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llywelaI’m a little stressed at the moment. Okay, more than a little, but I usually attempt to downplay my concerns online. Today though I am going to admit it.
There are lots of reasons for this stress. The major one at present is a last-minute delay with my sister’s adoption application, right at the very last hurdle when introductions to the children should already have begun.
Before I go into all that, let’s have a run through of the adoption application process as it is approached in West Yorkshire. First of all, a couple or an individual must apply to adopt. They then go through a rigorous series of background checks, interviews, home inspections, training courses, and medicals, over a period of months. They must supply in-depth references, and those referees are also interviewed in person. Other family members, friends, and neighbours are contacted to verify various details of the applicant’s character and history. All of that information is then submitted to an adoption panel, a body of experts who assess the report and then decide whether or not to approve the applicants for adoption. If the adoption panel says yes, it means that the applicants are both suitable to adopt a child and capable of raising a child.
After being passed by the adoption panel, the applicants then move into the matching stage. Their social worker will work with agency family finders to sift through the profiles of children currently available for adoption and select one that they believe will be the best fit, taking all manner of criteria into consideration. The applicants might be shown more than one profile during this process, before settling on one to take forward. The chosen match then goes before another panel of experts. This is the matching panel, which examines all the reports, both on the applicants and the children, and decides whether or not they are a good fit for one another. If the matching panel says yes, it means that the applicants are both suitable to adopt these particular children and capable of raising these particular children.
After being passed by the matching panel, the adoption begins to move forward, the process now geared toward preparing both children and applicants to become a family, and determining whether or not they actually are as good a fit as first hoped. The applicants are now given full background reports on the children, and have meetings with foster carers, social workers, teachers, doctors, and anyone else who has been involved in the children’s lives, so that they will know as much as possible about their children before taking them home to live. They will take part in observation sessions and play dates with the children to see how well they ‘click’, and might start to receive regular updates from foster carers on the children’s progress – all of this designed to kick-start the bonding process. The applicants also, at this stage, have to get their household ready to bring the children home, which means purchasing (or, you know, otherwise acquiring) anything they are likely to need for these specific children (e.g. the right size beds for the ages of the children, highchairs, pushchairs and car seats for younger children, household adaptations if there is a disability, and so on) – so there may well be a considerable financial outlay at this stage. And all of that has to be done before the application is taken before the final panel. This final approval panel will study all the reports, both those already taken to previous panels and new reports based on the outcome of the meetings, observation sessions and play dates, etc., and will then make a recommendation based on all that evidence.
If the approval panel gives a positive recommendation, the application goes to one last person, the Agency Decision Maker, for overall ratification. One person. After all those gruelling months of training and interviews and inspections and medical examinations, after multiple panels of experts have debated and given their verdict, it ultimately all comes down to a single individual, who has the power to overturn the entire process based on their own personal preferences and prejudices.
(I'm not salty about this aspect of the process at all, what makes you think that?)
Everything written and everything we have been told insists that the Agency Decision Maker almost never ever overturns a recommendation from panel, it is simply one last piece of the bureaucratic process that must be ticked off the checklist in order to proceed according the strictest letter of procedure. The ADM’s verdict should be given within two weeks, the process states, and introductions are then expected to commence pretty much immediately, sometimes as soon as 24 hours later.
So that’s the process my Sis and her Hub have been going through for the past year. Now, I’ve been side-eyeing various aspects of this process pretty much from the start, because the sequence of events doesn’t seem entirely reasonable to me, and is quite different than my friends went through with their adoption, here in south Wales. A number of steps in the process in fact strike me as entirely impractical – such as the required outlay of expense by the applicants before they get final confirmation that they will actually be able to adopt the children they’ve been matched with, all of which would be utterly wasted if they were then turned down, or the extremely narrow timespan between being receiving final approval and starting introductions, which makes arranging parental leave from work very difficult, especially as no firm date is given for that final decision. “Some unspecified time in the next two weeks, with possibly less than 24 hours' notice” just isn’t how most employers are going to be willing to operate! Not to mention that the children’s social worker has to start preparing them for transition after the positive recommendation from panel but before the ADM's verdict, because otherwise there wouldn’t be enough time – so even as they are being prepared there is still an element of doubt, which carries with it the risk of inflicting still more emotional trauma on children who are already damaged by the circumstances that took them into care in the first place. The bonding steps required of the applicants before final confirmation also carries the risk of emotional distress if things go wrong, in fact, but at least they are adults who understand what is going on and chose to sign up for this, for better or for worse.
