Five years

It's been five years since we've been logged in.  I was going to write a post about how I really feel about this situation but then I remembered that this blog is currently public and I just don't want to deal with some of the comments I know I would get.

So that's all I have to say about that.

Why is it?

I wrote this at the end of May and never published it.  This is the reason I needed a sabbatical.
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Why is it,when an infertile couple chooses to try fertility treatments, we're accused of overpopulating the world and yet people that do not have fertility issues are NEVER told they're overpopulating the world?

Why is it, that people who have NEVER had problems conceiving feel that they have the right to tell an infertile couple to "just go and adopt"?

Why is it, when someone decides to adopt internationally, we're accused of child trafficking and buying a baby?

Why is it, when someone decides to adopt internationally, we're told by people (who have never tried) to adopt domestically?

Why is it, when someone decides to adopt outside of their ethnicity, we're accused of cultural genocide?

Why is it, when someone decides to try a private domestic adoption, they're told to go through the foster care system instead?

Why is it, that people feel they have the right to stick their noses in everybody else's business?

And now it's 2010

Another year has come and gone. Personally I was glad to kick 2009 to the curb. The year started off with so much hope for us and ended with disappointment. It's over, time to move on.

2009 did have a few highlights, we met our energetic puppy who's growing into an energetic dog. Boy does she keep us on our toes. Some wonderful friends finally met their children and became forever families. Her, her, them and them in particular. They had two of the most beautiful babies I've ever seen. They'll be heading out soon to meet their beauty and they saw their daughters face just in time to end the year. We're all so very happy for all of you.

I guess for us, I'm not raising my hopes the way I have in the past. We'll just play it by ear and see what 2010 brings. Here's to hoping everyone's dreams and wishes can come to fruition this year.

Happy New Year!

Happy day!

A new forever family!

1096 Days

Today marks our 3 year wait for our imaginary baby. I've taken to referring to our adoption in this way because there is just no end in sight. If it weren't for all the bills we've paid to our social worker, adoption agency, doctors, lawyers, etc I wouldn't believe it was happening.

I haven't been posting much lately. It's not that we haven't had things going on, we've been pretty busy. We finally managed to meeting our neighbour to the north, Janet and her family. What an amazing family! We had such a great time chatting with Janet and Anthony and meeting Adam and Jean. Eventually the rest of the family came home and we were able to meet the rest of the clan. What amazing children! Thank you so much for such a lovely day and the cute gift for our imaginary baby.


Jinx has also been keeping us busy. Even though you would never be able to tell by this picture. She's quite the active dog, she loves to run around and chase down balls and toys. She's becoming quite good at catching her toy in mid air. I'm quite impressed by this. I'll have to see if I can catch her in action one day.
My two nephews have been keeping me on my toes too. I love those two little boys and love being their Tita (auntie in Spanish). I'm so happy I'm able to watch them grow up.
And of course, meeting all these wonderful people and others who couldn't be there that day have made this journey so much more bearable.

I've made an executive decision as well. I am no longer go to count LIDs anymore. It just makes me sad and I don't like feeling sad.

Congrats to Michelle and Mark as well. I never thought it would've taken us this long but I am grateful we have each other to lean on.

"It's not the same"

I've been thinking about whether I should post this or not for a long time, like over a year long time. I only ever told Shawn about the what happened and he didn't know what to say. I've been revisiting this situation in my head and I think I handled the situation correctly but I'm wondering about what someone else would've said.

I was talking to someone who had always been very supportive of our adoption about a friend of mine that I had reconnected with. I mentioned that this friend had had a little girl in the years we were not in touch. Her daughter is now about 6 or 7 years old.She was not with the father of her child but was engaged to another man. I told this person how my friend was telling me how well this man treats her and her daughter, that he treats her daughter as if she was his child.

This person gave me a skeptical look and said, "Hmmm, it's not the same." I in turn said "Well, what's the difference between this situation and someone who is adopting?" The person then retracted and said "You're right, I hadn't thought about it that way." We left it at that and didn't bring it up again.

