‘We both knew she was right for our family. It was just a sense that she fitted’

RACHEL, 38, and her husband Gary, 40, already had two older teenage sons by birth when they made the decision to adopt.

Rachel said her pregnancies had presented difficulties so deciding to adopt came quite easily.

“Me and my husband had quite off-handed conversations about having a third child,” Rachel said.

“I hadn’t experienced the best pregnancies previously and I had miscarried twice as well.

“I was really badly sick. I had a really bad birth with my first child and I didn’t want to risk anything as well.”

Daisy, whose name has also been changed, came home to Rachel and Gary shortly before Christmas when she was about 20 months old.

Now seven, Rachel said Daisy “was always meant for us”.

“We knew that from day one,”

Rachel said. “We had the chance to meet her actually before we even decided we were going to go down the route of adoption with her.

“From that moment we both knew she was right for our family. It was just a sense that she fitted. She needed to be with us.”

Rachel said the family openly addresses Daisy’s adoption story with her and have done since she was very young.

“We have to drip feed information throughout the years so she knows about her birth family,” she said.

“She has got what is called a life story book. It’s got pictures of her birth family and then it goes on to her foster carers and us.

“It’s her book and she can look at it whenever she wants. I point to it and say that’s your tummy mummy. In all honesty I don’t think she really understands fully yet.”

Rachel said her sons also bonded with Daisy very quickly and are now very attached.

“Everything has always felt very natural with her,” Rachel said.

“They’ve taken her as their complete sister from the absolute moment they first saw her.

“My 13-year-old boy is overprotective actually. They argue like brothers and sisters do. My oldest is very good and does homework with her.

“They have been the same as us and just taken her from day as you would bringing a baby home from hospital.”

The National Adoption Service said they are working within UK and Welsh Government and Public Health Wales guidelines to continue to provide as many services as possible during the Covid-19 pandemic.