29 months waiting. Sigh!

Haha bet you thought I'd given this blog away entirely ... I haven't posted for so long!

Would you believe we're still waiting? It's true, it's true.

Whilst my better half is calm and patient about the whole thing, I've fluctuated through short-lived bouts of frustration to come out with the same end - we can't do *anything* about it so it's not worth pining about.

I've noticed that quite a few of the recent referrals (worldwide) have been allocated at 29, 30 and 32 months so hopefully it won't be too long. With some luck, we won't be the first couple on record to wait the full 36 months that Thailand have said is the new norm. In this case, I'd rather not be a record-setter!

Overall, all of the country's programs have seen longer waiting times and Australia has withdrawn from the Ethiopian program until several new issues are sorted. On the positive side, there are a few files in a new program, the USA. This is one that isn't 'advertised' by the adoption department - I guess that's because it's so new but if you're Australian and you're interested you can read some fairly general information about potential new country programs found on the AG (Attorney General's) website or you can go directly to the breakdown (in PDF format). Once I read what was offered by way of information, the list of prospective countries dwindled to very few in my mind. Most don't meet the Hague requirements and therefore Australia won't have anything to do with that. Alternatively, the lack of some of the countries' procedures and infrstructure and worrying child-trafficking history are greatly problematic from the Australian government's prospective.

As far as I can gather there has been no referrals from the USA program just yet but there are several files there awaiting allocations. I dug for a little info from our local adoption department however there are no timelines given: just that the average age of children from this program is said to be 8 yrs old (with older and younger ones available, although younger ones are not so likely as slightly older children, apparently). Also, there is approx 128,000 children awaiting adoption in the USA, a lot of whom will be African-American. Honestly, this issue of mixed-race children doesn't appear to present a problem to the majority of Aussies who are attempting to adopt as children from most countries will create a mixed race family for us anyhow.

I have high hopes for the program with the USA and will be watching it closely with much interest :)

Meanwhile I hope to report on an allocation from Thailand for us sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Kim