From HK

Finally some good news. We decided this week to call our social worker in Bohol just to check if there's been any update. It took us many attempts to actually talk to her but finally Daniel did. She explained that the adoption procedure has now been centralized so all matching's take place in Manila. She has sent our paperwork to Manila and she seemed to think that things are finally moving along and matching's would be happening soon. But she informed us that Manila had put our case on hold seeing we were out of the country. This was news to us! We asked her to let Manila know that we will definitely be returning by early April. We also asked about the fact that all our paperwork is now out of date (medical checks, police check etc) but she didn't seem to think it will be a problem.

It was such a relief to hear this news, even if it wasn't anything major. With no information for so long I had started to prepare myself in case this adoption never happened. We even started thinking a little bit about trying for pregnancy. The feelings of relief really confirmed for me that adoption is definitely what we want.

I did some online searches for any recent adoption news in the Philippines. It appear that Feb 6th- 13th was 'adoption week' and the DSWD set up adoption booths in malls and their offices to answer any questions the public has. I wonder if the signs of movement we've heard about had anything to do with that.

So now we just have less than a month left in HK and we'll be going back home. It has definitely been a good time of reflecting and working through some of our personal issues. With this adoption news I'm beginning to feel ready to go back. We also have plans to carry out once we get there, things which we need to change in order to find a healthy balance in life. We plan to use the rest of our time to see as many people as we can, eat as much good food as we can, and probably shop enough to fill a box of stuff to ship back! (Yay for cheap balik bayan boxes!)