Babysitting duty

I am on babysitting duty tonight for my two beautiful nephews. William is nearly three, and Kevin is four months old. Murray and his sister go to the football together every fortnight and his sisters husband is away at the moment so I got the pleasure of the little guys' company for the evening.

We played with cars, cooked dinner together, watched some football and then had milk and off to bed. Little Kevin has been napping with two bottles drunk around his naps. I swear there is something beautiful about feeding a baby. Kevin was looking in my eyes, drinking his bottle and snuggled up next to me. It's peaceful and so loving. I hope I get to do a lot of that with our child.

We have been focusing all our attention on adoption for the last year or so, but over the past two weeks, I've been thinking about the possibility of seeing my fertility specialist. It's just an idea at this stage, to investigate what donor sperm is currently available at our clinic, and consider the possibility of perhaps doing a cycle of donor insemination.

I sought counsel from some friends, because I feel unfaithful for even considering the idea. I don't want people to think that adoption is my second choice, or a 'backup' because its not. I'm committed to it and I would love to parent a child that we adopted. However does that mean I should just so and wait and not consider fertility treatment any further. At last count there were 46 couples in the approved adoption pool. Even at an above average number of 8 children placed per year, that's potentially a 6 year wait- if we be replaced at all!

We don't have the money to consider IVF unless the public program starts up again, which is likely to be at lest twelve months away. But donor IUI works out to around $700 out of pocket per attempt once we reach the Medicare safety net which is definitely doable. Our previous know donor doesn't have any frozen sperm left which would mean fresh samples, and to be honest, I don't want to have to ask anyone for anything. The idea of using the donated sperm that is already at the clinic appeals to me at the minute, where we just select it, and don't have to think about the logistics of anything.

We have sent an email to the clinic donor coordinator just to see what the donor list is looking like, and from there we will consider our options. There isn't much point pursuing something that isn't available, so once we have all of the information available to us, we can make a decision.

We shall see...

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Winner winner, chicken dinner!

Murray and I have extraordinary good luck when it comes to competitions. I received an email today to say that I won a facebook competition I entered on a whim a couple of weeks ago. The prize is two tickets to see Jason Derulo in concert, as well as a pair of Monster DNA headphones! I am super excited as I wanted to go to the concert but have been trying to save money for some renovations around the house, so was very pleased to get the email!

Over the years we have had lots of luck on our side. Here are just some of the competitions we have won:

• Trip to Sydney to judge the NBL All Star Slam Dunk Competition (Foxtel competition)
• Murray came 4th in an Rugby League tipping competition and won $6000!
• Last year I won movie tickets to our local cinema for a year for tipping all the Oscar winners correctly - 2 free tickets each week for a year!
• Tickets to the Rugby Union game between the Western Force and Waratah's this past weekend (competition at a pub, put your name in the barrel each time you buy a drink)
• VIP Box tickets to the Wildcats game a few weeks back (RAC twitter competition)
• A beautiful framed one-off print by Rebecca Wetzler through a City of Perth / Instagram competition
• Murray is a bit of a tipster with the horses and his local betting agency ran a local comp to tip all of the placegetters at Ascot Racecourse which Murray tipped perfectly twice - around $2000 each time!
• Murray has also been on a couple of radio competitions and won CD's and cash
• I won a couple of crafting competitions which snagged me some pretty fabric and patterns when I first started quilting.

So we have definitely been lucky!

Wedding weekend

Murray and I attended a beautiful wedding on the weekend, which was perfect for getting some new photos of the two of us. I hired a dress from a friend who has started a designer dress hire business, and it was sooooo amazing! Something I could never have afforded to buy for myself, but was pretty and made me feel great - I will definitely be doing that again!

#Selfie!

Murray with his parents and sister

The back of this amazing dress

Absolutely adore the colours on this. It is a Ginger & Smart dress

Murray and I together outside the church

More selfies

I had my hair curled for the day and I loved it! Will definitely have to try this at home

An update from the adoption agency

I rang the adoption agency this week to have a chat and see what was happening. We have been in the approved pool for four months, and we know that it could take a long time, but I want to try and keep in contact with them so that I have an idea of what is going on. 

Our adoption officer was really lovely – he is the same guy who gave me the good news that we were approved which is nice. As usual, he reminded me that it is an unpredictable thing, but that they have been very busy this year, busier than they have been in the three years he has worked there.  He said there is the potential for 6 or 7 placings to happen in the next 6-8 months, which is a lot compared to 6 placings last financial year, and only 3 the year before that! Two children were brought into pre-adoptive care in the last week and a half alone, although of course some of those will choose to parent and not proceed with adoption. 

Our adoption officer gave as an anecdote of someone who was approved around the same time as use and was matched only 6 weeks later, so he said things can move quite fast. Something very exciting was that he said at the last matching, we were in the last seven or eight couples that were discussed. Eventually we weren't put forward for that child, but it still gives me a lot to be excited about that we are on some of the shortlists. 

As of April, there are 46 approved applicants/couples in the prospective parents pool, and only 6 in the special needs pool (including us). The officer said that "we have a lot going fo rus" as we are in the right age bracket, and that if our name has come up once in the short-listing process, there is a good chance that it will come regularly. The officer is happy for me to call every few months to check in and gauge the numbers, although they aren't allowed to tell us if our profile has been presented to birth parents unless of course we are chosen. I imagine it is too emotional a process if you get that much information.

All in all, I think it was good for me to get some extra information, just to keep my hopes and energy levels up.