'The best decision we have ever made': Yorkshire PR boss shares her family's emotional adoption journey

What has followed included many ups and downs and Lindsey is at pains to point out that every adoption story is unique and can often be very challenging. ​But she says of their experience: “This was the best decision we have ever made.”

Lindsey and Richard got married in 2008 and a month later she co-founded the Open Communications PR agency with business partner Emma Lupton. Lindsey and Richard, who has a son named Thomas from a previous relationship, began trying for a baby shortly after getting married.

She says she had always expected to be a mum, particularly having come from a big family in North Yorkshire where her dad was one of seven children and her mum one of eight. But Lindsey says she became convinced something was wrong and was referred to doctors who confirmed her instinct was correct.

"As we went through the process, they were identifying more and more problems – one of the most severe being my womb lining doesn’t thicken which basically means you can’t sustain a pregnancy.”

She says she juggled these private challenges with maintaining a brave face professionally.

"I would find out a treatment hadn’t worked while I was at a photoshoot or while I was out at a dinner. You have to call on every reserve you have not to run home and cry. It is so emotionally and physically draining.”

They eventually tried IVF in 2016 but after that did not work, a consultant advised them their existing 10 per cent chance of conception would only reduce further. The couple decided to stop trying and began to consider adoption, attending an initial information meeting in 2017 but finding they weren’t yet ready to go through the process.

A few months later, Lindsey discovered some unexpected news – she was pregnant. Knowing her medical situation, she urgently sought help as soon but to no avail.

"I knew I needed intervention to thicken my womb lining. I rang the same hospital unit I had been in for 10 years and they said ‘We can’t help you, you aren’t an outpatient any more so ring a midwife’. I was beside myself.

"After speaking to the midwife, about two days later I miscarried at my desk. Afterwards, I was in tears, in pain, I was lost.”

The following year the couple felt ready to consider adoption again as they were better prepared for what to expect.

To be able to adopt, the couple had to gain the approval of two panels – with the first assessing whether they were suitable to adopt and the second confirming they could now adopt a child.

But as they were preparing for their second panel after passing the first unanimously, Lindsey’s father died suddenly just seven weeks after he had retired.

"I was heartbroken as I was very close to my dad and felt life was never going to be the same again. We were sent to our second panel a month later and they said we are placing up on a hold because your dad has died and emotionally we don’t think you are stable enough to proceed. I was furious but in hindsight it was exactly the right thing to do.”

After a three-month wait, the hold was lifted and they were matched with a six-month-old Alexander. Lindsey says as soon as they met Alex, “we fell in love with this little boy immediately and started the process”.

After a three-month handover process from the foster family, Alexander came home – with his arrival almost immediately coinciding with the first Covid lockdown.

"We got the chance to bond with Alex in a very unique situation. We were very fortunate he settled very quickly.”

Lindsey admits it wasn’t entirely smooth sailing as she questioned how long she felt it was taking to fully bond with her new son.

"I really struggled because my entire life I have wanted my own baby and wanted to be a birth mum. When Alexander came home I struggled with feeling like I thought I should feel. What I didn’t give us credit for was it will take time.

"I was terrified someone was going to take him away and you create an unnecessary distance as a protection mechanism. We were so scared after everything we had been through that something would happen. But it just came over time.

"Every time he reached a milestone, like starting to talk, it would build the bond.”

She hopes the narrative around adopted children can change. "Alex is not my birth child but he is our son. I find it incredibly frustrating when people say, ‘Isn’t he lucky?’ It is the wrong narrative entirely.

"He isn’t a lucky boy, he wasn’t a lucky boy to be in the care system in the first place. He isn’t fortunate to have a family that loves him. We are a fortunate family that we were matched so well that we can be the family we are and have so fun and so much love between us.

"I think better education about the truth of adoption would mean more children were adopted more quickly and people choosing to adopt themselves more quickly.

"We went through 10 years of torture and for what? It was costly, it was mentally and physically exhausting and a challenge every day. If we had known the truth about adoption earlier on, I don’t think we would have gone down the route we did for so long.”

She adds: "What makes a family is your love for each other and respect for one another.

"We have always told him he is adopted and don’t hide that from him. This year was the first year we celebrated the day he came home. So we got chocolate cake and explained that it was the anniversary of when he came home and we became a family. He just wanted the cake and couldn’t have given two hoots! It was one of those moments where you just think, we are still learning.

"Once you adopt you have to be mindful there will be challenges you would never have to accepted in a different situation. But there are challenges for every family.

"Adoption was our last chance. We aren’t philanthropists, we were desperate.

"Finding out you can’t have children is defining. It is a huge part of my identity. I have chosen to own it and make it public.

"People need to, if they are able, be more open. There is a lot of guilt and shame that comes with being infertile. It is really tough.

"When you go for adoption training, you are in a room with strangers but I had never been in a situation where you are surrounded by people who have been through the same trauma as us. It was brilliant in a way; eye-opening and it just felt like we had opened the doors to a community I didn’t know had existed.

"It just felt really cathartic. The adoption process itself can be a really positive one.

"But it can also be a difficult process to go through. The process can be very open-ended.

"My message to anyone considering adoption would be to look for the positives as much as the negatives.

"Every day, Alexander will do something that has us roaring with laughter. He is just this little character who is his own person. If you are a parent or guardian, your responsibility is to help guide and nurture them to become the best version of themselves they want to be.”