I couldn't believe those words came out of this person's mouth. Like I said, this person has always been very supportive of our adoption so I was floored when I heard that. To me there is no difference between someone adopting a child and someone who becomes a parent because their partner has a child. As a result of this comment, I started thinking, will people always view our family as "not the same"? Will we be viewed as the parents who love our child but not the same since we aren't connected genetically to our child? Now, if a comment like that came from a stranger, I wouldn't have given it a second thought but this comment came from someone I really trust and care for.

I'd like to hear others thoughts on this.

What will you do?

I know for us, we're still about 5 years away from a referral but I've been thinking about something. I'm not sure what I will do yet but I wonder if others have thought about it. When you get your referral, will you keep it public or go private? Will you continue with your blog once you're back home?

I started this blog almost three years ago as a way for our families and friends to follow our journey in China. This blog wasn't really meant to live beyond our coming home. It has, however, become so much more, allowing me to meet the most amazing people both in person and in the virtual world. While I am eternally grateful for these connections, I do want to protect my child's privacy. Like I said, I still have lots of time to think about this. I'm just curious what others are thinking.

Double the good news!

I have two pieces of very good news! First of all, we've finally made it out of the review room, officially! And it only took 16 and 3/4 months to get there. Rhonda was kind enough to follow up with our agency to confirm all this for us. This is great because now the CC@@ have also deemed us worthy of parenthood. Even though I know we still have a long wait ahead of us before we get our referral, at least this is one more step we don't have to worry about.



In other news, I got a job!!! It's for an oil and gas company (hard to get away from them here), in my field, with a great pay increase. It sounds like it's a great place to work as the two people who were interviewing me were also laughing and joking around with me. I'm a bit nervous because I haven't started a new job in a long time but after three months off with no income, it'll be good to get back into a routine.

Stuck in Neutral

We've been logged in at the CCA@ now for almost 16 months and we are STILL not out of the Review Room, at least officially. I feel like we're stuck in neutral not getting anywhere. The last time the CCA@ updated their website was December 19, that's over 3 months now and still no update. Our agency is one of the agencies that is publishes the updates the CCA@ provides so I have been stalking the site like a madwoman for some glimmer that we may be out of the review room. Frustrated, you better believe it.

I realize that getting out of the review room does not mean that we'll be getting a referral any quicker but it's just one more step in this never ending process.

It's about time

Finally the CCA@ has made it to 2006. They've matched up to January 4, 2006. We're still 11 months away but at least it's the same year.

Congratulations to everyone who is seeing their child's face for the first time!

Ughh

First there was this:

Then we got this from our agency today (I should add, I stole this from Michelle's blog):

Estimated referral timelines

2008 - Up to mid March - somewhere between the 14th & 20
2009 - Up to Mid May - somewhere between the 20-30
2010 - Up to the end of August (remember this is a 2006 LID)
2011 - Up to the end of November
2012 - US...we are the beginning of December.

So, Shawn and I are heading on one of these for some serious snuggles with my favourite little guy. Be back in a few days.

Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone. One thing I can tell you is that I'm happy to kick 2007 to the curb. It was a tough year for us for a few reasons. This was the first year that I've not had my mom with me. I have no words to express how much I miss her. My sister also moved two time zones and three provinces away. Another tough pill to swallow. The job situation is not getting any better either. And then there's the adoption or lack thereof.

However, 2007 did have it's highlights. We (as in Shawn) renovated our powder room, we went to Las Vegas and Calgary, and most importantly, we got to meet the other half of them and the rest of them. We got to meet them too and they brought them from the other side of the border. We were finally able to meet them after a few failed attempts. I'm glad we were able to get to know them, them, her and her. Meeting them has given me hope that there might be an end to this crazy journey we're all on. We were lucky to meet them all the way from Shawn's home town too. We tried to meet them but they were here when we were there. We're both so very grateful for all of you because honestly, you've all kept us sane.

