Big Changes

Today I formally closed our file with Imagine Adoption.  After meeting with the CAS counsellor we have decided to pursue adoption locally, instead.  The journey has been enlightening, to say the least; but we feel like we're on our way, finally in the right direction.   

We met with Anne (CAS) last week and reviewed a detailed list of our hopes for a child, and the areas in which we would be best able to offer support.  She was very frank.  'Children are in CAS for a reason.'  So now our research has taken a new direction as well.  We are looking at how to raise and help to heal, the hurt child.  It is very much about attachment parenting, which we practice already, but there will be a lot more to learn.  I feel confident because we are already parenting two kids, and I'm at home full time right now.  Also, because we have chosen only to adopt a child younger than Nate, we will likely have a few years wait in front of us (he must be at least 3-31/2 before we adopt a 2 year old).

One of the best parts of the CAS adoption is the matching process.  Unlike international adoption, in which children are matched based on the order paperwork is received, we will have a team of workers who have met us, in our home and know our children as well.  They will use this information to make appropriate referrals for us.  Then, we may agree to observe the child, which we will do in the foster home (unknown to the child, as we will be called friends of the family).  If we want to continue, then we will visit the child in this home, and they will visit us in ours several times.  After that, there is a 6 month period in which the child lives in our home before we finalize the adoption.  I cannot imagine not finalizing once we have gotten that far, but the one thing that has always bothered me about international adoption has been the way in which the child is removed from the orphanage.  He would have been given into our care on the first day that we were in Ethiopia.  There are no visits beforehand to ease the transition. I've always worried that the child would view me as the person who had taken them from the world (and caregivers) that they knew.

One more great thing for us is the control over the process.  With Imagine, we were essentially done our part (the homestudy) and now had to wait for everything: the Ontario government, the federal government, the Ethiopian government, the referral, the Ethiopian court process, the immigration process, the travel.  

Now, we are only waiting for one thing: a referral that allows us to have extensive knowledge of the child, and even to meet him several times, before completing the adoption.  I'm not sorry we went through everything else, as it allowed us to really consider transracial adoption, which is still a possibility for us, and also to experience the extreme frustration that many people go through to get a child.  It was quite eye-opening.

We will be on a list now, probably for a few years.  So who knows what this blog will turn into....

Paula

Approved!

We got 2 messages from Imagine this week.  The first informed us that we've been formally approved by the Ontario Ministry, which means that we're onto the next step--our dossier goes to Ethiopia and we wait another 8 months or so for a referral.  

The second message told us that the Ethiopian government has just changed its court procedure. Now, once you accept a child referral, instead of one court date to complete the adoption, there can be up to four, with various other ministries and police agencies involved.  These expanded rules are to protect the children and ensure that they are not being taken illegally from birth families who are willing and able to keep them.  How much time it will add on is unknown, but one thing is certain, it will add to the already very long process.   At this point, we may well be into Spring 2010 before we would possibly be travelling to Ethiopia to get our little one.

On the other end of things, we have an appointment with a counsellor from the CAS in 2 weeks. She sent us an information checklist to help us sort out the kinds of behavioural and medical issues we may face adopting through the CAS.  Still, I'm excited about this route.  It still feels right.  (Even when we've been up with sick kids 3 nights in a row!)