Christmas Holiday

I am starting to get excited that Christmas is right around the corner! This year we are having a different sort of Christmas, and heading overseas for a spontaneous Asian holiday! A new airline has just started flying to Perth, and we managed to get very cheap flights to Singapore a month or so back, so we are going to be spending eight nights over the holidays in Singapore and Indonesia.

We fly to Singapore this coming Saturday, and then catch a ferry across to Batam Island, an Indonesian island that is only 45 minutes away.

We will spend Christmas Day there, and then ferry back to Singapore on Boxing Day for a few days of sightseeing! We have already booked tickets to go to the famous Singapore Zoo and go on the Singapore Flyer, as well as a hop-on, hop-off bus and river cruise. I'm looking forward to playing the tourist!

This will be our last holiday for quite some time, as we want to spend next year focusing on saving money for when we are placed with a child, so we are taking this opportunity with both hands.

Public IVF clinic - an updated

Just spotted this article which talks about the dramas we have had recently with the public IVF waiting list. Frustrating, but at least for us it is not the end of the world. I feel for those people whose lives are now being placed on hold, where this is there only option.

WA's only publicly funded fertility clinic at King Edward Memorial Hospital has stopped referring patients for in-vitro fertilisation, amid claims of cost cutting.

The hospital says it has not referred any patients for IVF since July because it is tendering for a new contract with a private clinic, but doctors say it is more about saving money.

A spokeswoman said KEMH had an arrangement with a private provider to offer IVF treatment to public patients who met the hospital's referral criteria. "This arrangement now requires renewal to ensure the ongoing quality and sustainability of the service and KEMH is now in the process of determining an appropriate provider to continue providing these services," she said. "During this process, the Reproductive Medicine Clinic at KEMH is temporarily unable to refer women and couples for publicly funded IVF in the community."

The spokeswoman said couples attending the clinic would be sent letters explaining the process and would remain on KEMH's waiting list.

The hospital would tell patients, via their GPs, as soon as new arrangements were in place.

"The Reproductive Medicine Clinic continues to provide advice to and assessment of couples with fertility issues and, where appropriate, clinical intervention," she said.

To access publicly funded IVF services at KEMH, women and couples have to meet conditions about age, weight, number of previous children and the type of fertility treatment needed.

Australian Medical Association WA vice-president Michael Gannon said it was worrying that IVF had not been available in the public system for almost six months. "It has implications for the training of obstetricians but it also means infertile couples are waiting longer," he said.

Dr Gannon said there were wider concerns about plans to close down the KEMH clinic.

Source: The West Australian online

Preparing the nursery

I am planning this nursery to the gazillionth degree and am loving it!

My first decision to make was colour. The room was already painted a pale lime green (oxymoron I know!) from when we first painted it as a nursery when we bought the house 7 years ago. I thought that I was sick of it and wanted a fresh start, so tried some sample pots on the walls. Turns out I still love the green and hate the sample pot colours! Rather than repainting the wall that I painted the samples onto, we have decided to wallpaper two of the bedroom walls instead.

So that sent me down the rabbit hole of what theme did I want and what wallpaper we should get.  After lots of to and fro-ing, we decided on this gorgeous tree print!

So our nursery colours are green, white and cream, and the overall theme is trees and birds.

Then in a kids store, I came across this gorgeous Cocoon Couture Early Bird hook that you can hang things from. It was on sale - bargain!

Now I want the matching book ends, but unfortunately they will have to wait - this little birdy needs to watch the pennies and spread out the fun of setting everything up!

Some more things on my nursery wish list:

 

 

 

Skip Hop Treetop Friends bedding set

These gorgeous storage bins from JungleJackNursery on Etsy

Another Etsy choice - the Forest baby mobile from LovelySymphony

Now to get out my sewing machine and start working on a baby quilt!

Our adoption profile - a pic!

I realised that although I have mentioned what we had to include in our adoption profile, I didn't pop a copy up - let me remedy that now! It's not something to distribute hence it's just a photo, but we got to choose lots of pictures of us and our families and tried to make it personal for the potential birth parents to get a feel for who we are.

Hypothetical Future Baby

I've been reading this fabulous book I picked up from Book Depository, and some of the writing is like it came straight from my head. The book is called Hypothetical Future Baby by Claudia Chapman

It's one of the few books where I have dog-eared pages to go back and re-read because they resonated with me so strongly. I've included a couple of lines, but I highly recommend reading it if you are interested in learning more about the topic.

