After hardly any movement on our process for months the day of our entrance interview came very quickly. We were off to start on a new adventure! First task was finding the office in Reading and being on time, arriving late to a first interview is not the way to make a splash. We agreed to leave plenty of time to drive to the park and ride, walk through the city centre and find the correct side street. All went according to plan and on this dreary, rainy May morning we had sunshine in our hearts and dodging the raindrops didn't seem as frustrating on this walk.
We entered in, met the social worker, exchanged pleasantries and were off and running on a 2 1/2 hour initial interview. It seemed as though it went quite in-depth, although maybe we answered with longer stories than the average interviewed couple. Is there really an average couple? All people and cases are totally different so it really doesn't matter if we are like another or even if we compare to the others. We have been through this before so there wasn't anything that took us by surprise except for the comfortability (word? if not should be) between us and the social worker.
We've heard stories many a time of how they are seemingly 'out to get people' (I don't think this is true but I can see how decisions would lead people to think otherwise) but she was on our side. Her goal was to do an initial assessment of us, write it all up, pass it on to a manager who would decide if we were ones to proceed down the road to adopting with this particular agency. In thinking more about there were a couple of questions that did make us ponder and chuckle at the same time.
Firstly she asked what gender and age child would we like? That is so weird and sad to think that in a way we will be able to hand-pick from the appropriate children, which one we would like to become a Robinson. This is not the way that it works in Indiana, for us it was always going to be a new-born and not really our choice, in fact the choice of the mother first and foremost. To be honest we've been asked that before by other people and to me the only correct response or answer is to accept the gender that comes to you and to pray that he or she is a healthy baby. Well that was the first question, the next one made us glance and smile at each other.
'How many do you want' we're not talking about buying chocolate bars or ice cream cones here, we're talking about living, breathing, take many years to grow up children that will be yours and take your name. Not some products off a shelf or ordered at the till rather young humans. How many do we want? We looked at each other smiled and said two, we've been thinking about siblings, how we are both only's and how wonderful it would be to have more than one. Our worker said, 'two, how about three or four, what's your limit?' this did make us laugh, LOL actually. We're a couple who has been such for 17 years and now we're being asked if want to be a family of six overnight! While it sounded brave and exciting we decided that one or a pair would be enough of a change, and that we were open to 0-4 year olds. This was and is a big shift in our thinking/planning as the adoption through our agency in Indiana was always going to be one and a newborn. Now it could possibly be two and one of them almost old enough for school.
To say the least we felt good about our initial meeting, and while it carried on raining we were still unbothered (also not in the dictionary, I'm surprised by that), by the drops falling as we walked back to the city centre.
e and r
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