I had the day off from work today and was able to attend a playgroup which is for local adoption children. I had emailed one of the Mum's who organises the group and she encouraged me to come along and meet everyone and see what it was like.
I had a great time meeting all of these different people who have been through the same process that I am going through right now. A lot of the children were from the special care needs pool as well which gave me some idea of what might be expected. I got a great insight to some of the challenges that are faced but also the awesomeness of having a child through adoption!
One of the things that came out of it, was some information about the Philippines inter-country adoption program. One of the Mum's 'S' was on the list for both the Philippines and local and her local adoption had a placement first. S said that the Philippines program is usually foster care, and priorities adoptive parents who are Christian as they are a Catholic country. Also they only require the adoptive parents to stay in the country for three weeks, which was of concern for us. It is also close enough by that we would be able to retain links with the child's culture which is great as well. S suggested that I look into it a little bit further, and I'm definitely interested in learning more about it.
Overall the morning was a really great reminder that we are on the right path and that adoption is really in my heart.
