and so as my tan fades on we plough into Stage Two...
Stage two Meeting 1
This meeting was with our new SW who is absolutely lovely, I was expecting it to be a discussion of our recent work on Support networks but instead was a general catch up and Q and A session on both parts, we also talked about our recent feelings about birth families after watching the tv programme which was helpful as she really understood and reassured us. She explained the matching process to us in a lot more detail too which was really helpful and seemed to make it all a lot more real and exciting. I was also able to check that we don't have to decide on a specific number of children before matching (we are thinking 1 or 2 but mostly letting fate decide!)
I completely trust our new SW as she is very much on the same page as us, i just worry that there's such a short amount of time for her to get to know us - 5 more meetings until Panel and I don't know how much time she'll have in-between these meetings to read all our Stage One work, I hope it didn't go to waste!
Our Panel date is now three weeks sooner - The beginning of August! I was working it out the other day and it was 100 days exactly! which gives us just over two months to finish our PAR (Ive forgotten what that stands for but its basically our big document all about us - everything, past, present and future. It goes to the Panel for them to read)
I'm also getting a bit panicked as I've been hearing lots of talk about writing profiles and doing video clips etc from other prospective adopters. eeeek! We also need to choose a photo of us to go on the front of our file - a photo that sums us up as a couple, a photo that presents us as the potential parents of a child. To me this is a tough one, harder than it sounds.... we need to look happy but not too weird, loving, in love but not too sickly, outdoorsy, homely, laid back, respectable but also fun... is it possible for all this to be shown in one photo!? Obviously theres the lengthy document to support all these qualities but I can't help feeling I need to get the photo just right.
Anyway first things first I really need to make more of a dent in all of this Stage Two work we have to do.
Stage two Meeting 1
This meeting was with our new SW who is absolutely lovely, I was expecting it to be a discussion of our recent work on Support networks but instead was a general catch up and Q and A session on both parts, we also talked about our recent feelings about birth families after watching the tv programme which was helpful as she really understood and reassured us. She explained the matching process to us in a lot more detail too which was really helpful and seemed to make it all a lot more real and exciting. I was also able to check that we don't have to decide on a specific number of children before matching (we are thinking 1 or 2 but mostly letting fate decide!)
I completely trust our new SW as she is very much on the same page as us, i just worry that there's such a short amount of time for her to get to know us - 5 more meetings until Panel and I don't know how much time she'll have in-between these meetings to read all our Stage One work, I hope it didn't go to waste!
Our Panel date is now three weeks sooner - The beginning of August! I was working it out the other day and it was 100 days exactly! which gives us just over two months to finish our PAR (Ive forgotten what that stands for but its basically our big document all about us - everything, past, present and future. It goes to the Panel for them to read)
I'm also getting a bit panicked as I've been hearing lots of talk about writing profiles and doing video clips etc from other prospective adopters. eeeek! We also need to choose a photo of us to go on the front of our file - a photo that sums us up as a couple, a photo that presents us as the potential parents of a child. To me this is a tough one, harder than it sounds.... we need to look happy but not too weird, loving, in love but not too sickly, outdoorsy, homely, laid back, respectable but also fun... is it possible for all this to be shown in one photo!? Obviously theres the lengthy document to support all these qualities but I can't help feeling I need to get the photo just right.
Anyway first things first I really need to make more of a dent in all of this Stage Two work we have to do.