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Donna adopted her little girl as a single adopter after leaving her career in the police force to pursue becoming a parent. Her daughter was four when, through the support of St David’s Adoption Service she joined their home in 2021.. Donna has since gone onto become a Marketing and Recruitment Officer for the South East Wales Adoption Service (SEWAS).

This is her story…

I was a police officer for 17 years: I was a detective; it was a hard job. I dealt with a lot of hard things… I went into major crime, did a lot of child protection. I saw a lot of things. It wasn’t the environment that I could bring a child into my life, so I took early retirement from the police and started my journey into becoming a mum.

I always knew that adoption would be part of my journey. I thought I would have biological children then look to adopt later down the line. I was a single person anyway, so I always knew it was something I would do on my own.

I did IVF a number of times. On my sixth try I said “that is it, that’s me done, this clearly isn’t for me”, so it was time to look into adoption. It was always going to be a part of my journey.
I went in with these ideas of what I wanted. I wanted a baby. I’m sure a lot of adopters feel the same at the start. I thought “I’m a single parent so I can’t deal with XY and Z”, which was a really hard decision. It is really difficult having to put on a form what you can and can’t deal with – you feel a bit guilty. But I was single, I still needed to work.

It was during Covid when the assessments and training were happening. My social worker said to me that they were hosting an online session about “harder to place” children. I was like “no, that’s not for me”, but she convinced me to attend and I thought I would just sit in the background.

I listened to a couple of things. Then, suddenly, a video of this little girl came on the screen. She was three, nearly four at the time. She caught my attention and it was like something I can’t explain. There was just something in me that knew that she was my daughter.

I went from only wanting to consider a baby, to “no, that was it, she was mine”. It was the beginning of October 2021 when I first met her, and she came home later that month.

It’s been an absolute whirlwind; she is the most precious thing ever. It is five years now and she is just a crazy bundle of everything. But it hasn’t always been easy, and we have had plenty of our own ups and downs.
As a solo adopter, a big part of my worries was that I had no one to bounce off. My question was always “will I be enough?” Having someone to talk to, beyond my social worker (who I had an amazing relationship with), was therefore really important to me. That is why I buddy up with prospective adopters now, as well as to be that person they can come to and discuss their worries, to give that support to each other.
As an adopter you are understandably going to have wobbles; you are going to question everything. But just remember why you’re doing it and that you are enough for that child.

Even if you don’t have a large network of family or friends around you, reach out and build connections within the adoption community. The support is invaluable, because people there really do get it.