adopted children, saying they’re lucky to have been adopted. I hope it’s a well-meaning comment, but it shows how far we still have to go in terms of raising awareness around adoption.

Chloe’s perspective on what lucky means for her is humbling.

Lucky

Perhaps some young people don’t understand what it means to be adopted and be “in the system” until they’re older. But I always knew.

Adopted at eight years old, I worked out early on what foster care was. I accepted I’d move around continuously and that eventually, leave the system. I also understood that I was… lucky.

Being in foster care was a fairly confusing and upsetting time for me. It was “decided” that every second Thursday, I would be allowed to meet my birth mother.

At first, I’d be overexcited and sometimes even be physically sick before she arrived. Soon after, it turned to a case of absence. She stopped turning up, and this fact would make me so ill that on the day after the contact, I’d again become very ill.

My foster carer soon became my long-term carer, and from this time, I have a lot of memories. I’m not sure if this is the same for all of you. But for me, I felt that my foster carer and I formed a kind of mother-daughter bond, which, as we all know, includes both good and bad times.

Memories of foster care

Strangely, some of my clearest memories are the weirder ones.  For example, I’m extremely glad to see the back of haggis; my arch nemesis. It was a Halloween night, and I was told that I wasn’t allowed to go out trick or treating unless I ate my haggis, which she knew I hated. Maybe it was a test, but I’ll never know.

However, I’ve also got lots of good memories, which balance the bad. For example, our trips to Edinburgh zoo, Chill Factor in Manchester (sledging/ skiing) and my all-time favourite, horse riding.

Can I trust you with a secret, reader? My biggest memory with horse riding was when my brother’s pony handler let go of his pony momentarily, and the horse spooked, making him fall halfway off his pony. It then started to canter off with him. I know that this seems to be a weird thing to put in a blog, but my point is that memories are weird; you can’t choose what sticks.

Foster care is definitely not convenient or the best thing to go through. But if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to make good memories and look back at that time with fondness.

Head to the adoption section to read more interviews and articles written by adoptees sharing their experiences.

A Study In Adoption

My first problems in school started soon after my adoption.  I eagerly told all my classmates that I was adopted. I think because I didn’t want it to come out as the big surprise.

To me, adoption seemed like a fresh start where people didn’t judge me for my family and the things they’d done.

However, as I had a sibling, this meant that everyone now knew my brother’s story. He wasn’t pleased. He wanted to be the normal kid, living the normal life.

Many adopted young people have to move schools after their adoption. This was also the case for me, and it was tough. In those first few weeks, I followed the customs of my old school. where we had to sit cross-legged and raise our index finger to our lips when we wanted to talk. When I did this at my new school, they thought I was weird and old-fashioned.

Another school issue I faced was the gaps in my learning. Before my adoption, I didn’t go to school all the time, and as a result, my maths was dreadful. Many “normal” people have trouble with maths or English, but I truly struggle. People have told me I probably missed the bits at the start, so my whole foundation to learn maths was actually missing.

To try to fix it, I had to spend my summers catching up on what I missed. To this day, my addition and subtraction are not up to scratch. Finding something as simple as primary school maths difficult was really embarrassing for me, and I feel it’s the reason I have some insecurities. It hurts if I’m called a name like “stupid”.

The social element

Lastly, I feel the social element of school also affected me. Bullying and care-related name-calling left me feeling very insecure about how people see me and how they think of me.

To manage this, I’ve spent some time speaking to Scottish Adoption about how I think about myself and others.

For any adoptive parents out there, a fairly easy way to help your child through this school stuff is to listen and listen well. Sometimes we, as adoptees, feel like we aren’t heard.

I also believe that most adopted children will need more support to get through school. So be ready!

Head to the adoption section to read more interviews and articles written by adoptees, sharing their experiences.

The group work is key to them being able to reflect the way they do. They’re passionate about giving young adoptees the chance to be part of a similar community. The Ambassadors would love to campaign for all adopted young people to have access to group work and to give young adopted people across the world a space to be part of a similar adoptee community.

