Adoption in NZ

That's what I thought it all entailed, thanks for confirming. I know it's lengthy, and I know they check you out right down to your underwear size! But if I was a child, I wouldn't want it any other way if a family was to adopt me!

Would rather take a newborn, or young child.

Fostering is too hard - we would find it hard having to give the child back. My parents did this as my brother was a bit 'anti-social' and they felt it was best for him to have a 'little brother' so they fostered various boys over the years, and always found it really really hard to give them back. It caused a lot of heart-ache and I reckon it was one of the nails in the coffin towards their eventual divorce. (Needless to say my brother didn't change - he was horrible to those kids!). I loved having them round - I always got on so much better with them than my own selfish self-centred brother (who is still just the same at the grand age of 33!) - so it always upset me that I never saw them again either - 'back then' continued contact wasn't encouraged once the child had been 're-homed'.