On adoption after infertility:

This couldn't be any less like having a baby the usual way.... I know it's a very specific, Western, middle-class experience of pregnancy that I am craving... I have been surprised by how much it hurts not to be part of the collective female experience of giving birth to the next generation. p48

On adoption not being a replacement for doing things 'the normal way':

I feel intense joy about the family that we are going to have, but I still find myself mourning the losses of what we won't have too, what we won't be, what I can't do. I expect our child will feel the same. However joyful our lives are together, he should never have had to feel the loss of one set of parents before gaining a second. p49

My Mum recently said to me that she was worried about how I am going to cope when we have a baby after we have built up all of these expectations. The book expands on that:

...the fact that I will  have waited so long for this child, and I really hope he or she will change my life for the better, but the consensus seems to be that parenthood involves a lot of hard work and sleepless nights and is not just about cashmere blankets and sunny days... At the moment I just can't reconcile that knowledge with my intense longing to finally meet my child, and the heartache that I don't even know when that will be. p89

The problem with adopting is that the process is so awful, you convince yourself the end must be really amazing to make up for it. But then when you get there, I suppose that parenting is just going to be really ordinary.  p119

So much of what Claudia wrote was on the mark, even though her experience was inter-country adoption from the UK. It's always helpfulto read others experiences and help me to plan and work out how we can be the best parents possible to our own 'hypothetical future baby'.

Preparing a place for our child

So we are jumping in, not foolishly or without thought, but because we want to be faithful to the plan and put it out to the world. We are adopting our son or daughter. We are preparing a place for them to be part of our lives and our family.

Part of preparing for this child, is physically creating a space for them - setting up the nursery. As a step of faith, we are preparing the nursery. Part of this is for practicality's sake. We will only have a weeks notice when we are placed with a child, and we will be running around like headless chickens during that time! We certainly wont have time to paint and decorate a nursery in that time.

Part of it is selfishness. I know that there are a lot of things that we are going to miss out on having an adopted child rather than giving birth to a biological child. There are no photos going home from the hospital, no 0000 baby outfits, no baby shower to celebrate my womanhood and future child, no ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby. The loss of pregnancy, birth and all that brings in today's world, isn't insurmountable, but I will miss it. But preparing the nursery - that is something I can do. I might not know the age of our child, or whether it is a boy or a girl, but our child will have a place that was prepared with love and care for them to rest their head. I can do that.

A time to wait

It's been a huge six weeks for us. Even now writing about this feels somewhat unreal. After some back and forth over the perfect words to adequately convey how we would raise an adopted child, our profile is complete and is 'in the mix' as our adoption coordinator described it.

In the mix. As in, the phone call could come next month, or July, or the following year. We know how this game goes, we have had lots of practice at patience and humility. But we also have this confidence, this feeling. It will happen. God has set us on this path and this is it for us. So we are jumping in, not foolishly or without thought, but because we want to be faithful to the plan and put it out to the world. We are adopting our son or daughter. We are preparing a place for them to be part of our lives and our family.

The thought that our baby boy or girl is possibly being born right now fills me with intense love, longing and hope. I am praying for the birth parents who are making very difficult choices right now, and a child who is losing their first family, the only parents they have ever known. I am thinking of the grandparents and extended family who are also saying goodbye to this child. While it may be the best decision for them and the child, this is never easy.

There is no easy in adoption. The process is built on a first profound loss experienced by birth parent and child. That is not my story, but it is something that I constantly remind myself about. For as much as that phone call is going to be the most exciting day of our life, it will be the culmination of something much more difficult for someone else.

So now comes my burden. It is my time to wait. I've been waiting a long time already - 7.5 years of trying to conceive hasn't been easy. But if that is my burden, then I will gladly take it. It is worthwhile because I know I will be a mother. . I am not a patient person, but for this I need to be. So wait with me please. I need hands to hold and people to keep me excited and on the right path.

Preparing our adoption profile - the excitement continues!!!

This morning's meeting with adoption services was very exciting for the two of us. We had completed our two worksheets on open adoption planning and what special needs we would consider taking in, but we didn't really know all that much about what we would be discussing at the meeting. It ended up being mainly about preparing our adoption profile, and an opportunity to ask some questions about the process from here on in.

So first, the adoption profile. Basically all approved applicants put together a 3-4 page document which is a way of showing birth parents who we are and the life we can give to a child placed with us. It's an opportunity to express our personality and parenting plans, and our commitment to a new family. We were given a draft profile to get an idea of the sort of things that we need to include. They are now also encouraging photos to be used in the profiles to get a feel for what we like to do eg playing sport, going on holidays, pictures of extended family etc.

The main things we need to cover in the adoption profile are:

• Introduction of who we are, what our house is like, our pets and why we are adopting
• Religion - what we believe and how that influences our lives
• Our personal details - cultural background, where we grew up, education and our jobs
• What we like doing together - sport, holidays, fun stuff
• Extended family - who else is in our life, family, friends etc
• Education - public/private school etc
• Childcare plans - Stay at home for first year, will you return to work part-time, who will look after the child when you work
• What we believe is important when raising a child - how will we discipline them, things that we hope to do with them
• Views on naming an adopted child - There is a very strong push to keep the first name of the child, but we can potentially add a middle name of our choice
• Wishes regarding the adoption plan - How often we want to have contact with the birth parents, what level of contact (letters/photos/face to face) etc

And we need to cram that into only 4 pages! The example given to us is just normal typed Times New Roman with nothing else, so of course I asked if I had to stick to that format (font nerd here!). Our coordinator is happy for us to make it as originally and pretty as we want as long as it sticks to the four pages, so I'm hoping to make use of some friends graphic design skills to make it the most awesome adoption profile ever!