Over the next few weeks, I’m resharing the blogs because they give such a powerful insight into some important issues young adopters face.

The first blog is written by Chloe.

I see Me

Are you still trying to figure out who you are, or have you already found yourselves?

If the latter, congratulations! However, for those of you who are still finding yourselves, here are some things from my journey I’d like to share with you.

For me growing up, if adoption was spoken about at school, it often came from playground insults. I heard a lot of “LOL, your birth parents didn’t want you” or “Is your life like Tracey Beaker?”

I’m sure those of you who’ve been pointed at and insulted felt the same as I did. It affected my confidence and how I viewed myself.

For a long time, I took these insults.  However, in the past year, I decided – no longer! The last time I was insulted, I replied with the following, “No, my life is nothing like Tracey Beaker and why I was adopted is none of your business”.

Back in my birth town, everyone knew me and my family as a problem family who needed to be taken care of. This also impacted on how I saw myself.

My adoption journey

Throughout my adoption journey, there have also been a variety of feelings that have troubled me. For example, a sense of abandonment, confidence issues and a lack of control. These feelings have come from both my experiences and from how others perceive adoption as a whole.

With both, the result has meant that adoptees think that how we feel inside is how others feel about us.

The good news is, things are getting better. Growing in age, leaving the toxic environment of school and realising that through things like work, I now have confidence that I can control my own future.

Now, when I feel negative about my past, I remind myself that only I have the power to change my identity.

I see Me!

Head to the adoption section to read more interviews and articles written by adopted children and adults, sharing their experiences.

Introduce yourself and your family 

I’m Suzy. I live with my husband and our two daughters who are full birth siblings.

How often do you have contact with birth family?

We do annual indirect contact every summer. We usually get any replies a few months after we’ve sent ours.

How does this happen? 

It happens via a written update. I write it electronically at the moment and send it to the post adoption team at our agency. They then forward it to birth family and sibling’s families.

We had asked for direct contact with the sibling born in between our two. We had been asked if we wanted to be considered for him, but decided it wasn’t the right thing at that time for our family. We asked if direct contact could be considered but it was completely overlooked by the local authority. As was indirect contact at the start and we had to push for this to be set up.

Eldest has met one of her older sisters. We had a few years where we attended an adoption event set up by our agency. Our social worker knew a sibling would be attending with her parents, so we were introduced to the parents. At the event the second year, eldest was actually sat beside her sister as they got their faces painted.

I found that really emotional because the sibling’s family hadn’t told their daughter about her younger sister. We had to respect their decision, but it made me really sad, because that would have been the perfect way for them to start to get to know each other. They live less than five miles away, so direct contact would have been very easy.

We didn’t go the last year the event was held because our eldest had been looking at her life story book a lot and would have recognised her sister from her photo.

What kind of things do you include in the letters? Do you send anything else like photos or pictures drawn by your children?

I find the updates quite hard to write because I want to share how wonderful the girls are, but I don’t want to be insensitive. I can’t imagine what it’s like for birth mum to get an update about how two of her daughters are doing. I want her to be happy to read the content, but I don’t want her to think I’m showing off at how well they’re doing.

It tends to be likes, dislikes, sharing their personality and how they get on together. I know that birth mum was very pleased when she was told they were going to be placed together, so I write quite a bit on their relationship. I tend not to write specifics in terms of holiday locations and focus on activities like going to the beach or a train ride.

This year eldest is six and so has a much better understanding of her birth history. She’s currently talking a lot about her brothers and has asked if she can draw them a picture, so we’ll include that this year.

Do your children get involved with writing the letters?

I currently write the updates, but I hope that as the children get older, they’ll want to be involved more. It would be nice if they wrote their siblings letters and hopefully get replies. It’s a great way to start to develop their relationship so that there’s something to build on easily when they’re ready to meet.

Have you requested any help and support in connection with contact from your agency? If so, what sort of help did you receive?  Did it do what you needed it to?

