Wanting no more time to ourselves

'PLAY AS MUCH golf as you can because next year you won't be able to. Go out as often as you can because soon you won't be able to. Book a really nice holiday. Make the most of your free time now because soon . . . "

We are so many years doing all these things, passing our time, waiting, that all we really want to do is be at home. We booked a holiday and spent the Christmas of 2005 in the US. All the forms were filled in and in the hands of the HSE and we had been on its list for over a year. We were just waiting for a phone call to let us know that we could move on with the process.

And so we listened quietly with all the other passengers as the tour guide told us all about the Grand Canyon. "It ranges in width from a half-mile to 18 miles. It is over one mile deep . . . " And then Jimmy's phone rang. It was the end of December and we were in Arizona, and a social worker from the Health Board in Galway wanted to let us know that we would be starting adoption school in February (She didn't call it adoption school, but that was the name we came to use.)

And so there we are on this really nice holiday and all we want to do is come home and start school. We were so excited. This would be our last holiday with just the two of us and by the following Christmas there would be three of us and we could stay at home, we hoped.

Adoption school started in February 2006. For us, this meant three months, every second Wednesday, of meeting up with social workers and other couples. And you want to scream . . . another three months, because it just seems like you are fighting a losing battle with time and everything takes so long. We are waiting so long that I think some of our friends might be beginning to wonder if the whole thing is a figment of our imagination.

The classes were informative and worthwhile. Each meeting focused on a different issue around adoption. Many practical issues were dealt with, such as child development, loss, attachment, explaining adoption to your child.

There was role play and diagrams and family trees and speakers who had their children and seven very impatient couples longing to hold their child and figure out the rest later. It was comforting to be with others going through the same process. And some of the most valuable things we got from the group were the friendships.

I met three of the girls recently. I'm sure we looked an unlikely bunch if you were to study us closely and write us down as statistics. Two little boys from Guatemala, a darling girl from Russia, three Irish mothers and me.

I don't know the full answer to why we chose China, but sometime during that three-month period we decided on the country and it felt right. We talked to others who had adopted from there and it was reassuring that Ireland has an inter-country adoption law with China. People ask: "Why is it taking so long? Why don't you apply somewhere else?" But, as I said before, our hearts are in China now and we will wait.

Most of the children who are adopted from China are girls and they are generally between the ages of eight months and five years. So, in China there is a woman, maybe in her third trimester of pregnancy. Her little baby is getting ready to arrive into this world. Because she loves her, she will give her away.

I am reminded of some lines from John O'Donohue's writings: "May all that is unlived in you/ Blossom into a future/ Graced with love."

Sometimes I feel sad that it seems like we are wishing our lives away to get to this future. Every day brings us one day closer to our little darling, wherever she might be. Yet every day is a day less to be lived.

But life goes on and we wait.

For now, we are one of the 339 applications that were granted extensions to their declarations last year. This is the document that is issued by the Adoption Board and allows us to adopt one child outside the State. Because we first received our declaration in 2006, and because it is only valid for one year, we had to apply for an extension.

This is the second in a series of occasional articles by Marie Flannery about adopting a baby from China