Our submission to the adoption panel

The report to the adoption panel is ready to go and will be submitted in the morning. W have an email from Murrays parents which confirms an inheritance that we will receive in the coming weeks from his recently deceased grandmother. We also have a letter from Murrays Dr about his current health with his kidneys and prognosis (ie he is perfectly fine). The report itself is 13 pages long and hopefully addresses every issue they have concerns about.

On Tuesday 1st October, I will be going to the adoption panel meeting to present for 20 minutes on why we should be approved as adoptive parents. It is our last attempt to be approved. Once that is done, all we can do is await the outcome and know that we did our best.

Murray asked me today what would happen if we don't get approved despite everything we've done. I can only hope that we will be strong enough to deal with it and accept it for what it is, whatever the outcome.

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Adoption progress

There is so much that I haven't written about, and blogging hasn't been the soothing balm that it once was for me. I've just been living day-today, and taking whatever comes at me, one thing at a time.

The adoption process isn't over though which is amazing.

As expected we were given an outcome of 'considering not approving' us as adoptive parents. What surprised us was the reasons given for this decision. In the original assessment report, the only red flag raised was our finances. Well that wasn't a factor at all in the panels decision! They said that it was a concern but that our submission to how we would manage time off and money was well thought out and they were happy with that. Hooray!!! I was thrilled with that! What came next was a surprise.

The committee believed that we had demonstrated capacity to only meet 3 out of the 10 adoption competencies!!! Three!!! There were five areas of concern:

1. Not enough evidence that demonstrated regular experience caring for young children either in a professional or personal capacity
2. The committee questions our motivation to adopt as we have been so focused on IVF over the years
3. Ongoing stress and tensions within my family (My brother and father)
4. Ongoing treatment for depression
5. Murray has a kidney disease which means that he may need a kidney transplant or dialysis in his 50's or 60's

So completely different to what our report had said! The panel members suggested that the report wasn't detailed enough in these areas, so perhaps we weren't actually deficient in these areas, but the report didn't tell them what they needed to know.

The letter stated that we had three options that we could take up. The first was to attend a meeting with two of the panel members to clarify their concerns. The second is to complete a written submission to be given to the panel to address their concerns. The third is to attend the final panel meeting and make a presentation up to 20 minutes long basically talking to our submission, which I guess adds a human face and that extra explanation of difficult things.

We will be taking up all three options, and have already met with the panel members last Wednesday, which we were very apprehensive about going into it. After all, here are two people that just judged you and decided you weren't 'good enough' to be parents! But it was actually really helpful for us. Of all the issues raised, the one that is going to be hardest to sway them is Murray's kidney problems. He has Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) which basically means he has little cysts on his kidneys which turns into Chronic Kidney Disease later on in life. He has no symptoms and takes blood pressure medication which is standard treatment to help the kidneys cope, and we are lucky that he has known from early on as his Mum and Uncle also have the disease (hereditary condition). Although Murray hasn't needed to see a specialist, the panel want him to see one to get a report on his prognosis and what potential treatment options are available. I guess for them, it is important to know that he will be around to help raise our child, which we understand.

Anyhow, as I said, one day at a time. We are slowly working on our submission, and we have requested a copy of the minutes from the panel meeting which we can receive to see what specifically they were concerned about within those broad topics and where to focus our energies. Murray is booked in for his specialist appointment on October 15, and I am doing a million blood tests for our Public IVF clinic appointment on November 11. Everything is happening all at once!

I feel immensely grateful to God that we have been given this opportunity to address the issues raised and hopefully be approved to be adoptive parents.

Not a No, Not a Yes

We haven't received our letter from Adoption Services yet but I finally got the courage to call the department. The adoption worker said that at this stage the panel agreed with what our assessor had said, however it was not a complete rejection at this stage, and she asked if we would like to meet two of the panel members to hear from them what their concerns are and how we can demonstrate that we are suitable adoptive parents.

So we are booked in on September 4th to meet two of the panel members. Hopefully it is a positive meeting and we are able to show who we are and convince them that we are suitable adoptive parents. I'm not pinning my hopes on it though. I'm making myself as numb as I can through this part of the process. If I have to process fully what this finding means for us, I'm not sure I would get through. Much easier that I allow myself to not think about anything too hard right now.

An outsiders view

During the adoption assessment process, Murray and I talked a lot. We talked about ourselves, our backgrounds, what made us love each other, how our relationship has coped with different stressors, and about our life plans. You don’t really think too much about some of these things, after all they have happened to ourselves – why do we need to talk about them if we have experienced them directly?