We haven’t asked for any help yet. I’ve found blogs and articles in the magazine really helpful. An Introduction to Life Story Work for Adoptive Parents, written by Dr John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at CoramBAAF, is really helpful if you’re just starting out with life story work and contact.

I am going to ask for some advice this year about photographs. Our contact agreement is just for letters, but eldest has asked to see up-to-date photos of her siblings, and she’d like them to have more photos of her and her sister. I also think direct contact may be something they both want to have with the siblings who live close to us, in the not-too-distant future. That will have to be done initially through post-adoption support, but I really hope, if the children want it to happen, it’s something that is supported by everyone.

Do you get any replies from birth family or siblings?

Initially, we got replies from one sibling and then the sibling between our two. Unfortunately, last year, we didn’t get any replies at all, which is really sad. Our agency became part of a regional agency. so I’m hoping the replies are there, but have just not been forwarded to us. I’ll chase it up when we send out the letter this year.

Unfortunately, we’ve never had anything from birth family. I’m really sad for our children about that because I think it would help them as they get older and understand things more, to be able to read a letter from their birth mum.

If you get replies, do you read them to your child?

The last time we got replies from siblings, our eldest daughter was too young to understand. As we explore life story work more, we’ll read them to her. If we get replies this year and going forward, we’ll read them to the children as and when we get them.

When your child came home, did they have any memory of their birth family?

No, our eldest daughter was nine months old and our youngest was six months. They didn’t live with their birth family and had very little contact with them when they were in foster care.

If no, what age were they when you started life story work? 

Eldest was about two and a half when we started introducing the concept of her growing in her birth mum’s tummy and our hearts. I think she was about three when we started going through her book. I was terrified about how she’d react to knowing she had siblings, but she coped with it really well. You can read more about our experience of how it went the first time we showed her the book.

Our eldest daughter has always asked questions whenever she wanted to about her birth family. Questions tend to focus on her siblings, her brothers in particular. She’s recently been asking if she can go and see them when the virus is gone so she can give them a hug. I really hope they know about her and her sister, and they’re asking about them. But at the moment, we’ve got no way of knowing if that is the case or not.

The only thing that our eldest has struggled to process has been the fact that she didn’t grow in my tummy. When we first started doing life story work, she got very upset when I said she didn’t grow in my tummy. That broke my heart. When she looks through her book, she doesn’t ask any questions about her birth parents, but always asks about her siblings. Hopefully, as she gets older, she’ll be curious about them too.

What kinds of things did you use to support life story work?

Both children have a book created for them by their foster family, and they have an “official” life story book. Eldest doesn’t have a later life letter, but the one done for our youngest will be used for both of them because the circumstances were more or less the same. Eldest’s social worker left the agency just after placement, and despite lots of promises, the later life letter was never done by anyone else. We agreed with our youngest’s social worker that one letter would be used for both of them.

A later life letter is a letter written by your child’s social worker, explaining why their birth family couldn’t look after them. I think it’s something the children will read when they’re much older – I found it an emotional thing to read.

Eldest has access to her life story book and will look at it when she wants to. She knows all of her siblings’ names and loves to look at their photos. We haven’t read through the words with her because she’s still too young to understand, but we will as she gets older. We’ve found books like “The Family Fairies” by Rosemary Lucas and “Blanket Bears” by Samuel Langley-Swain really helpful in terms of explaining the roles of social workers and foster families.

Both children were with the same foster family, and it helped our eldest understand their role a bit more when we met them again for introductions with our youngest. Our eldest had no memory of them, but knew them from their photos in her books. The foster family were over the moon to see our eldest again, and it made introductions so much easier. We keep in contact with them via email, and I send regular updates and photos.

Have you accessed any type of help or support with life story work?

No we haven’t.

How has your child reacted to life story work?

At the moment, our eldest is taking everything in her stride. She asks questions when she wants to, and we do our best to answer them honestly, in an age-appropriate way. I expect that things will get more difficult for them to deal with as they understand more about their birth family and their history. I hope that they will always feel they can talk to us about it and that they know we’ll support them 100%.

