National Adoption Week: Tuesday

I know. It's Wednesday. I'm a bit late posting about Tuesday because I went to London for the National Adoption Week Awards last night as I'd been nominated for Adoption Blog of the Year and didn't get home until well after midnight.

Spoiler alert: I didn't win! [Insert suitably humble comment here!]

So perhaps I was overstating it a bit when I said on Monday that National Adoption Week is basically 'just another week' for adoptive families. I admit, I don't swan off down to London Town every week as a rule, but actually our Tuesday started in a very different way.

We had our first appointment at the local CAMHS. It was a bit of a juggling act to get to the appointment, involving making arrangements for somebody else to take Birdy to nursery as the times clashed, but we made it in time and even, miraculously, found a parking space.

I was nervous about this appointment. I had no idea what to expect, so had asked around on the marvellous Facebook support group I'm a member of. People had mixed experiences, as I expected, but I took on board the top tip of writing notes to give to the doctor. Discussing OB in front of OB never goes well.

Of course, I had checked out the doctor beforehand, but was a bit puzzled. She has an unusual name, but the only references I could find were to what seemed to be a top doctor based in London. It couldn't be the same person, surely? What would a doctor of that pedigree be doing in a backwater like this?

It was the very same doctor. And she was as good as her resume suggested. She praised my notes and said they were extremely useful (thank you Facebook buddies!), validated everything I said, validated the reality of OB's early experiences which can easily be dismissed by the uninformed because "he was so young", and had me crying at the point where she stated that we had both been through so much and she was impressed that we were doing so well despite everything.

I don't like to discuss the nitty gritty of our lives on here. I don't like to wash OB's dirty linen in public, but it was good that the doctor heard me, and a couple of times during the session, actually saw what I was talking about. There will be a case planning meeting, there will be a package offered, there may be something offered for me in terms of a support group or similar.

It was as good a result as I could have hoped for.

And then I drove OB to his home ed group, went home and worked, picked up Birdy from nursery, handed over to my marvellous, wonderful babysitter (I am so thankful for her!) and set off for a whirling round trip to London where there was sparkling wine and canapes made of foods I didn't immediately recognise, and notables and influentials, and speeches and plaudits, and networking and a surprise handshake with a government minister.

It's nothing like real life, but I made the most of it anyway.




Missed Monday? Here it is.

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