Vivienne has been a foster carer for eight years. An eight month old baby called Bill was placed with her, initially for just a week, but he ended up staying for nearly two years. In the meantime, in another part of the country, Carlos and his partner were talking about adopting. They had a bad experience with their first agency but changed to another and were approved. Browsing Linkmaker, they saw Bill's profile and hoped he might be the child for them. On this podcast, Vivienne and Carlos talk about how their paths met when Carlos adopted Bill.

Emily and Jude have completed their assessment process and have just seven days until panel. They're hoping to be approved as early permanence carers for a baby under a year old. Emily talks about how they decided on adoption and what they learnt as volunteers at New Family Social's Summer Camp (including mud pie recipes!). Emily talked about how she listened to other episodes of this podcast to help her decide whether she could cope with the uncertainty of early permanence.

Fay talks about adopting her two-year-old son after three rounds of IVF, including one miscarriage. She had heard about how much longer black children wait for adoptive families and felt that adoption would be the right way to parenthood for her. Family life has brought Fay and her wife so much happiness and she talks about the importance of play and the need for patience!

Monty and his husband were approved for Early Permanence and had a tiny baby placed with them. Just a couple of months later, they were asked if they'd adopt the baby's older sibling. Monty talks about delays in their assessment process, becoming a parent twice in less than six months, and how much joy their children have brought them.

Monty recommends this book: Undertaking an adoption assessment in England

Oliver returns to the podcast to talk about how he navigated the adoption process (including some ill-informed questions) as a bisexual man. He discusses his journey to positively identify as bisexual, and also brings us up-to-date on life with his four-year-old son.

Their previous podcast can be found here Episode 97

This episode of Adoption, Fostering and Tea was recorded live at our annual summer camp for LGBTQ adoption and fostering families, taking questions from our audience.

Robin and James were in their late 40s when they decided it was time to adopt. They talk about how they overcame the negative messages they'd received, as children, about gay people. They discuss their decision to adopt an older child, why they'd recommend this to others, and how they helped their son when he faced homophobic bullying.

Archie was diagnosed as autistic during the adoption assessment process. Tor and Archie talk about what it's like to learn you're autistic and the strengths it brings the as parents.