I hope that one day, they’ll understand how we’ve all played different roles in their lives, but we’re all their family who love them very much.

 Head to the adoption section to read more articles about life story work, introductions, matching and more.

It’s so important that adopters understand the importance of contact for birth families. It’s sometimes the case that they don’t feel able to reply to our letters, but that doesn’t mean they don’t cherish every word that’s written. Sammy does receive some help and support to write her letters, but I don’t think that’s always available in a way that encourages birth parents to reply.

How often do you have contact with your child?

I have indirect via letterbox yearly.

How does this happen?

I get two letters via the letterbox team in my local authority.

What kind of things do you include in your letters? Do you send anything else with them?

I send photos of me, her cat, anything new in the family, and a birthday card. I always ask about health, school, wellbeing, likes and dislikes, her birthday, and Christmas. I ask about her pets and how her adoptive parents and brothers are. I also add memories from home and her cat and fish here and anything they have told me. Her adoptive parents write first then I reply. I include anything I’ve been up to too.

Have you requested any support from the local authority in connection with contact?

I receive help with my letters via the letterbox team. They help me with what is good to put in, but nothing around how it works.

If you haven’t received any support from the local authority have you received any support from another organisation?

Yes. I’ve received support and currently still do from PAC-UK. It helps as they don’t judge like social services do and see me as a parent, not a failure.

What do you get in reply to your contact letters?

They write first which is two letters, one from the adoptive parents and a hand written one from my daughter.

What type of information is in the letters? Do you think there’s enough or would you like more?

I get told a lot of information about my daughter’s daily life. Their letters are always two pages long and her own is a page long. I feel I get told a lot which I love and am really grateful for.

How old was your child when they left your home?

She was three-and-a-half when placed with her potential adopters and six when the adoption order was granted.

Were you asked if you wanted to add information to her life story book? If yes, what did you add?

I asked them and they agreed. They asked me to get photos and information about me, her family, her dad, pregnancy, birth milestones, later life letter, and any wishes I had for her future. 

Is there anything else you’ve given her such as an item of your clothing or keepsake?

My daughter has my brown bear called Benji. I got him from Santa one Christmas Eve as I was ill in hospital. I gave him to her and I’m told she knows what he means and that she has him. She also has a locket with a picture of us and her cat.

Did you get any support with life story work? 

The family practitioner came to my house and we put it together. She had worked with me and my daughter from when they became involved up to the final goodbye. She and my daughter had a good relationship. She showed me the information up to her being in foster care and what she put in about that. Then I couldn’t see anymore as that was information about her adopters.

If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new. Head over to the life story section to read more articles about this subject.

Here’s our experience of introductions with our youngest daughter, when our eldest was four years old.

How old was your child when you met them?

Our youngest was five and a half months old. She was just trying to sit up and was teething.

What did you do to prepare for meeting your child?

We did the same as we’d done for our eldest but with her included. A4 laminated photos of us and our eldest. We slept with a snuggle toy and our eldest picked a cuddly toy and slept with it for a few nights. My mum made a fabric photo book of us and our immediate family. As it was made from fabric, our daughter could play with it on her own safely. It was lovely to see it covered in gunk and dribble when we met her.

We bought pour eldest a book about becoming a big sister which she loved. It came with two pairs of socks, one big sister pair and one little sister pair. She was so excited about giving them to her little sister.

How long after matching panel did introductions start?

Two weeks. With our eldest it was just over a week. I was glad of the extra week between panel and introductions with our youngest.

Due to a ridiculously long wait to get our DBS checks back, we’d missed our original approval panel date. That meant we did approval and matching panel on the same day which I found very stressful. Having a couple of weeks to sort everything out helped me gain a little bit of control back.

When did you get the introductions plan?

Before panel. We had to factor in when our eldest was going to join in so there was more discussion needed than there’d been for her.

How long were introductions planned for?

Six days.

Did you have far to travel for introductions?

No. The foster family lived about 15 minutes away from us.

