So our social worker came back, just as pleasant, just as positive. She had wanted to clarify and gather more information on 3 areas; Smoking, Infertility and Our beloved pet.
Smoking – She wanted more in depth info on DH's past smoking habits and question why he gave up back in April, when he started initially, had he ever given up before, how long before relapse when he did, why he had the relapse. Was this is only relapse. Gosh it was endless, I know they have to protect the child/children but he has given up, not smoked since April, no relapses, went down the correct route of patches with the doctor so he had evidence etc.
Infertility – ok so this area made me feel like a raging bull slightly mad. I would expect all social workers who are assessing couples for adoption to have some basic knowledge of causes for infertility. After all the majority of adopters are people who can’t for whatever reasons conceive or carry their, own biological children. So we went through it all again, she said that we didn’t seem overly bothered by it. Actually we were very bothered by it, but have taken the approach that we can’t change this, these are our cards that have been dealt and that if we can’t have biological children together then it obviously isn’t meant to be, and that our calling as parents obviously isn’t going to be through biological methods. To think we weren't bothered in that scenario was rather harsh i felt, we had dealt with infertility as a couple with our close family and we were here now to persue another route. I understand they will delve much further into this during home study, so for this i am preparing myself that we will have to share in depth our feelings and reactions to our infertility as a couple!
Our beautiful staff/lab – well here is a story that beggers belief I will remember for years to come. From the post of our initial home visit, we put our dog outside when we saw the social worker pull up mainly because she can get excited at seeing new people. We had planned that once we were settled with a drink etc that she would come back in, however the social worker informed us that she is absolutely terrified of dogs and please could we keep her outside. Much to our beloved dog's upset/annoyance/frustration we did this, but needless to say as she isn’t used to being locked out she started acting up, jumping up at the door (which may I add the social worker included in her report) the occasional bark. On her second visit she had to meet our staff/lab to be able to report on her obedience, breed, size, nature etc. This was a task and a half as she is a very friendly dog and the social worker wanted her in the room but nowhere near her... hhmmmmm how does this one work. On her lead she came in. We asked her to sit, lie down, paw etc to which, she obediently acted (but only because she knew I had a biscuit hidden in my hand).
So off she went with her new info to update her report, and so the waiting begins again, she left confident that we would be on Jan prep course at the latest, her words not ours! She is going to try and call tomorrow with the answer. To say their workload is so big, I was rather impressed with this and thanked her sincerely.
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