tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54495337478429273842011-11-27T23:49:26.655ZWelcome, I hope that my Blog is of interest to you, and that you find it informative. All of the inforation you read is in the past, and I am now blogging about it! To follow this story you will need to start from this very page and continue on using the link to "older posts". Unfortunately I am unable to record this journey in any other way keeping it in the order it happened. I welcome Media Requests. Happy Reading!Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.comBlogger161100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-35489392811769611862009-04-17T19:17:00.001+01:002010-02-03T23:16:46.340Z

http://twitter.com/gayadoptiondadAbout 5 years ago my partner and I talked at length about what we may like to do in the future. One thing I had never wanted as a teenager and young adult was kids. I am not too sure why, it may well have been that because I was gay, I had talked myself out of having them, because it was never going to happen. After much discussion we both wondered if it would

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-28950607190391886832009-04-16T13:27:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:43:42.173+01:00

So, off we go, a meeting is arranged to see if we are going to be able to be considered for Fostering. There was no real excitement about this meeting, it was more nerves that actually what they were coming to do was tell us to bog off, and never to darken their door again!The evening of the meeting arrived. We had not lived in our house for too long, and had bought it to do up over a period of

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-24587740990384700952009-04-14T22:10:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:43:09.008+01:00

Well, as you can imagine, even the suggestion of Adoption just blew us away! We had never even considered Adoption before this, possibly for more than one reason!1) It could not be possible for a same sex couple to Adopt Children, surely! As it was at that point in time, there was no talk of Civil Partnerships and to be honest, Tris and I did not fancy the "Sun" newspaper camped on our doorstep!

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-55045047054443358432009-04-13T21:55:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:42:35.496+01:00

So, here we are, nearly three years in, and no further forward! We have gone down the Fostering route, and whilst it looked as though we might be successful in our application, we were not too sure whether it was for us now. We would have been welcomed back, but as I have said, I doubt it is something we could have done.So, Adoption week 2005 comes round, two years since an initial enquiry about

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-71221176989614403042009-04-12T09:19:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:42:19.490+01:00

We were now aware of 2 people that wanted to help us achieve our goal - adopting children. We received a letter a few days after our phone call with Lea. At last - an official letter from a local authority inviting us to the Prepare to Care course. We spoke more to Lea before the course too, she was kind enough to tell us what to expect, and of course, she made us aware that as it was a course

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-24676696775775529762009-04-11T08:55:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:42:04.124+01:00

So, four days of quite intense "training" went by in a flash. It is funny, because looking back it was intense, but actually, at the time, it was good fun, and we both enjoyed getting to know others, learning about Adoption, and it's process, and of course, by the end of it we found out something about the numbers of children in the care system with the Authority. Everyone, including us, did not

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-54873469065750692472009-04-10T20:49:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:41:48.099+01:00

Needless to say that as soon as the application form came, it was completed and sent back the same day. We took Karen literally and got it in as soon as we could, so that we could get our assessment started as soon as we could. Our application went in the week before Christmas 2005, and we were very settled over Christmas. We spent Christmas with our Niece and Nephew and it was a lot of fun. It

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-36723624968433578512009-04-09T18:16:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:40:58.226+01:00

We had now had our first meeting with Kelly, and it had gone well. We wondered how it was going to take too long, as it seemed to be quite an easy process, to us! Again, we were a little naive, we should not have really judged our first meeting as the way it would go every time! We had organised with Kelly the next few meetings, and we had to organise finishing work early for a few of them.

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-84814824189262996832009-04-08T16:38:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:40:40.759+01:00

By the August we were starting to get a little concerned about the time it was taking us. By our logic, we should be going to the Panel by the end of August to be approved; after all it had been 8 months since we lodged our application.As with everything we seemed to do, it took longer! We heard from one of the couples we were on the Prepare to Care course with, and they told us they had finished

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-51451247926453410892009-04-07T11:34:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:40:23.023+01:00

The weeks went past with no visits from Kelly, which was actually quite strange. She had been in our life for a year or so now, and now she had just disappeared for the short time between the end of our assessment and our Panel date. Of course, we needed to get used to her not being in our lives, as Sally would take over after Panel anyway, so we just got on with things, occasionally thinking

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-15260479044493029852009-04-06T13:12:00.000+01:002009-05-05T19:38:48.052+01:00

The Panel Chair came in and sat down opposite us. It was nice to hear that she was sorry that our interview had taken so long, and that it was a little sticky....... bit of an understatement to us, but never the less, we were pleased she had mentioned it, well looking back we were, I am not too sure it would have come across at the time!She went on to say that whilst the interview had been tricky

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-48030514461752375972009-04-05T16:09:00.001+01:002010-02-03T22:46:45.645Z

I can remember waking up the next day and feeling absolutely shocked, not shocked that we had been approved, but shocked that we had actually been treated like that by Panel, and that I had not dreamt it.Regardless, we had to move on. The decision had been made, and we had to accept that some members of the Panel wanted to ask questions, and some didn't.It was Christmas Eve and I remember

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-31363810895866822722009-04-04T11:13:00.001+01:002010-02-03T22:47:43.025Z

To say that we were shocked by the fact that we had the same selection at the top of all our lists was an understatement! It took our breathe away, however, with all we had been through so far, we were wary of it going any further.Sally told us the next steps...... she would be ringing the Social Worker involved for further details, and also to provde the Social Worker with some information about

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-36045481364060146542009-04-03T14:01:00.000+01:002010-02-03T22:40:09.240Z

To say that we were nervous was an understatement! The hoover and duster were out with gusto, and I don't recall sitting down for the rest of the day! It was not that we were dirty it was the fact we were still having a lot of building work done in the house, and the builder had only just finished our kitchen. We thought we had plenty of time, as the process so far had just seemed to take forever

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-61209667007870570432009-04-02T21:57:00.000+01:002010-02-03T22:57:52.234Z

I slept soundly the previous night, a mixture of the wine I had consumed and the amount of cleaning I had done the previous day would do that to a person. I woke up so early, I did wonder what the heck I was going to do with myself for the morning. Sitting around drinking coffee and contemplating what could be about to happen sounded like a fab plan to me. Tris was more for keeping busy, popping

Scotty Boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11457311705921747726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449533747842927384.post-91703061302464285612009-04-01T21:09:00.001+01:002010-02-09T22:26:31.310Z

It took a while for us to get used to having been told that we were perfect for these children. We wondered if it was a bit of a wind up to begin with, having been in the process for so long, it did not seem to be real that these Social Workers were considering us, seriously, for these children.A week passed, and we started to put meetings and meeting times together. We were offered the

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