ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY - WITH YET ANOTHER TOMORROW!

Today - 6 months.

It's 6 months, 6 incredible months since I learnt of my baby's details.

On 30th April I learnt that my date was included - I wasn't quite sure that I'd be included as I'd sent an update to my dossier and other people who'd done the same sometimes found that they'd been moved back in the queue. I rang the Dfes but they knew (or were admitting) nothing.

Most people would have rung again the following day, but I was on a school trip to Swansea and it wasn't really convenient.

The next day I went into school and explained the situation, it was arranged that I could be released from the classroom at 1.30pm (the time we go back into class after lunch) to ring the Dfes and ask. As sometimes happens in school, plans changed and at the last minute I had to be in class with a student teacher, I was given special permission to ring from the corner(!) I wasn't in my classroom, but with the class I taught during my homestudy, in the classroom that I started in in my school. I stood in the corner watching a class do PE on the yard, I rang and got through within 5 minutes, lady went to check referrals and came back and told me I had been matched, the tears flowed, I asked for details, she went off again, I stood crying and wondering if she really had said I had a match whilst also telling myself she wouldn't have anything to check without being matched! She came back, asked me if I wanted her to spell the name, she did, relatively easy name to pronounce (phew!), then I had to ask if 'it' was a girl! She gave 'her' date of birth, I had to double check it as she was SO young. By now the tears were flowing freely, whilst the colleague outside wondered what on earth was happening. Then, for some reason, I moved around the classroom and rang C to find out if she'd asked, told her my baby was very young and the province and then got off the phone so that she could find out about her baby. After that I went to the school office - I had to tell someone about my baby!! By then I was shaking and in floods of tears with a huge grin over my face! Lots of whooping and cuddles, incredible. I didn't leave the class for long (they did have someone teaching and 2 helpers in the class) and then I sent a few texts to tell the world about my daughter - including her birthday (which I got wrong, by a day!)

I had to stay in school for a special meeting until nearly 6pm (that was really tough). Just after I got home, D arrived with a card and pressies, my first celebration. Later in the evening, C came round with a Chinese takeaway, yum.

What a day! It was made even more memorable as it was my Grandmother's birthday, she would have been 94. It felt right to find out about my family on a day that was already a special day in my family.

And a daft coincidence . . . every applicant who goes through the Dfes for Intercountry Adoption is given a reference number, 3 letters and then 4 numbers, my 3 letters were AHM - my daughter's initials.