But that’s the process.
D&R have passed at every stage. Every stage. They passed their medicals. They were approved by the adoption panel. They were approved by the matching panel. They have expended a lot of time, effort and money getting their house ready for the children they have been matched with, a boy and girl aged one and two respectively. They have had observation sessions and playdates with the children and have been sent regular updates by the foster carer, including photos and videos almost daily. They have even made an effort to visit a few country shows and brass band concerts because some idiot on a previous panel told them they need to 'immerse themselves in Yorkshire culture', whatever that is, to adopt Yorkshire children!
The children, meanwhile, have undergone some unfortunate late-stage upheaval because the same week the case went to matching panel, their long-term foster carer announced that she had a family crisis of her own and wanted the children removed immediately. As an interim measure they were placed with a respite carer who has never done an adoption handover before, but who’d had them previously for a couple of weekends, so at least it is someone they already knew. It isn’t ideal as she has them in cots jammed end-to-end in her own bedroom, but this was felt to be okay as it was only for a couple of months to get through the last stage of the adoption process – during which they have each had beautiful bedrooms of their own being prepared for them, and which are now all ready and waiting for them, even while the children remain squished in inadequate space.
The case went to approval panel on Monday 12 August. Among the things D&R had to prepare for that panel were little welcome packs for the two children in which they packed a cuddly toy and new blanket each, photographs of D&R, their pets, the house, and the children’s bedrooms, samples of dog’s blankets, etc., for scent familiarisation purposes, and a set of little rag dolls that D made herself for each child representing everyone in the family: D&R, the two dogs, the two cats, and the two children.
The approval panel gave a positive recommendation – which, let us remember, all the authorities say is almost never overturned by the ADM, and which automatically triggers the preparation stage of the process for the children and their social worker. It wasn’t a unanimous decision, however, as one of the panellists – not even a regular, experienced panellist, but one drafted in as a last minute replacement – expressed some concerns over D&R’s weight and asked for evidence of weight loss, saying in effect that she wasn’t sure fat people should be allowed to adopt very young children. (The panellist in question was herself much bigger than either of them, so there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy about this stance). Panel also asked the children’s social worker to resubmit her report, which contained a number of errors.
Now, the decision by panel doesn't actually have to be unanimous – much like the verdict in a trial by jury, in fact – but nonetheless the ADM wouldn’t give a verdict until these provisos were met.
So the social worker corrected and resubmitted her report, while D&R sent off evidence of weight loss since their medicals – medicals which they passed, let us remember, and which had already been approved by two previous panels, neither of which had any concerns about their weight. They submitted weight watcher booklets and photographs of them standing on their home scales showing that they are both lighter now than when they had their medicals. The agency claimed not to have received this, so they sent it all again. Then they were told that this wasn’t sufficient evidence and they had to use a verified scale instead of their own, so they went to Boots and used the machine there – which showed even greater weight loss than their own scales had registered. So they have now more than adequately demonstrated weight loss, even though the medicals passed them fit to adopt at the weight they already were. They have satisfied every single requirement, including those that came after the time for such requirements should already have passed.
The ADM finally looked at the case last Friday, 23 August – the last working day before the two-week deadline, which was bank holiday Monday. However, despite the imminent deadline and despite having the title of ‘decision maker’, the ADM promptly declared that she couldn’t possibly actually make a decision without speaking to the panellist who’d raised the concern to check that they were now satisfied – this despite the fact that, as mentioned, a unanimous verdict isn't actually required.
This panellist was now on holiday in Singapore, it transpired. So the ADM sent an urgent email asking for clarification, in hopes that the panellist might pick it up despite being on holiday.
It was now very clear that the two-week deadline would not be met.
