Some light Panel work

 Well, that was quite the day! As you can guess from my previous entry, I got little sleep last night. As such I was very jittery this morning. Breakfast was a pretty standard affair, and then we went for a walk for about 30 minutes or so. 

Despite the nature of the day, our conversation was pretty superficial. After all, it was the day of Matching Panel! What else could be said after a year of probing questions, parting with reams of documentation and reading many 80 page password secured Micrsoft Word files? It was finally here - we would finally be finding out whether we could adopt the two sisters we'd showed interest in at the meeting in September. 

For me, it had a wider significance. Finding out I was infertile in January 2021 had really rocked my sense of worth. I felt broken. Unworthy. Being allowed the honour of being father to two girls who really needed safety and security would feel like the state saying I was worthy, in spite of my own biological limitations. 

 I had ants in my pants on arriving home, so I forced myself to take some time out alone for a bit. No sooner had I lain on the sofa, then the doorbell rang and our social worker arrived. Then the Panel sent us an email to attend the Zoom call 5 minutes earlier than planned! It was all systems go. 

Panel was nerve wracking but thankfully brief. There was a Chair and four supporting decision makers, who introduced themselves in turn. Two were adoptive parents themselves and one had a background in a different form of social care. On the call were also social workers for the girls and several administrative staff. The Panel had their own medical adviser too. 

We first heard from the various social workers. They were asked whether we'd be good parents for the girls. They said many nice things about us, including our interest in research, our organisation skills and the bond we'd made not only with the kids but also the foster carer. It was really gratifying after all the cross examination to hear something nice about ourselves. We would make good parents ! Yes we did have a lovely church network ! We were incredibly likeable people ! 

Following that was a quick question for ourselves, which I frankly cannot remember and have not noted. We had been asked seven questions last Friday and submitted answers in writing. This was not as hard as those. Mrs Dadoption gave a fantastically comprehensive response as always and I waxed lyrical about how lovely our home city was. I am biased. I genuinely believe our city is the best. Even if that's not provably true, I do hope my enthusiasm rubs off on the girls over time. 

Then came the moment of judgment. The Chair asked each Panel member in turn whether they'd recommend us and why. One by one they said yes, and repeated some of the nice things we'd heard already. We were likeable. A good cultural fit. We'd done the research. They each said yes in turn until the Chair stated the increasingly apparently. We had a unanimous decision! I tried to hold back tears and thank everyone online. 

And then it was over. We had 45 mins for the meeting, but it was done in 25 with no real challenges or wrinkles. I hugged Mrs Dadoption so hard. I was to be a father ! A blooming good one too I'd fathom! 

We had bubbly with the social worker before she left in her car (for safety reasons it's worth noting she had Bucks Fizz). Then we headed into town to go toy shopping. We could finally start buying things. the girls were on their way.