Marg, I am sorry to hear you have had a tough time and had to go down the hysterectomy route.

A good friend of mine soon to be 41 is single and adopting and currently has a file over in Ethiopia so hopefully she will get good news some time this year. She started the process about 4-5 years ago and she found in the ACT there were 2 countries that consider single adoption, Ethiopia and South Korea. I am not sure on the status of these countries for adoption at the moment as they tend to open and close to applications depending on their own country policies and the volume of adoption applications they already have to manage.

I can recommend talking to your State's adoption authority and book in for the seminars you will probably need to do to be eligible to apply in the first place.

Have you heard about or considered Permanent Care as an option? It is similar to local adoption, the child though is not legally adopted but the court rules that you become their legal guardian until the age of 18, which is essentially the same thing as local adoption. Perhaps something you can discuss with your State Agency. Permanent care may actually be something that is a quicker and desperately needed care option for children in Australia that need permanent families in their lives. Something DH and I have been considering for some time.

I hope you give yourself time to grieve and to recover from your operation.
xx