We are now 12 weeks into the adoption placement, and recently had our second adoption review (the first one is usually around 4 weeks in and then the second one is at about 10-12 weeks, and the third is 6 months after that if needed).

The easter holidays have been BUSY!

After thankfully recovering from my awful chest infection, it’s been pretty full on for the last two weeks!

Well I am 3 weeks into my adoption leave, and am starting to realise how little from my to-do list I am likely to achieve.

I had a plan that once I stopped work I’d be doing all sorts of things like going swimming and painting the doors and skirting boards, and meeting friends for coffee in a relaxed, chilled out sort of way.

Instead I am finding myself waking up profoundly tired and dragging myself through the day, mostly doing laundry and food shopping and meal prep and running the girls around to playdates and activities. S finds it astonishing that I am getting myself ready for bed at 9pm while she is still sneakily trying to read her book in bed instead of going to sleep!

I’m in a financial rabbit hole at the moment, and have ended up in a rather odd chicken and egg situation.

The 7th January is the 2 year anniversary of the day my daughter A’s adoption order was granted. It should have been a happy day.

But it was also the day I got some devastating news about my second adoption, so it’s rather bittersweet this year. And since then it has all been VERY up and down quite frankly.

To sum up the journey so far, in April last year, we saw S during our regular visits to A’s foster carer, and I asked her social worker if I could adopt her. Initial feedback was very positive and in June I re-started the approvals process to get approved. At that point I genuinely thought the approvals process would be faster the second time around because I’ve already successfully adopted once before, and this is a known child to me so there is no need for all the anguish of the matching process, waiting to find the right kid for you. I already KNOW she’s the right kid for me.