Appointment debrief

The appointment with Adoption Services went well this arvo. It was just a general, informal kind of chat. We addressed a few things and it gave us some food for thought as in things to think about such as whether we'd want to adopt a child from another culture (within New Zealand) and what age group we want to adopt. Most children adopted in New Zealand are just a few weeks old but the guy said today some are older, even up to the age of twenty. We established today that we'd only adopt a child younger than our daughter since she is our "first-born". By the time the paperwork goes through our daughter will be four years old, so a child under three would be fine with us. We can also choose what part of New Zealand we'd like to adopt from - just locally, the South Island only or the whole country. We thought we'd say the whole of NZ to increase our chances of being picked. (hopefully).

We talked a bit about open adoption and what that means - essentially establishing a relationship with the birth family that involves keeping in touch as often as is comfortable between parties - kind of like a relationship with the in-laws the guy said.

What comes next is emailing adoption services to say we want to proceed with things. Apart from me establishing that I have no criminal record in Canada (because I lived there for over 12 months and it apparently takes a while to go through the system) we can't actually do anything until next year until the Information Sessions start which are group sessions with other potential adoptive parents that go into more depth about adoption. This might not be til March '09. (until there are enough numbers).

After that we can fill out an application form which includes police and medical checks and two references from a family member and a friend. Next there is the Education and Preparation Programme to attend (if the application has been accepted) in which adoptive parents share their experiences as well issues to do with adopting. The next stage is writing a profile about ourselves to go into the waiting pool for birth parents to choose from.

The guy estimated the process will take six to nine months to get to the profile stage from the Information Sessions next March/April. So we have four or five months before we can really start the ball rolling. But the way I see it is it gives me time to heal from my SIF ordeal, time to sort out my hormonal imbalance and time to just be our family of three for a bit. I do trust God with this process and think our chances are good. It feels like there is a natural flow going on which is starkly different to the stagnant days of SIF.