Recommended for Approval!

We are done our homestudy! We finished our last interview a couple of weeks ago and felt it hadn't gone that well. I had just finished working a 24 hour shift and was a little tired and grumpy. I felt like I was arguing a lot, and Val was worried that I had put our homestudy in jeopardy. Turns out we worried for nothing. Our practitioner has finished her report (its almost 20 pages!)and we got the chance to read it this week. Val and I are very relieved to get this hurdle past us.

My mom gave Val some luggage for her birthday last week.(very thought full!) It's funny because we've been dwelling on the homestudy for so long we haven't even thought about travelling a whole lot. Even though we might not go to Guyana for a while yet, it's slowly starting to feel like more of a reality.

Update on our situation

A few weeks ago we posted that we needed extra prayer because of a situation concerning our adoption. At the time, our agency contacted us and wanted to know if we would be willing to take two children. A woman approached the Red Cross in Guyana giving her intent to put her two little girls up for adoption, as long as they weren't split up. This was a very unique request considering we hadn't finished our homestudy, we hadn't officially signed on with the agency or paid our retainer fee. In addition to this, Guyana does not operate on a referral system. Although we weren't considering taking two children at the time, we readily accepted. The reason why we didn't post this on line was because it was very tentative and up in the air, but we needed your prayers and we thank you for doing so without knowing the reasons behind it! We didn't hear from our agency for several weeks, but in those weeks we applied for citizenship for a second child just in case. We found out yesterday however, that this adoption of the two girls is not going to go through. The mother has decided to keep her girls and raise them herself. While this has obviously been disappointing for us, it's good to hear that the family is staying together. We had been praying for the mother from the beginning, and we're glad she is in a place that she feels that she can take care of her children.

First Big Step!

Hi Friends :)

I am happy to say that our home study sessions that we started in January are almost done !!!!!!

We've had several meetings with our practitioner, and I think that maybe, perhaps, possibly, last Wednesday was our last meeting.

(See how sure I am of this? lol!)

In case you don't know, the home study is something that is required by the government in order for you to adopt, internationally or locally. They are done by Family And Children's Services when you are adopting through FACS, or in our case by a private adoption practitioner if you are adopting internationally or privately.

I have to say, the home study process has been very overwhelming. Hundreds of questions about your life, your childhood, your marriage, your faith, discipline, finances, lifestyle, and anything else you could possibly think of was covered in the home study. There is also a short 'interview' with your children and without you. It's a bit unnerving having someone you don't know come into your home, so you can spill your entire life details out for them while they write it all down on a notepad!

The next step is WAITING again.

(Shocker!)

Our practitioner will review our session notes and write a report on us either recommending us or not recommending us for adoption. And then once we are recommended

(see how I've disregarded the second option?)

she sends the report to the government to get an official letter of approval from them, which will go in our file and will come with us to Guyana! This is about a 3-6 month wait.......sigh.

Sweet moment :)

I haven't really had much to say lately.....things are at a stand still I guess. Just lots of waiting.

A really sweet thing happened to me the other day though. I had the kids with me at the grocery store and while I was grabbing my items the cashier was entertaining them.

(As an aside note, we really haven't sat down with our kids and said 'for sure, we are adopting, and this is how and when....', so we really have no idea how they feel about the situation. We have been slowly introducing the idea of adoption to them though, so that it is a normal idea.)

So, to get back to my story the kids were in the cart at the store, and they were talking to the cashier who was a nice middle aged woman. The woman said to them,

"My, your mom has her hands full with you guys doesn't she?!"

and Ryan said to her

"YEAH. But not full enough because we are getting another one! But not through the tummy, through adoption."

then Jack chimes in:

"Yeah and she's not gonna be white, she's gonna be BLACK, but that's okay"

!

Ha! I guess my kids have a general idea of what is going on after all!!

What is sweet about it all is how proud they were. They were talking about it as if it was the best thing that was ever going to happen to them. They were proud to say they were going to be big brothers again! I almost got a little teary eyed listening to the conversation. The poor cashier didn't know what to say. She just giggled nervously as I paid. Funny!

Pray!

Hi Friends!

There has been some new developments in our adoption journey!! Because of the nature of the situation we are in, we can't really elaborate at all, other than to ask you all to PLEASE PRAY for us! I promise that when we can, we will fill you in on what is going on here, but for now what we really need is lots and lots of prayer.

Over the last few weeks, and in particular the last few days Derek and I have seen God leading us in dramatic ways. It is amazing how when you ask, He answers.....and not always in the way you expect. In fact, sometimes He answers in a way that is better than you could ever imagine!!!

