Not quite back in the Saddle!

I'm trying to decide how I feel about a call from Children's Services yesterday about our adoption process.  Fairly resigned I guess. Or maybe I'm just so busy with spring cleaning; getting my spare room ready for my Reiki practice; getting Katie prepared for Big School and writing this blog and networking with some amazing people on Twitter, that it's not bothering overly me at the moment.

I took a call from the Duty Social Worker who explained that they weren't yet ready to allocate us a Social Worker for our home study but that they wanted to get other parts of the process underway in the interim i.e. the medical checks.  I said that that would be fine but noted that I'd contacted the department prior to Easter regarding the collection of our CRB forms and hadn't had any contact back from them regarding this.  This in turn led the Social Worker to realise that we hadn't even signed the paperwork officially applying to adopt again and giving permission for agencies to share information with us. This would pretty much put a stop to the whole process anyway.  I think I feel the need to sigh here.  Yes, there is a slightly exasperated sigh!

I'm actually really understanding of how stretched our Childrens Services Department is. I used to work within that Department so the understaffed pressures and restructuring are very close to my heart. On an admin note: perhaps there should be a little tick sheet at the start of each adopters file showing what paperwork is contained and clearly highlighting what has yet to be included? 

I am a big believer in things happening when they're supposed to happen.  Our second daughter will be ready for us when the time is right.  I think I just get tinsy bit frustrated with the little reminders of how stalled and incontinuous and slightly disorganised the adoption process seems.  During our first adoption all those little stops felt intensely frustrating because I ws champing at the bit and wanted to be a mother so much but this time round I'm so busy that I can't raise the energy to worry about it at the moment.

Funny how the addition of an amazing little person can change your attitude to a process isn't it?



Edit update: Just had another call from the same SW to say that they are very close to allocating a SW for us: just waiting for the right person to become available. She is going to send the forms out in the interim and the CRB checks will get collected from us by our SW once that person has been allocated to us.  All heading in the right direction.......