What happened on the first day? How did it go? How did you feel at the end of it?

We’d agreed that it would be best for my husband and I to meet our youngest on our own for a couple of visits before we introduced our eldest to her. Eldest had just started school and we didn’t want to disrupt her routine.

Originally we’d said we thought introductions should start during half term so that eldest would be off. It was decided that although it was only a couple of weeks later than the local authority’s plan, that was too long for youngest to wait.

I was very nervous about how this would work with eldest. It meant youngest was home for a few weeks before half term. In the end it worked out for the best as it gave my husband and I time to bond with youngest on her own while eldest was at school.

Day one was a Thursday and just my husband and I. We had a planning meeting at the council offices first (which we were late for because of traffic!). Then the foster carer left the meeting first to get youngest ready and we followed on to her house.

When we met our eldest for the first time, I felt a connection with her, but it took me a long time to love her. I wrote a few years ago about how I felt in this blog published a few years ago and was expecting to feel the same with youngest. I didn’t though. She looked very like her sister did at that age and I loved her from the second I saw her.

We stayed at the foster carers for a couple of hours. They were the same foster family who’d cared for eldest so it was lovely to catch up with them. They’d never moved on sisters separately before so it was a lovely experience for them too.

I was actually more nervous starting introductions with youngest than I was with eldest. With eldest we had no idea what to expect but we were newbie parents so it didn’t feel like anyone expected us to know what to do. With youngest, people kept saying we were experienced parents and adopters. That meant they thought we knew what we were doing. That terrified me. It felt like I had no clue what I was doing most of the time.

Knowing the foster carers and being in familiar surroundings definitely helped. I still got a fright when I saw our photos plastered all over the house though!

What were the next few days like?

We met her on our own again on day two. We stayed at the foster carers and we were pretty much left to it with the foster carer in the next room. Once again the foster family had done a brilliant job of using our photos and the photo book to help youngest feel at ease with us. She was happy to be in our company straight away.

Day three was a Saturday and is when our eldest met her sister. She was so, so excited. Writing this now brings back so many emotions from that day. The foster family were excited to see eldest, and foster dad wanted to answer the door to us holding youngest so he could see her face when she saw her baby sister for the first time.

I was excited but also terrified that eldest hadn’t really understood what was going to happen, and decided she didn’t want a sister!  The main reason we’d said yes to being assessed for youngest was so that they could grow up together.

I needn’t have worried. Eldest blew me away when she met her sister and coped with everything so well. She adored her from the second she saw her. And youngest was so excited to meet her big sister too. That day will always be one of the most emotional days of my life.

We stayed at the foster carers house for a few hours and then came home. We went back again late afternoon to help with bedtime routine. Eldest was very keen to help!

At what stage did your child visit your home?

Day four. I think it would’ve been a day earlier had we not had a few days with her on our own.

How did that work?

The foster carer brought her to our house about 10 ish. She had a quick look at her room and stayed for about 20 minutes and then left us to it for the day. We had our first family trip to the park where we’d spent a lot of our time during introductions with our eldest. It was a lovely day and eldest coped so well with everything. We all took youngest back to their house for bedtime routine.

The following day was a Monday so we took eldest to school and then went to collect youngest from the foster carer’s and bring her home for the day. I was worried eldest wouldn’t want to go to school, but we’d promised to bring her little sister with us to collect her so she was actually fine about it.

We’d talked to her teachers about what was going to happen and they were brilliant. They were really excited to see her with us in the yard collecting eldest.

Did you have any contact with yours or your child’s social worker during introductions?

Yes, they both checked in regularly either by phone or email to check everything was ok.

Did introductions last as long as planned?

Yes. We brought youngest home forever on the Tuesday. It was exactly four years to the day after we’d met eldest for the first time so everyone was keen to keep to that date so that it was special for both children. Six days doesn’t sound like very long to get to know a child, but it was just the right length. Youngest was starting to get distressed when we took her back to the foster family at the end of each day.

How did you get on with the foster carers?