In the meantime, the children’s social worker and foster carer had started to prepare the children for moving to their new home, because that’s the process – positive verdict from panel means the move is imminent, and the children have to be prepared for that. It can't wait until after the ADM's decision, because introductions then start immediately and the children need to be made ready before that (this is just one part of the system that I think needs a massive overhaul). Now, little G is only 16 months and so doesn’t really understand, but Miss E is two-and-a-half, old enough to grasp what she is being told and get excited about it. So the delay at this stage can only be damaging for her – especially since the social worker and foster carer have now been told to put everything on hold all over again, pending the ADM's decision – never mind what it is doing to my sister, who is getting more and more distressed by the day, swinging from desperate optimism to the depths of despair.
Bank holiday came and went. Tuesday and Wednesday this week came and went, with no news.
Today, at last, an update from the agency to say that the panellist in Singapore doesn't want to comment without checking their notes, which are in the UK, and the ADM still won't give a final decision without that input, despite the fact that, again, a majority verdict is in fact considered sufficient, so a yes from this one panellist isn't actually necessary. But the fact that the ADM won't make a decision without that yes from this one panellist implies that even now, after everything, the whole process could still be scuppered simply because this one individual feels that people who are a bit larger than average shouldn't get to raise small children. This bearing in mind that the majority of the children available for adoption in Yorkshire are under the age of 4, so very young children are pretty much all that is available.
The panellist is due to return to the UK on Monday, so it is unlikely a decision will be made before the middle of next week – almost double the time all this should have taken.
D&R's social worker remains positive and says that all this is just due diligence…but it feels more like bureaucracy gone mad. It also feels like discrimination.
And the reason this is all so very upsetting is that this is exactly what happened before. D&R applied to adopt once before, 12 years ago when they were living in Kent. They were matched with a little girl who was 6 years old at the time and had lived her entire life in hospital after being abandoned at birth by her very wealthy parents because she had a rare form of sleep apnoea. D&R should have been the perfect adoptive parents for her, since D is a highly qualified special needs teacher and R at the time was working as a paramedic. They made it as far as matching panel that time…but were turned down on the basis of their weight. "Fat people often live ten years less than thin people," they were told, "So instead of adoption perhaps you should consider long-term fostering, so that if you die the child could go straight back into the system."
Seriously, that's what they were told – never mind that if they adopted and something happened to them, their child would immediately be taken in by a family member they already had a relationship with, oh no, the instability of the care system is apparently far preferable. And now, well, it is 12 years later, that little girl will now be 18 years old, leaving school and heading out into the world as an adult, and guess what? In all that time, neither D nor R has had a single health problem related to their weight. Not even one. And they are still only in their mid-40s – even if being big does knock 10 years off their life expectancy, that's still plenty of time to raise a family to adulthood.
And I can't help remembering another little girl I once knew, who was child-minded by my mum 20-odd years ago. Little A was born to a 40-year-old mother after years of fertility treatment, and her mother was big, much bigger than my sister is, but being big did not hinder her parenting of her child in the slightest. All these years later, little A is now 26 years old, a graduate with a child of her own, while her mum is still as big as ever but remains in excellent health…it was her whip-thin dad who dropped dead of cancer when she was 8 years old.
My point being that you really, really cannot determine a person's life expectancy, or their general health, based on their weight. Bigger people than my sister give birth every day – and bigger people than my sister are capable of living to a ripe old age, while thinner and younger people drop dead every day from all manner of accidents or illnesses. Nothing in life is guaranteed and none of us can predict the future.
D&R are both bigger than average, sure. That doesn't mean they are unhealthy. R is 6'4", barrel-chested and built like a prop forward. He also runs, and wins medals for his running. He's big, no question, but the bulk of his weight is muscle, rather than fat. And while D has had a number of health concerns over the years, including a chronic back injury and a bout of viral meningitis, none of them have been related to her weight. Rather, her weight is a side effect of PCOS (the reason she can't have children of her own) and hyper-active triglycerides, which if starved of fat (the usual effect of any diet) will go into overdrive and start converting any and every scrap of carbohydrate into fat instead, so that dieting only leads to weight gain instead of weight loss. Expert dieticians have told D that the only diet that would guarantee weight loss would be if she ate nothing but steamed fish and lettuce morning, noon and night – which would not only be boring as hell, but would also be the cause of all kinds of vitamin deficiencies and ill-health!
