Our other consideration …

A while ago I alluded to the fact that Mr. Sparkle and I had been considering ‘other’ options. We’ve reached a point where we don’t think we want to go thru another IVF cycle with my eggs, so we’re pursuing donor eggs and adoption.

The donor egg option is moving forward, we’ve met with a doctor and had our mandatory testing and we’ll be able to start planning the first part of this in a few weeks.

The other thing is adoption.

During our last doomed cycle, Mr. Sparkle contacted the government authority that handles adoption here – Department of Community Services (Do*cs) and had the information pack sent out. They look after both Domestic and Intercountry.

The thing with Australia is that because our social welfare system is so good, domestic adoption has pretty much become extinct. I think maybe 10 babies are adopted in the whole country each year. And that’s a good thing. So Intercountry becomes the most viable.

We sent our $40 off and received a pack that included a book Making Sense of Adoption: A Parents Guide by Lois Melina, a Considering Adoption booklet and an Expression of Interest form.

For the next couple of weeks the forms sat in the envelope and I gave it a cursory glance from time to time as I walked by.

Then one night Mr. S decided we’d fill it in. So he started filling in all our details and I started panicking ‘You shouldn’t be filling in anything for me’ I exclaimed. ‘I should be filling in my family medical history not you’. So he went on and filled in all his and his families details.

So then I let the form sit there a little longer.

Then another week later Mr. S picked it up again ‘do you think we could complete the form now?’ ‘Yeah okay, but I still need to read some of the stuff and we still don’t know WHAT COUNTRY WE’RE INTERESTED IN, so how do we know what boxes to tick’?

So we decided to tick a couple we thought we were interested in and I said I’d finish the rest of my stuff and send it off the next day.

I put the form in my backpack and carried it around for another week or two, then one day I just completed it.

All my delaying had been my panic about letting go of my own fertility and I suddenly realised that we weren’t at the point of DEFINITELY and IRREVERSIBLY doing anything.

That was in October last year.

A week later we received confirmation that our EOI had been received [along with our $150 cheque] and we could expect to hear from then as to our suitability within 10 weeks.

Just before Christmas we received another letter advising that we had been screened and it seemed we met the criteria and were invited to attend a Two Day Preparation Seminar, upcoming dates listed.

Well this is progress we thought. Maybe we might just have some value afterall.

Now at this point we’re heading into a two week wait following a botch-up IVF cycle, and actually were holding onto the tiniest thread of hope that maybe we might be lucky.

But you know, we’re all about hedging our bets these days. Stats be damned, we’ve been on the downside of luck at every turn, so give us your worst because this time we’re prepared.

Somehow this little invitation gave me a wee confidence boost about myself.

Of course I forgot my letter the next day and it took me an extra day to ring and book in. We’d decided we may as well book in for the first seminar listed. When I did ring the next day it turned out the first seminar in January had been booked up, and the next one, and in fact there’s just one place left in the third – being held in March.

‘Okay, well if you have a cancellation list can you put us on that?’
‘Sure, but there’s already four couples ahead of you’

Right-E-O, March it is then.

Well said cycle went to hell in a hand-basket, and we also decided that maybe we’d had enough. We thought we had one more cycle in us, but then we wondered why?

A couple of days after I got back to work following Christmas I found an email from Do*cs letting me know that there had been cancellations and there was now a place for us in February ‘Were we interested’?

‘Yep, sure are, when do we need to send our $500 in for the seminar?’

In all honesty I think my delaying and insecurity about adoption is a normal thing, I think not being sure is actually healthy. This is a big thing, there’s no ‘just’ moving on about it. We’re considering and talking about this every step of the way.

We attended that seminar last week, and that’s also a whole other post. But as a prelude I will say it was an entirely positive experience. This seminar meant that we were actually now at Stage 4 of the adoptions process...