Christmas Day

Random photos through out the day...

Christmas morning with my new barn

My new train with animals

 

First taste of Chocolate, thank you Auntie Rosie

Max loves chocolate and will follow Auntie Rosie anywhere for it

The Girls of the Family, Laura & Lily, the best of Cousins

A meeting of minds, both young, both teething both celebrating first Christmas with their families

More Christmas photos.

We wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I know that this is a difficult time for many of us, hoping, waiting and wishing that something would go our way. We are evidence that it can happen. We hope the same for you.

Here are some more Christmas photos from our family to yours, Christmas together is truly miraculous

Christmas sleepovers with cousins - hooray!

Great presents from Auntie Meg and my mate Toby, but i want the paper & box

Music box bees dance and so does Lily

Christmas tree theme: Gold & White & Red with a dash of cat

 

Christmas is exhausting

Christmas party & pressies and being adored by all

The great thing about Christmas is family, friends and feasting. Max & Lily have got into the spirit of things by spending time with our God daughters ( our best friends, their parents) and their boyfriends.

I would recommend everyone get their own version, it's fantastic - you arrive to discover an entourage waiting for the babies. John and i get a kiss and a hug and then without asking, babies, prams, toys, nappy bags disappear from the car and us, only to be seen again when tears or dirty nappies emerge.

Lily

Max

In the Garden

My poor friend Kathy has to wait her turn, which is often at the end of the night when everyone goes their own way. Max and Lily in true party kid fashion, rather than go to sleep, make do with cat naps, so they are ready to party at the slightest hint of attention.

Max and Lily's highlights: sucking on a big piece of bread with their mates, sitting at the table with the big kids and eating the wrapping of their presents. Although my babies can both crawl, their feet barely touched the ground as they spend the night being kissed, cuddled and adored by all

Updates from us:

• Both babies are crawling
• Max is starting to pull himself up
• Lily had her fringe trimmed
• Max has curly hair
• Max has two bottom teeth! Hooray

adoption - the bad news for Australians continues...

I get very angry when people just blithely say, why don't you adopt, with no thought or research into statements, as if we jumped into surrogacy.  Adoption is simply not an option.

For those of you not regular readers of this blog here are previous rants:

http://havingababyinindia.blogspot.com/2011/02/time-and-adoption-cons.html

http://havingababyinindia.blogspot.com/2010/12/australian-adoptions-slump-to-lowest.html

The numbers continue to decline, so from roughly 200 intercountry adoptions to roughly 175 for the whole of Australia. A recent report for my home state was around 26 adoptions.

Keeping in mind that there are now waiting lists to go to information nights which average 30- 50 couples running x10 per year, for each state ( and the ACT) in Australia.

Thank God for surrogacy, without which i would not have Max or Lily. 


Adoptions in Australia hit record low

ADOPTIONS have hit a record low in Australia, a new report says.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report says there were 348 finalised adoptions in 2010-11, a seven per cent drop on the previous financial year.
It represents a decline of up to 90 per cent on the number of adoptions in early 1970s.
Twenty years ago there were 1143 adoptions in Australia.
The report attributes the decline to a decrease in the number of children considered to be in need of adoption and changes to adoption laws.
More than half the recent adoptions were overseas-born children.
The bulk of overseas adopted children were from Asia.
Chinese children represented 24 per cent, followed by the Philippines 17 per cent and Taiwan 12 per cent.

Ethiopia was the most common country for adoptions outside Asia.

For the first time in two decades South Korea was not in the top four most common countries of origin for Australian adoptions

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/breaking-news/adoptions-in-australia-hit-record-low/story-e6frea73-1226221393747

Moments in time -gasping for air

Today we celebrated our nephew's third birthday. He is the best of nephews and a great 'big Cousin' to Max and Lily.

His birth day is more poignant to us, as this was the same day that we got our results back that confirmed that that i could never have or carry John's children. So we did what many others have done before us, we put on a brave face, celebrated the birth of the first Grandchild in John's family, while everyone talked about us being next.We left with smiles on our faces and spend the next two hours in the carpark crying, sobbing, screaming in silence. Gasping for air over and over again; of what could have been, what should have been. I didn't think my heart could be more broken. John just kept on telling me he loved me, over and over again, trying to make this better.

This impacted on everything for us and to my shame, on our relationship with our nephew and my sister in law. For the first time we kept secrets from our families.

In 2010,we were full of hope when both our surrogates became pregnant only to discover my sister in law was also pregnant, literally within days of us; a dream come true for all of us. It's an old story now; both surrogates miscarried and we lived through what could have been, with John's sister's pregnancy.

I knew we were cursed when we lost our second baby days before by best friends wedding to which i volunteered to look after some little ones. So, for what seemed the longest time, we were broken, i was broken.Things got worse, failed FET, dead sperm, no sperm. F***!!!

Our families didn't know what to do to make this better, i forced myself to speak about our SIL pregnancy, because if i didn't, no one else would. Their guilt was ever present,a mirror to our grief ,... then eventually a nugget of hope. So dim, so distant with John determined to magnify it.

So today, we celebrated the birth of our nephew, as the much loved Auntie, gossiping with my friend, John's sister, watching our four children play together being supervised by their Grandparents.

I do look at our youngest nephew and occasionally there is a ache of what could have been, I look at John, he knows  and tries to make it better with a squeeze of a hand, and brushes away the almost tear that threatens to emerge. Circumstances prevail, and we are both quickly overwhelmed with what is and what we have.

Miracles do happen.