Michael & John

When we first approached Adoption Matters, in the back of our minds was the fact that we are a same sex couple – would we be wanted? We hoped that people would see our genuine wish to be parents but still feared  the agency might just be going through the motions with us and would be working out how best to say no.

 
When the social worker came to visit us though, we soon saw that she just wanted to see what we had to offer and that our sexuality didn’t come into it. She was very positive and that meant we were also feeling really positive about moving on to the rest of the process.

 
We found the whole process really interesting and felt really supported throughout the assessment. We felt the time spent was really worthwhile, even though at the time you just want to hurry it along! But looking back we see that the social worker needed to build up an understanding and rapport with us in order to be able to find the right children, and that couldn’t have been done in a rushed way.

 
We originally thought ideally we would have a boy and a girl if we could, but there was something about the two boys that reminded us of our own families, nephews and so on. We looked a t other profiles of children that the social worker brought to us but we kept going back to the two that later became ours. We made sure we were going with our heads not just our hearts though, and the social worker ensured we were giving the matter enough thought. It is not something we can easily describe, we just felt drawn to them.

 
We remember the moment we met them clearly. We had talked ourselves into the idea that they wouldn’t be enthusiastic at first until they got to know us much better, but they greeted us with smiles and hugs us at the door! It shocked us but it was wonderful. It finally felt more real then, although even now it occasionally feels unreal and ‘too good to be true’. Six years ago we would never have thought this could happen and we feel so lucky everything has fallen into place.

 
The support and advice we get now is just right, we feel people are only a phone call away as well as the regular visits and this is reassuring. Our advice to anyone wondering whether to pick up the phone would be: Do it! It’s is the most rewarding thing we have ever done.

 
Michael & John, Adoption Matters Adopters