Adopting our amazing daughter from Russia back in 2010 was the hardest but best thing we have ever done. As a young, then unmarried couple, who wanted to adopt a child with disabilities we weren’t even sure we would be allowed to. We just knew it was what we wanted and needed to do so we held our breath and went to the local social services office.
We first started thinking about adoption in 2006, and after attending an information day and the preparation courses run by IAC, we decided to adopt from China. We adopted our first child, a girl, in September 2010. Following her adoption we felt truly blessed to have been able to adopt one child, given the slowdown in Non Special Needs adoptions, and the closure of the old Special Needs adoption process to UK adopters. And so we tried to put to the back of our minds any hopes we had of adopting a sibling for her.
We are sitting here watching “Room on the Broom”. And it’s just lovely. Not just the movie, but the experience of sitting here with our daughter, whilst our tiny 9 month old is down for his snooze. And this is an unimaginable dream. Correction, this is in fact better than a dream, as dreams just fade when you wake. No one should miss out on this chapter of life. And there is no reason to. Fertility is just one path to have children. It wasn’t for us. We chose the path of adoption.
We have been very fortunate in being blessed with two adoptive children through the inter-country process. The process has been a very unpredictable but worth it.