Double A Dads

hello and welcome back if you’re joining again, and welcome if you’re brand new. we’re Double A Dads, and we’ve just joined this online blog community hoping to document our parenting journey as we go along. we are becoming parents through adoption.

I am writing this on the night of October 28th 2025, merely 13 hours before we go to matching panel. it is currently a very busy time for us getting everything ready for little one (LO) to join our family. we’re very confident in this match and simultaneously very hopeful that panel tomorrow think the same as us! as much as we believe this is the right match and so does everyone else involved in this match, the butterflies are still very much there for tomorrow and I think writing something here would help me go to bed tonight.

last time, I introduced ourselves and spoke a little about what has been going on and what lead to us getting to adoption. you can find all that on our previous post. today, as we are coming closer to the end of the adoption journey before parenting mode kicks in, I thought I would reminisce a little bit about our journey so far and potentially equip those going into adoption with a bit more of a personal experience.

so, let’s start at the very beginning…

it was back in December 2023 when we had the discussion to properly start looking into adoption. we did a little bit of research and decided to contact our local authority to find out more about the process and the likelihood of us becoming parents. it was a good way to start, information gathering and seeing if this is the right thing for us. we were quite excited to go on this journey. we heard back from the local authority that they would like us to find out a bit more and potentially meet with a social worker to give us as much detail as possible and start the process.

upon receiving this news, we obviously were happy to feel accepted into the process but we sat on it for a little while and realised it wasn’t the right time just yet. we had more things we wanted to do and experience, and life was very hectic from a personal point of view and also a professional one too. it would have been way too much for us to go through this and start the process (which is heavy in itself, but more on that later!) and carry on with our lives. we made the decision to wait and review a little later.

we filled 2024 with a lot of experiences and goals for ourselves. we never really had a sit down conversation of “let’s go out and do everything we want to do” but I think we both felt that. life started to wind down and we had a big holiday that served as a 2 year belated honeymoon, but definitely one to remember. when we came back from the holiday, I actually applied for another massive opportunity that would’ve changed the trajectory of my life if successful. alas, it wasn’t successful but as a massive believer in the law of attraction and that the universe has a plan for us all, I wasn’t in the slightest bothered about it.

and it got to the end of 2024. you know, the December countdown to the big day, the festivities and all things in between. whilst sandwiching work (we work in the entertainment and the hospitality industry so we’re busy on both ends during this time), we made a pact that once a week, we will do a festive activity together. be it going to watch pants, or do a light trail, or even just driving around our neighbourhood seeing everyone’s decs, it was lush. and after just one week of doing this, we realised it was time. we knew that the process would take some time and so we didn’t want to wait longer and longer. we wanted to get the ball rolling with the manifestation of having a LO before the next christmas (please universe, be kind to us tomorrow!)

so we wrote back to our local authority saying that we were interested and we think now is the right time for us to properly start this. and we heard back again, like 12 months before, asking us to find out as much as possible and to fill in a form to say we’re interested in finding out more. we sent everything back and we heard back from a social worker saying that they would like to meet with us. this was so exciting and we replied in no time, saying YES!

when we heard from the local authority, they gave us a date for our first official meeting and described what it would entail. our social worker (SW) said that they would like to find out more about us, our lifestyles, our jobs, our family history, our finances, our home and basically the rest of our lives. it was slightly daunting realising that in this process your entire history on the planet is about to be judged for one of the biggest things that will ever happen in our lives, but we rolled with it. we were told the meeting might happen either in-person or online and provided with a “just in case” link to join the meeting on the agreed time and date in the new year. we had a good few weeks until the meeting, which we were grateful for as we started researching more to look like we know so much from the get go. in hindsight, it was actually good to know so much before starting the process, it made everything make so much more sense.

now, I am not going to say that everyone does this, but everyone I spoke to about adoption has done this. in those few weeks, the house was gutted out, all the extra things we didn’t need thrown out, the carpets were cleaned, the cupboards were spotless, even the skirting boards were shining. I’ve never seen our house that spotless (up to that point lol). I remember the night before and the morning of the meeting, we went our for food because we didn’t want to touch anything! so imagine my face on the morning of the meeting when we get a call saying “we’ll do it online!” all those hours cleaning the garden in January weather. but never mind, even online, the SW wanted a house tour via camera so they still got to see our house sparkling clean, even though on a mega-pixelated screen!

let’s talk a little bit about the initial meeting…

we were basically asked for an overview of our lives from as early as we can remember to date. now between us, that’s quite a lot of years to cover. but they needed to know all the important parts that made an impact on who we are today. we talked about childhood memories, how we were parented, an education history, a job history, our passions, our hobbies, our home, our previous addresses, our current jobs and pays, any past relationships. it was hectic, especially doing that for 2 adults within an hour and a half. we hit it off with our SW right away, and promised that if she thought we were fit and ready to adopt, we’d be nothing but truthful about everything. we had both previously agreed that we think it looks worse getting caught lying than the actual lie itself. no point in hiding anything. from all the reading we had done so far, we knew that honesty gets you further in the process quicker.

so the meeting happened and our SW seemed quite happy and chirpy. she said she’d be in contact after reviewing the notes she had written and discussing with higher management, but in her views, there wouldn’t be a reason to not accept us to carry on with the process. this was music to our ears. it started to feel like we might become parents in the future (you’ll hear this and feel this a lot during the whole process!) we were told it might take a few days and to try and keep ourselves as busy as we can to not think about it. we were also told to manage our expectations regarding when we would become parents if we were successful. our SW explained the adoption process to us which for us has been:

1. Stage 1 (approx. 2 months) – information gathering about our lives, medical examinations and lots and lots of paperwork.
2. Stage 2 (approx. 4 months) – SW to visit our house weekly for about 10-12 weeks to discuss all the paperwork we wrote and understand it better and write out our report to present at Approval Panel
3. Stage 3 (indefinite) – Family Finding & Matching leading to Matching Panel

We were told that if the first meeting was successful, we’d be going straight into Stage One. and so we waited …

but we didn’t wait long at all. If I’m not mistaken, we had our forms sent through the following morning and we were asked to sign our first document “Registration of Interest Form” where we filled in all the details about what we spoke about in the meeting but in greater detail. we were also sent forms to send to our GP to get a full medical examination done and we were asked to apply for a DBS. these were the only two things we have had to pay for, in regards to the actual process. we were also sent a long reading list of suggested reading and were given a date for the Preparation Course that our LA holds. This was a 4-day course where we learned a lot about parenting adopted children. a few days after we received all this, we sent it all back signed, and we received our Stage One Agreement and were straight into Stage One within 10 days of our initial meeting. that’s pretty good going!

I’m going to be honest, I did not think I’d be writing this much about the very start of the process but honestly, this was really nice to write out and relive. for this post, I’m going to leave it there. it’s been fun writing this but now, I’m starting to feel the tiredness and in exactly 12 hours, panel will start. eeeek!

next time, I’ll give you a quick update about how panel would have been but also, will carry on talking about stage one and two. I think I’ll combine them into one post as the process was repetitive and there isn’t much to elaborate on to be quite honest but I’ll write about it as it is a very important part of the process.

wish us luck for tomorrow and I can’t wait to speak to you again soon!

-DoubleADads