Holly Marlow

Adoption, Fostering and Special Guardianship

The Hill

Some days, I feel like I’m watching my child driving a go-kart, coasting down a hill that gets steeper as the day goes on. It often looks like they have their vehicle under control, but they’re going so fast, one bump or wrong turn could make the wheels fall off. One misjudgment could end in […]

Read More »

Summer is Coming

Summer is coming, and those posts are back again… the ones saying “we only have 18 summers with our kids. Cherish every moment.” Ugh. Yes, life seems to fly by sometimes, but let’s not put any more pressure on parents and carers to make every moment of the summer holidays magical. Firstly, I adopted my […]

Read More »

“What would you do if a wolf tried to eat me?”

I used to think my son had a lot of fears. He asks “what would you do if…?” followed by a terrifying scenario. With time, I’ve realised he’s not actually afraid these things will happen. He just wants to hear how I would protect him. It’s a test for me, Mum #3. The Mum who […]

Read More »

Meeting Birth Family

I met Jake’s birth Mum recently. Have been processing things for a while before posting about it. It went really well. The conversation just flowed. We both enjoy talking about how amazing Jake is. ❤️ We shared a lot of anecdotes, and I gained a wealth of information that will benefit Jake. It’s great that […]

Read More »

Approval Panel: A License To Parent

I was absurdly nervous about the Approval Panel, although we had been told that it was a sure thing, because the adoption agency policy was to only take adopters to panel when they are highly confident that they will be approved. It was brilliantly managed, though. When we arrived, we were taken into a small […]

Read More »

“But don’t you want one of your own?”

When we talked about our plans to adopt, people often asked a lot of questions. The most common were along the lines of “don’t you want a baby of your own?” “Are you sure you can love another child like you love your daughter?” I always found that quite curious. I’m not biologically-related to my […]

Read More »

Signing Up

A few days after my daughter’s 1st birthday, my husband and I went to an adoption information event, to find out more about how to adopt a child. We were the only prospective adopters there, so ended up moving to a little office where we sat on arm chairs and spoke to a social worker. […]

Read More »

How it all began

I’ve always found the idea of adoption intriguing. At 17, I had an adventure in Africa with a group of friends and a teacher from school. We went on safari, spent some time climbing mountains, and then built some play equipment for the Light in Africa orphanage. When we weren’t building the play equipment, we […]

Read More »