I think I’m going to have to dripfeed this…

because adoption is even slower than infertility. Life is measured in two-month segments, as far as I can tell, rather than two-week. But oddly it feels more like we can get on with our lives together.

OK, so I never finished the tale of the interview with the agency director, but it’s long enough ago that I will need to check I don’t repeat myself. She sounded pretty positive but trying to be realistic – we would have a good chance of being approved, I think, although obviously they can’t promise anything at this stage, she really endeared herself to Mr. Spouse by refusing to believe he is 51. But if it was between us and a younger couple, then a child’s social workers might well go for the younger couple. However, I believe that in a lot of cases only one couple is considered for a child or children.

One suggestion she made is that we might suit a pair of siblings with a large-ish age gap (e.g. a six year old and a one year old). She was very understanding of the “need to parent”, especially to parent young children and babies, which she says placing social workers often don’t understand, but not to make the mistake of taking an older sibling just so we could have a baby. I have to say I would be up for this if the older sibling was uncomplicated – but that is unlikely – though I heard about a child who had been in a loving foster home for four YEARS before an adoption placement so it is not completely impossible.

I also mentioned the possibility of mixed-race children. I’m not sure she really thinks that dark-skinned bi-racial children would be possible (we, on the other hand, don’t particularly see a problem – especially if they have heritage in a country we could take them to) but she said there are sometimes children who are mixed-race but appear fairly white, or sibling pairs with different fathers where one is mixed-race, and adopters who are dark in appearance won’t take such children, but again placing social workers tend to be rather unrealistic about such children. So that is another option.

So, we have found our referees (three friends – not family – plus one of the vicars at our rather over-staffed church) – they don’t show what the referees write to us, but the referees themselves are free to show us, which we have told them, and they have all said they’ll show us what we wrote. I’ve also been getting books out of the library, and vetting them for Mr. Spouse, who prefers to read newspapers. I have a feeling I might have to bite my tongue when the social workers recommend some of them, as there’s a lot of pseudoscience, poorly explained ideas, and unfounded therapies.