Setting up our family in one go
Audrey and Conrad share their thoughts and feelings on why they are ready to adopt two siblings.
We’d been thinking about adoption on and off for a couple of years when we saw an advert for an information evening at our local authority about adopting older children.
We are (now) aged 38 and 39, and have nieces and nephews we’ve looked after who are aged up to nine years old, and for some reason, older children appealed to us. We heard all the statistics, discussed our own situation with social workers, and soon realised just how many brothers and sisters need new families and need to stay together.
We thought that if we could have had birth children we would have hoped for two, so why not adopt two?
We feel we’ve come a long way since starting the journey in March 2003. We are now approved for two children and are waiting to be matched (and are very nervous, excited, apprehensive – all those things and more).
Over the past two years we’ve been given lots of ‘advice’ and had lots of comments about how ‘brave’ we are, how difficult and challenging it will be, and how rewarding it will be – all comments gratefully received, of course, but we know it will be our journey, personal to us and our two children, and all the more special as we will be setting up our family all in one go!
It will make a huge difference to the children to be able to grow up with their brother or sister – having someone with you who understands how you may feel about the experiences you’ve shared. Someone who knows people you may have lost, and can relate to where you have both been.
We feel that the chance to stay with a brother or sister, when all around you has shifted, will be invaluable for our children. The relationships we have with our own siblings are vital to us both, and we appreciate the value of how the relationships developed when we were children, as well as now that we have grown up.
We have been getting rooms ready, telling our nieces and nephews they will be getting new cousins, and everyone is really excited about two new children joining our family. We feel that, as so many children need to stay together, and we want to have two children, it seems to make sense to welcome two children into our family at the same time.
We don’t feel ‘brave’, but we do feel that we can give lots of love and support to two children at once, and give them the chance to stay and grow up together – permanently.
Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in July 2005.
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Last updated: 04 December 07