Telling our other children

When we first came to the realization that adoption was the way we would be going, we didn't really tell our children. Our oldest is 6 and our youngest is 2, we thought a wait of 2 or more years would be a long time for little munchkins to understand. But we did slowly start to introduce the idea to them. At supper we always have devotions and prayer with our kids and so one day we suggested that we pray for the orphans in the world. Kaylie, who is 4 said "what's an orphan?". So we explained how there are many children in the world who have no mom's and dad's and that they are called orphans. "That's horrible!" she cried. "They should come and live here, we have lots of room for orphans"

Well, that was easy :)

Everyday we talk a bit more about that idea. One day Derek said to them "What if we did take one of those orphans to live here with us?" Ryan said, " That would be great!" Derek said "Well, what if the one we took home had different color skin then you....maybe a bit darker? Maybe even black?"

(Awkward Silence)

Ryan : "Well that is no big deal, when they move here they won't be in the sun as much, so their tan will go away and they will be more pink"

(oh boy....)

Jack: "Ummmmm. That wouldn't be good. It would be really wierd."

Yikes. I guess we have a bit of work to do. Actually, since then Jack has gotten used to that idea.

They have no time frame in their minds except for "one day, when our baby comes home...." and for now, that is good enough.

Why International?

Several people have asked us why we have chosen to adopt internationally, when there are so many children in the foster care system here in Canada. That is a fair and valid question. Val and I believe every child deserves to have a mother and father that will love them unconditionally and forever, and our prayers are with those parents who decide to adopt domestically. There are basically three ways you can adopt a child if you live in Ontario. First, through Family and Children Services, (FACS). Secondly, through a liscenced private domestic agency, and third, international. The first option, through FACS, was appealing because it is free. The problem we had was the wait time was extremely long. Just to get a homestudy done was a year and a half wait, and then several months to complete it and get approved. Adopted children, when they are young, some times have problems attaching to their new families, and feeling like they belong. We felt a large age gap in-between our youngest child and our new child would only complicate things, since our first four kids were all born within four years. Also, FACS often operates as a foster to adopt program, wherein a child would be placed in your home as a foster child while the adoption was finalized. If the adoption falls through, (a birth parent has a change of heart), and the child is returned, my family would be devastated. The risk of putting that stress on my children is one I can not take. The second option, private domestic also came with a considerably long wait time. The cost was very similar to some of the international agencies. There is a huge push amongst private agencies nowadays to have open adoptions, where birth parents still have contact with your child. This could be as little contact as writing letters back and forth or as much as seeing each other on the weekends. While experts claim these arrangements are the best for the child, I could not handle such an arrangement, for several reasons.(selfishness being one of them). These are some of the reasons why domestic adoption, which is a beautiful thing and God bless those that choose that route, just wasn't suitable for us.

Citizenship

When you adopt a baby/child from another country, you have to apply for Canadian Citizenship for that child. (For the most part anyway, some countries want you to get immigration first, but that is a whole other thing). Guyana requires you to get citizenship. It's a 2 step process. Step 1, we have to prove that we are Canadian citizens eligible to apply for citizenship on behalf of our child. So that seems easy enough right? Just show the Canadian government a copy of my Canadian passport issued by them after I already proved I was a Canadian citizen. HA! Not quite. First I had to fill out PART 1 Form, photocopy mine and Derek's birth certificates, driver's licence, passports, and marriage licence. (PS not the old marriage licence the new one issued by the government a few years ago and you have to apply for that one too which takes about a month or two to come in....thanks for the heads up about that Sue...having that ready was a real bonus!) So then, with my photocopies and original documents in hand I went to the lawyers office (lol, 4 kids in tow because I was anxious to send it out yesterday and they could only meet with me at lunch!) to get each copy notarized by a notary public, with a seal and letter with each one. Then all the documents go in the envelope along with a receipt that you paid already online or at a bank. (You didn't think this was going to be free did you?!?) Whew. Anyway, the whole Part one is now done. And that is really about all I got done yesterday. But now my citizenship Part 1 is on it's way to Nova Scotia!!! Only 27 weeks and I will get them back.....

Guyana!!!

So, after much prayer and lots of discussion and research, we've narrowed our list of countries down to ONE :)

Guyana (pronounced gy-AN-ə), previously known as British Guiana, is on the northern coast of South America. Guyana has been a former colony of the British, Dutch, French and for 200 years the Spanish. Guyana is one of the few Caribbean countries which are not islands and

the population of Guyana is approximately 770,000. About 90% of people living there live on the coast(approximately 10% of the total land area of Guyana). The rest of the country is thick jungle, with little or no roads going into the interior.

The population of Guyana is made up of groups with ethnic backgrounds from India, Africa, Europe, China, with Aboriginal. These groups of diverse nationality backgrounds have a common language, English and Creole.

