We have a daughter!

We have a daughter!

Before I go on, let me tell you about the events just before we found out …

The staff at Intercountry Adoptions (FaCS / DoCS / whatever they are called this month), sent out a “touchy-feely” email last week to all families currently awaiting allocation. They were talking about the long wait times most programs are currently experiencing and how they are mindful that it can be very difficult for families while they wait. They committed to supporting us all through the difficult times and such – not much substance really.

So when we both got messages left on our phones today from our caseworker, I was pretty convinced it was just a follow-up to the email.

I told Leanne she should call back – partly because I really didn’t feel like talking to our caseworker just then. However, I did also think that if by some chance this was the call we’d been waiting for, it might be nice for Leanne to get the call this time.

I didn’t hear anything from Leanne for quite some time, so I put it out of my mind and got back to work. But then she rang back a while later and told me the news! It is so exciting – and very unexpected.

Technically, we are third in the queue from Australia, so we didn’t want to get our hopes up until after we’d heard that at least one of the other families had been allocated. However, in retrospect, the other families are approved for a different age group to ourselves, so it makes sense that we might not necessarily get allocated in order.

Here is the timeline of events up to today’s allocation call:

April 2010 – we apply to DoCS to adopt a second child

November 2010 – formal approval received from DoCS to adopt a second child

November 2010 to February 2011 – gathering documentation for application to Colombia, including psychological evaulation, birth and marriage certificates, medical and employment certificates, police good behaviour certificates (including fingerprint check!), arranging written personal references from friends.

February 2011 to May 2011 – waiting for our file to be processed and legalised for sending

May 2011 – our application is sent to the Chiquitines orphanage in Colombia

September 2011 – we receive notification that our file has been approved by Chiquitines and we are officially on the waiting list for allocation

February 2012 – we get allocated

So, given we hadn’t expected this until much later in the year, it’s full on panic-mode around here! So many things to do before we go.