After chatting about the profile, we got the chance to ask some adoption related questions. The first thing we wanted to know was how many other approved applicants are currently in the pool for local adoption. There are currently around 40 approved applicants, which is a big drop from the 100 or so that existed when we first started this process in 2009. In addition to that, there is a much smaller second pool of applicants who are approved for children with special needs which includes us. There are a grand total of 5 approved applicants! Last year three of the six children that were adopted were considered to have special needs, which meant that our profile would have been shown to each of those birth parents had we been in the pool at that time. Those are amazing odds!

So what does 'special needs' mean. Really it can mean any child who has anything other than completely normal needs. It could mean they are slower to develop (developmental delay) such as crawling and sitting up at a later time than considered normal. They might need regular medication. One of the 'special needs' cases recently was a blood disorder that required twice-yearly visits for blood checks at hospital. That's it! Then at the other end of the spectrum there are children born with down syndrome, missing limbs, or significant intellectual disabilities. We have ruled ourselves out of a number of the higher care needs scenarios but there are still some significant care needs that we believe that we can cope with and provide great care for our child. With 6 children placed last year, that extrapolates out to 60% chance of a child with special needs within 12 months, or 8% of a normal care needs child within 12 months! Certainly better than our 'natural conception' odds!!!

We were told when we started the process that there were a segment of international students who place their children for adoption. The coordinator confirmed that this is still the case with some Indian, African and Asian children all placed locally from international students in the past few years. Often this is the result of pregnancy concealment or sometimes not being aware of the pregnancy until there were no other options available to them.

I also asked if many people change their minds and decide to parent themselves. Apparently up to half of the birth parents who initially start the process choose to parent the child themselves in the end. I'm kind of glad of that. It means that they are getting good advice and counseling, and not being pressured into anything.

Based on what our coordinator pointed out as important on the adoption profile, we also found out that the main thing that birth parents want is young parents. I am the youngest approved applicant in the pool at 27, and even Murray at 34 is on of the youngest, with a lot of applicants sitting at around 40 years old. That's really exciting for us, knowing that hopefully with a great profile showing who we are, along with people wanting younger adoptive parents, that we could really be in with a chance!!!

So once the profile is done, it could be any day now! Once we get the phone call to say that we have been chosen, we need to get into the agency office either that afternoon on the next day to start the adoption plan process. We will start the handover of care straight away with visits to the foster carers house, before slowly having longer visits at our house, and within two weeks, taking over full time care of the child. We are recommended to have an action plan ready to go with who will do what to help us get set up because of the quick turnaround. We are lucky that we have so much of the big stuff already such as a cot, pram, high chair etc thanks to friends and wishful thinking in our early IVF days. It's mainly the little things like clothes, blankets and setting up the nursery that will need to be done when the call comes through. That and of course finishing up at work!!!

So much to do - fertility treatment is just a dot in the background. We are focusing everything on this, and we really feel this is where we should be - just waiting for our son or daughter to arrive!

WA Public Fertility Clinic

We finally had our appointment at the Reproductive Medicine Clinic at KEMH this afternoon. They took a full history of all of our diagnosis's, previous treatment cycles, and current medical status. We met with a resident, then Dr Richard Muphy, and finally Prof Roger Hart, to talk about our treatment options.  They all think that we have a great chance of falling pregnant through fertility treatment with such significant weight loss.

The problem is that the hospital outsources its public IVF to Concept Fertility, and as of July they have suspended the program due to disagreement over costs. So essentially there is currently no publicly funded IVF program. The doctors are hoping that it should be resolved soon, but they initially thought it would only be for a few weeks and that has stretched out to four months at this point so I'm not holding my breath.

I asked about if we could do donor insemination in the meantime, and surprise surprise, the health department doesn't include DIUI under their public fertility services anymore. So really our options are just to keep trying naturally, however unlikely that is, and also to do every screening and diagnostic test under the sun to make sure nothing has been missed along the way. That means having a specialised 3D ultrasound to make sure that everything is perfect in my uterus and to monitor blood flow. I'm also getting tests done to check my blood clotting and insulin levels.

The one thing that they all agreed on is that I'm a different person now physically to what I was when we went through all of our other treatment cycles, and that we need to treat any fertility treatment from now on as a fresh start. Everything we have done in the past, while important, isn't nearly as relevant because it was essentially done on a different person.

The news about not doing IVF straight away isn't as devastating as it potentially could have been, thanks to a very positive adoption meeting that we had this morning. More coming on that very soon!!!

The next steps - planning for placement

We are booked in to see the placement coordinator on November 11th to discuss what our preferences are for placement. We have been emailed two forms to read over before the meeting to help us decide what will and wont work for us in a placement.

