Relief!

The approval of the match that we had at panel last week has to be ratified by the Agency Decision Maker in writing. That usually takes at least a week to come through. Until that formal decision comes through introductions cannot start. I was starting to get a bit twitchy about when our decision would come through and whether it would arrive in time for us to meet Katie tomorrow. The joy of email has just brought that decision through from Katie's Social Worker, so we are good to go tomorrow! What a relief!

Preparations continue in ernest today. I am cleaning and clearing stuff out. My hallway is currently full of things to go to the tip and to the local charity shop. It's a bit like moving house! I will feel a bit better once I've got all the jobs done so that I can sit back a bit and enjoy what's to come. Is this what they call "nesting" I wonder? I don't think my husband understands my whirling dervish hive of activity at the moment!

I wonder if I will get any sleep tonight. I can feel the excitement growing in my tummy by the minute!! It's hard to describe the emotions that adopting brings. As I've already written I felt a lot of anxiety whilst going through the home study and anxious about whether we would be approved. Since the match with Katie I've had so many emotions. I suspect some of them are similar to any parent-to-be: excitement; feeling overwhelmed; tearful; anxious about whether I'll be a good enough parent and whether I'll have enough in my repertoire to entertain Katie. To help with the latter I've ordered some books of activities to do with toddlers. I've also been ordering lots of books to read and we're off shopping to add to the toys we already had at the weekend. I've bought lots of the "That's not my......" books. They are so cute!

I am a bit worried about how our cats will cope with an active 2 year old in the house all the time. Usually they just hide when we have guests (even weekend guests) with children. Neither of the cats is particularly young. One is 15 1/2 and the other is nearly 13. One of my cats likes to be in the garden all day so she'll be ok. My other one likes to sleep on our bed. This might be interesting with the addition of a stair gate at the top of the stairs if she wants to come downstairs. I'm going to put the gate up today so we can see how we cope. She's a bit too old and arthritic these days to hop over it. It's been suggested that she might just give me a shout when she wants to come down. Fingers crossed that that works out!!