Open Arms Open House

What an exciting day! This afternoon I traveled into Toronto and met a lot of other families who are adopting from China through Open Arms. There was a buzz in the house that was electric! I’m guessing around 50 people were there, all with one thing on their minds....babies in China!

Some families are anticipating receiving their referrals within the next couple of weeks which means they will quite likely travel before Christmas! What a Christmas this will be for them! It was fun to watch people being introduced to others in their travel groups. Today the beginnings of friendships formed that could last for many years to come. With Open Arms (OA), each family in a travel group receives a baby from the same orphanage. This means that people keep in touch with one another as their girls grow up, allowing the girls to share something special with other children who can relate to their beginnings. (This past summer my niece Rebecca and I went to a picnic in Courtice that is an annual event for 2 travel groups that went to China 5 and 7 years ago!)

Today there weren’t any other people in the ‘home study’ phase of their journey but there were some who had just had their files sent to China last week. It’s anticipated that I’m about 2-3 months behind them. Wow! It’s more and more real and I’m more and more excited!!!

My social worker feels he can have my home study ready to go to OA by the end of November. (Friends completing references for me, I’ll be faxing the list references off to him tomorrow morning so you’ll probably receive something shortly.) Once my home study is with OA, Deborah (the OA Executive Director) will send it to the province for their approval within a couple of days. Yeah! Moving forward step by step.

Deborah thinks she may host another one of these days in January so by that time I may have a travel group too! Until then...back to the paperwork!