Information Session

This afternoon Aaron and I attended a public information session about adoption, held by the Dept. of Child Safety. They are running a series of these sessions around the state over the next twelve months while the register is open.

The girl who ran it (Michelle is her name) ran through a series of PowerPoint slides that gave the same information from the application pack and website. But it was still good to go to. There weren't many other couples there, perhaps six. We were clearly the youngest.

We spoke with Michelle afterwards for a little while, which was so reassuring. I was concerned that because I am still 18months off being eligible for adoption from China that the dept might not want to process my application until then. I was so pleased to hear that we could put our application in as soon as we want because we are fully eligible under the Qld conditions to apply, and that by the time they get to sending our file to China that I would be 30 (and if not they would just hold our file until that time). This is exactly what we were hoping to hear!

Aaron said he experienced waves of emotion during the session. He described it as a mixture between scared and excited - because something that we've talked about for so long was suddently 'here' and happening, not just something we were going to do 'one day'. It didn't affect me like that, but Aaron reminded me that the 'realness' had hit me when we had our first correspondence back from the dept, and I was full of joy and bouncing around the house, wondering why Aaron wasn't excited. He said at that stage it still wasn't real yet for him... but it seems it is now!

Michelle told us that she visited China in May this year and went to the agency they deal with for adoptions. She said she walked into a room that was floor to ceiling and wall to wall of files from all over the world - people applying for adopting a baby from China. Queensland doesn't have a yearly quota from China (unlike other countries), and they said they want more Queensland couples! It seems from that statement that the hold up is at this end - maybe more workers or faster processes would help.

I feel like I'm pregnant - the same sort of joy that I believe a couple would experience when they find out they are expecting a child. The only difference will be that we won't have a baby in 9 months... it's going to be a much longer gestation period!