Preparation for Round 2 – Planning ahead.

This morning Andrew took the call to confirm that we should meet our social working in a weeks time for the first of our home study assessment meetings. It is so very exciting and, whilst I had hoped we could move on from the preparation course very quickly, I never really expected it to happen this quickly. Until I received the news my morning was flying past me in a rush of work and meetings but then time seemed to stop. I have already planned the cleaning of the house and am hoping the weather improves so we can get started in the garden as well.

The sad thing is that I have worked out that an appointment every 2 weeks means we should be finished (if there are no issues or causes for concern) by the end of May. A LOT sooner than anticipated and even adding an extra month on for illness, holiday and other emergencies this is still the end of June which is still before I would have hoped.

All these dates and weeks and time floating around my head has made me realise that I am once again planning for the future, something I had stopped doing. I am planning my birthday party for June (I will hit the big 3-0 and figured it was as good a time as ever to celebrate), I am even looking at work and thinking ahead – our team was asked to consider a secondment to a planning team for new software which would have lasted 2 years and I ruled myself out as I plan to be taking some adoption leave in that time period.

Today I also want to share a thought and a prayer for a friend. Whilst we are no longer close, we were once and she is in a bad place. Having fallen pregnant unplanned and unexpectedly she has made the hard choice to abort. I can’t imagine being pregnant with a child I didn’t plan or feel that I could cope with so I can’t imagine the pain she is in nor can I fully understand the choice she has made but in offering her my support I am reminded that everyone is different. What I want and choose for myself is not necessarily the right thing for someone else and this has to be respected. I am also reminded that making some decisions is hard: harder than you  can imagine if you have never had to make them and it might be that no one around you can understand or would do the same in those shoes but no one else is in those shoes – you are.