Psst... did you hear?

I just had a phone call from a good friend, ringing to find out the goss. She goes, 'So... you're pregnant!'. She had been talking to someone else who said, 'Next time you talk to Emma, congratulate her for me on her pregnancy!'. What the?

It's a Chinese baby, people... not Chinese whispers!

It's a bit odd because everyone we know is aware we are adopting. Maybe they thought we had given up or changed our minds, or were trying to squeeze a bio child in before the adoption.

I do need to admit that when the wait began skyrocketing and the Dept. announced at a recent event that there would be a 30 month wait, we did enquire about whether we were able to stay in the process and have a bio child while waiting. The Dept. made it very clear that this was not an option and we needed to be 100% committed to the adoption. They didn't seem to understand that having a child wouldn't alter our adoption plans, and that we are 100% committed to having a blended family. All we were wondering is whether we could change the order our children came to us so I don't end up being reallly old by the time I give birth, if things work out that way.

Anyway, it was an interesting conversation, followed by an email the next day saying they were putting our file on hold until we had decided what we were going to do. I wrote back and said not to put our file on hold, we never requested that, and that we wouldn't do anything that would jeopardise the adoption process. And then life went back to normal.

Maybe my phone is bugged and someone heard the conversation and thought we must be trying for a baby, and spread the news. Sorry, folks... it's China or bust for the meantime.

Halting new dossiers

The latest unsubstantiated rumour (that would be rumor to my American friends) is that China may be considering stopping accepting new files for perhaps 3 years (yup, I read it at RQ). This wouldn't affect anyone who is already logged in and allocations would continue as normal for those people. The response so far seems to be that people think this is a great idea and necessary to allow a catch-up. I might think that if we were already logged in, too.

We are paperchasing and trying to meet all of our local requirements as well as the CCAA's requirements. The only thing slowing us down is my age - I turn 30 in eight months time (January 2008). We've been waiting eagerly since our early 20s to turn 30 so we could adopt from China. Aaron's 32 this year, so no probs now with his age.

If the CCAA stopped accepting new dossiers before I turn 30, that may change our plans a little in terms of birth order of our future children. Then there's always that fear that if we did have a bio child first, could the CCAA introduce a rule that only childless couples could adopt?

In the meantime we'll just keep plodding away at the process. Aaron finished his family profile a few weeks ago (wahoo!), so we're ready to submit our next huge lot of paperwork. We're grateful that our state government has allowed us to do all the preparations and have our file ready to go as soon as I hit 30, rather than having to turn 30 first and then begin the paperchase.

If anything did happen with halting new dossiers, then that's out of our hands. At this stage it's a rumour only (and the rumour being that the CCAA may be considering it, not that they will do it), but certainly one that we'll be following with interest!