While obviously we didn’t get the recommendation that we wanted from our assessor, the report we received was a very interesting read. It was like reading about these completely different people. You recognised yourself and your partner, yet it was a strange feeling seeing us through someone else’s eyes. Especially when that someone else is a psychologist without any other knowledge of who we are.

While the report itself is private and not for sharing willy-nilly, there are some bits that I’d like to share, if only to help me remind myself of what we have achieved – a resilient marriage filled with respect and love for one another.

“Murray presents as a softly spoken, reflective and caring man - exuding a warm, gentle and kind nature. Rebecca appears to be the more confident of the two, often taking the lead in conversations. She is clearly very caring, intelligent, warm and friendly in her communications and interactions”

“In observing their demeanour both applicants appeared to have an easy quality to their communications with each other. They appear to communicate openly with each other on most things and generally agree on what they considered to be important.”

“Rebecca and Murray were able to listen to each other’s view point and yet arrive at their own conclusions on issues or topics. In situations where they did not agree they were able to discuss the situation and their differences openly and respectfully and where appropriate good humouredly.”

“Rebecca and Murray appear to have a very solid and secure relationship based on close friendship, mutual respect and love. Most importantly they appear to have a realistic view of marriage and their commitment to each other and appear to be happy and content in their relationship”

The adoption panel met today. We don’t know the result yet, and we might not know for up to two weeks, until we receive a letter with the final determination. We know it is unlikely we will be approved. But I still have hope. And I have my husband. And my God. That’s all that matters.

The trifecta: Holidays, adoption and fertility treatment

Our application to adopt goes to the aptly named Adoption Application Committee on Tuesday. We wont find out the result for a week or two afterwards as they write a letter which explains the outcome and what our options are.

We expect that we will not be approved as prospective adoptive applicants, due to the lack of a recommendation by our assessor. We have written an addendum to the report to give our perspective on how we would raise a child and our financial status, but we don't how much, if any, impact that will have on the panel. Whatever happens, we know that it's not up to us anymore. Now we hope and pray that they will see us for the parents we could be.

In other fertility related news, we have our appointment date for the public fertility clinic - 11th November. There are a bunch of tests we need to do before the appointment, so I will get onto those shortly. I will be having a pelvic ultrasound, and I'm really interested in seeing how my weight loss has affected my PCOS. So far my ovulation appears to have been restored, with very regular cycles of around 28/29 days, so I wonder if I still have the classic 'string of pearls' follicles on my ovaries.

It is also nearly 12 months since I had my gastric sleeve surgery and I have lost 51kg to date (or 112 pounds for my US friends). I'm feeling great, and have posted some photos over at Lose and Hope if you want to pop over and look.

In other news, we spent the July school holiday's in Melbourne and Sydney, which was really nice despite having Bronchitis the whole time. I got to attend State of Origin game 3 which New South Wales unfortunately lost, plus a Friday night football game at the MCG! We went and saw King Kong at the theatre which was incredible, and I got to spend lots of quality time with my youngest brother Daniel who lives in Sydney. Time for some photos!

Snow cuddles!

At Mt Buller seeing snow for the first time

A little slice of Mexico in Melbourne

Waiting to go in at the theatre

At the MCG

Our hotel room in Sydney - I highly recommend the Swissotel!

The Rocks - a lovely spot for a walk on Sunday afternoon

Walking back from Chinatown

We had perfect weather nearly the whole time we were there

Darling Harbour

Sydney Aquarium

Swimming with the fishes...

My brother and I

Off to State of Origin

Daniel and I chilling out

Lunch in Cronulla

Mmmm icecream!

Walking by Cronulla Beach

Unapproved- the adoption saga continues

I know it's been a while between posts. A lot of heavy stuff has been going on and I just haven't felt like writing about it. I guess blogging isn't my default vent outlet anymore, more of a debriefing tool after the fact.

In short, our adoption assessor completed her report and has not recommended us for approval to adopt. W met all the competences except one- financial capability. Essentially it boiled down to the fact that although I could take 12 months off work to look after four adopted child, we would be expecting that I would be bale to return to work on a part-time basis (3 days per week) to contribute to the household income. The assessor in her report stated that we didn't have the capacity for me to be an ongoing stay at home Mum- and having an adopted child means that there is a higher likelihood of the child having additional needs (eg speech therapy) and we don't have the ability for to stay at home at home permanently, as well as potentially additional costs of private medical attention (if high levels of physio/speech therapy etc are required).

