A Cakegirl Update

Hi everyone, I thought I'd start a whole new thread... I'm enrolled in an Adoption workshop - for 21 January next year! They only come up every 3 months or so, and I can't attend the next one as I'll be away, so I'm doing that one! On Saturday, I went to a seminar held by ASIAC (a support organisation for international adoptive parents in Australia). I was a little late, so I missed the talks by the people from DOCS (the Department of Community Services, the govt dept that is responsible for adoptions in my state), but I heard some interesting talks by ASIAC representatives and adult adoptees. Afterwards, they had tables with information about specific countries. I also went to the Post Adoption Resource Centre table and got a great book called "The Colour of Difference", a series of autobiographical stories from the perspective of intercultural adoptees. As for the country tables... The countries that ASIAC deals with are (from memory) China, the Phillippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Korea. Of those countries, I am not eligible to adopt from any, but I will be eligible to adopt from China once I'm 30 (I'm 28 now). So I gathered up the China information and then left. (After drinking some tea and eating some cake!) It was great seeing the adopted children at the seminar - there were so many little kids of about the same size, and the parents all knew each other, which got me thinking - perhaps these people all adopted in the same "batch" from China - before the seminar, I had thought of the batches as being just some sort of beurocratic process, but now that I think about it, it's giving some structure and stability for the children if they are in contact with the same peers in China and in their new country. So that's the first part of my update. The second part is that today I got a letter from DOCS saying that my EOI (Expression of Interest) had been accepted, and that the next step is for me to attend a 2-day seminar on "parenting the adopted child". There is an optional 3rd day on "parenting older adopted children", which I will also do, because I still don't know what age group I will be eligible to adopt from. At the seminar, DOCS will provide me with the forms I need to make my formal application, be allocated a social worker, etc. So, I'm going overseas in 3 weeks, and I'll be attending the seminar in early October, when I get back. The next available Older Child day is in December, so I'm enrolled in that too. So it's a long way off, but at least I have my trip to keep me occupied between now and then! That's all from me for today! Rebecca