01244 390 938
01244 390 938
Yvonne and her husband Martin adopted their son with Adoption Matters. Yvonne is passionate about supporting other adopters and helped set up the Adoption Matters Multicultural adoption support group. Yvonne is Black British and African and Martin is White British.
Here Yvonne talks about their experience and offers some advice to prospective adopters.
Why did you choose to adopt?
When we first got together we were both very open and honest about wanting to have a family. We were older when we got together and had discussions about how difficult it would be to conceive naturally due to my health issues. We both discussed the option of adoption and how it would feel and felt like it would be something to seriously consider. We agreed to look into it after exploring IVF and taking a break to take time to just be a couple again for a while.
Why did you choose to adopt with Adoption Matters?
Martin works with a colleague who adopted and spoke very highly of Adoption Matters and their experience with you. They talked about how Adoption Matters was so welcoming and helpful throughout the process and even after the adoption process was complete.
When we made enquiries, something just clicked and it felt right.
“From the moment we made first contact to when we received the final adoption order, Adoption Matters have been with us”.
Even after the process has ended, and we’ve found ourselves needing support and our social worker and Adoption Matters were there. We still have a really good relationship with our social worker, who is an absolute star, as have been all the others we have encountered on our journey.
Did you have any fears / worries about adopting?
Martin will tell you I’m the worrier, which is true. I worried about the length of time it would take to go through the process or whether we’d be rejected for whatever reason. We both worried our house wasn’t big enough and we should move and prevaricated about this for several months until we realised that would have been completely unnecessary, set us back and created endless stress.
As it turned out the application process was long but not as difficult as feared, as we just tried to keep on top of the admin and take each step at a time. We both ended up rather enjoying it. We learned a lot about ourselves and met some great people also going through the process which provided a sense of comradery and support.
Tell us a little how your lives have changed since you became a family of three?
Where to start with that! Our lives have changed completely. We don’t have any family living close by and work full-time, so it was a big life change and an enormous challenge to adapt at first. We knew this was coming as the application process helped us plan, recognise where this would be difficult.
We can hardly believe a year has already gone by. While the first few months were a case of hanging on for dear life things have steadily calmed down and instead of just about managing to get be on a day-to-day basis, we can now enjoy the present and look forward to planning ahead more.
If that sounds terrifying it really has felt totally worth it for all the fun and sheer joy added to our lives, seeing things through his eyes. There is a lot of laughing and silliness going on of late.
We do try to ensure we give each other down time, and this also gives us our own individual special bonding time with our little one. We also miss being able to have as much time to have dates etc as a couple, but little ones don’t stay little forever, and as he has grown and settled opportunities are starting to appear more regularly already!
What have been the highs and the lows of the adoption experience:
Highs
Lows
What advice would you give to someone considering adoption?
Get a good support system in place. That is one of the things that has changed. Although we do have friends who have children, we have had to work a little harder to find one that works for us with no family on hand to help, and to be honest we’re still working on it. This includes, if you are in a relationship, ensuring each of you get time out to still be you and not just a parent.
Also, remember the phrases “everything is a phase” and “this too will pass” Children change all the time and while you are in the trenches it is easy to forget things won’t be like that forever.
Just the act of growing and developing will solve many struggles, and introduce new ones to keep you on your toes!
Adoption is another way to help create families for people who have lots of love to give to children who need it.
To find out more about adoption, download our adoption information pack here.
