“It was in my early 30’s that the decision to adopt really started to crystalise – I’ve never really been that interested in pursuing romantic relationships, but I always knew I wanted a child,” explains Nick as he describes the beginning of his adoption journey.

Putting things into place

“I’ve always had a nurturing nature, looking after children from friends and family. I knew adoption was possible, but there was less information out there at the time about single adoption, especially single, male adoption and we’re in the minority still – I think it’s about 1 in 12 adopters.”

“Despite knowing I wished to adopt I wasn’t quite ready in my 30’s.” says Nick. “I wasn’t in a great position financially and the house needed a lot of work.

“A few years later after initially enquiring with a different agency I came to Western Bay – I was put at ease quickly with the professionalism and knew I had made the choice of who to adopt with.

“This was around 2018-19. I had resolved most of the house issues. It made sense to me to be with my local authority region for probably the most important journey in my life – and having a strong relationship with Rachel my social worker from the start, who is also from my local area.  It just made things much easier.”

A challenging journey with important lessons

“I know it can be different for everyone who does this, but it was a long adoptive process for me personally,” says Nick. “I worked hard to get a lot of experience before starting, I did some Nannying and also engaged in some private training.

“Some of the training that I did early on was now quite dated upon reflection, things such as leaving the child alone when they are having a meltdown. Children need our help to regulate during these times, not disconnect from them when they need us the most.

“Although I did do my own therapeutic training which recommended by Rachel at the start of the assessment phase, post-adoption was when Meg’s therapeutic training skills really started to benefit.

“Despite already adopting, the training, development and support doesn’t end there and is constantly ongoing.”

Test of resilience and new directions

“Once I was approved following a successful assessment I almost ended up adopting within the same year. This didn’t materialise due to a number of reasons and then came a long waiting period which really tested me.

“The long waiting period for a match with a child from around 2020 was especially tough – you sometimes want to give up, feel like you are stuck in limbo with your life on pause. You can’t really book holidays or look too far ahead. A lot of doubt surfaced, I was wondering if I had been forgotten about at times.

“During this period I could see in England the Foster to Adopt programme which was really appealing to me. Just having that early bonding experience, it was something I was really craving.

“It also means less moves for the child, less chance of attachment issues due to the bonding that can start much earlier.

“It’s not without it’s risk as it’s not 100% guaranteed that the final plan with be for adoption.

“You’ve got your support network but you almost feel sick of people asking you the same questions. I had to dig into my own inner resilience.

“I was really struggling and almost felt like giving up, but then Wales Early Permanence (WEP) became available in its early form. I then took on the process of getting approved as a WEP carer, one of the first two in Wales!”

Welsh Early Permanence (WEP) is the umbrella term given to the practice of placing children, with prospective adoptive parents who are also separately approved as foster carers – enabling early secure attachments to be formed.

“So my WEP journey started in 2023, going through the approval process again was tough and because it was so early in the development of WEP there wasn’t much information out there.

“It felt sometimes that the social workers and I were learning about it as we went along. This meant things took much longer at the time, but the process is much quicker now that WEP has been developed and the service has being going for few years’ experience behind it,” explains Nick.

Things finally moving quickly but with new tests of strength

“I remember a flurry of activity from Rachel and the team with PAR’s and requests and just thought, ‘oh here we go, something’s going on.

“Rachel told me she had something important to say – they had a match with a WEP child!

“Things moved quickly from there, I was weary after previous disappointments earlier in my journey and I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much…

“I met her in nursery and we just connected straight away and I felt some of my worries melt away in that moment. Things worked ok with the foster carers too. It all happened so quickly, after all those years waiting I was finally here with my child.

“This wasn’t the end of the process of course. At this stage your only fostering, and as months go by and you become so attached to this little person fears can resurface, albeit slightly different.

“Your fears change to; ‘could I really emotionally handle the possibility that adoption isn’t the final plan?’

“She’s been amazing, she was very young when she came to me and there has been a lot for us to work through together. There were some major meltdowns early on, things flying across the room, it was initially quite difficult challenging in terms of remaining patient and calm.

“I was trying to understand what she was trying to tell me through her behaviour.  Trying to gauge how much of it was due to her early life experiences versus how much of it was typical toddler behaviour.

“She was always expecting of further consequences such as the naughty step, so this resulted in episodes could last an hour or so.

“There’s none of that now, there’s still brief moments of frustration but therapeutic training has helped massively.  I used to question myself around whether I’m doing the right thing sometimes, but the course validated my approaches.

“I learnt that she can’t really express herself properly yet and her behaviour is a reflection of that.

“Overall though it’s been an amazing journey and I wouldn’t change it. It is hard being a single parent, the challenges are greater such as when you are ill, but then so are the rewards – everything is amplified.

“She’s developing into such a funny little character – one of the funny things she does is that she likes me to give her little snacks with each representing one of her friends, and she talks to them to tell them they are about to go down the slide.  She tells them that it’s not scary, and if any of their friends are waiting at the bottom of the slide.

“We also have arguments about which one of us is the stinkier,” smiles Nick. I’m not telling you who wins that argument!”