#6: WHERE IS YOUR ADOPTION PROCESS AT?

#6: SO WHERE IS YOUR ADOPTION PROCESS AT?

Apologies for the lengthy silence. Many have been asking where things are at with our adoption process, and if I were to use an analogy I would say we are still in labour and delivery room while you sit in the waiting room, well... waiting. Things are happening, just no announcement... yet.

Since our last adoption update, where we were registered to adopt siblings domestically from the foster care system, we not only came to realize some major roadblocks within the system that we are passionate to address as a non-profit, but also were personally captivated by surprise to adopt from China. This was not something within our plans, but we sensed it was something we needed to be open to. So we committed to China! (I know, I know, many of you are now asking: "why would you adopt internationally when there are so many waiting kids in Canada?!" - Hang in there, that'll be my next blog entry, glad you are asking :)

So end of March we transferred from domestic too inter-country (China). Homestudy was already done and transferrable, so it was not a big administrative switch - or so we thought... No words to describe the agony of beaurocratic issues in completing simple tasks. I call it the Rube Goldberg machine of adoption (wikipedia definition: a contraption, invention, device or apparatus that is deliberately over-engineered or overdone to perform a very simple task in a very complicated fashion, usually including a chain reaction.) 

Fast-forward more than 3.5 months after switching to inter-country, we finally received provincial approval for China, and yes! for an older child, out-of-birth-order (which has historically not been approved in MB). There are no epidurals available for painful adoption processes, but like welcoming any child, it will be worth the pain and wait and push for change in our system, There has been much character-building opportunity in this long labour process, even a "miscarriage" along the way in a missed opportunity to adopt a special needs aging-out Chinese child on the shared list that we had been praying for. (But by God's grace, a family is rushing through paperwork right now and will be adopting him days before his 14th birthday, before he has no legal chance of ever having a family. Big phew! So happy for him and his new family!). 

Now we are waiting for the big push, when we receive a referral of our new child. And you will be one of the first to hear about it by staying connected to our blog (unless you hear our screaming of celebration in the air). We are told now that we have our provincial approval, a referral for a child could come quickly, as there are many older special needs children waiting to be adopted and few families lining up for older children. We still have much paper processing before us when the child is referred, but it "should be" less complicated and more predictable. Good bye Rube Goldberg?! Sure hope so, but never a guarantee.

Like any child born into the family, once they are in our arms, the work of raising them has just begun and we have much catch up to do with the child as they learn what it means to have a family, go through healing and attachment, and the many cultural/language adaptations. Some have questioned if we know what we are signing up for, in adopting an older institutionalized child (teen or tween), out-of-birth order from our younger biological children. Hey, this too will be addressed in a future blog. 

Stay tuned to more of our crazies, right here on park127.blogspot.ca!