Record reading, medical visit & merry Christmas!

With a huge amount of building work going on at home (yes, we are nesting!) and the preparations for Christmas, I've not had much time to update the blog in the last week or so, but we have had two more meetings since my last update. Firstly on Friday last week, we had record reading. This was a session that lasted all day really, and gave us a chance to read lots of the social work notes on the boys and their birth family. We were presented with an archive storage box filled with paper work, minutes of the meetings before the boys were taken in to care, notes from their nursery, details of the home situation, and the reports that led to them being taken in to care, and ultimately having the care order granted by the courts.

It was a lot to take in, and we need to go back and do a bit more as we didn't quite finish, but it was really useful to get a really detailed understanding of their early years experiences. I think it will definitely help us to help the boys develop their own understanding of their identity and birth family as they get older, and it was also useful to know silly things, like how up to date they are with inoculations, the fact that they had chicken pox a couple of years back, etc.

It would not be appropriate for me to detail their background on the web, but they certainly had a difficult start, but rather than putting us off, every detail we read just made us want to parent them even more.

On Wednesday we had a meeting with the agency's medical advisor, a paediatrician that sees all the looked after children. She has examined both boys several times, and it was our chance to ask questions about the things we had read in the notes, as well as to hear her views on the boys.

There wasn't a huge amount that came out of the meeting to be honest, but it's another box ticked. We then sat down with our social worker and made some plans for January. It's now less than two months until we go to panel, and there's a lot to fit in. She's going to try and arrange another meeting with the foster carers, we would quite like to see where the boys are living to get a feel for how we should be decorating their new bedrooms, and we need to know practical things, like what they will be bringing with them and what we need to buy. She's also going to arrange a meeting with their teachers/nursery key worker, and she's also going to try and plan for our own support network of friends and family, so that they can be briefed on the boys a bit, and so that they can get a briefing of how they are going to support us.

It's all very real, very soon, and very exciting!

This will be my last post now before Christmas. I've been quite taken aback by the number of people that are visiting the blog (over 3000 now!) as I had really only imagined that my family and friends would be interested. As we approach the end of the year, G and I have been reflecting on the number of cards, emails, chats, facebook messages etc that so many of our amazing friends and family have sent over the last few months. The genuine care, interest and excitement that so many of you have shown us has really touched us both. It's amazing to know that we have the fantastic support of so many very special people - we truly feel blessed.

So, have a wonderful Christmas and I hope that your 2012 is as exciting as we think ours is going to be! Thank you sincerely for the love and support you've shown, please reserve some for 2012 as I think we're going to need it in spades!

And Merry Christmas to the two little boys that don't know anything about us yet - we'll be thinking of you both xxx