So, because we are not 'rich' enough for me to stay at home permanently (until my kid is in school, and then I assume work only school hours), we are not suitable for adoption.

To say that we were blindsided is an understatement. We just did not see it coming. I know the assessor found writing the report difficult but it's even more difficult to be on the end of it, and knowing what the implications of this are. It feels like another loss all over again.

Now we have until July 25 to let the adoption agency know any factual corrections to the report, as well as provide our own appendix with our own views and statements we wish the panel to consider. Then in August, the report goes to the Adoption Application Panel who basically read it all and make a decision. There is the slightest chance that they could still approve us, however we were advised when we started this process that if we don't have our assessors tick of approval, then it is highly unlikely we will be approved by the committee.

Right now we are trying not to think about it too much. We are on holiday in Sydney at the moment, having spent the last week in Melbourne. It was perfect timing to help us take our minds off of things. I don't know how I would have gotten through the last week if I had to face this everyday. I've been able to forget and just let it be for a while. We will deal with it when we have to, when we get back home this weekend.

In the meantime, we are going to enjoy our holiday. For rugby league fans, we are going to see State of Origin III this Wednesday night which is on Murray's bucket list. I ticked a bucket list item off on this holiday as well as I got to experience snow for the first time in Mount Buller!

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#sygwa

One of the things that I do each year is run our church's team entry into the State Youth Games. As church coordinator I do a lot of running around, getting registrations, organising our team nominations, accomodations, team shirts, fixturing, and then finally on the weekend, supervising and making sure everyone gets to where they need to be.

This past week I have been sick with a cold and chest infection, but there is no time for that at SYG! So onwards we went and it was simply the best weekend. Our team had 32 16-28 year olds (predominantly 16-20 year olds this time round), and we actually took out the Small Church competition! This is huge, especially considering we came dead last in 2012, finishing on -70 points!!! It is incredibly rewarding to get the opportunity to see kids developing friendships, having fun, and not least learn that knowing God or being a christian doesn't have to be boring!

If you want to see some funny stuff, take a look at the video below - including me getting very excited at the end when it was announced that we won!

Adoption Session 4

Last Friday we had our fourth interview with the assessor. This session focused on safety of children, in particular from physical and sexual abuse, but also about appropriate discipline strategies, and developmental milestones. It was a full-on session, talking about how we would manage a situation if we felt uneasy about a coach or neighbour spending time with our child, and what we would do if our child ever told us about abuse.

We were given a number of vignettes or case studies which we then had to respond to. A basic example is of a 4 year old boy who refuses to sit in his car seat and you have to go somewhere in your car - What would you do? It sounds simple, but each case study escalates until we are discussing very serious consequences.

We also had homework to do for our session next week. We have to provide short answers to questions like What sort of things might make it difficult for an adopted child to bond with you, and for you to bond with an adopted child?, and What role or importance do you think and adopted child's extended birth family has in his or her life?   Lots of questions which really make you think about what we are doing and constantly asking ourselves if this is the right path to follow. And the end of each session, no matter how exhausting, Murray and I are excited about what we are doing, which I think means this is right for us.

I've been reading Deborah Gray's book Attaching in Adoption- Practical Tools for Today's Parents, which has been really helpful. It has case studies all the way through and talks about different ways of building attachments with an adopted child. Hopefully I will get to put some of these things into practice one day!

Adoption, house progress, my new job and more!

The last few weeks have been quite intense with the adoption process going full steam ahead, as well as doing a lot of things around the house and I haven't had a chance to update on where we are up to! This probably should be a couple of separate posts but hey - who has time for that!

Let's start with the house stuff - as you know, part of the adoption process involves an assessment of the physical location where the child will be brought up. We held a working bee at our house last weekend, and our friends really came through for us. With the help of mates, we were able to get a whole bunch of stuff done - removing the cubby house and dog kennel that had been eaten out by termites, installing a laundry overhead cupboard to store chemicals (and also has a built in airer/washing line!), garden beds cleaned up, cracks sealed up in the lounge room, side gate fixed, floating shelf put up in the bathroom, garage door lock replaced, a new chain lock installed on the front door, and our mirror attached to our dressing table securely. On top of that we had a new toilet installed a month or two back, our meals area has been painted with a new light fitting and new table and storage unit. And I have spent this afternoon painting the toilet walls and ceiling to make it all fresh and shiny!

