Saturday 28 September 2013

Part Two


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.

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