So since the last time we blogged, Christmas and New Year have been and gone. January 7th came along and we received a unanimous yes at panel.
Christmas & New Year
Tim and I had a lovely Christmas with our families and New Year we literally fell asleep on the sofa. In the run-up to Christmas, I was such an emotional wreck and planning everything in the run-up to panel all got a little too much. So much so, I cancelled a few meet-ups with friends and was crying over the smallest things. I’d like to take this time to apologise to our friends for our shit friendship recently.
The Run-Up To Panel
Oh. My. God! The run-up to panel was fucking intense! I can honestly say I had a few mini-breakdowns and a lot of tears. Here’s why this is my list of thing i had to get sorted before panel:
- Buy Christmas presents (my family and Tim’s)
- Sort out secret Santa presents for the party
- Make fucking Mac & Cheese for 20+ people (inside joke)
- Book driving lessons
- Do driving lesson
- Plan a winter sale in work
- Expecting a major visit in work
- Create a DVD for pudding
- Create a Photobook for pudding
- Paint his room
- Pram
- Car seat
- Buy everything for his room which means dragging Tim to Westfield
- Also, fit in Christmas and New year with friends and family
The list felt endless and I felt like I was crumbling and realised I couldn’t fucking do everything and I needed to ask for help. Soon as I did, I felt so much better and I had a good cry over the phone with my Mum.
January 4th
My Parents arrived today to get puddings room done and to support us both on the run-up to the panel and to be here for when we received our result. My Dad spent 3 days getting puddings room ready and we think you all agree it looks amazing.
January 5th & 6th
These two days were filled with the DVD and the photo book.
I suppose I should explain this DVD and photobook. These are so important in this process for the child. The DVD is something so the child can hear our voices and look at where they will live and places he can play in, like the local park. You have to film in and around your home showing him/her where they will eventually be living. The photobook is the same but in picture form. We bought a photo book that you can record your voice on so again they can hear what we sound like.
To say this was stressful would be an understatement but we both agree it was so much fun to film and the end result was not too bad. The outtakes are hilarious too!
FUCK ME, PANEL IS HERE
Again like approval panel, this was is in Colchester which is an hour drive away. We get up super early, my parents are forced to get up and help us get ready. Thanks, mum for ironing my clothes.
We drive to panel and don’t speak to each other on the way. I’m playing music really loud and singing songs to distract myself from what we are about to do, but I had to keep skipping the songs because some songs we just making me want to cry. We park up and walk to the building. We meet an SW who is covering for Ann as she is on holiday and realise that this SW was the first-ever SW that we met on day one who filled out our registration of interest form… How fucking weird is that? It’s like a full circle.
We get taken into a room and we wait for Panel. Barbara who is the panel chair comes in. It was so nice to see a familiar face. Barbara does all the panels in Essex. She runs through questions with us and we get taken through to panel where we think we are sitting in front of 6 people.
Was it fuck 6 people? NO! There was 11. We were shitting ourselves. Panel took around 20 minutes and as usual, Tim was tapping me on the leg because i was rabbling on like an old washerwoman.
Once finished we walked back into the room and we sit down. Both thinking we are gonna be waiting for about 15mins like last time. Literally, within a few minutes, Barbara was back in the room and she says “Its a Unanimous yes”. Both of us broke down with emotion and the wave of relief came over both of us.