How tall is a ten year old?

Our social worker is back from sabbatical. She came over and saw our place and didn't even ask about the fire extinguisher! She hasn't seen us in a couple years but remembered us enough to recognise that my dear husband has grown a beard in the interim. She is down to earth and sensible and.... sorry, I'm gushing. We're just happy to have someone talk with us, answer our questions with honesty and listen to our concerns without judgement.

We talked about the special needs we feel equipped to handle and that we're willing to wait as long as necessary to be the 'right' family for someone, not just the most convenient. She made a note that we feel unable to handle a lot of "big behaviours" (I like this term). She didn't make us feel like we were being too picky. She said she appreciated our honesty.

Then she told us that another social worker had read our profile and thought we might be a good family for a ten year old boy on her case load. Ten is the "top" of our accepted age range. Ten is not what we had pictured when we started thinking about adoption. Ten is an age that we decided on later, after we'd come to terms with the idea that adoption does not replace birth children. Ten is an age that we decided to go up to when we were in a healthy and informed state of mind.

So we've said yes, we want to know more because all we know right now is his age and gender and a few things that I won't share here for privacy's sake. So we'll meet with social workers again in a few weeks and I guess it will be a little bit like a job interview and a little like a first date. I will jokingly but not jokingly ask if he is taller than me (you never know...). We will wonder how he would feel about a Dad who is a dancer. After the meeting we might say no, this isn't right for us or the social worker might say no, this isn't right for him and we'll never even know this boy's name.

And yet, we'll now be connected by a spidersilk-like thread because there was a chance that we're a family.