'I adopted a boy and then at Christmas, his sister'

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8xdwrg0074o

19 December 2025

Sarah is about to spend her third Christmas with her two adopted children

Anxious waits for arrivals are nothing new at Christmas as people track special deliveries.

But for one Shropshire woman, the package two years ago was more precious than something due in the post. It was the child she adopted - the sister of the boy she had made part of her family the year before.

"[We were] on tenterhooks as to whether she would be here for Christmas," remembered Sarah, 44.

She was not disappointed. In that December of 2023 she formally became a mum of two. Adopting siblings, she said, was "the best decision I ever made".

It was, then, the best of times and the busiest of times. Christmas, she recalled, "is carnage in the best possible way with small children".

And it was a journey to get there. It began when Sarah found out she would be unlikely to have a healthy pregnancy. Her story took a huge stride forward when she adopted her son in July 2022.

Sarah described how she had read the then 17-month-old's profile prior to adoption and "knew he was mine". She said she "got butterflies".

She then found out that her son's birth mother was pregnant, and decided to put herself forward as a potential parent for this new baby, should that be needed.

The girl, the half sister of Sarah's son, was born on Christmas Day 2022, and the family became a trio the following December.

They are about to celebrate their third Christmas together, but Sarah insists on trying to make "every day special".

She said: "If I see in a shop a toy or something that I think they'd like, I'll buy it, because it doesn't have to wait until one single day a year.

"Especially with adopted children, a lot of them have trauma in some way, shape or form.

"They can push you away because they feel unsafe. But if you can show them that you aren't going anywhere and you're there forever – if it means that once a month they get a treat – then so be it.

"And to be honest," she said, "as long as the children are happy and content and have got somewhere safe, especially at Christmas, that's what matters."