BAAF Blog

After enduring the heartbreak of failed IVF treatment, which nearly ended in tragedy, Mike and Lesley Butcher’s dreams of parenthood were transformed when they picked up a flyer from a local adoption agency. Here Mike describes the joy of becoming a family at last.

There are days of your life you will never forget. I may have had more than my fair share already, but 2 September 2009 is out in front for me now. That was the day we met our son.

Following the decision to place him with us, there was all the usual red tape to deal with: meetings with the medical adviser and his foster carers; a placement planning meeting; more forms to fill in for the Panel that would be asked to recommend the match; and of course attending the Panel itself.

It all took time, but everything went without a hitch. After the Matching Panel, we agreed the final...

It was only a few months ago when I first found out, so I still remember it pretty vividly. It was the day before New Year’s Eve and my mum had called earlier in the day saying she was coming to see me to talk about something.

I knew it must’ve been important, because I’d only left after Christmas the day before. I figured my sister was probably pregnant, or something.

We were sat at our usual table in this little bar we like to go eat. We’d ordered and already opened a bottle of wine when I asked the question “how’s dad?”. You see, my dad is battling terminal cancer, so when my mum’s response was to burst into tears on the subject of his well-being, it caught me a little off guard. But surely, it couldn’t be too serious? If there’d been an emergency, I’d have been asked to come back home, right?

My mum started apologising over and over again...

As we approach seven years as an adoptive family I thought it a good time to reflect.

The last blog I wrote was for our 5^th anniversary – where on earth have the last 2 years gone!? So, will we get the Seven Year Itch, I wonder, does it apply in all relationships or just adult ones? Probably best to just carry on with the ‘grin and bear it’ attitude that gets us through most situations.  Or to coin the phrase adopted by the whole country ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. (My husband incidentally hates that you can get EVERYTHING with that on these days, it’s been done maybe just a little too much.)

Anyway, I digress. Our daughter is now 13 – yes, the dreaded teenage years are here – but thankfully she didn’t turn into Kevin or Perry on her birthday, she is still a little girl who needs cuddles and dolls and teddies (but...

Mark, a support worker for adults, and his partner Kieran, a hairdresser, fostered Will three years ago when he was 14. They live together in London. Mark tells their story.

I saw an advertisement about fostering in our local newspaper and chatted the idea over with Kieran. We decided to give each other space to think about it. The initial reason was to give a young person a better start in life. We went to an open evening and found out more about it but until you actually foster, you don’t realise the amount of time it takes and the impact it has on your life.

We thought long-term fostering would offer a young person stability. We wanted them to live with us on a permanent basis and to fit into our family unit. We thought we could offer consistency and build up a relationship with a young person. We didn’t want to foster short-term and, having built...

It’s the start of the second week of Foster Care Fortnight! To celebrate, we thought we would share some of our fostering blog posts from throughout the years including some celebrating past Foster Care fortnights.

First off, there's our most popular blog post yet! In January 2013, Lydia Bright from TV’s The Only Way Is Essex shared a piece she wrote when she was at school about her mum Debbie’s life as a foster carer. Read Lydia’s post.

Back in May 2010, David shared his memories and positive experiences of being fostered in the 1960's. David gives a heart warming account of being fostered by a couple who over their vast career fostered over 80 children. Read David’s story.

In 2011, we heard from Andy who has been...

I do a lot of art therapy with one of the children I’m looking after at the moment and I try to get them outside. We’re an outdoor family so we do lots of outdoor things – when it was snowing in winter we took the whole family to the nearest outdoor space with the dogs and had a great day. It was brilliant – we never stopped laughing all day.

I think foster carers need to be more recognised. People aren’t coming forward because, let’s face it, they can’t afford it. But most of the time you can’t work – as in, for example go into an office – if you’re a foster carer. You’re on call all the time. I could get a phone call any minute saying I have to pick one of mine up from school. You do need to be there for the child. It’s like this morning I had to do several school trips and meet several appointments for them...

One of BAAF’s most important and well-respected resources is our Information and Advice Service. Every year our experts help hundreds  of people who contact us, either by phone or email, needing help, advice and support.   The service is used by professionals, individual members of the public as well as BAAF members and is available across the UK.

Here, Viv Howorth, Manager for BAAF’s England Information and Advice Line Service gives an insight into the range of enquiries our experts help with…

9.30 -First call of the day. The enquirer is from a nurse on a maternity ward in Southern England. She wanted information on relinquishing a baby. She has recently been involved in a case where a birth mother left the hospital after giving birth to a baby with very complex needs and she felt ill-equipped to deal with the situation as a professional. She...

Born in 1960, Andrew Barton is best known as a celebrity hairdresser. Named British Hairdresser of the Year and Britain’s Most Wanted Hairdresser, he is also a dedicated and hard-working patron of BAAF.

Adoption has always meant something quite special to me. Maybe it’s because I was told as soon as I could understand that I was special, I had been chosen! As a young boy I ran around the countryside of my native Yorkshire with my friends, up to the usual schoolboy mischief, never thinking anything other than that. I’d come home covered in mud or thirsty after a summer’s day and Mum was always there to look after me.

As I grew up, I realised that adoption was very special indeed and it was more about how special my family were (are) than how special I was (am) and how they had been chosen to give a child a second start. I’ve never been able to think of a...

Wow! Ever since our perfect baby boy came to live with us at thirteen months, every day, I have felt a sense of overwhelming joy, achievement, accomplishment and complete fulfilment in my life.

I wake up with a smile in the morning and go to bed with a smile on my face at night. I could even shout to the world how amazing my life is and how much I love my darling boy. Im not exaggerating here, I really and truly feel this gushing about him.

Except, there is also the very apparent fact that he is different from all the other children in the room. Wherever we are; toddler group, nursery, family and friends, there is always the white elephant in the room. He is fiercely independent, supremely confident, outgoing, cannot concentrate on one activity at a time for more than two seconds, is happy to approach anyone for attention, sit on anyone’s knee,...

For me I could not see life without you. You are my world, my everything, you’re special, and I know that all your dreams will come true. I believe that anything you truly put your heart into will happen. 

You are not flesh of my flesh or bone of my bone, but you are unbelievably my very own, born from my HEART! Love you baby girl.

I...