D&R passed their medicals. The adoption panel and matching panel were satisfied both that they are fit and able to raise a family in general, and that they are fit and able to raise these two children in particular. Every social worker involved in the case has approved them. The majority of the approval panel were also satisfied. So why, after all that, should one fat-phobic person be able to cause this much upheaval, delay and distress?
In case you hadn't figured it out yet, I am really, really angry about all this.
We are still hopeful that a positive decision will eventually be reached, albeit long, long after it should have been given. We are hopeful that we will ultimately get a happy ending to the saga. But for now, this delay is causing a lot of entirely unnecessary distress to everyone concerned and I find that inexcusable.
I've been saying for months that the adoption system in Yorkshire is all up the spout. All this just confirms it. The process is very different down here in Wales – and from my friend's experience of it, much more user-friendly.
Until we get a final answer, I will remain on pins.
Other sources of stress currently: finances, having shelled out a large sum of money on vet bills with the insurance not having come through yet; the state of the nation, as democracy crumbles around our ears; the state of the world, which is literally on fire right now; work, where we are chronically under-staffed and under-funded and my boss is a nightmare; the loss of a very dear family friend who passed away last week; and the future in general, for all kinds of reasons that I won't get into here.
So I'm burying my head in a lot of Star Trek binging on Netflix just at the moment, since my brain won't let me concentrate on any of my usual playtime projects. Star Trek has its faults in all its incarnations, but it also has the advantage of being a) relatively fresh, since I've not really ever had a proper re-watch before and 30 years will fade even the best of memories, and b) generally optimistic in tone, which is exactly what I need right now!
However, in happier news, my existing niece is about to turn 4 years old the week after next, and is an absolute treasure, bright and boisterous. She stays with me every weekend, which isn't always easy, as it doesn't leave me much time for myself, but we have loads of fun together. She's learning to swim, has discovered the power of saving pocket money to spend in shops, learned the name of every flower in my garden this summer, and is full of creative, imaginative, intricate play – this kid definitely has a bright future in fandom ahead of her!
There are lots of reasons for this stress. The major one at present is a last-minute delay with my sister’s adoption application, right at the very last hurdle when introductions to the children should already have begun.
Before I go into all that, let’s have a run through of the adoption application process as it is approached in West Yorkshire. First of all, a couple or an individual must apply to adopt. They then go through a rigorous series of background checks, interviews, home inspections, training courses, and medicals, over a period of months. They must supply in-depth references, and those referees are also interviewed in person. Other family members, friends, and neighbours are contacted to verify various details of the applicant’s character and history. All of that information is then submitted to an adoption panel, a body of experts who assess the report and then decide whether or not to approve the applicants for adoption. If the adoption panel says yes, it means that the applicants are both suitable to adopt a child and capable of raising a child.
After being passed by the adoption panel, the applicants then move into the matching stage. Their social worker will work with agency family finders to sift through the profiles of children currently available for adoption and select one that they believe will be the best fit, taking all manner of criteria into consideration. The applicants might be shown more than one profile during this process, before settling on one to take forward. The chosen match then goes before another panel of experts. This is the matching panel, which examines all the reports, both on the applicants and the children, and decides whether or not they are a good fit for one another. If the matching panel says yes, it means that the applicants are both suitable to adopt these particular children and capable of raising these particular children.
After being passed by the matching panel, the adoption begins to move forward, the process now geared toward preparing both children and applicants to become a family, and determining whether or not they actually are as good a fit as first hoped. The applicants are now given full background reports on the children, and have meetings with foster carers, social workers, teachers, doctors, and anyone else who has been involved in the children’s lives, so that they will know as much as possible about their children before taking them home to live. They will take part in observation sessions and play dates with the children to see how well they ‘click’, and might start to receive regular updates from foster carers on the children’s progress – all of this designed to kick-start the bonding process. The applicants also, at this stage, have to get their household ready to bring the children home, which means purchasing (or, you know, otherwise acquiring) anything they are likely to need for these specific children (e.g. the right size beds for the ages of the children, highchairs, pushchairs and car seats for younger children, household adaptations if there is a disability, and so on) – so there may well be a considerable financial outlay at this stage. And all of that has to be done before the application is taken before the final panel. This final approval panel will study all the reports, both those already taken to previous panels and new reports based on the outcome of the meetings, observation sessions and play dates, etc., and will then make a recommendation based on all that evidence.