The first form is mainly about birth parents contact and adoption plans. How often do we want contact, what type of contact (email/phone etc), and what would be no-go's for us e.g. violence, partner in jail etc. This is something I've thought a bit about and we feel relatively comfortable that we could provide an open adoption with a reasonable amount of contact as long as it was safe for our child. We would also be happy to provide extended birth family members with contact with our child, once again on the proviso that it is a safe environment.

The second form we received is a little trickier for us to work through. As we have been approved for moderate special needs, we need to complete a checklist of different health issues that we will and wont be prepared to work with. This includes the parents alcohol/drug history while pregnant, through to intellectual and physical disabilities the child might have.

At this point, we sat down separately to do our lists so that we wouldn't influence each other. Our lists for the most part were very similar, although mine was slightly more inclusive whereas Murray made some strong arguments on some of the health conditions that I hadn't thought of.

It's terribly hard. A friend of mine recently had a baby with Down Syndrome, which was unknown prior to birth. I admire her for how she is handling everything, and I am hopeful that we would cope as well if we were to give birth to a child with DS, but if you had a choice, would you actively choose a child to parent with DS if you knew that in advance? Or Spinal Bifida, Muscular Dystrophy or Cerebral Palsy? Those are four of the conditions we have chosen not to be eligible for, however I doubt they would be considered 'moderate' special care needs anyhow.

Some of the things we have included in our special needs list include health conditions like Asthma, Albinism, physical birth defects eg missing a limb or cleft palate, hearing loss, global development delay, Hepatitis B Carrier, sleep apnoea, or at risk of childhood cancer.

We are lucky in the sense that if we adopt, this will be our only child, and we will be able to invest time and resources into getting our child the best assistance possible. Regardless of our child's health, we can't wait to be a part of it!

The legal side of things

52 . Prerequisites for CEO placing child for adoption
To place a child for adoption, we need to:
• Show that our marriage is stable
• recognises the value of, and need for, cultural and ethnic continuity for the child
• show a desire and ability to continue the child’s established cultural, ethnic, religious or educational arrangements
• can meet the wishes of the birth parents in relation to the child’s upbringing and the preferred attributes of the adoptive family
(ADOPTION ACT 1994 - SECT 52)

Another really interesting section is schedule 2 of of the act:
• A significant feature of the infancy stage is that the child needs to be able to trust others to care for and nurture the child. The child has the right to be cared for and nurtured; and to develop attachment to the adoptive family without undue disruption by the birth parents.
• Before consenting to the child’s adoption, the child’s birth parents have the right to make an informed and unpressured decision about the child’s future. After consenting to the child’s adoption, the child’s birth parents have the right to negotiate as to the provision of information and the extent of any contact between the parties.
• There is no right to adopt a child. The adoptive or prospective adoptive parent with whom the child is placed with a view to the child’s adoption has the right to bond to the child.

If you are interested in how adoption in works in Western Australia, you can read the
Adoption Act 1994 which has all the details.

Approved

So we are approved. Basically that means we can become prospective adoptive parents for:

• One child or a sibling group of no more than two children
• A child or children up to 36 months (3years) of age
• A child or children with normal or moderate care needs
• A child or children born locally in Western Australia

So what does the normal and moderate care needs mean?

• An adopted child with normal care needs is defined as a child who requires a level of personal, emotional and physical care needs consistent with which would be expected for their age group and experiences.
• An adopted child with moderate care needs is defined as a child who because of disabilities or medical and/or psychological problems, requires a level of personal, emotional and physical care beyond which would be expected for his or her age group and experiences.

What happens now? Well we wait to hear from adoption services to work on our profile. I don't know if there is other paperwork or anything else that we need to do, but I guess we will find out.

We also need to tell adoption services if there are any changes to our situation that might impact on the care of an adopted child. That includes changing jobs, moving house, other people living in our house, health issues, changes to financial circumstances and major changes to our extended family. Here's hoping for none of those things happening!

Disbelief

We were expecting to hear back from the panel early this week- they like to get the letters out within two weeks of the committee meeting. We were so nervous, I asked my friend who lives next door to check the mail each day and let me know, so I could prepare for coming home on the day we got the news. Each day came and went without any news, and the coordinator had said the letters would be sent in Tuesdays mail so when Friday lunchtime they hadn't arrived, I rang up the department.

Our usual coordinator doesn't work on Friday's so I spoke to the duty officer and practically begged to find out the result. I even offered to drive over there so that I could pick up the letter directly from them if that was what they needed. He told me he would call me back in half an hour. I was sitting in a training course on a new software program when the call came through, and so I ran out to a free meeting room to await the news.

First he made me verify my identity to confirm it really was us. Then, very casually, he said "Well, you're approved". I burst into tears, sobbing down the phone, unable to get a word out. The guy on the other end seemed really surprised by my reaction and asked if we didn't think we would be approved. I explained between sobs that we had to present to the committee and there were six different points that they were considering not approving us on. He then said that we must have done very well with our presentation because the committee doesn't often change their minds. I thanked him, and he said he would email through a copy of the letter for our peace of mind.

