Adoption

Adoption as a single female is achievable but you need a fair sum of money and an agency that doesn't mind the fact that you are single.  

My initial thought was overseas adoption - based on that China documentary and growing up watching starving Ethiopians on the TV every night.  As I looked around though I realized that there are children right here who need families too and I started to look into that... I found the costs more than I could stretch to at this stage and locally it's hard to find an agency who will help out singles.  This led me to look into Foster care.

I discovered a wonderful agency and signed up with their program which included a home study and a 6 week preparation course.  I can't speak highly enough of these people and their kindness and dedication.  I was gripped by guest speakers stories of their fostering and adoption experiences.

As a single woman I would not qualify to adopt through their program.  I was however, free to Foster with a view to adopt.  This is a truly rewarding thing to do and for a while I really thought I might be able to handle the demands.  Of course, in this program there is no guarantee and as I learned through blogs and guest speakers the journey does not always end happily.  Children are taken and placed back in what may not be an ideal situation.  Sometimes these children have been with their foster parents for over 2 years.  

I slept on it and slept on it some more.  I don't think my heart could take this.  Loving a child completely... having it in your home from a week old and then being separated...  I don't think I would ever recover.  No amount of convincing myself that I had given that child the best start in life would ever compensate for not seeing them again. 

I wish I were stronger and I have so much admiration and respect for those of you who are able to do this. 

I have spoken to the agency since taking the 5th out of 6 classes a few times and they assure me that if their policy on adopting to single women changes they are going to let me know.  As I write I know that there are changes happening but it's going to take some time still... I'm watching this space.  

I've looked into other agencies and I still believe that adoption is something I'm going to do but after 2 and half years the ache inside me didn't go away.  I had to face that what I wanted to do was to start a family of my own.  On my own.