My partner and I had been together for four years and wanted to start a family. We are a same-sex couple, so had all the different conversations about how we would do this. When we explored adoption, we both fell in love with the idea of building our family whilst making a difference and positive impact. Adoption was the best route for us.
My partner and I are an interracial couple. I am black Caribbean, and she is white British. We knew that being adopted would already give our children a label in society, and us being a same-sex couple could have added complexities to how our family could be viewed, and how they may be viewed by their peers. So, it was important that our children resembled us in regards to ethnicity and had similar heritage to us to avoid any other labels or barriers for them in the future.
We wanted our children to be able to relate to us and see themselves in us. We also felt it was important to be able to support them through challenges in life to help build them into strong, confident and ambitious individuals.
Our registration was accepted by Adoption Focus, and we were invited onto their assessment and training programme. The training was fabulous and thorough. We completed two days of online training during stage 1 and two days of face to face training in stage 2. It covered topics including PACE, Therapeutic parenting, and Birth Family mental health issues. We were able to meet with other prospective adopters going through the process and share our experiences. We heard from different members of the Adoption Focus Team including social workers and their family finder.
During the training, someone said to us, “you two will be in high demand”. I took this with a pinch of salt, but really liked the idea of people wanting to match children with us. The exact point that this comment hit me though was later, when we were approved as adopters and had added our profile on Linkmaker. Our account was up for less than an hour and the laptop did not stop pinging with social workers wanting to link us to their children. It was actually extremely overwhelming. I thought back to the comment made to us on training. It just showed that there was such a need for minority ethnic adopters.
We now have two beautiful daughters, aged three & four. I would say my proudest moment was seeing them integrate with our wider family and friends for the first time. It was so beautiful. And to see how much these relationships have grown - I couldn’t be more proud. They have slotted in beautifully and they are so, so loved.
My other happiest moments are watching their faces light up when they experience new things and meet new people. They are just so beautiful and innocent and there is nothing I wouldn't do for them.
There was a day where I sat back and said to myself 'I'm a mum' and the happiness that filled my body was unexplainable. This is the best feeling.