I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't stop crying, I was overwhelmed with so many emotions all at once: relief that we could stop trying to prove ourselves, joy that we might actually become parents, and utter amazement that this was happening, despite everything that we had gone through. Te only way I can compare the joy is that I felt as happy as the moment we got our positive pregnancy test. That moment of knowing that you are going to be parents. It's amazing.

Murray was in class teaching at the time so the only way I could contact him was to send an email and hope he looked at it during class, as he can't check his phone.

I simply wrote APPROVED!!!!!!!!

It seemed like an age before I could talk to him, but in reality it was only 20 minutes. I cried on the phone to him, and he had his workmates all around him cheering. It was such a precious moment. I also got to speak to my Mum and Dad who were thrilled to bits and overwhelmed with the news as well. I also told my friends at work and the whole department are so excited for me. Lets just say I spent a fair chunk of my afternoon with tears in my eyes!

We feel completely blessed, our prayers have been answered.  There is still a long road ahead. Being approved doesn't guarantee that we will be placed with a child. Unlike international adoption where you are on a waiting list and eventually it will be your turn, local adoption is more like a pool of applicants. Then when a child is placed for adoption, the birth parents get input as to what environment they want their child brought up. For example they could say they want a young married couple who can't have kids - hey that's us! From that, the department decide on a couple of applicants to put forward and their profiles get shown to the birth parents who make the decision.

So although we are approved, we don't know if or when we will have a child placed with us. It could be six weeks away, or three years, or possibly never if there isn't a good fit for us. But equally, it could be any day. That thought fills me with joy. Our child could have been born today! Or even already to be alive and in foster care. I offer up silent prayers for the children, of which one may end up being our son or daughter.

Today is a joyous day.

Approved!

I have so much to write and I'm headed to bed so this will be brief. It has been such an amazing day. We have been officially approved as prospective adoptive parents! I broke down in tears when we finally got told. After going through this process for so long, coming on four years now, I can't be that this could actually come to reality.
So much to say, but today we feel truly blessed. We might finally get to be parents!

MIA

I've been keeping things low key around here lately. The days are slowly getting longer and the weather warmer as we move closer to the end of another year.

I have been busy completing all of the tests requested by the public IVF clinic before we meet with them in November. As expected I still have textbook PCOS ovaries, but my insulin levels are now perfect which is great news. Unfortunately Murray's sperm has degraded further with motility of only 2% and reduced count and morphology as well, which puts paid to any ideas of not using a donor. And finally, something called SHBG which is Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin is quite high, which is actually the opposite of what happens in PCOS, and increased levels can be as a result of long term calorie restrictions, which surprise surprise is from my weight loss surgery. In terms of impact on IVF, I believe this lowers testosterone and estrogen, which obviously would impact on fertility. I will have to wait and see what the doctor has to say before I get too concerned about it.
In adoption news, we presented to the adoption applications committee on October 1 and now we are just waiting for the official word as to whether or not we are approved applicants or not. We went well over our assigned 20 minute slot and talked to most of the points in our report. I still am not sure one way or the other as to if we will get approved, but I can honestly say that we have done everything possible in this process. If we don't get approved, then that is what happens and I will try my best to accept that decision.

Our submission to the adoption panel

The report to the adoption panel is ready to go and will be submitted in the morning. W have an email from Murrays parents which confirms an inheritance that we will receive in the coming weeks from his recently deceased grandmother. We also have a letter from Murrays Dr about his current health with his kidneys and prognosis (ie he is perfectly fine). The report itself is 13 pages long and hopefully addresses every issue they have concerns about.

On Tuesday 1st October, I will be going to the adoption panel meeting to present for 20 minutes on why we should be approved as adoptive parents. It is our last attempt to be approved. Once that is done, all we can do is await the outcome and know that we did our best.

Murray asked me today what would happen if we don't get approved despite everything we've done. I can only hope that we will be strong enough to deal with it and accept it for what it is, whatever the outcome.

Posted with Blogsy

Adoption progress

There is so much that I haven't written about, and blogging hasn't been the soothing balm that it once was for me. I've just been living day-today, and taking whatever comes at me, one thing at a time.

The adoption process isn't over though which is amazing.

As expected we were given an outcome of 'considering not approving' us as adoptive parents. What surprised us was the reasons given for this decision. In the original assessment report, the only red flag raised was our finances. Well that wasn't a factor at all in the panels decision! They said that it was a concern but that our submission to how we would manage time off and money was well thought out and they were happy with that. Hooray!!! I was thrilled with that! What came next was a surprise.

The committee believed that we had demonstrated capacity to only meet 3 out of the 10 adoption competencies!!! Three!!! There were five areas of concern:

1. Not enough evidence that demonstrated regular experience caring for young children either in a professional or personal capacity
2. The committee questions our motivation to adopt as we have been so focused on IVF over the years
3. Ongoing stress and tensions within my family (My brother and father)
4. Ongoing treatment for depression
5. Murray has a kidney disease which means that he may need a kidney transplant or dialysis in his 50's or 60's

So completely different to what our report had said! The panel members suggested that the report wasn't detailed enough in these areas, so perhaps we weren't actually deficient in these areas, but the report didn't tell them what they needed to know.

