Hello Friends - Sorry this took sooo long!
...A couple weeks later we received a call from social services
asking us to come in for a meeting.
I don’t like this because it means that they want to discuss something
big and therefore need a face to face - so I secured the meeting date and then
Rog phoned back and asked what it was about.
It is about the “type of adoption” was the reply. The family want
you to consider an open adoption.
The father feels that why should his brother be able to see the child
while he cannot and so he wants to meet and discuss this option.
At this point I need take you back a little and tell you a little
about The Biological Family - Have
written about them in a separate article so read that here if you like http://findingourlucy.blogspot.com/2013/09/their-story-where-is-all-started.html
We went in for the meeting and along the way we discussed opening
our hearts to the possibility of all this and mostly not to panic. Rog asked the question – “So if we had
not bumped into the Uncle we would still be heading down the closed adoption
route and why now had this changed?”
You see for the father, (Max’s Dad) he was ready to give consent
to the adoption, at one stage he had indicated that he wanted custody of Max
but the courts would not allow the boys to be split up and so he backed off and
said that he would only fight for them if it looked like they were going back
to their Mum (not on good terms with her and did not trust her to take care of either
of them.)
The social worker explained that yes, the father had previously indicated
that he would give consent to the adoption so perhaps our chance meeting had stirred
things up a little. He had also
now shown great interest in meeting us and seeing Max again and so we semi-reluctantly
arranged to meet with him and discuss his position.
He also wanted to see Max so that morning I bathed and fussed with
my little boy, dressed him up all smart and we headed off to meet his natural Dad
(Last meeting was 2 years ago). Rog and I both held on to him a little tighter
while we wanted in the waiting room and finally a man walked in and told the
receptionist that he was waiting to see the same lady that we were waiting to
see. He looked over at us and we stood up and awkwardly introduced
ourselves. Our social worker
walked us all over to a meeting room and then left us to talk amongst
ourselves.
For the next 30minutes he gave us his version of what happened
with the children and he interacted a little with Max. He introduced himself
gently as Uncle Colin to Max and he showed no sings of disappointment as Max
treated him like a complete stranger. He was very pleasant and very decent and
was mostly just delighted to see Max looking so well. He said that he would
sleep well for the first time in a long time and that his heart was happy. He explained his uncertain future in
the country and showed signs of sadness and regret over what the children had
been through.
They have not been on good terms and so we were worried about
whether he would be able to convince her of this before the next court date
which was in 4 days time. We then waited out the 4 days and finally received a
call from a delighted social worker on Friday afternoon saying that they had
both signed consent to the adoption and that she offered her most excited congratulations!
And so as with any adoption there is a 60day cooling off period
which will allow the parents to change their mind and we will wait until the
end of October for that, before we truly celebrate… BUT having said that we
have every reason so believe that all will be well, God has brought us this far.
We will also have to meet with the parents in order to discuss visitation and
contact rights and a binding agreement will be signed which will of course
always act in the best interest of the boys. All visits will be supervised by
us and we believe that surely some contact with
the Natural family is less confusing than no contact. We pray that it may
reduce some of the pains or confusion that they will face growing up and that
God will turn this in their favor and bless and protect them through it.
And so we are nearly there and soon it
will be time to chase the ID docs and deal with the Registrar of adoptions in
Pretoria etc so more patience will be required I am sure!
Whew if you read to the bottom – thank
you for reading – that was a long one… and now you can see why I did it in two parts!
Am so grateful for the interest you take and that you have chosen to share in
our story xxxXXXxxx I hope that
one days as adults my boys will read this blog and know that we loved them and
fought for them from day one and that many many people care deeply about them.
