Adopting in Buckinghamshire — Fran and Sammy's story

Hi, we're Fran and Sammy. We're a two-mum family living just outside London and we wanted to share our family story. The team at Jigsaw helped us achieve one of the biggest goals in our relationship — having a family.

Could adoption work for us?

Fran's aunt used to be a foster carer, so adoption wasn't a brand-new thing growing up. Fran remembers meeting fostered children when hanging out with her cousins. Some of those children were adopted. They seemed to have happy endings.

We're not sure exactly when adoption became a more realistic thing for us together. Being in a same-sex relationship meant we'd be looking at sperm donors. We hadn't fully considered that IVF might not be an option due to our health. Fran has PCOS, which makes pregnancy difficult. When we were looking at clinics, we also discovered that Sammy had early-onset menopause.

It took us over a year to come to terms with the idea that neither of us could carry a child. As two women, we always thought the odds were in our favour once we had a sperm donor. It didn't work out that way.

We decided to go on a long walking holiday when Sammy was between jobs to see if we wanted to adopt. Sammy is a resident doctor in the NHS and needed the break for her health. And we wanted to see what life might throw at us next.

Researching adoption

We started looking into adoption and talked to many people. Fran's aunt had retired from fostering by then, and was worried about what we might be taking on, given we didn't already have children. A bit of a catch-22.

Our research into the process and the results people get didn't reveal anything about success rates. We spent some time falling down the rabbit hole of gloom — one of the problems with adoption research. Some of the detailed stories focus entirely on failures, while others only highlight bad service and the stress this creates. Even the happier stories talked about how hard our lives would be after adoption.

We went back and forth. Should we plan for a different life and be childfree? But what if we regretted that? What if we changed our minds in a few years and it was too late?

Sammy knew several women who had become single parents. Talking it through with them brought things home for us — not one of them regretted being a mother. We met one who had adopted five years before, and her only advice was that finding the right adoption agency was really important.

Choosing Jigsaw

We started with our local council services and discovered there was a waiting list — even for the information evening presentations.

We waited. We can still remember the first presentation and the messaging around it. Adoption would be hard for us. Too hard. Many of the people attending wouldn't have a successful assessment. Sammy called it deflation day.

We used the government portal to find other agencies and tried Google. We came across independent adoption agencies and called three for more information. Jigsaw was the only one that offered a private meeting instead of a group event. We had an online meeting and felt very shy about sharing our history.

We learned about how they worked, including the adopter app to help with the assessment. Their follow-up emails were useful, and we discovered important information about how they work with birth parents and handle the legal aspects. We sent emails back and forth and always found the information we needed.

By July we'd taken another break and made the decision. We had to do this. If we failed, then it wasn't meant to be.

The assessment

So many people told us the assessment would be too hard. We didn't find it like that. We put blocks of time in our diaries each week. Fran did more of the paperwork side because Sammy worked long hospital shifts.

Stage 1 went smoothly. In Stage 2 we met our social worker. She wasn't what we expected. We'd thought it would be very formal; some people had told us it was like having a friend come over. The manager had advised us to be as open as we could — the more information the better.

We took that approach. Our social worker told us afterwards that the assessment had gone well because of how open we'd been. When she challenged us on something, we paused and thought about it. She said many people get defensive and shut down instead, and then they get stuck.

We had four days of training and met other adopters — eight of us in the group. We set up a WhatsApp group to keep in touch. Our training host Pearl was amazing. No other word for it. We were so nervous on the first day and by day four we felt so much better. We learned a lot about what we were doing, and about ourselves.

Panel day

Everyone told us we'd be so nervous at panel, and we were apprehensive. We told ourselves to trust our social worker, trust the agency. They must see something good in us if we'd been brought to panel.

It rained all day on panel day, and the journey was a nightmare.

The panel asked us some questions we hadn't planned for. Our responses went on for so long that everyone fell quiet after we finished. We got our positive recommendation and cried.

“On the way home, it was still raining — and then we saw a rainbow. A perfect end to our day.”

Matching

Our agency had told us this could be the most stressful part of the process. It's hard to believe that when you get your approval letter. You feel as though you've climbed a mountain, only to learn you might need to scale a taller one.

We had our first profile the day after panel, so our excitement was very high. Sadly the social worker for those children took leave and things were left open-ended. Khalida advised us that it was sensible to move on rather than holding out. Our second profile progressed, and suddenly things moved fast.

Reports, a home visit, a visit to meet the foster carers, more meetings, and matching panel. More reports — this time for us to complete as well.

It felt like a work project but with much more emotion. If you're a planner type, the peaks and troughs of activity keep you on your toes. We built a picture through reports, updates, videos, and nursery notes. Jigsaw supported us through every meeting and home visit. At this point in the process, you have the least control over timing, and it's easy to wonder why everything takes so long. Looking back, we can see how much preparation went into making sure the match was right.

We bought a car, having not needed one before. We bought the car seats, ready for a trip up the M6.

Becoming parents

Our children's foster carers were the most empathetic people you could meet. We saw how much care and coordination went into helping us with introductions. The local authority had introductions over three weeks, which felt very long. We told ourselves to trust the process and focus on bringing the children home.

Although we were entitled to shared parental leave from work, Fran took the year off. Sammy had started a new job and it was easier to plan for Fran being off than to manage it around the NHS.

Life after the order

Our children came home with us in January, and it was the coldest, darkest time of year. January takes on a new meaning for us now.

We make a point of celebrating. Birthdays, the day we first met them, moving-in day, adoption-order day. It might just be pizza and cake. But these dates are so poignant for us as well as the children — we need to recognise and celebrate them.

“We waited so long to become mothers. The setbacks with our health tested us. It tested our relationship. But when we're asked, it was all worth it.”

For anyone thinking about it

If you're thinking about adoption, the most useful things we'd pass on: work as a team — there are many ups and some downs, and you need to be a team to get through it. Trust your agency. It's hard to place all that trust about your future with a single organisation, but you have to do it; if you can trust them, your adoption journey will be better. Get your paperwork sorted early — locate your marriage certificate, rental agreement, adoption leave policy from work. And practice using your car seats on soft toys before you meet the children. It's nerve-wracking the first time you do it for real.

Our advice is to find an agency who gets you. For us, that was Jigsaw. Thank you for everything you did.

Fran and Sammy are based in Buckinghamshire and worked with Jigsaw's Thames Valley team. Read more about adoption in the Thames Valley.