Our Adoption Journey

My wife and I always wanted a family of our own and we tried for several years with IVF and for us that wasn’t meant to be. Even though we were on our journey with IVF we always wanted to adopt, that was always part of our plan. Once we had decided to stop fertility treatment, we took some time out to enjoy life and get back to a good balance emotionally so we could begin our adoption journey.

We started to research different adoption agencies; we attended a few different information evenings. Although we had nice experiences, we were more impacted by Scottish Adoption and Fostering because we felt a warm welcome, lots of engagement from the team. My wife and I instantly looked at each other with a big smile and we just knew this was where our journey would take us.

One of our main worries at the beginning of our adoption was process was a genuine concern that social workers would have a homophobia approach (I don’t mean in an obvious way, meaning their preconceptions of what a family should look like, they would want children to be placed with a “typical 2.4 family”)  but overall, we were excited because we had that warm feeling at the open evening and we knew it felt right for us.

Our experience with Scottish Adoption and Fostering

The team from beginning to end were wonderful and we don’t use the word lightly. We had a couple of personal worries and after speaking to the team we felt reassured. Walking into the office we were always greeted with a warm smile, no matter who it was.

The thought of the home study was a little overwhelming. Our journey was during covid times, so we had a few zoom sessions and when we had our first home visit, we were nervous, I think I hurried my wife eating her sandwich, saying have you finished with that plate because I wanted everything to be perfect or thinking back it was just nerves working overtime.

As soon as our social worker came into our home and we had a little chat, we INSTANTLY felt relief. We spoke about why we wanted our family and what it meant to us, and what we could offer a child/children. Our social worker has been a great support in all aspects of our adoption journey. She made us feel at ease even in the hard moments.

The matching and adoption journey

When we were initially thought of as a strong match with our boys, we were so happy. This was real, it was happening. Their wee faces were engraved in our minds. We thought about them daily and we couldn’t stop smiling. Then, skipping forward a couple of weeks, our dream of these boys being with us as a forever family were short lived. Our social worker broke the news to us that unfortunately it wasn’t going to happen because of some issues with the boys’ local council, and the boys were going to be placed locally. You can only begin to imagine how this felt, how this impacted us. Time passed and we decided to take time out because our hearts were a little broken and we were floored by this news.

Skipping forward weeks later, we resumed our search to look at possible matches. My wife and I were still a little unsure because we couldn’t get the boys out of our minds. We spoke one night and decided it wasn’t meant to be and there was a better match for the boys and that gave us some comfort. The next morning, we woke up and I thought… NO! we are the perfect match for these boys. Days passed and I was at work, my wife phoned me and asked if I was sitting down. I was nervous… She then said the boys are coming home. My legs went weak, and I felt I lost the ability to breathe for a few seconds. My response was “I knew it” with the biggest smile and overwhelming tears. Their social worker fought for us to be matched as she felt the same as us.

When we got to the matching panel for our boys. We felt pure and utter joy, there was an overwhelming feeling of emotions, there were tears, silence, then a burst of excitement. I’m sure there was jumping around and we had the biggest smiles you could possibly imagine. It felt right in every way.

Life after adoption

Our life has changed in every respect of the word. Adoption has enriched our lives and still does daily. Does it come with its challenges, absolutely it does. Would we change it? Absolutely not. Both boys are thriving, have beautiful, caring, loveable natures, they are fun characters who enjoy singing, dancing and typical everyday activities. They both can articulate their emotions which we admire very much. We as a family are very open about their journey, our older boy has more memories and likes to share them.

We embrace every day, every memory they have from before. We have created so many wonderful memories and after 4 and a half years we still to this day will look at the boys and feel butterflies in our stomach because we are so proud and we appreciate us coming together, even amongst the chaos of life and the snail’s pace of them doing something they are not really keen on.

Scottish Adoption and Fostering has given us more than we could have ever possibly imagined. Our advice would be to make that first step and believe. Listen, engage and ask the questions when you are unsure because let me tell you… It’s what dreams are made of and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.