As promised here is a bit of background into our adoption story. We started this three years ago with the decision that we wanted another child. However you are not allowed to think like that in adoption - it is about what a child needs and what kind of home best responds to the child.
We did the adoption course and the Social Work moved in (or so it felt) for a few weeks for the Home Study to find out if we are mad, bad or otherwise unable to parent another child. Having done all that, you are faced with the pretty brutal process of selection for a child. Whole newspapers and magazines exist full of children in search of a forever family, but they also have social workers who are not so keen on wealthier than average, mixed families who live on a farm. To be honest they like people whom they can control.
We went into the process hoping to adopt a child from the UK, but because of who we are and where we live and the number of birth children we have this proved impossible. The only route left was inter country adoption. Not Madonna or Angelina Jolie style more fight the powers of the DCSF and then wait, wait, wait and wait some more.
Finally the postman brought a little daughter (well, the paperwork anyway) from China. Inter country adoption is much more common in the USA, Europe and especially Scandinavia. For example Finland with population of 5 million has over 300 intercounty adoptions every year, just about the same as the whole UK with 60 million people. Unlike domestic adoption the full process must be funded by the adoptive parents, which leads to the charge of "buying a baby". That is not the case. The only people who are allowed to be out of pocket in this process are the adoptive parents - everyone else is entitled to recover their costs, although profit is prohibited. The home study costs average £5000 and simple entry visa to bring the child into the UK is £550. However these are costs we gladly pay.
In mid September we will fly to China to pick up No 5. It is a very sad day for her. She has lost her birth family, has not found an adoptive home in China and will now be separated from her country, language and heritage. Yet we are better option than growing up in an orphanage.
This is not the usual farming related stuff, the shed is finished by the way....but I wanted to show that farmers are more than just farms and farming.