Still Waiting

We're waiting for our match and I'm guessing we may have a couple more months to go.  While we've been waiting, we've made some very positive changes.  We understand that food means love to children adopted internationally.  We also know that we will need to keep an abundance of food in our home and readily available (i.e. a bowl of fruit and nuts on the counter in reach).  So, we've done a lot of research on food and nutrition.

Here are the changes we made:
1) Over the holidays, we bought a juicer and we've been using it every day to juice whole foods (fruits and vegetables).  We're currently doing a juicing cleanse and we plan to keep juicing on a daily basis.
2) We've adopted "Meatless Mondays", which is our dedicated day to be vegetarian.
3) We're adding Chia to salads and steel cut oats
4) We've cut out Aspertame
5) We avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup and MSG whenever possible.
6) We try to buy local organic produce - although sometimes this can be difficult
7) We switched from colas and lattes to tea

We've started making these changes over the past couple of months.  I had stopped eating beef two years ago and we started buying mainly organic produce then, but we've spent more time recently analyzing our diets.  We haven't really lost any weight, but we're feeling much more alert, we're functioning better at work, and we feel happier.

Since our child will equate food with love, it's important to us that we have the right kinds of food and that we can teach what it means to have a good diet.

Do They Know It's Christmas Time?

We Finally Received Part 1 of Our Citizenship Application

When I arrived home yesterday evening and checked the mailbox, I was delighted to find that we have finally received confirmation from Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding Part 1 of our Application for Canadian Citizenship for a Person Adopted by a Canadian Citizen.  They have approved Part 1 and we are able to apply for Part 2, once we are matched to our child.

This piece of paper was the final form required for our dossier.  We were moved forward to the match process without it, since they knew it would come in before it was needed, but I'm happy to have everything complete and I will be sending in this form via courier on Monday.

Estimated Wait for a Match

I just received an email from our adoption agency.  I was asking a question about the Post-Placement Deposit and the estimated time to receive our match.

The Post-Placement Deposit is a fee they take and then they return the deposit once they receive the reports.  This is to ensure that we're doing the Post-Placement.

They currently have a single boy in the orphanage that's 4-years.  If they match him with us, then we would be matched shortly.  It depends on who is ahead of us in the queue that have requested a child that age.  Otherwise, for a child between 2- and 4- years, we will likely be waiting for about 6 months for our match.  For a child between 0- and 2- years, we would be waiting closer to 12 months.

Our Dossier Is Complete and We're Waiting For Our Referral

Bob and I had been working on our Dossier throughout the Summer and we had submitted all of the paperwork.  We paid the final agency fee last week.

We have one piece of paper missing from our Dossier, which is Part 1 of Immigration from Canada Customs and Immigration.  We had applied on this in August and were told there was an 8 week turn around time.  I finally got through to Canada Customs and Immigration at the end of November to inquire on where our application was at and I was told that the wait time had increased to 16 weeks and that we should have it back by November 30 at the latest.

We've informed our agency of the status of our Part 1 application and they've moved us forward to the referral section without it, knowing that we will have it before they send us a referral.

After paying the final portion of our dossier fees, we then had to complete 3 online courses and receive the certificates to move forward in the referral process.  I managed to complete all the courses and receive the certificates on Tuesday.  Most of the information in the courses is redundant information, since we also attend the classes offered at our local agency.  The course information includes: Dealing with Grief, Loss, and Separation; Transracial Adoption; and Attachment.

A few weeks ago, we were presented with a potential match (even though we hadn't paid the final portion of the dossier fees).  This potential match was for a sibling group with 3 children (boy 4- years, girl 6-years, girl 8-years).  We were considering this groups and had several serious discussions with family and friends.  We attended a course on transracial adoptions at our Canadian Agency in Calgary and spoke with the Director of our agency after the course.  In our meeting (and in the meeting with our social worker), we were advised that both the provincial government and the federal government would have an issue with us attempting to adopt this sibling group and we would likely not be approved.  In the Province of Alberta, the majority of adoptions of "older" children (children between 6 and 10) have been unsuccessful, where the parents had a 50% divorce rate and people have requested to "return" the children, so the provincial government typically only approves adoptions of older children if these children are related in some way to the parents, or if the parents have other children or experience being foster parents.  The federal government would have a different issue with this match, and it is based on adopting 3 children at once.
We trust our Social Worker and the Director of our Agency and have taken their advice to wait for the referral we had originally applied for.  We hope these children find a loving home.


We're now waiting for our match.  We have requested a boy between 0 & 4-years, but will accept a girl and will accept a sibling pair.  It may take anywhere between 2 and 12 months to receive our match.  Once we're matched and we accept the referral, we have our child and then have to wait for about 9 months to bring our child home.  I understand that the waiting, once you know who your child (or children) is, is the hardest part, because this is the point when you become emotionally attached to your child and you develop a great longing to have your child at home with you.

We're getting close, but know we have to be patient.

We Passed!

I've just arrived home and brought in the mail and we passed!  Our approval of our home study was in the mail with all of the documentation to move forward.

We have been waiting for the approval for two months and it finally came in.  We haven't paid for our dossier to our US agency yet, as we wanted to make sure we had this approval.  We will be submitting this payment today and moving forth with the dossier paperwork.

We've also decided to apply for a short mortgage as an adoption loan.

Still Waiting to be Approved by Children's Services

Bob and I are still waiting to hear from Alberta Children's Services for our approval of our home study.  It was submitted to the Alberta Government at the beginning of May.  We were told it would take at least 6 weeks to hear back.  It's been more than 7 weeks now, so I'm sure we'll have something in the mail now any day.  It's tough waiting.

Sigh...