2008 is just a few hours away now. I am looking forward to it. We have some big plans and big changes for 2008, can't share them just yet as we are still in the planning stages. Hopefully we'll be able to share soon (unfortunately, it's not a referral). We're still excited nonetheless.

I hope everyone has a wonderful, healthy and Happy New Year with many happy new beginnings. I look forward to the year ahead, and hopefully the opportunity to meet many more bloggy friends.

They're home!

Last night Shawn and I made our way to the airport to welcome Tracey, Mike, OJ, Papaya and the newest member of the family, Ran, home. Catherine showed up a few minutes later. We met up with Tracey's sister Shari and her husband Wayne and Mike's sister and her mom. We all chatted, anxiously staring down the arrivals board to see if they'd landed yet. We all got very excited when we saw their plane landed.



We then waited anxiously by the door to see if we could catch a glimpse of them. They finally made their way through and we got to meet Ran! She was very serious at first but then she saw the balloon that Catherine brought and that smile came out. The best part is when the giggles started. She is a beautiful, sweet little girl. I was able to talk to Papaya for a minute and she sure seems very excited about being a big sister, she already shared her balloon with her. We were able to chat with Mike and Tracey for about 10 minutes or so until we reluctantly let them go to their hotel so they could rest.

Afterwards, as Catherine, Shawn and I were walking back to the parking lot we were thinking that the airport authority should give us a discount for parking because we will be making more airport runs in the future!

Ran and Tracey



The family minus one (OJ wasn't feeling to well)



That smile and laugh that can make your heart melt!



Welcome home everyone! We were so happy to be a part of your homecoming.

(I had to steal some pictures from Catherine as our didn't turn out as well)

Eight months

Eight months down. Now of course the eternal question I ask at this point, how many more to go??? At least it's a long weekend here so we have today off. Happy long weekend as well to my fellow Canucks, hope you're all doing something fun!

Congratulations as well to Michelle and Mark, our travel buddies.

Roadblocks

I never thought that the road to parenthood would be so difficult. If someone had asked me 6 years ago how I envisioned our lives today, this wouldn't have even been on the radar. I thought that we would've been done having our two children by now, I should be returning to work now from maternity leave with number 2. But here we sit, still waiting for number one.

We've been dealing with our infertility for a long time. A very long time. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime. Especially with every announcement of a pregnancy. As happy as we are for everyone, it still feels like a kick in the stomach sometimes. Especially when you hear someone who's suppose to have your back say how you're jealous of them (yes, we have had a family member say that about us, me in particular. Supportive huh?). There was a long period of time where I felt that our infertility was a sign that we weren't meant to be parents. There were lots of tears, lots of soul searching lots of "What do we do now?". Roadblock #1.

We came to terms with our infertility and decided we wanted to be parents more than we wanted to be pregnant. We looked at our options and decided that we would pursue an international adoption for various reasons. We were worried about pursuing a domestic adoption because of the lack of available children, the fact that the birth parents could change their mind, the fact that we would be "competing" with other adoptive parents. Maybe it's selfish of us, but after so many years of disappointments and with our luck the birth parent would come back at the 11th hour and say "Forget it we changed our mind. " That would be devastating, I don't think I can handle that. Roadblock #2.

So that is why we went the international route. As we kept hearing from everyone around us "There are so many children that need a good home". So we did everything that was asked of us, we found our social worker, did our police checks, proved we were healthy, prove we could afford it, asked friends and family to help us prove that we're worthy of being parents. Then off went all our documentation to China with horrible stories of how the wait was going to increase to 1.5 years. But this wouldn't happen to us. We would be in the one year range. By the end of 2007 we would have our little girl.

In the past two weeks, we've heard the official word that the wait can increase to 3 years. Realistically at the rate they're going I wouldn't be surprised if it went up to 4 years. So now of course the whole questioning of oneself starts again, are we really meant to be parents, maybe this is a sign we aren't meant to be parents. Must...stop...thinking...like...that...we...are...worthy. Roadblock #3.

