Children in care are desperate for homes, yet I couldn't adopt because I didn't already look after kids

It felt like we were hearing excuses to cross us off a long list of hopefuls waiting to adopt, yet there are twice as many children waiting for adoption as families willing to care for them

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“I’m sorry, but you don’t have enough childcare experience to adopt”. I couldn’t breathe, my head spun and a knot in my stomach twisted until I retched. In one short sentence, a social worker had vaporised the most cherished dream my husband and I shared – to become parents.

The phone call came while I was at work, and I had crept into a quiet corridor of the office to answer it. I wanted to curl up into a ball on the worn carpet and die along with the part of me that had wanted to start a family since I was four years old.

It was in that moment – when the impossible made possible was now impossible again – that it dawned on me how much I actually wanted to be called "daddy". How much I wanted to hold a son or daughter in my arms, to gently rock our miracle baby to sleep, to kiss that soft wrinkled forehead and hum a nursery rhyme in its tiny, perfect ear. How much I wanted to be the proud father, holding my child’s delicate hand as we stroll to the corner shop, our toddler skipping beside me to keep up and me smiling down in adoration.

That wasn’t going to happen now. Our application to become adoptive parents had been rejected; we were alone again.

When I came out as gay at 21, I had carefully buried plans of parenthood somewhere deep inside me. Why aspire to become something the world has told you will be forever out of reach? Then everything changed. Same-sex marriage became a reality and gay people were allowed to adopt

My partner and I had been happily together for more than 10 years when we decided to try to become adoptive parents ourselves. We lived a stable life in a two-bedroom flat which we owned, and we felt more than ready to start a loving family. We had spoken to other gay parents who had been through the lengthy process of adoption and so we were aware of the challenges ahead. We knew many children had suffered abuse and neglect; we understood that some had learning difficulties and behavioural problems. But our hearts were open to loving any child who was placed with us, no matter what their past life.

During a two-hour home visit, the two social workers assigned to our case grilled us about why we wanted to be parents, delved into our family histories and probed us on our relationship. I explained how my brother was adopted, how he has a successful career and is happily married with two children of his own. I suggested he might be a good role model for our child. My husband recounted his own upbringing in Vietnam, recalling how after the war he was separated from his parents who passed away while fleeing the country. He then emigrated to Australia as a child with his grandparents. They treated him as their own son and provided a loving home. The experience taught him the importance of kindness and empathy for other adopted children.

Surely all this valuable experience would be stand in our favour? Not in the slightest.

Every positive story we told of our lives was turned against us. During that terrible phone call, the social worker insisted I didn’t understand my brother’s trauma at being adopted. My husband in turn apparently hadn’t come to terms with his own tumultuous childhood.

But the real sticking point? We didn’t have any experience looking after children. Volunteer at a nursery, she suggested. Read a book, she urged. It sounded like a ludicrous reason to turn us down. After all, most new parents have had little or no experience raising children. That doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t.

It felt like excuses to cross us off a long list of hopefuls waiting to adopt. After all, we had been told at a local authority information evening that adoptive parents outnumbered children two to one. As I came to terms with the decision, I accept that give the numbers we really didn’t stand much of a chance.

So I was shocked and angry to discover, this week, that the opposite is true: there are in fact twice as many children as parents to adopt. How could it be? We were applying in London, so perhaps the national statistics are not reflective of the capital’s situation. However, the message from the adoption services at the time was loud and clear. If you want to adopt a child, you better get in line.

We were told over and over again how long and difficult the process will be, how we will be required to write an autobiography about our lives, listing every single trauma we experienced in detail. Then we were reminded of the types of children put up for adoption: babies born with brain damage as a result of their mother’s drug addiction, or children simply neglected and abused. It is vital that prospective parents know the facts and what to expect should they choose this option, but there was so little emphasis on the positive. What joy and fulfilment will adopting a child bring? How will it change your life and the child’s for the better?

Perhaps they were trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. Find out who was really serious about the challenges of adopting. But I can’t help feeling that in the process they were scaring away some potentially fantastic parents who could provide a loving home for a child in need.

Yes, parents should be educated about the challenges ahead but not so terrified by the mountain they will have to climb that never make it past base camp. Support and encouragement is what's needed to see more children in care moved safely into loving, adoptive homes, not scare tactics.

Perhaps we were somewhat naive about the demands of raising an adopted child, but what I regret is that we were never given the chance to rise to that challenge. Snap judgements made based on very little evidence ended our adoption journey before it had really begun.

Of course we could reapply after six months, but the experience had left us bruised and wounded. We couldn’t face another round. Adoption wasn’t going to be our path to parenthood, after all.

Together, my husband and I picked ourselves up and searched for other avenues. Now, three years later, we have two beautiful children through surrogacy – a three year old girl and a one year old boy. I’ve rocked them to sleep, wiped the tears and their bottoms, and held their hands down the street like I always dreamed I would. Through the rough and the smooth, I’ve never looked back.