Dan's Medical - Part 2!

Dan's had his medical now. He had it on Monday. All seemed to go well. They tested his blood pressure, heart rate, weight, height, checked glands and lungs, looked in his eyes and ears, did a urine sample. The doctor said he's in good shape and gave him a clean bill of health, so full steam ahead for us on the adoption front!

The darned Norovirus has delayed the process!

On the day Dan was supposed to have his medical - today - he's come down with the Norovirus. Vomiting, diarrhoea, shivering. He's really rough. So we've had to reschedule the medical for 29th December.

Homework and Medicals

Dan has his medical tomorrow. It's about 45 minutes with his own Doctor. They test EVERYTHING!! Blood pressure, weight, height, heart rate, look in your eyes, ears, check your reflexes, get you to do different things like push your head from side to side. They then talk through your medical history and have a form from the adoption people asking lots of questions. Basically, if you have a less than normal life expectancy, or have a serious illness, they will be hesitant about allowing you to adopt since it may affect the child's life. Two of the people on our course had their medicals and were each told they had to lose 2 stone before they could continue! If you are overweight, they consider this a risk and you must get down to recommended levels of BMI before you can continue.

We have homework to do over the Christmas and New Year break. Dan and I must (separately) describe each other, our traits and personality etc. We must then together write a profile of the type of child (children) we could see ourselves adopting, and the type we couldn't. This all helps with matching us to the most compatible children. If there are certain behaviours we feel we couldn't cope with, we need to list them here.

The first, second and third visits

The first visit was all about our family tree. We had to draw the family tree, then discuss with Sally Roach (our social worker) about each member of our family. We discussed their personality, how we get on with them, how much we see of them etc.
The second visit was all about significant relationships. Now this is the bit a lot of people (including me) find hard. If you are going to adopt, they will want to contact every single person you have had a significant relationship with ie, if you have been married to, had a long relationship with and/or lived with. So Dan and I went through each of our significant relationships. For me it was 3, my first marriage, and two other boyfriends.
Over the coming weeks, we will need to find out the addresses of each of those people so the Social Services Department can send them a form asking about our suitability to be adoptive parents.
The third visit was about our childhood and education, how we got on at school, what our memories of it are, positive and negative, what qualifications we got etc.
We were also set homework, we need to (separately) describe each other's personality, write it down and show to Sally next time. We also need to discuss and write down the type(s) of children we could envisage ourselves with, and the type(s) we couldn't deal with. This will all be used to help match us with the ideal children.

The story so far

The group on our pre-adoption introduction course - above.

Well, I'm starting this blog after visit number 4 from the social worker (officially visit number 3 though).

Dan and I decided to adopt after 3 failed IVF attempts. We first attended a meeting on adoption with Southampton City Council in November of 2007. At that meeting, we were told some details about what is involved and given a pack containing application forms, which we completed and sent back.

We were then invited to attend a 4 day pre-adoption course in July of 2008. The course was great fun and we met other couples in the same position as us - Duncan and Mark, Steph and Uri - the flamenco dancers, Phil and Rachel - the teachers, V and V, Mark and Sharon. We all got on really well and agreed to keep in touch and support each other through the process.

At that stage Criminal records checks were made, which came back clear, and I had a full medical.

Following the course, we wrote to Southampton City Council to say we were still interested in adopting.

We were allocated a social worker in August 2008 - her name is Sally. Our first visit with her was in October 2008.

The first visit gave us a chance to meet each other and do the "admin" stuff - show passports and National Insurance details, confirm names and addresses of prospective referrees etc.

We then started what is known as the Home Study. We have been informed this consists of between 7 and 12 home visits, during which the social worker gets to know us very well. Everything in our lives is looked at during these visits, with each one concentrating on a different aspect of our lives.