If the approval panel gives a positive recommendation, the application goes to one last person, the Agency Decision Maker, for overall ratification. One person. After all those gruelling months of training and interviews and inspections and medical examinations, after multiple panels of experts have debated and given their verdict, it ultimately all comes down to a single individual, who has the power to overturn the entire process based on their own personal preferences and prejudices.
(I'm not salty about this aspect of the process at all, what makes you think that?)
Everything written and everything we have been told insists that the Agency Decision Maker almost never ever overturns a recommendation from panel, it is simply one last piece of the bureaucratic process that must be ticked off the checklist in order to proceed according the strictest letter of procedure. The ADM’s verdict should be given within two weeks, the process states, and introductions are then expected to commence pretty much immediately, sometimes as soon as 24 hours later.
So that’s the process my Sis and her Hub have been going through for the past year. Now, I’ve been side-eyeing various aspects of this process pretty much from the start, because the sequence of events doesn’t seem entirely reasonable to me, and is quite different than my friends went through with their adoption, here in south Wales. A number of steps in the process in fact strike me as entirely impractical – such as the required outlay of expense by the applicants before they get final confirmation that they will actually be able to adopt the children they’ve been matched with, all of which would be utterly wasted if they were then turned down, or the extremely narrow timespan between being receiving final approval and starting introductions, which makes arranging parental leave from work very difficult, especially as no firm date is given for that final decision. “Some unspecified time in the next two weeks, with possibly less than 24 hours' notice” just isn’t how most employers are going to be willing to operate! Not to mention that the children’s social worker has to start preparing them for transition after the positive recommendation from panel but before the ADM's verdict, because otherwise there wouldn’t be enough time – so even as they are being prepared there is still an element of doubt, which carries with it the risk of inflicting still more emotional trauma on children who are already damaged by the circumstances that took them into care in the first place. The bonding steps required of the applicants before final confirmation also carries the risk of emotional distress if things go wrong, in fact, but at least they are adults who understand what is going on and chose to sign up for this, for better or for worse.
But that’s the process.
D&R have passed at every stage. Every stage. They passed their medicals. They were approved by the adoption panel. They were approved by the matching panel. They have expended a lot of time, effort and money getting their house ready for the children they have been matched with, a boy and girl aged one and two respectively. They have had observation sessions and playdates with the children and have been sent regular updates by the foster carer, including photos and videos almost daily. They have even made an effort to visit a few country shows and brass band concerts because some idiot on a previous panel told them they need to 'immerse themselves in Yorkshire culture', whatever that is, to adopt Yorkshire children!
The children, meanwhile, have undergone some unfortunate late-stage upheaval because the same week the case went to matching panel, their long-term foster carer announced that she had a family crisis of her own and wanted the children removed immediately. As an interim measure they were placed with a respite carer who has never done an adoption handover before, but who’d had them previously for a couple of weekends, so at least it is someone they already knew. It isn’t ideal as she has them in cots jammed end-to-end in her own bedroom, but this was felt to be okay as it was only for a couple of months to get through the last stage of the adoption process – during which they have each had beautiful bedrooms of their own being prepared for them, and which are now all ready and waiting for them, even while the children remain squished in inadequate space.
The case went to approval panel on Monday 12 August. Among the things D&R had to prepare for that panel were little welcome packs for the two children in which they packed a cuddly toy and new blanket each, photographs of D&R, their pets, the house, and the children’s bedrooms, samples of dog’s blankets, etc., for scent familiarisation purposes, and a set of little rag dolls that D made herself for each child representing everyone in the family: D&R, the two dogs, the two cats, and the two children.
The approval panel gave a positive recommendation – which, let us remember, all the authorities say is almost never overturned by the ADM, and which automatically triggers the preparation stage of the process for the children and their social worker. It wasn’t a unanimous decision, however, as one of the panellists – not even a regular, experienced panellist, but one drafted in as a last minute replacement – expressed some concerns over D&R’s weight and asked for evidence of weight loss, saying in effect that she wasn’t sure fat people should be allowed to adopt very young children. (The panellist in question was herself much bigger than either of them, so there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy about this stance). Panel also asked the children’s social worker to resubmit her report, which contained a number of errors.