Some of the biggest problems the Guyanese people are facing are poor health care (with many people dying from AIDS, malaria, and because of bad drinking water...intestinal problems), also poverty is a huge issue.

The reason why we chose Guyana is pretty simple. We had narrowed down our choices to a few countries. Due to the fact that we already have 4 children, a lot of the countries wouldn't look twice at us. We were seriously considering Ethiopia as an option, but in the last few weeks the program for Ethiopia closed. We were also approved to go to South Africa, but the wait list is quite high and they prefer young childless couples. So, the choice left was Guyana and we are very excited about it!! We are happy that God laid out a clear choice for us because we were very uncertain which direction to take!

So, now we wait again. We haven't officially signed any papers, but we have to wait until the homestudy is done to make the next real move. Until then, we will be filing for citizenship or immigration, doing more research, making connections.

Adoption Course Weekend!!

This weekend Derek and I have the second half of our adoption PRIDE course (It stands for something....Parent Resource...It escapes me right now). Anyway, it's a required course for the government of Ontario. You have to have taken this course in order to pass the homestudy. So we are taking it in Toronto this weekend. I am so excited!! When we went to the first half a couple weekends ago I was very skeptical. I was prepared to have to sit through a boring course and get a certificate at the end. But it was a great course. I think a lot of that had to do with our presenters. They are so knowledgeable and they were answering many of our questions. It was very practical.

We learned a lot about how to care for infants who spend their first year in an orphanage. If a child has not had physical touch, or affection during the first year of their life it actually affects how they form attachments to people later on. They need to be shown how to attach themselves to people in a healthy way. It's a huge deal and I will go more into detail after this weekend. But definitely there is a lot of things you have to consider when taking a child from an orphanage and putting them into a home with a family. It's not easy.

Anyway, more about that later....I think I will have lots to talk about on Monday so stay tuned :)

8 Years Ago Today.......

8 Years ago today:

• I was a nervous bride getting ready to marry my best friend
• It was the coldest day of the year (-23!) but I wore sandals because I thought they were cute
• I had to leave my home, my family and my job to live in a new place, which has now become my home
• The words "diaper change" were not part of my every day vocabulary
• I had 200 of my family and friends together in one place at one time!
• I began the most memorable, fulfilling, incredible 8 years of my life so far

Happy Anniversary Derek! I love you more and more everyday!!!

Adopted For Life

A friend sent me a link today for this and I had to share it.

This book, Adopted for Life, by Russell Moore is AMAZING. It was the turning point in our decision to adopt. Every person who is thinking about adoption, has family or friends who are thinking about adoption, or really just if you are part of a church family, or community should READ THIS BOOK. Really, if you are reading my blog I guess that puts you into the "friend or family who is planning to adopt" catagory. So you need this book. It's free, and it's an audio download so you can listen to it while you work.

But it's only available for February. So, get going ;)

http://christianaudio.com/free/

Some Basic Info

I just wanted to give you a little overview of what we will be working towards in the next couple years. Yes, years. This is not going to be a quick and easy thing. Actually the more I read about it, the more I suspect that this is going to take a lonnnnnnng time.

But, that's okay. We are ready for a wait, (although ask me again in a year and a half and I might not be so optimistic).

So here's the quick version:

• Decided to adopt internationally
• Researched agencies to see what options were out there (still doing that!!)
• Contacted an adoption practitioner in October and were told to call back in January
• Met with an agency in November just to get some info
• Met with 2 couples to talk with them about their adoption experiences....learned a lot from that!
• Booked a Homestudy in January and had our first meeting the 2nd week of Jan.
• Had police checks done, fingerprinting done, wrote autobiographies about our lives, answered a hundred questions on questionnaires, wrote financial reports, had medicals done, etc. etc. etc. all part of the initial homestudy meeting.
• Enrolled in PRIDE course (government required course for adoption) and finishing course next weekend.

next step....finish homestudy.

So it's just the beginning, but there is a lot to be done. I have a feeling that we are doing a lot of hurrying up, so we can wait. But that is the way it seems to work!

And it begins......

Many of you already know this, but for those of you who don't:

About the end of September, Derek and I started seriously considering and praying about the idea of adopting a child (baby/toddler) from another country. We have been thinking and praying about it ever since that day and now we are started on our homestudy, taking courses and getting things done!! We are so excited to go through this process and I hope that this blog will be a good way to keep a record of it all. I hope also that this will be a good way for our family and friends to be updated, kept in the loop about the whole journey.

Right now we are in turmoil trying to decide on a country to adopt from. It's a really difficult thing to do. There are so many factors involved and actually where we thought there would be an abundance of options out there for us, there really isn't. We have it kind of, sort of narrowed down....but not really close to making any concrete decisions. Funny because we are really hoping to make a real decision on this issue....by next week. Hmmm.