Tony and Claire's story
Tony and Claire adopted three children, a girl and her two brothers.
Claire spoke about their adoption: “When I think back to how life was just a few years ago, I can barely comprehend the journey we have been on. What began as two of us has now ended up as five.
“After an unsuccessful course of fertility treatment we gave careful consideration to adopting a family. If I’m honest, we never really considered adopting one child we always envisaged adopting two, or more.
“After making contact with Somerset Adoption Team we began the process. It was long, it was hard, it was emotional, it was time consuming and with all the questioning, assessments, and paperwork we frequently asked ourselves if it was worth it. During that assessment period we had to face many issues about our past and think about how we would handle situations that would face us. We had training to help us prepare ourselves and through the hard work and dedication of our Social Worker we were approved as adopters.
“We looked at a large number of families and singletons in our County but none of the children seemed to match us. We began to search further a field and eventually “found” our family. It was a family of three siblings. We began meeting with the foster carer to get a better understanding of the children. We did feel extremely supported through this stage, the foster carer was amazing and we will never be able to thank them enough for what they did for our children and helping to make our family whole.
“Eventually the time came to bring them home. That first journey, the first time they walk through their front door, up to their bedrooms, it struck me ‘oh my goodness’ those are our children! We had been prepared for the “honeymoon period” during our training, and three years on we’re still waiting for it to end! Yes, we’ve had some difficult times, some challenges and lots of tears but it’s about listening to your children, understanding them and growing with them. Sometimes help is needed from outside, from people who understand the issues we face and the impact our children’s early life has had on them and that’s where the post adoption support team come in. Thankfully we haven’t needed them too much, a phone call here, a cup of tea there and we have the information or understanding we need to cope with the particular situation we are experiencing.
“We have become the proudest parents you could imagine, a huge gap in our life has been filled. We have living with us, three delightful, individual, loving children who we couldn’t bear to be without. We laugh together, we cry together, we get cross with each other, we get annoyed with each other but we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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