Well, well, well...the report is finished

Ye of little faith, or should I say ME of little faith?!  After a last minute dash to the line the report is complete.  Who would have thought?  Remembering that our SW 'lost' our applications forms and his child's stomach acid destroyed our meeting notes, nothing short of a herculean effort from all sides means the report was completed and submitted on time.  Amazing.

Our final session with the SW was an interesting one - his manager had seen the report and corrected it with red pen.  She's clearly one for grammatical detail, particularly surrounding the use of the comma, but we were reassured by the SW that he was "amazed there were so few mistakes" and that there were "normally lots more than that".  Despite this he is "very good at writing reports" as it's "what he does and does well".  Whatever.

I'm never sure whether SWs are just trying to make us feel better but he did say that we has a very strong application and, in his six years of writing assessments he's never seen such a strong case.  Nice words, particularly if he means it.

He did add a cautionary note though - he feels we'll be inundated with child profiles and has urged us to think long and hard about each before making any decisions to proceed.  He thinks we could easily select a child early on and miss out on a better option a little further down the line.

I suspect this is a problem for most couples post-approval. We've already discussed three children with him before approval so if that's anything to go by then there will be plenty of options. We're confident in our requirements though and will stick to our guns...until our hearts are melted by a particular profile.

Panel is set for 3rd May and we've "nothing to worry about".  We're still nervous.  Approval is a foregone conclusion and we know that.  We've got to convince a panel of 12 people that we're well placed to adopt a child, a child that will thrive and develop and grow in our care.  We know we can do that, but they don't know us.

The report reads well and there's nothing in there that we're worried about.  Our SW has done a good selling job and it quite accurately portrays us and our life together.  

From the very beginning we always said we would be totally open and honest about everything, there was no reason no to.  Whatever decision the panel make will be the right one if it's based on the information that we've provided.  If we're rejected then I may not feel the same way but there's been nothing to suggest we won't be approved and barring it all going belly up on the day we're quietly (is blogging quiet?) confident.

I'm rambling, I know.  Must be the excitement, the fear, the trepidation, the known and the unknown.  We're in a weird place right now where everything hangs in the balance.  May 3rd can't come soon enough.

If nothing else happens before 3rd May then I hope the next post will be one of celebration and lots of exclamation marks.

Wish us luck...