Nearly 34 months waiting and an update on adoption in general

In 4 days we'll hit the 34 months mark waiting for our little babe. Whew! Seems like we are setting a record for adoption timelines from Thailand in Tasmania, at least. The longest before us was a 28 month wait. Anyhow, nothing we can do about that but ... wait some more ;) Soooo, we wait as long as we need to.

Since my last post, adoption in Australia has taken a small turn. All states have stopped accepting new applications for adoption from Thailand. Thailand Adoption Services report that they have approx 1000 files already waiting to be processed in country - that is, to be matched and allocated - so they are not accepting new files from anywhere in the world, Australia included.

The hope from the adoption community we are a part of is that this will help to give the Thai adoption services staff the space to match and allocate the files that are in country much more quickly and then the program can be re-opened to new applications again.

During April I've been doing a lot of preparation for our future child's arrival. I had put most of this on hold til we actually had a referral but am glad now that I haven't waited. Preparing ahead of time allows me time to go bargain-hunting in a way that wouldn't work if I only had a couple of weeks.

I really wanted to find a great baby/toddler carrier that we could use in Thailand and back home. I came across an Ergo Sport that is flexible enough for me to use as well as Scott (it has extra length in the straps for his longer body and wider shoulders). Thanks to eBay, I found this at a hugely reduced price of AUD$70 (normally $180). It's only been used once or twice and is in perfect condition - fits both Scott and I perfectly!





Also I managed to find durable foam puzzle floor mats to cover our timber floor in the child's play area. Don't want any bumps on our child's precious little self should they topple over at anytime!

A great find on eBay again was a portacot. As we have a little dog who is inside most of the day (and can't be left outside alone - she's only 4kgs and will always be that size) it will be useful to be able to separate the baby from the baby dog should I need to leave the room for a second or so. I could even put our little dog inside the portacot and she actually seems to like it!