Dare I say it - things are still going well! Last time around, things had taken off quite a bit, and they've continued to carry on at a pace!

The week following our meeting with Susan, our social worker, we had the meeting with the little boy's social worker and the care worker for his foster carers. How nervous were we?

On a scale of 1-10, possibly around 20! Tim was trying to take his normal relaxed attitude to it all, but I could tell that even he was a little stressed. I was completely on edge!

I think that because this little boy sounded so right for us, we were desperate to make a good impression and say all the right things. We shouldn't really have worried quite so much!

The meeting went really well - they covered the little boy from every possible angle, and we got a really good idea of what he was like from those who knew him well.

At the end of the meeting, I was desperate to find out whether they had a photograph of him, and luckily his social worker had an old photograph taken about 6 months ago. She was hoping to have had some more recent ones to show us, but passed this older photo to us and we got a first look at the little boy who could, with a little luck, be our son. There beamed this gorgeous little boy and we just felt this sudden rush of emotion and excitement all at once. Luckily I didn't cry!

After they'd gone, we then started to feel a bit worried about what they thought of us! There was no doubt in our minds that he was right for us - but were we right for him? They'd obviously given no indications during the meeting, and Susan had just asked us to think about things and she'd call us in a couple of days to see how we felt. Now we had a couple of days for us to worry about what his social worker thought about us! A long two days they were too!

When Susan rang to ask us what we thought, she said she wasn't surprised to hear that we were even more excited and keen about it than before. I had to ask what they had thought about us, and Susan explained that although she hadn't been in touch with the social worker yet, her initial thoughts were that they appeared more than happy.

We still had a further 24-hour wait until Susan called to confirm that they were happy too and wanted to proceed with us. What a great day that was - but still a long way to go.

That following weekend, we had a visit from my Mum and Dad. Now my Mum and Dad don't visit very often because of two things - their two dogs! One is very old now and set in his ways (he's 16!), the other is very young and to say she's hyperactive would be an understatement! This normally wouldn't be a problem, however, we have a cat, and she's not keen on dogs!

Anyway, I laid a bit of a guilt trip on Mum and Dad and said that it would certainly be nicer to see them more often when there was a grandchild over here for them to see so we should try a test visit and come up with some way of separating the dogs from our cat without the expense of putting them in kennels or the cattery whenever they wanted to visit.

We didn't realise how good a stair gate would be until that weekend! With the dogs safely ensconced downstairs, and our cat upstairs with all her creature comforts there was no problem. Normally our cat just sleeps in our room all day anyway, so it wasn't too much of a change for her. She was a little inquisitive as to what was happening downstairs, but a quick trip to her side of the stair gate soon solved that when she was faced with two dogs eying her up! So there we go - Mum and Dad will probably be over every weekend now!

The following week there were some legal bridges to cross with the adoption, but again Susan called to let us know that these had gone through without any difficulties and that things were going well. She said we were booked into a matching panel meeting in around four weeks time, and that his social worker was already provisionally looking at dates for the planning meeting.

This time around we have told a few of our family and friends - its been really nice to share our excitement with them. We are very lucky in that they have been very understanding of the whole process, and know that even with how far we are now, things could still happen and everything fall apart. You try to believe in the power of positive thinking, but be realistic at the same time!

I've told our HR people at work now, and they have been very supportive. I was a little worried, but they've been great and are treating everything strictly confidential. Even so, they have said that I should tell my boss so I'm going to do that next week! Wish me luck!

We've also been looking at a few bits and pieces, like car seats, to get some ideas of what we'd need. It's quite a different experience going into places and looking at children's things that you might buy because you need them, rather than just for gifts for other people. Its also strange because we don't know any current 3 year olds, so we're trying to get an idea of how tall he is. I've looked at clothes for 3 year olds and they look huge!! It's really difficult to try to imagine that a little boy big enough to fit in these clothes could be stampeding around our house in a matter of weeks!!

So here we are, now awaiting the matching panel and in a bit of limbo at the moment. Mind you, we are now even more determined to make sure we do everything we want to before our lives could possibly change forever.

Tomorrow night we're off to a concert and then we're going to spend the weekend with friends, visiting two lots of other friends who've recently had little baby girls which will be great! Our aim is that if we keep ourselves busy, then we won't have quite so much time to dwell on things and get too excited and nervous about it! Fat chance of that happening!!!