The letter stated that we had three options that we could take up. The first was to attend a meeting with two of the panel members to clarify their concerns. The second is to complete a written submission to be given to the panel to address their concerns. The third is to attend the final panel meeting and make a presentation up to 20 minutes long basically talking to our submission, which I guess adds a human face and that extra explanation of difficult things.

We will be taking up all three options, and have already met with the panel members last Wednesday, which we were very apprehensive about going into it. After all, here are two people that just judged you and decided you weren't 'good enough' to be parents! But it was actually really helpful for us. Of all the issues raised, the one that is going to be hardest to sway them is Murray's kidney problems. He has Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) which basically means he has little cysts on his kidneys which turns into Chronic Kidney Disease later on in life. He has no symptoms and takes blood pressure medication which is standard treatment to help the kidneys cope, and we are lucky that he has known from early on as his Mum and Uncle also have the disease (hereditary condition). Although Murray hasn't needed to see a specialist, the panel want him to see one to get a report on his prognosis and what potential treatment options are available. I guess for them, it is important to know that he will be around to help raise our child, which we understand.

Anyhow, as I said, one day at a time. We are slowly working on our submission, and we have requested a copy of the minutes from the panel meeting which we can receive to see what specifically they were concerned about within those broad topics and where to focus our energies. Murray is booked in for his specialist appointment on October 15, and I am doing a million blood tests for our Public IVF clinic appointment on November 11. Everything is happening all at once!

I feel immensely grateful to God that we have been given this opportunity to address the issues raised and hopefully be approved to be adoptive parents.

Not a No, Not a Yes

We haven't received our letter from Adoption Services yet but I finally got the courage to call the department. The adoption worker said that at this stage the panel agreed with what our assessor had said, however it was not a complete rejection at this stage, and she asked if we would like to meet two of the panel members to hear from them what their concerns are and how we can demonstrate that we are suitable adoptive parents.

So we are booked in on September 4th to meet two of the panel members. Hopefully it is a positive meeting and we are able to show who we are and convince them that we are suitable adoptive parents. I'm not pinning my hopes on it though. I'm making myself as numb as I can through this part of the process. If I have to process fully what this finding means for us, I'm not sure I would get through. Much easier that I allow myself to not think about anything too hard right now.

An outsiders view

During the adoption assessment process, Murray and I talked a lot. We talked about ourselves, our backgrounds, what made us love each other, how our relationship has coped with different stressors, and about our life plans. You don’t really think too much about some of these things, after all they have happened to ourselves – why do we need to talk about them if we have experienced them directly?

While obviously we didn’t get the recommendation that we wanted from our assessor, the report we received was a very interesting read. It was like reading about these completely different people. You recognised yourself and your partner, yet it was a strange feeling seeing us through someone else’s eyes. Especially when that someone else is a psychologist without any other knowledge of who we are.

While the report itself is private and not for sharing willy-nilly, there are some bits that I’d like to share, if only to help me remind myself of what we have achieved – a resilient marriage filled with respect and love for one another.

“Murray presents as a softly spoken, reflective and caring man - exuding a warm, gentle and kind nature. Rebecca appears to be the more confident of the two, often taking the lead in conversations. She is clearly very caring, intelligent, warm and friendly in her communications and interactions”

“In observing their demeanour both applicants appeared to have an easy quality to their communications with each other. They appear to communicate openly with each other on most things and generally agree on what they considered to be important.”

“Rebecca and Murray were able to listen to each other’s view point and yet arrive at their own conclusions on issues or topics. In situations where they did not agree they were able to discuss the situation and their differences openly and respectfully and where appropriate good humouredly.”

“Rebecca and Murray appear to have a very solid and secure relationship based on close friendship, mutual respect and love. Most importantly they appear to have a realistic view of marriage and their commitment to each other and appear to be happy and content in their relationship”

The adoption panel met today. We don’t know the result yet, and we might not know for up to two weeks, until we receive a letter with the final determination. We know it is unlikely we will be approved. But I still have hope. And I have my husband. And my God. That’s all that matters.

The trifecta: Holidays, adoption and fertility treatment

Our application to adopt goes to the aptly named Adoption Application Committee on Tuesday. We wont find out the result for a week or two afterwards as they write a letter which explains the outcome and what our options are.

We expect that we will not be approved as prospective adoptive applicants, due to the lack of a recommendation by our assessor. We have written an addendum to the report to give our perspective on how we would raise a child and our financial status, but we don't how much, if any, impact that will have on the panel. Whatever happens, we know that it's not up to us anymore. Now we hope and pray that they will see us for the parents we could be.

In other fertility related news, we have our appointment date for the public fertility clinic - 11th November. There are a bunch of tests we need to do before the appointment, so I will get onto those shortly. I will be having a pelvic ultrasound, and I'm really interested in seeing how my weight loss has affected my PCOS. So far my ovulation appears to have been restored, with very regular cycles of around 28/29 days, so I wonder if I still have the classic 'string of pearls' follicles on my ovaries.

