Rachael and Paul

Rachael and Paul adopted three children through the Early Permanence route to adoption   

Here Rachael talks about their journey…

 “We had always wanted children and just assumed it would happen after we got married. After many years of fertility treatments and painful procedures, we accepted that we couldn’t have birth children. But we would never accept that we couldn’t have children as we knew, one way or another, we would have a family.  

Exploring early permanence (also known as fostering for adoption) 

We first looked into Early Permanence as we really wanted the chance to have a baby, which Early Permanence offered.  

We decided to get more information about Early Permanence and attended an information evening. It was so informative and explained everything so clearly. Something just clicked and we really felt that whatever happened, knowing we’d had a part to play in such a vital time of a child’s life would surely help. 

“We had said from the beginning that we would like siblings. Paul and I both have siblings – he is one of three and I am one of four. When sharing this with our social worker, we said initially we would like 2 siblings, and then possibly come back to have a third in a couple of years’ time. I agonised over how we’d know if a placement is the right one but everything people say is true – you just know. ” 

Our social worker knew us so well, that she knew, when she approached us about this particular placement, it was the one. She told us of a little boy aged 4 and his younger sister aged 17 months. She knew that we really wanted a baby and that a 4 year old was actually older than usual at the time for an Early Permanence placement.  

She then shared that birth mum was also pregnant with sibling number 3. We did have to think about it obviously, as going from zero to three children almost instantly was far more than we had planned. But we were also of the attitude that we’d waited so long and we loved the idea of siblings being able to stay together: so we said yes.  

Welcoming a family 

It took a month from hearing about them to when we first met them. We were so nervous! It’s such a strange situation and very difficult to prepare for. When we first met our daughter she looked at us with the biggest blue eyes that we immediately fell in love with. And we will never forget when our son woke up, he looked like a sleepy little lion as his hair was quite long and all sticking up from being asleep: he was adorable. We spent a few days getting to know them – the first meeting was for just about an hour in their house, then we went over the following day and took them out for a few hours, then they came to our house for the day. Moving in day was at the end of the week! Six weeks later their baby brother was born and I got to stay overnight in hospital with him and changed his first nappy.  

The highs and lows of adopting via Early Permeance 

In the end the fostering stage took over a year, during which we had family time with the birth family twice a week. 

Despite it feeling difficult at times, we’re glad we chose Early Permanence as this route is so valuable for the children. We are able to talk about birth parents first hand because we got to know them a bit and can share first-hand anecdotes with our children. This has been especially important with our eldest as he talks about them and we can share things with him for example, birth mum would bake cakes sometimes and send some for us, she spoke about sports she liked in relation to clubs the children were doing. It certainly wasn’t easy, but the positive impact it will have on our children and for their future, outweighs anything else for us.  

“Paul and I both strongly feel that we are truly glad we weren’t able to have birth children and chose this route, as otherwise we wouldn’t have got our three little monsters”.  

Find out more

If you’re thinking about adopting Siblings, and want to find out more, contact your local adoption agency.