Now, the decision by panel doesn't actually have to be unanimous – much like the verdict in a trial by jury, in fact – but nonetheless the ADM wouldn’t give a verdict until these provisos were met.
So the social worker corrected and resubmitted her report, while D&R sent off evidence of weight loss since their medicals – medicals which they passed, let us remember, and which had already been approved by two previous panels, neither of which had any concerns about their weight. They submitted weight watcher booklets and photographs of them standing on their home scales showing that they are both lighter now than when they had their medicals. The agency claimed not to have received this, so they sent it all again. Then they were told that this wasn’t sufficient evidence and they had to use a verified scale instead of their own, so they went to Boots and used the machine there – which showed even greater weight loss than their own scales had registered. So they have now more than adequately demonstrated weight loss, even though the medicals passed them fit to adopt at the weight they already were. They have satisfied every single requirement, including those that came after the time for such requirements should already have passed.
The ADM finally looked at the case last Friday, 23 August – the last working day before the two-week deadline, which was bank holiday Monday. However, despite the imminent deadline and despite having the title of ‘decision maker’, the ADM promptly declared that she couldn’t possibly actually make a decision without speaking to the panellist who’d raised the concern to check that they were now satisfied – this despite the fact that, as mentioned, a unanimous verdict isn't actually required.
This panellist was now on holiday in Singapore, it transpired. So the ADM sent an urgent email asking for clarification, in hopes that the panellist might pick it up despite being on holiday.
It was now very clear that the two-week deadline would not be met.
In the meantime, the children’s social worker and foster carer had started to prepare the children for moving to their new home, because that’s the process – positive verdict from panel means the move is imminent, and the children have to be prepared for that. It can't wait until after the ADM's decision, because introductions then start immediately and the children need to be made ready before that (this is just one part of the system that I think needs a massive overhaul). Now, little G is only 16 months and so doesn’t really understand, but Miss E is two-and-a-half, old enough to grasp what she is being told and get excited about it. So the delay at this stage can only be damaging for her – especially since the social worker and foster carer have now been told to put everything on hold all over again, pending the ADM's decision – never mind what it is doing to my sister, who is getting more and more distressed by the day, swinging from desperate optimism to the depths of despair.
Bank holiday came and went. Tuesday and Wednesday this week came and went, with no news.
Today, at last, an update from the agency to say that the panellist in Singapore doesn't want to comment without checking their notes, which are in the UK, and the ADM still won't give a final decision without that input, despite the fact that, again, a majority verdict is in fact considered sufficient, so a yes from this one panellist isn't actually necessary. But the fact that the ADM won't make a decision without that yes from this one panellist implies that even now, after everything, the whole process could still be scuppered simply because this one individual feels that people who are a bit larger than average shouldn't get to raise small children. This bearing in mind that the majority of the children available for adoption in Yorkshire are under the age of 4, so very young children are pretty much all that is available.
The panellist is due to return to the UK on Monday, so it is unlikely a decision will be made before the middle of next week – almost double the time all this should have taken.
D&R's social worker remains positive and says that all this is just due diligence…but it feels more like bureaucracy gone mad. It also feels like discrimination.
And the reason this is all so very upsetting is that this is exactly what happened before. D&R applied to adopt once before, 12 years ago when they were living in Kent. They were matched with a little girl who was 6 years old at the time and had lived her entire life in hospital after being abandoned at birth by her very wealthy parents because she had a rare form of sleep apnoea. D&R should have been the perfect adoptive parents for her, since D is a highly qualified special needs teacher and R at the time was working as a paramedic. They made it as far as matching panel that time…but were turned down on the basis of their weight. "Fat people often live ten years less than thin people," they were told, "So instead of adoption perhaps you should consider long-term fostering, so that if you die the child could go straight back into the system."