It is also nearly 12 months since I had my gastric sleeve surgery and I have lost 51kg to date (or 112 pounds for my US friends). I'm feeling great, and have posted some photos over at Lose and Hope if you want to pop over and look.

In other news, we spent the July school holiday's in Melbourne and Sydney, which was really nice despite having Bronchitis the whole time. I got to attend State of Origin game 3 which New South Wales unfortunately lost, plus a Friday night football game at the MCG! We went and saw King Kong at the theatre which was incredible, and I got to spend lots of quality time with my youngest brother Daniel who lives in Sydney. Time for some photos!

Snow cuddles!

At Mt Buller seeing snow for the first time

A little slice of Mexico in Melbourne

Waiting to go in at the theatre

At the MCG

Our hotel room in Sydney - I highly recommend the Swissotel!

The Rocks - a lovely spot for a walk on Sunday afternoon

Walking back from Chinatown

We had perfect weather nearly the whole time we were there

Darling Harbour

Sydney Aquarium

Swimming with the fishes...

My brother and I

Off to State of Origin

Daniel and I chilling out

Lunch in Cronulla

Mmmm icecream!

Walking by Cronulla Beach

Unapproved- the adoption saga continues

I know it's been a while between posts. A lot of heavy stuff has been going on and I just haven't felt like writing about it. I guess blogging isn't my default vent outlet anymore, more of a debriefing tool after the fact.

In short, our adoption assessor completed her report and has not recommended us for approval to adopt. W met all the competences except one- financial capability. Essentially it boiled down to the fact that although I could take 12 months off work to look after four adopted child, we would be expecting that I would be bale to return to work on a part-time basis (3 days per week) to contribute to the household income. The assessor in her report stated that we didn't have the capacity for me to be an ongoing stay at home Mum- and having an adopted child means that there is a higher likelihood of the child having additional needs (eg speech therapy) and we don't have the ability for to stay at home at home permanently, as well as potentially additional costs of private medical attention (if high levels of physio/speech therapy etc are required).

So, because we are not 'rich' enough for me to stay at home permanently (until my kid is in school, and then I assume work only school hours), we are not suitable for adoption.

To say that we were blindsided is an understatement. We just did not see it coming. I know the assessor found writing the report difficult but it's even more difficult to be on the end of it, and knowing what the implications of this are. It feels like another loss all over again.

Now we have until July 25 to let the adoption agency know any factual corrections to the report, as well as provide our own appendix with our own views and statements we wish the panel to consider. Then in August, the report goes to the Adoption Application Panel who basically read it all and make a decision. There is the slightest chance that they could still approve us, however we were advised when we started this process that if we don't have our assessors tick of approval, then it is highly unlikely we will be approved by the committee.

Right now we are trying not to think about it too much. We are on holiday in Sydney at the moment, having spent the last week in Melbourne. It was perfect timing to help us take our minds off of things. I don't know how I would have gotten through the last week if I had to face this everyday. I've been able to forget and just let it be for a while. We will deal with it when we have to, when we get back home this weekend.

In the meantime, we are going to enjoy our holiday. For rugby league fans, we are going to see State of Origin III this Wednesday night which is on Murray's bucket list. I ticked a bucket list item off on this holiday as well as I got to experience snow for the first time in Mount Buller!

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#sygwa

One of the things that I do each year is run our church's team entry into the State Youth Games. As church coordinator I do a lot of running around, getting registrations, organising our team nominations, accomodations, team shirts, fixturing, and then finally on the weekend, supervising and making sure everyone gets to where they need to be.

This past week I have been sick with a cold and chest infection, but there is no time for that at SYG! So onwards we went and it was simply the best weekend. Our team had 32 16-28 year olds (predominantly 16-20 year olds this time round), and we actually took out the Small Church competition! This is huge, especially considering we came dead last in 2012, finishing on -70 points!!! It is incredibly rewarding to get the opportunity to see kids developing friendships, having fun, and not least learn that knowing God or being a christian doesn't have to be boring!

If you want to see some funny stuff, take a look at the video below - including me getting very excited at the end when it was announced that we won!

Adoption Session 4

Last Friday we had our fourth interview with the assessor. This session focused on safety of children, in particular from physical and sexual abuse, but also about appropriate discipline strategies, and developmental milestones. It was a full-on session, talking about how we would manage a situation if we felt uneasy about a coach or neighbour spending time with our child, and what we would do if our child ever told us about abuse.

We were given a number of vignettes or case studies which we then had to respond to. A basic example is of a 4 year old boy who refuses to sit in his car seat and you have to go somewhere in your car - What would you do? It sounds simple, but each case study escalates until we are discussing very serious consequences.

