A Beloved's Journey

For 2 years I have had neighbours that I have never talked to. I can stand in my kitchen and look into their garage but we have never said hello. In fact most of the time, when I am washing my dishes and they see me, I have thought they seemed displeased that I am there. I live down a driveway with 11 other houses and know all of my driveway neighbours but these neighbours are down a separate driveway so we never pass by each other. After 2 years of ethnic music and delicious smelling curries wafting over the fence I finally grasped the courage to go over and introduce myself. I found out that they are from the North of India and so I told them that I was in the process of adopting from India. They were very keen to help me learn more about their country. Fast forward a few weeks to today. I went over to spend some time learning about India and hopefully Indian cooking. My neighbours are absolutely delightful! They were so welcoming and kind. I was able to ask a lot of questio...

A year and a half ago, almost to the day (9th August 2017), I posted my forms to Oranga Tamariki to begin the process of international adoption. Today my home study report was accepted and handed over to ICANZ (Inter-Country Adoption New Zealand). This is a huge step and celebration in the journey, in fact one of the biggest, as it means I have been deemed acceptable to adopt from India. I now need to finalise a few documents for my dossier and then the waiting to bring Bunny home will truly begin. A few weeks ago my exceptional cousin, Christy, took yet another photo shoot for my dossier (this was the third one) as I had learnt that no shoulders were allowed to be shown and it was best if knees weren't either. Before the photo shoot, I trolled through Facebook trying to find photos that might be suitable to send. I found one that hid the fact that my shoulders were bare and I thought it would be a great, only to realise that the glass of wine I was holding in the centre of ...