We recently let the world know that we are in the process of adopting a child. Crazy, scary yet totally exciting times. We asked the Twitterverse if they would like to join us on our adoption journey and astoundingly 89% of people who voted in our poll said they would. Now, we promise not to become baby bores and our blog will, of course, continue to be travel focussed, but as with any established blog, it will develop and grow, just as our family does.
Now is The Time
Adoption has been something we have weighed up for a year or so and now feels like the right time. Although both of us have never really considered ourselves as people who need to follow or adhere to social norms, we seem to have done it inadvertently. We both have a high level of education, we’re married, own our own house and have professional, well-paid jobs. A child to add to the ESLT clan always would have been nice but we never felt under pressure to have one and it has taken us until our mid-thirties and forties respectively to take the leap into a brave new world.
Very Early Stages of Adoption
We are at the very early stages of the process with our initial three training days coming up over the next couple weeks. It’s in-depth and intrusive but we’ve not got anything to hide and it’s something we really want. Therefore, we understand the need for the process to be as complex as it is. It needs to be ‘right’ for us and more importantly for the child, our daughter (yes, we’d like a girl). If it’s not, it could have a detrimental effect on the little one that has likely had a horrendous start in life already.
The Future
We want to create a warm, loving, comfortable life for our child. We want to give them a great life and one full of happy and life-changing experiences and memories. We also want to allow her to see the world and we want to see the world through her eyes. We want her to feel sand between her toes in Spain. To eat traditional food in Thailand. And to squeal with utter joy at seeing Mickey Mouse in Disney World Florida. Although not biologically our child, we hope that our love for travel and our adventurous spirits are something that she adopts herself. We can’t wait to show her the big beautiful world that is hers for the taking.
The Legal Stuff
As with any adoption, we will not be able to take our daughter out of the country for approximately a year. Not until the court issues the official and legally binding adoption certificate. But that’s fine, we’ll need that year to bond and for love to develop. For her to learn to trust and develop attachment feelings and realise we’re not going to hurt or neglect her, which is something she may have gone through with her birth parents. It will also give us the opportunity to learn about her – her likes and dislikes and who she is.
But after that, they’ll be no stopping us. Or will there? Will we simply fall into the one or two main holidays per year set, that many families do? Will we still travel at the frequency we do now? Will we be able to? Who knows at the moment, all we do know is that we have big plans for our daughter. The daughter that we hope to have in our lives and in our arms within the year. Providing our application is successful of course (fingers tightly crossed).
Change is coming and the road is long, but we cannot wait to get going on our journey!
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