Week 19 diary

Things continue to go well in our household - well, as smoothly as they can do with a three-year-old causing mayhem 24/7!!

The big event since our last diary entry was the meeting with the foster carers. It had been some two months now since Jamie had seen them last. I wasn't nervous about it at all, and he seemed completely unbothered when we told him what we were doing that day, so we felt there was really nothing to be concerned about. I had certainly put all visions to the back of my mind of him running to them and saying he didn't want to come home with us!!

We met at a really good neutral venue - a shopping centre with a play area to occupy Jamie a little! Jamie's social worker was there too, which was great. When we arrived, he went running up to them, but not into their arms, just racing round, shouting!

We had all put together some photographs of him and Jamie had chosen a little album to put them in, so he had fun showing them the photos and telling them about what he had done. They had bought him some lovely books too which he was thrilled with.

It was a little difficult - we still felt like complete parental novices in their company, and it was almost like going back to how we felt during the introductions, but Jamie was a real trooper and it didn't seem to bother him until we made plans to leave! How I wish we'd have done things differently, but there you go!

We all decided to walk back to the cars together - big mistake! As soon as Jamie saw their car, he wanted to go in it. We all laughed it off and said our goodbyes, but on the way back to the car, Jamie started to whinge and cry a bit about wanting to go in their car with them. This lasted all of one minute!

As soon as we got him in the car seat and started chatting to him, he was off laughing and giggling, and all was forgotten. As we pulled out of the car park, he cheerfully asked where their car was and we said they'd gone now, and he was absolutely right as rain!

On reflection, we just wished we'd have said our goodbyes to them in the shopping centre rather than let him see their car, but there you go, you live and learn! The following day, his social worker rang and said that the foster carers had heard him crying when we left and were a bit worried, but we told her how Jamie had been and there were just no problems at all.

Anyway, since then, we've not had any problems at all as far as the meeting was concerned. He's not referred back to it, and mentions them and their family no more than usual, so we're very proud of him and how he handled it all - another case of him handling it better than us adults!

Another big event for us has been our first night away! We went to a support group meeting recently, and heard horror story after horror story of first holidays with adopted children, so we bit the bullet and decided to visit some friends and family in another part of the country and, because of the length of the journey, stayed overnight in a hotel.

We had such a fantastic time! The friends we visited had a child placed with them for adoption within four or five days of Jamie being placed with us, so we were all so excited to be seeing them. Jamie was really excited - he knew everyone's names of who we were visiting, and their cats names too, so was absolutely thrilled to see everyone.

He spent the whole afternoon of the first day in the paddling pool at our friends house with their new adopted daughter and their nephew. It was so lovely to see them all together, and to have a good old chinwag too!! We feel we have such a bond with our friends anyway, but now that we have both adopted, we feel closer still and both feel very lucky that we know them.

We also now have our own mini support network - even though it's on the phone most of the time! It was so lovely to our friends together with their daughter - she's adorable!! At last we were all together with our families - mummies and daddies together!

That evening we went to a party and we all had such a lovely time - it was such a wonderful day, one that you will always remember and look back on and smile. The hotel stay was a huge success! Jamie was thrilled with his own little bed in the same room as us. Mind you, it could have all gone pear-shaped, as just as Jamie was settling down to sleep in the room, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building!

Click here for page two of the diary