Brilliantly. It helped so much that they were also the carers for eldest. We felt a lot more relaxed at their home during introductions second time around because we already knew them. I’m so glad everything fell into place the way that it did so they could look after her.

It was such a special time for them too. Foster mum said that she normally gets really upset when she starts packing a child’s suitcase to leave for their forever family, but she hadn’t with youngest. She knew she was going to live with her sister and she was so excited for them to be together.

The foster family will always be such a special part of our children’s history. I’m very grateful that the local authority made sure they had the same carers.

Were there any problems during introductions? If so what and how were they resolved?

No. Both sets were incredibly draining emotionally, but they went as well as we could have hoped for.

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Introduce yourself and your family

We are Matt and Will. Matt is an assistant headteacher in a large primary school, and Will works as an operations manager in the travel industry. We adopted our two boys in December 2018.

At what point in the process did matching/family finding start? 

We were given access to Family Finder as we were coming to end of Stage 2, a few weeks before panel. At this point, we could flag any children we were interested in, but we hadn’t had a proper conversation with our family finder about what it was exactly we were looking for. Before panel, I don’t think our family finder looked at our flagged children as we didn’t hear from her.

How did it work? Did your social worker do all of the looking or did you get involved in that part?

We were fully involved in looking. Our social worker didn’t look on our behalf but did look at those we’d flagged and discussed some of the profiles in more detail with us. We got married two weeks before going to panel so it was a crazy few weeks for us!

Did you attend any events such as adoption activity days?  If so, what were they like?

No, we didn’t attend any adoption activity days.

How many profiles did you read?

We read a lot of profiles. We knew we wanted siblings, so could search for that on Family Finder. Each evening after work we would have a look together. Sometimes, we would have looked separately during the day so would share any we were interested with each other.

What was the hardest part about this part of the process?

The hardest part was the sheer number of profiles out there and rejecting some children who had needs that we knew we couldn’t support. It’s also really hard when a child’s social worker approaches you and you have to say no because their needs were too much.

How long did it take to find your match?

Once we were given access to Family Finder, our boys’ profile was one of the first we saw and flagged. Straight after approval panel, in early September 2018, we had a meeting with our family finder. She had one paper profile to show us, which was our boys. Things just seemed to be aligning.

We weren’t officially matched with the boys for a few weeks. This was due to the boys’ Local Authority not wanting to pay our agency a finder’s fee. This ultimately led to a conversation between the boss of our agency and the boss of the Local Authority to try and reach an agreement.

In this time of uncertainty about what was happening, we were encouraged to continue the search. We didn’t find any profiles that shouted out to us as much as our pair. So we found our boys really quickly but weren’t officially matched for a few weeks.

What age and number of children were you matched with? Was this the same as you expected or did it change when you started looking?

We were matched with two children, aged three and one. We knew we wanted siblings and were approved for this. When we first started the whole adoption process, we had one child in mind.  Because, ultimately, we knew we wanted more than one child, we decided partway through that we would look for siblings.

What happened once you were linked?  Who did you meet to find out about your children?

Once we were linked, a meeting was set up to meet the boys’ social worker and family finder. They came to our house for lunch, and our social worker was also present. That meeting went really well, and everyone was positive about the match.

We then attended a life appreciation day for the boys. This was a large meeting attended by us and our social worker with anyone who had been involved with the boys and their birth family. This included, though I’m sure I’ve forgotten some, social workers (current and past), family support workers, foster carers of the boys’ older siblings, health care professionals, and nursery school staff who worked with our eldest. It was a lot of people!

On the same visit, we also had a ‘bump-in’ meeting at the foster carer’s house so we could meet the boys. We were introduced as her friends, and our eldest had had his hair cut that day, so he was obsessed with combing our hair. We were invited to our eldest’s nursery school to meet his teacher to hear what he was like at school.

The Local Authority also set up a meeting with a child psychologist to discuss some of our eldest’s unusual traits and behaviours and what could happen with them after placement.

How long was it between being linked and the adoption matching Panel?

