WHAT I WISH I'D KNOWN BEFORE ADOPTING MY SON

Becoming a mum wasn’t easy for Claire*, 33. Here she shares the seven biggest lessons that she’s learnt along the way...

- KATE GRAHAM

LESSON ONE

Opening up your life is genuinely therapeutic

A big part of the stage-one adoption process, which lasts around six months and takes you from that first phone call to the adoption panel, requires you to talk about your life. That means opening up to social workers about your childhood, past relationships, finances, emotional strengths and weaknesses, and fears. Everything and anything that helps them see if you could have a successful adoption.

It sounds invasive. But I’d been through five years of traumatic fertility treatment and loss. I’d been poked and prodded by people who didn’t even know my name and didn’t care about me at all. Suddenly, I was being asked questions as if I were a real person, and being listened to. My husband David*, and I were able to be vulnerable, and we learnt things about each other that we didn’t know. That made us stronger.

LESSON TWO

It is utterly heartbreaking to say no