We also found out in the past two weeks that we are not allowed to pursue another international adoption while we wait for China. We can however pursue a domestic or US adoption (attention all of my American friends, you're not quite international despite the fact that we will soon need a passport to visit). When I questioned the government on the reasoning explaining to them that it could take just as long to do a domestic as international and they're logic doesn't make sense all I get is "That's the policy". Roadblock #4.

I called CAS to see if we have any options there. I was informed that our homestudy is not good enough, we need a SAFE homestudy (whatever that is). Then we have to take classes and CAS is the only place that offers it and there's a six month waiting period to get in. Roadblock #5.

We've looked into a couple of agencies in the US too. They won't deal with Canadians because they don't have Hague accreditation. Roadblock #6.

So here we are, petitioning the government to see if they will change their policy but who knows how long that will take or if anything will even get done. As I mentioned earlier, we often heard that there are so many children in the world that need a home. My comment to that is where the hell are they? We are ready for a family but because of bureaucracy it's not happening. Stupid bureaucracy. Don't get me wrong, I get why these measures are in place. Sometimes though it just feels like overkill.

I'm tired of waiting for what should come naturally, I'm tired of bureaucracy that's there to protect children but right now feels more along the lines of keeping them so somebody can have a job, I'm tired of baby showers for other people, I'm tired of people asking "What's going on with the adoption?", I'm just tired. I wish I had some definitive answers, like everyone else. I really wish these roadblocks would just go away.

Sorry for the rambling post. I'm just really fed up with the whole situation right now.

Thank you everyone

Once again I have to thank you all for all your kind words and support. Most days I am now doing better, but then you get a holiday or a special occasion and I'm back at square one. As Michelle reminded me "they" say all the firsts are the hardest to get through. I hope next year is a bit better because I'm not sure I can handle this every year.

I am very fortunate to have found some amazing women through this crazy world of International Adoption. On Saturday night I had the honour of meeting even more mommies in waiting and some mommies that have returned home with their babies this year. A very large group of amazing women got together at the Pickle Barrel for a great evening of food and talk. There were of course those that I've met before, Michelle, Kathy, Rhonda, Cari and Nicole. I got meet Catherine, Jill, Beth, Liz, and many, many others. Nicole got to show off pictures of her adorable Z. I can't wait til she travels to get him so we can go visit.

Jill gave everyone a a little tin can containing white tea and a fortune cookie. My fortune was "You will soon choose between two jobs"...interesting. From Liz and Ava we received the cutest little ladybug shaped tupperware. There was also a gift exchange where we drew numbers and got one from the pile. I drew number one and got the cutest pj's and found out later that it was from Kathy, kind of appropriate I think that I ended up with that one.

**I would've taken a picture but our battery died and I've been too lazy to plug it in. I'll get it charged tonight and edit this post when I take the picture.**

It was a lot of fun getting together with everyone. I'm glad I was FINALLY able to make it (it had always been one thing or another before that prevented me from attending). I can't wait until the next dinner in July!

Referrals in the air?

It looks like families will be receiving their referrals soon. First off all, big congratulations to all the families who will be seeing their children's faces for the first time. I can only imagine how excited everyone is.

Now the rumoured cut off date is November 1, 2005. If this is the case, then that means 5 days worth of referrals. Better than two, but still. At least October will be done. Now I have a question. If the cut off is November 1, does that mean referrals for November 1 were made or is the last day of referrals October 31st? Just wondering.

I've also been doing some math. Currently, there are 342 families ahead of us at the agency. I don't know how to calculate as to what this will mean timewise. But 342 is something that I can work with. What I will do is as CCAA reaches the LID dates, I will remove them from my little Excel spreadsheet and watch the number go down. It may not be much, but at least it's something I can see and something that is concrete for me. With so much uncertainty as to what's going to happen, I know my spreadsheet will go down eventually.