Update-o-rama

I really should have posted this on Wednesday, but I've been swamped with work and knocked out with a bad cold. Anyway, here's what's happening since our meeting with our agency!

1: Apparently due to our age and our IF status, we are exactly the type of parents that South Africa is hoping to adopt to - young people with good jobs who aren't likely to have their own children.

2: Apparently for the same reasons we're also ideal for domestic adoption. Which is free. But could take considerably longer. We've now made some phone calls and they can't even give an estimated time, so we agreed that we'd rather invest some money in our future and have a baby soon than wait 8 years and lose all that time that could have been spent with a family.

3: We should expect 4-6 months for the province to process our application. Then we should expect 12 months to get a match. This is being realistic. However, it's just as realistic that we could be matched with a baby in as little as three months after South Africa receives our application - or even sooner if the right match comes up. We would be expected in court 4-6 weeks later to finalize the legal stuff. Oh yeah, court's in South Africa. So we'd be on the phone booking a flight the same day and in the country in as little as three weeks later.We would be expected to be in South Africa for 3-4 weeks. We'd be free to travel around our court and lawyer schedule, but we would get our baby the very first day we arrive.

4. A big one: they have never matched an HIV positive child so we absolutely will not get an HIV positive child. We'll get a perfect, gorgeous, healthy little baby.

I'm sure there's tons more, but I can't think of it all right now. All I know is that on the long end, we could have our baby in 18-ish months. On the short end, we could have our baby in as little as 10 months.

____________________

A little more:

We've hired our social worker (she's WONDERFUL) and we're working away on a mountain of forms. We're both beyond excited that we're on track to building our family. Now that we're working through the process, we'll be telling our parents within the next week or two. I can't believe how real this is starting to feel. :D