I think we are possibly in a very rare and what feels like quite a privileged position to be able to watch the first children our agency presented as a possible match for us growing up with their new family. At the time there was no guarantee that the new baby brother would be taken from the mother and as we were determined to adopt two siblings, the uncertainty was enough for us not to take it any further. However, as with the other children we went on to consider – even briefly – before we found our sons, the memory of the two brothers who could have become our children stayed with us.
A year or so after our boys joined us and we became a family we had a call from the agency to say that another couple were in the process of adopting siblings and would we mind being put in touch with them to discuss our experience and how things were working out.
We met and were surprised and delighted to discover that they were in fact adopting the siblings that had been discussed with us – the baby having since been taken into Care. We got on well and stayed in touch and after their sons had been placed and settled we met again and have become good friends. Our children now know each other and play together and we parents have much to discuss, compare and indeed complain about our experiences as new parents.
The first time we met their new sons did seem significant and we were curious to see how we would feel meeting these two little boys who we felt a certain affinity for. We were by then over a year into being a family and we had felt like such from the very first moment we met our boys, consequently we didn’t feel that we would be ‘comparing’ the children or even considering ‘what could have been’, because that was now quite irrelevant, our sons are our sons in every way possible and any kind of alternative is simply unthinkable.
I think the most important thing about that meeting was just seeing the children that – for no reason to do with them – we felt we were unable to move forward with, now adopted. To see them happy and settled in a loving and secure family, which thankfully they most certainly are.
Choosing children is one of the hardest parts of the adoption process we faced, every child deserves a loving a home and every photo that we looked at had a face pleading to be chosen, but some just spoke to us in a way others did not. We have considered and discussed this and I do think it boils down to the vanity of recognising yourself (or indeed your partner) in the face of a child, it was certainly never our intention to adopt ‘mini me’s’ as my partner and I had put no real restrictions on the children we would consider and we were certainly open to children of different race and ethnicity, but in fact we have two sons who are surprisingly similar to both of us – in appearance and more amazingly in character too.
There are of course lots of children who you simply skip passed and others who you may consider even briefly, however they all touch your heart and many leave a memory that I guess will stay with us always. Wondering what became of them is hard and I guess unsurprisingly it has left us with a degree of guilt.
Having contact with these two lovely little boys and seeing them loved and cared for in a beautiful family is wonderfully reassuring in every way and we are truly grateful to have that in our lives.
