East Meets West GWCA Conference

Yesterday was a long long long long (did I mention long) day, but one filled with lots of great information, meeting new friends, and catching up with some old friends. Although quite a bit of the information about the process of Chynna's adoption we already knew (thanks to the many yahoo groups, lots of self-educating, and of course from those of you who have BTDT), we did learn some new info too...


We got to hear from Snow Wu and the Chinese Consulate about all they are doing to hopefully get this wait time down some...

Susan Fremer and her daughter Olivia's foster family spoke on the joys and sorrows of being a foster family...


Leigh-Anne Graf spoke on the "Waiting Game"....


My "social worker" Debra Hewitt did an amazing job educating us about Attachment and Bonding (of course this picture came out awful and she'd kill me if I posted it, hehe)....and attorney Paul Consbruck spoke on post-adoption resources, lunch speaker
Jeanne Marie Laskas - Author of Growing Girls: The Mother of All Adventures was amazing, breakfast speaker Dr. Ira Chasnoff - Author of Risk and Promise was informative, and Nicole Halliday really opened our eyes about the travel costs/expenses....

and then there were door prizes (nope Ray and I were not lucky winners), but our friends Sherri and Sheryl were...


and as well as our friend Susan (who will be traveling in Dec to bring home her 5 yr old daughter Hannah)...


All in all a great day...now I must get off this computer and start another long but fun-filled day at Disney...