The house is really starting to take shape, not just for our assessment, but as something for us to be proud of. We have been spending every last dollar on improving it and making it a nice place to live and it is paying off in spades. It is so nice to come home to a house that you love.

My new job is going great. I am really enjoying the variety of work and the people I work with are fabulous - friendly, well-mannered and very inclusive. I feel right at home there and hopefully I will be there for a long time to come! Career-wise it is very satisfying and gives me more responsibility and ownership over the programs that I develop which is exactly what I wanted. It's nice to be the senior person and able to delve into the strategic side of things rather than being lumped with whatever decisions are made higher up the chain.

Onto the adoption stuff. Well that has been intense, it's fair to say. So far we have had three sessions, each lasting between two and three hours long. The first session was a little disheartening if I'm honest. The assessor was very clear that her role was not only to assess us but to prepare us for worst case scenarios, which meant that she wasn't going to be the happy, positive, optimistic person, but push us for what we do if the worst case scenario actually happened. That was really challenging for us, but it has also been a prompt for us to consider things that we perhaps hadn't thought of before, or verbalise and think through things that we hadn;t fully worked out yet.

Our first session was more of an intro and discussing our reasons for wanting to adopt. For the second session, we had to complete a lot of worksheets for homework. These included a genogram or basically a family tree for each of us; a life line which showed the major events in each of our lives up until we met and then together from when we started our relationship. Then we prepared a social circle diagram which showed the people closest to us and who we have relationships with, like family, best friends, work mates etc (basically your support network). The last one also identified stressful connections in your life. During the second session, we talked through each of these worksheets to work through our lives and how we have come to be at this point.

The third session last week was more about how we were parented when we were growing up, and which things we would do the same, while also identifying what we would do differently. It also covered a lot about Murray and I as a couple - how we deal with conflict, things we like to do together, our relationship style, as well as how we have dealt with our infertility and our miscarriage a few years ago. This part was very intense and I didn't expect to bring up so many emotions, particularly the miscarriage. The assessor was really impressed that we had made a memory box for our baby, and thought it was a great way to deal with the grief.

So that brings us to this weeks session. It has been pushed back until Friday night which is a blessing in itself as it gives me time to clean out the spare room and tidy the games room, but otherwise we are pretty much ready to go with it. Part of the assessment involves assessing the temperament of our dogs and making sure they don't pose a danger to a child, so I am praying that they behave well!

It's a big week ahead but we are so happy to be on this path. It feels so right.

Another adoption update- setting the date!

How does the saying go about telling God your plans? On the weekend I was all set to delay our assessment stating by a month or so to settle into the new job. Then last night we received a call from our assessor! She suggested that we make use of the school holidays with Murray being off work and booked our first session in for next Monday!

So now we are trying to get everything in order prior to the first meeting. Each interview goes for around 2.5 hours, and she would like to finish things off by 6.30pm, so I'm going to have to build up some flexi-time at my new job to leave early for the interviews over the coming months.

I can't believe we are actually doing this! Luckily Thursday is a public holiday for ANZAC Day which gives me an extra day of cleaning and putting together our paperwork. We need to provide payslips, mortgage docs, loan docs, insurance papers, as well as bringing out our birth and marriage certificates again.

Speaking of my new job, I also got the go-ahead to take two weeks off for our holiday in July! I was worried I'd have to cancel or reduce the trip to one week, but my boss was happy for me to go, even without having enough annual leave accrued by the time we go. I love my new job!!!!

Latest adoption news - our assessment

We were very excited when the letter below came in the mail this week!

 

We are now progressing to the next stage of the adoption process. We paid our $750 registration fee a few weeks ago and have been assigned to an assessor named Mary. We are hoping to hold off starting the interview process until Mid-May or the beginning of June, just to allow me to get settled in the new job before taking any time off of work, and also to get my uni work for this semester out of the way.

We also have a working bee planned for May 11 with a lot of our friends and family helping us to fix some things around the house and just bring it up to a good standard before we start the assessment process.

Progress!!!!

What I've been up to - in pictures

Chilling out with the dogs

Getting my housewife on and making scones for Murray

Babysitting my gorgeous nephew William

Saying goodbye to work friends

 

My work friends put on a fabulous farewell morning tea

And I got completely spoiled

I've been busy with uni study

We've picked out a new toilet which will be installed this week - woot! No more leaking!

I spent the past weekend at Relay for Life - I am exhausted!

I was lucky enough to go to the Perth Wildcats Grand Final breakfast and final shoot-around before the game. Unfortunately we lost the game and the series, which I am devastated about. There is always next year though.