Chris and Katie

After failed IVF cycles, Chris and Katie adopted their first child when they were in their early 30’s. They adopted their daughter a few years later and are now a happy family of four.

They shared their story with us with us, including how contact with their children’s birth family has benefitted the whole family.

“My wife Katie and I always knew we wanted to be parents. We didn’t get pregnant naturally and so tried three cycles of IVF. None of them worked, and the specialist was saying “oh next time we’ll try this, then we’ll try that…” but it was soul destroying. We could have persevered for years I suppose but it was so hard, especially on Katie, so we looked into adoption.

Before we’d even started trying for children, we’d always considered adoption as through Katie’s work she’d visited a lot of overseas orphanages. We knew we wanted a family and we thought we could offer a child who needed it a good life. From day one when we started looking into adoption we never really had any doubts and we knew we wanted to do it.

Smooth sailing through the adoption process and meeting Archie

We both found the process relatively straightforward and we actually quite enjoyed it. We felt like we sailed through pretty quickly. We knew we wanted a younger child and we were approved to adopt siblings.

After being approved though it took a while before we were matched with our son. This part felt of the process felt really frustrating as we were so ready to be parents, and we kept reaching out to our social worker to see if there was any news. I knew she was doing her best but we just really wanted to be matched. And then, out of the blue, we got a call saying there was a little boy we were considered for, and could we come to Cheshire to meet him two days later?

I remember we went to the foster carers house to meet Archie. His foster carer, Tony, just handed him over to me and said “Archie, go to your dad”. Remembering this moment still give me goosebumps now. They’d shown Archie pictures of us before we’d got there so he was happily touching our faces and giving us cuddles. We were so emotional and it felt like all the failed IVF, the adoption training, and then the waiting was so worth it to now be holding our son.

The moment was made even more special by how amazing the foster carers were. We are still in touch with them now and send them regular pictures and updates of Archie, as they loved him deeply and still do.

Meeting Archie’s birth mum

During the transition period, while we were getting to know Archie and he was still living with his foster carers, we had the opportunity to meet his birth mum. I’ll be honest - it was incredibly hard. She was trying to put on a brave face, but she was crying as she told us she hoped we could give Archie a better life than she could.

We really felt for her. She’d had a difficult childhood herself - never got the chance to finish school and ended up falling in with the wrong crowd when she was young. Archie was taken into care just days after he was born, straight from the hospital to his foster carers. Her three older children had also been taken into care.

She knew adoption was inevitable and understood that she couldn’t care for him properly. For Archie, adoption was his best chance for his future, but this didn’t stop it being a very emotional process.

Adopting Layla

We made the decision to adopt again when Archie was three years old. This time the process moved even faster, and it felt like one minute we were having a chat with our social worker to say we were thinking it, and the next we had a phone call about a baby girl who we would be a match for. She had drug withdrawal as a baby and was taken into care at birth. She was five months when we met her for the first time in a supermarket café with her foster carer. The first time we saw her was incredible, just like meeting Archie. Layla has these amazing blue eyes and looking into them, I was in love straight away.

“Adoptions is the single, most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life.

You have to be fully in but, when you are, it’s such an amazing experience and all our lives are so much better for it.”

- Chris

Archie and Layla’s birth family

Both Archie and Layla have siblings who we keep in regular contact with. With Archie’s siblings they were older and so remember him being born. They’d been through a lot in their young lives and based on their experiences had lots of reasons not to trust us but, over time, we’ve built great relationships with them. Now we all get together with the three siblings and Archie, and it’s lovely for us to see them as we’ve watched them grow up too. They come over and the boys play football together and the older sisters hang out with Layla, like one big family.

Layla’s two older siblings were already adopted by the time she was born and her birth mum has had more three children since, who have also been taken into care at birth and adopted by different families. We keep in touch with them all via Whatsapp, sharing pictures and updates and we make an effort to meet in person too every summer.

It’s so important to our children to keep the contact with their siblings. If you ask Archie he’ll tell you that Layla is his “proper” sister, but then he’s also got lots of others and he’ll tell you the full story. Layla is the same.

Katie, my wife, sends pictures to both Archie and Layla’s birth mums every now and then from a separate email address just to let them know how they’re doing. Both of the birth mums still have lots of struggles in life but we know they appreciate knowing that Archie and Layla are safe and happy.

Life with Archie and Layla

Archie is 9 now and he’s absolutely incredible. He really is just an amazing little boy. He's uber intelligent. He loves football and he has loads of really nice friends. He’s a happy kid.

Layla is 6 and she’s so much fun. She's struggling a bit with her reading in school and she has speech therapy but we’re not concerned. We're working with her and will help her get where she needs to be. The school has been good at providing extra support as well which we’ve found easy to access and we’re positive about both of their futures.

What would you tell prospective adopters?

Adoptions is the single, most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life. If people are considering doing it then they should just go for it. You have to be fully in but, when you are, it’s such an amazing experience and all our lives are so much better for it.”