Seriously, that's what they were told – never mind that if they adopted and something happened to them, their child would immediately be taken in by a family member they already had a relationship with, oh no, the instability of the care system is apparently far preferable. And now, well, it is 12 years later, that little girl will now be 18 years old, leaving school and heading out into the world as an adult, and guess what? In all that time, neither D nor R has had a single health problem related to their weight. Not even one. And they are still only in their mid-40s – even if being big does knock 10 years off their life expectancy, that's still plenty of time to raise a family to adulthood.
And I can't help remembering another little girl I once knew, who was child-minded by my mum 20-odd years ago. Little A was born to a 40-year-old mother after years of fertility treatment, and her mother was big, much bigger than my sister is, but being big did not hinder her parenting of her child in the slightest. All these years later, little A is now 26 years old, a graduate with a child of her own, while her mum is still as big as ever but remains in excellent health…it was her whip-thin dad who dropped dead of cancer when she was 8 years old.
My point being that you really, really cannot determine a person's life expectancy, or their general health, based on their weight. Bigger people than my sister give birth every day – and bigger people than my sister are capable of living to a ripe old age, while thinner and younger people drop dead every day from all manner of accidents or illnesses. Nothing in life is guaranteed and none of us can predict the future.
D&R are both bigger than average, sure. That doesn't mean they are unhealthy. R is 6'4", barrel-chested and built like a prop forward. He also runs, and wins medals for his running. He's big, no question, but the bulk of his weight is muscle, rather than fat. And while D has had a number of health concerns over the years, including a chronic back injury and a bout of viral meningitis, none of them have been related to her weight. Rather, her weight is a side effect of PCOS (the reason she can't have children of her own) and hyper-active triglycerides, which if starved of fat (the usual effect of any diet) will go into overdrive and start converting any and every scrap of carbohydrate into fat instead, so that dieting only leads to weight gain instead of weight loss. Expert dieticians have told D that the only diet that would guarantee weight loss would be if she ate nothing but steamed fish and lettuce morning, noon and night – which would not only be boring as hell, but would also be the cause of all kinds of vitamin deficiencies and ill-health!
D&R passed their medicals. The adoption panel and matching panel were satisfied both that they are fit and able to raise a family in general, and that they are fit and able to raise these two children in particular. Every social worker involved in the case has approved them. The majority of the approval panel were also satisfied. So why, after all that, should one fat-phobic person be able to cause this much upheaval, delay and distress?
In case you hadn't figured it out yet, I am really, really angry about all this.
We are still hopeful that a positive decision will eventually be reached, albeit long, long after it should have been given. We are hopeful that we will ultimately get a happy ending to the saga. But for now, this delay is causing a lot of entirely unnecessary distress to everyone concerned and I find that inexcusable.
I've been saying for months that the adoption system in Yorkshire is all up the spout. All this just confirms it. The process is very different down here in Wales – and from my friend's experience of it, much more user-friendly.
Until we get a final answer, I will remain on pins.
Other sources of stress currently: finances, having shelled out a large sum of money on vet bills with the insurance not having come through yet; the state of the nation, as democracy crumbles around our ears; the state of the world, which is literally on fire right now; work, where we are chronically under-staffed and under-funded and my boss is a nightmare; the loss of a very dear family friend who passed away last week; and the future in general, for all kinds of reasons that I won't get into here.
So I'm burying my head in a lot of Star Trek binging on Netflix just at the moment, since my brain won't let me concentrate on any of my usual playtime projects. Star Trek has its faults in all its incarnations, but it also has the advantage of being a) relatively fresh, since I've not really ever had a proper re-watch before and 30 years will fade even the best of memories, and b) generally optimistic in tone, which is exactly what I need right now!
However, in happier news, my existing niece is about to turn 4 years old the week after next, and is an absolute treasure, bright and boisterous. She stays with me every weekend, which isn't always easy, as it doesn't leave me much time for myself, but we have loads of fun together. She's learning to swim, has discovered the power of saving pocket money to spend in shops, learned the name of every flower in my garden this summer, and is full of creative, imaginative, intricate play – this kid definitely has a bright future in fandom ahead of her!
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Date: 2019-08-29 10:53 pm (UTC)Enjoy the Star Trek and The Niece, and I sincerely hope things improve.
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Date: 2019-08-30 08:57 am (UTC)