Next Christmas

I wrote this for our darling child in 2005, at a time when I thought that by Chrismtas 2006 we would have him/her home. How wrong I was.

It is with a hopeful heart that I put this out there for him/her again this Christmas....how I pray that NEXT Christmas our dreams have come true.

Next Christmas
Next Christmas
There’ll be more gifts to buy,
More excitement,
More celebrations.

Next Christmas
The house will be a little more full,
A little less clean,
A lot more bright.

Next Christmas
Our laughter will be louder,
Our smiles wider,
Our joy deeper.

Next Christmas
We will cuddle you tight,
Stroke your black hair,
And shower you with love.

This Christmas
Hopeful eyes will look at the moon,
And dream of you,
And of having you home
Next Christmas.

Merry Christmas Bug

We love you darling. We hope that you are safe and warm today, and that your nannies find it in their hearts to give you a cuddle today. We hope that you have food in your tummy, and someone to give you a smile. You are always in our hearts and on our minds. Today will be spent dreaming of you, as always.

Mama and Baba xxxx

China Adoption - the inportant steps

We thought it might be interesting to some of you to know how the whole China adoption thing works...what the steps are, and where we are in the process. Perhaps that will make it more interesting as we get closer to "A Day" (allocation day). This post will be long (but then so is the whole process!!), but stick with me....

Firstly, we needed to go through our Government process, which works like this:

1. Submit initial application (it took us over 3 years to be able to do this because initially we had not been married long enough, and then once we HAD been married long enough they had stopped accepting applications!).
2. Establish your eligibility (medicals, references, police checks, financial checks etc)
3. Attend education days (2 full days of education about adoption and adoption-related issues)
4. Completle post-education "homework" and a life story book for your child. Our post-education "homework" was hughe (it has since been cut down). In total, our homework weighed 1.5kgs...all of this weight being stuff we had had to write!
5. Undergo assessment by an adoption contract worker. For us, this meant 5x3 hour visits over 3 months. It was painful...at first we were nervous but after a few hours we just became exasperated by how long our contact worker was taking. She no longer conducts assessments (Hmmm, wonder why?)
6. Adoption Contract worker writes a report which is then reviewed by the adoption department, and goes to an adoption panel (well, it used to - apparently this has changed now).
7. The adoption department then notify you of your approval to adopt.
8. Wait until 5 other couples are also approved to adopt from China, and then get placed in a "batch" with them
9. All "batch" members then prepare the paperwork, certified copies of documents, medicals, letters, financials, fingerprints etc for China
10. Once everyone submits all their paperwork, dossiers are then translated, authenticated, notorised and courierd to China

This then marks the end of the Australian part of the process, and the beginning of the Chinese part of the process. We attempted to begin this process in later 2001, but could not continue because we had been married for only a few months (you have to be married for 2 years according to our government's rules...other states have different rules). We then attempted to start the process again on the day of our second wedding anniversary...but by this stage the government had closed the books and were not accepting any more applications for an indefinate period of time.

Finally, in late September 2004 the government decided to accept adoption applications for 8 weeks only. We submitted our application on November 3rd, 2004. Our dossier was then sent to China on the 28th February, 2006. We were lucky - ours was a fast processing through the system - due in no small part to us being on the phone to the department every week!!

Coming soon....the China process :-)

T and P xx

December 2008

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family. We hope that this Christmas is filled with love and joy for all of you.

Welcome to our blog for those who are visiting for the first time! As you will see, it has been a veeeery long time since we updated it....all the best intentions and all that, but the reality of busy lives and increasing wait times for China adoptions has meant that this blog hasn't been a priority at all! As we come closer to news of our little Bug, however, we will aim to keep everyone updated!!

In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas - try not to stress too much - and enjoy your families and friends.

Love,
T and P xxx

And all of a sudden....it's February

Wow. February....2007 - already!

November, December and January passed in a blur for us...in fact some days our heads are still spinning from all the changes and events of the last couple of months.



Let's go back a bit though....to 2 fabulous weeks in Thailand. The resort and the holiday were everything we had hoped for. It really was the most relaxing holiday we have ever had...and we've had some pretty good holidays in the past! Having 12 nights in the one place meant that we could really relax and unwind...before the inevitable winding back up started. Pictured left is the pool at Twinpalms...the photo does not do it justice really. Oh how I wish we were there now :-)


Well, as relaxing and awesome as the holiday was, the effect wore off pretty quickly after our return to Moontown. The Moon Mansion was ready to be handed over the week after we arrived home...so it was all hands on deck to pack up the rental place, get handover of Chez Moon, organise removalists, cleaners, pest controllers, carpet layers etc etc etc in time for our planned move date 6 days before Christmas!! Yep...6 days before Christmas.

Oh...and I should add that during this period (now referred to as the two weeks from hell), T also started a new job and "celebrated" turning 34.

Looking back, it's amazing we survived.

Fast forward to Christmas...or "alleged Christmas" as we called it this year. Ever since we have been married, Christmas has been a difficult time. For the past 6 years we have spent part of Christmas thinking about how wonderful it would be to have a child to share the festive season with. For the past 4 years or so we have been SURE that "next Christmas" would be the one.

So far...no luck. Needless to say we weren't feeling that cheery for most of the day :-(

Maybe next year we will have our little Bug to celebrate with?

Two days after Christmas, P's brother and his finace arrived from the UK to stay for a few days on their way to Perth. It was lovely to see them - I just love having P's brother around 'cause it's like having two of P around - they are very similar boys!

January came and went in a blur of work, getting house stuff organised and constantly scanning the adoption boards for rumours of a speedup. So far, no luck!!

Chez Moon continues to develop its magnificence - we have some new furniture which is infinately more comfortable than sitting on the floor...and by the end of March we have grand plans of getting actual grass outside - can you imagine?!