We also had homework to do for our session next week. We have to provide short answers to questions like What sort of things might make it difficult for an adopted child to bond with you, and for you to bond with an adopted child?, and What role or importance do you think and adopted child's extended birth family has in his or her life?   Lots of questions which really make you think about what we are doing and constantly asking ourselves if this is the right path to follow. And the end of each session, no matter how exhausting, Murray and I are excited about what we are doing, which I think means this is right for us.

I've been reading Deborah Gray's book Attaching in Adoption- Practical Tools for Today's Parents, which has been really helpful. It has case studies all the way through and talks about different ways of building attachments with an adopted child. Hopefully I will get to put some of these things into practice one day!

Adoption, house progress, my new job and more!

The last few weeks have been quite intense with the adoption process going full steam ahead, as well as doing a lot of things around the house and I haven't had a chance to update on where we are up to! This probably should be a couple of separate posts but hey - who has time for that!

Let's start with the house stuff - as you know, part of the adoption process involves an assessment of the physical location where the child will be brought up. We held a working bee at our house last weekend, and our friends really came through for us. With the help of mates, we were able to get a whole bunch of stuff done - removing the cubby house and dog kennel that had been eaten out by termites, installing a laundry overhead cupboard to store chemicals (and also has a built in airer/washing line!), garden beds cleaned up, cracks sealed up in the lounge room, side gate fixed, floating shelf put up in the bathroom, garage door lock replaced, a new chain lock installed on the front door, and our mirror attached to our dressing table securely. On top of that we had a new toilet installed a month or two back, our meals area has been painted with a new light fitting and new table and storage unit. And I have spent this afternoon painting the toilet walls and ceiling to make it all fresh and shiny!

The house is really starting to take shape, not just for our assessment, but as something for us to be proud of. We have been spending every last dollar on improving it and making it a nice place to live and it is paying off in spades. It is so nice to come home to a house that you love.

My new job is going great. I am really enjoying the variety of work and the people I work with are fabulous - friendly, well-mannered and very inclusive. I feel right at home there and hopefully I will be there for a long time to come! Career-wise it is very satisfying and gives me more responsibility and ownership over the programs that I develop which is exactly what I wanted. It's nice to be the senior person and able to delve into the strategic side of things rather than being lumped with whatever decisions are made higher up the chain.

Onto the adoption stuff. Well that has been intense, it's fair to say. So far we have had three sessions, each lasting between two and three hours long. The first session was a little disheartening if I'm honest. The assessor was very clear that her role was not only to assess us but to prepare us for worst case scenarios, which meant that she wasn't going to be the happy, positive, optimistic person, but push us for what we do if the worst case scenario actually happened. That was really challenging for us, but it has also been a prompt for us to consider things that we perhaps hadn't thought of before, or verbalise and think through things that we hadn;t fully worked out yet.

Our first session was more of an intro and discussing our reasons for wanting to adopt. For the second session, we had to complete a lot of worksheets for homework. These included a genogram or basically a family tree for each of us; a life line which showed the major events in each of our lives up until we met and then together from when we started our relationship. Then we prepared a social circle diagram which showed the people closest to us and who we have relationships with, like family, best friends, work mates etc (basically your support network). The last one also identified stressful connections in your life. During the second session, we talked through each of these worksheets to work through our lives and how we have come to be at this point.

The third session last week was more about how we were parented when we were growing up, and which things we would do the same, while also identifying what we would do differently. It also covered a lot about Murray and I as a couple - how we deal with conflict, things we like to do together, our relationship style, as well as how we have dealt with our infertility and our miscarriage a few years ago. This part was very intense and I didn't expect to bring up so many emotions, particularly the miscarriage. The assessor was really impressed that we had made a memory box for our baby, and thought it was a great way to deal with the grief.

So that brings us to this weeks session. It has been pushed back until Friday night which is a blessing in itself as it gives me time to clean out the spare room and tidy the games room, but otherwise we are pretty much ready to go with it. Part of the assessment involves assessing the temperament of our dogs and making sure they don't pose a danger to a child, so I am praying that they behave well!

It's a big week ahead but we are so happy to be on this path. It feels so right.

Another adoption update- setting the date!

How does the saying go about telling God your plans? On the weekend I was all set to delay our assessment stating by a month or so to settle into the new job. Then last night we received a call from our assessor! She suggested that we make use of the school holidays with Murray being off work and booked our first session in for next Monday!

So now we are trying to get everything in order prior to the first meeting. Each interview goes for around 2.5 hours, and she would like to finish things off by 6.30pm, so I'm going to have to build up some flexi-time at my new job to leave early for the interviews over the coming months.

I can't believe we are actually doing this! Luckily Thursday is a public holiday for ANZAC Day which gives me an extra day of cleaning and putting together our paperwork. We need to provide payslips, mortgage docs, loan docs, insurance papers, as well as bringing out our birth and marriage certificates again.

Speaking of my new job, I also got the go-ahead to take two weeks off for our holiday in July! I was worried I'd have to cancel or reduce the trip to one week, but my boss was happy for me to go, even without having enough annual leave accrued by the time we go. I love my new job!!!!