We went to the adoption matching Panel in the middle of November 2018. The meeting with the boys’ social worker and family finder was in October 2018. Everything happened quickly. We were one of the quickest from approval Panel to linking to matching Panel our social worker had ever worked with.

Because our boys were not local to us, they arranged for matching Panel and introductions to all be on the same visit. We started introductions two days after Panel.

At what stage did you start preparing your child’s room and buying items for them?

We had to prepare the rooms before going to matching Panel as Panel and introductions were together, so when we came home it was very likely we would have two boys with us. We kept the rooms fairly plain and painted the walls but didn’t fill them with lots of personal bits (other than a framed print for each boy’s room with the first letter of their name on it). That would come later, once we knew they were definitely ours.

We’ve since learnt, though, that our eldest found a busy room unsettling, and it triggered nightmares and anxious thoughts (for example, we had an A-Z print with animals on, but he then kept talking about having a lion in his bedroom, which scared him). His room is very plain and simple now. I would advise not to put too much in the bedroom until they have moved and are settled.  

How did you prepare for the adoption matching Panel? 

Because matching Panel was two days before introductions started, we didn’t prepare a video. It was felt a photo book and transition toy would be sufficient as they would only have a day to look at it before introductions began. We bought each boy a transition toy and took photos of them throughout our house. We made a long photo book for our eldest. Youngest was 15 months at the time of introductions, so we prepared a few photos for him in a book.

What happened at matching Panel?

We went into the adoption matching Panel with ours and the boy’s social workers. It was relatively straightforward. They were a very friendly Panel, and we didn’t feel intimidated. Those boys were going to be ours. We had one question about ensuring schools use the Pupil Premium grant appropriately, but because of Matt’s background in education, we were able to answer this easily. Unusually, they didn’t ask us to then leave the room before informing us it was a unanimous yes.

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Introduce yourself and your family

I’m S, a single mum to my daughter aka Rugrat. She came home in 2020.

At what point in the process did matching / family finding start? 

Towards the end of stage two.

How did it work? Did your social worker do all of the looking or did you get involved in that part?

My social worker started looking for matches before approval panel. I was told about Rugrat on the day of approval panel.

Did you attend any events such as adoption activity days?  If so, what were they like? 

No I didn’t.

What was the hardest bit of this part of the process?

Definitely the waiting. After I read Rugrat’s profile, I then had to wait two weeks to meet her social worker. I barely slept in that time because I was worried that they might go with other adopters.

How long did it take to find your match?

It was really quick. I think my social worker started looking about six weeks before panel. I wasn’t expecting to hear about a match until after the ADM decision so it was a complete surprise to be told about her at approval panel.

What age and number of children were you matched with? Was this the same as you expected or did it change when you started looking?

One child two years old. Yes, I was approved to adopt one child aged 18 months to four years.

What happened once you were linked?  Who did you meet to find out about your child?

I initially met with her social worker and family finder. I then met with the foster carer and the medical advisor. My social worker and Rugrat’s social workers then had the matching meeting to agree to proceed with the match.

How long was it between being linked and matching panel?

It was 10 weeks from first reading her profile to going to matching panel.

At what stage did you start preparing your child’s room and buying items for them?

I bought a few bits once her social worker said he was happy to proceed. I properly started her bedroom about four weeks before panel. It’s been a great thing to do during lockdown.

How did you prepare for matching panel?

I’ve made her a photobook which heavily features the toy bunny I bought her and laminated some A4 pictures of myself. I’ve also made her a snow globe with a picture of me on one side and her on the other. I will record some videos reading her favourite books.

What happened at matching panel?

Matching panel was a fairly unique experience as it had to be done remotely. The panel started with just the professionals and then I was sent a text asking to join. I was asked a series of questions: Why her? What’s my support system like? Do I feel prepared? Am I aware that there’s always uncertainty around adopted children’s development?

I was then asked to leave the call and less than 3 minutes later received a text to say I could dial back in. I was then told it was a unanimous ’yes’ to recommend the placement!

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