Losing Hope

I know, I've been neglecting this blog lately.
The latest news is very confusing. Our Canadian agency assures us that all orphanages will soon be able to refer children internationally. At the same time, the French Government web page states that no new applications are accepted and that healthy children are not available from Sri Lanka anymore.

The program has been still since December 2011, that's over a year.
Sure, we get updates that give us hope every now and then. But in reality, nothing is moving.

As I have hinted to before, we are pursuing other options, now. We are leaving our file in Sri Lanka and still hope to adopt from there one day, but we're not counting on it.
When we first started this process, we spoke with an mom from BC who had adopted from Sri Lanka. She advised us to not leave all our eggs in the same basket. She had put in a second application and succesfully adopted a first child from a different country before ever getting a referral from Sri Lanka.
Well, S., it took us over a year to understand and accept the value of your advice.

And since our focus has changed a bit, I find it harder to maintain this blog...

I will keep updating it, but I may not post as often for a while. I hope to eventually pick up the pace again, if our Sri Lanka adoption ever happens, or if the adoption of another child gives me valuable material.

Adoption Is Scary

I'm linking this post to Adoption Magazine's Adoption Blog Hop... If you don't know this blog, make sure you have a look, they have a lot of high quality posts!

Adoption is scary.
I mean, sure, having a child is always a scary adventure.
But adoption is different. It's more complicated, doesn't provide you with a timeline and, in most cases, isn't something that your Mom can advise you on.
Where a pregnant woman worries about miscarriage, birth defects and labor, a waiting parent worries about failed adoptions, pre-natal malnutrition and a long, emotionally painful process.
But there is so much more fears in adoption... Family acceptance, racial issues, attachment problems, difficult discussions with a growing child, alcohol or drug exposure, openness and dealing with this other family, finances...

In all honesty, I have been terrified every step of the way, ever since we decided to jump onboard this roallercoaster.
But the one biggest fear I have is the only thing that I can't say for sure will turn out fine. Are we doing what's best for our children? Are our kids going to resent us for taking them to this country where they look different? Will they feel like we have stripped them of the culture they should have grown up in? How do we instill enough pride and self confidence in our children to make them feel good about their stories?
What do we know? We haven't been in this situation. How can we fully sympathise with the challenges, the pains our kids will endure?

So while we wait, I try to prepare. I learn about Sri Lanka, I read about adoption, I spend time with kids, I talk with other parents... But the fears are always there. They are part of the journey. And though I'm scared silly every step of the way, I'm not turning back!

What fears do you have, as you wait for adoption?

We're Off!

The Holiday season can be the most difficult time of the year when you're waiting to adopt.
In all honesty, I have come to dislike Mother's Day, my birthday, Halloween and New Year's Eve as well. But Christmas is so loaded with childhood memories, and so widely celebrated around here that it has become the time of year that I hate the most.
I believe it's not just the adoption community who feels this way. Christmas is difficult when you have recently lost someone close, when you live away from your family, when you are recently divorced or when illness has stricken your family this year.

I believe that, when life gets a bit rough, you have to do what's necessary to ease the pain. Even if it means not following traditions, or sometimes disappointing others.

So this year, Pablo and I are running away from Chistmas.
We're off to Greece for 3 weeks!
The first week will be just the two of us, on the continent. Then, we're meeting up with Pablo's parents and brother on Crete for 2 weeks.
Of course, we'll miss the rest of the family, and it's sad to give up the traditions that we love. But it's even more sad to follow your traditions when someone so crucial as your own kid is missing. Hopefully it's the last Christmas we have to run away from!

To all, a very happy holiday season! And may your dearest dreams come true...

Why Do We Want Children?

Have you ever stopped to think about the motivations behind your desire to have children?

At first, it might have been just to follow a tradition, because that's the way things go...
But why do we work so hard to have children when it proves difficult?

I have thought about this a lot, lately. What if this doesn't work? Could we be happy without children? Would we spend our life regretting what could have been? What would be missing in my life, if I didn't have kids?
I believe this last question is of supreme importance.

We probably all have different reasons to want children. Maybe you absolutely need the activity and excitement in your life. Maybe you're worried of the loneliness as years go by. Maybe you can't bear to disappoint a partner or deny grand-parenthood to your parents.

For me, it's the need to dedicate myself to something more important than me.
Sure, a life without kids would mean a lot more money, travels, freedom. But even the most exciting life seems a bit tasteless to me if it's all about myself.
With this in mind, I believe I could lead a happy life without children. It's the first time that I'm even able to bare this thought. I would have to find a greater cause to serve. Maybe I would dedicate myself to charity or something like that. I'm not ready to accept this yet, I would have to grieve the family I have imagined. But I think I could do it if it proved necessary.

Coming to this conclusion, very new to me, has made me feel a bit relieved. We are not done with the heartbreak. But I know at some point, whatever fate decides, I will be fulfilled again. This state of waiting is temporary. And that gives me some strength to keep going.

It Could be Worse!

Gina, over at One in Five Million, has written this post which came at a perfect time for me. I needed to be reminded that things are really not that bad...
So I've tried to give this some thoughts and put things in perspective.

Sure, this family building journey is taking far more time than I ever imagined I could survive like this. But did you know that, in some cultures, men who are not able to conceive with their first wife are allowed (sometimes encouraged) to take a second wife? I am so grateful that Pablo is sharing this journey with me!

Sure, I feel somewhat left behind while all my friends and relatives are building their families. But some women survive multiple miscarriages, failed adoption, even still birth. I can only imagine the pain of welcoming another baby in your circle when yours is missing...

Sure, my life plans are being pushed around. I really did not imagine myself still in this exact same place, a few years ago. Some of my life projects may end up falling off the shelf as the years go by. But the status quo could be much worse. I have a home I love, in the sweetest small town in the whole world; I have a good, challenging job; and I'm married to my best friend.

Sure, the program closure and very slow reopening feels a bit like salt in an open wound. But we are so lucky that we have access to programs like this. Single parents, gay couples, people with certain medical conditions or a more complicated past have a much harder time finding a country they can adopt from.

Lately, the hopelessness has blurred my vision a bit. I need to remember these things and snap out of my pity party!

Welcome to Canada

Do you think Canada is a welcoming country that treats immigrants with respect?

We received our Approved Application to Sponsor earlier this month. As you know, this gives us permission to sponsor our child into Canada, provided that we assume full responsibility for meeting her needs.
Here are some bits from the approval letter:
"Dear Gen, This refers to the Application to Sponsor a Member of the Family Class you submitted on behalf of the child you intend to adopt..."
"... You have met the requirements for eligibility as a sponsor. Accordingly, details of your application..."
"... Should you need to submit additional information or make any enquiries during the processing of the Application [...], you may contact the visa office by email, fax or in writing..."
All in all, pretty courteous.

The email I have received on Monday, addressed to my not-yet-Canadian baby (also not-yet-born, but that's a detail), has a somewhat different tone. Here are a few extracts:
"Dear " ", We have received your approved application to sponsor. We are awaiting submission of a completed application for Permanent Residence..."
"We require the following information from the applicant in order to continue processing the application..."
"... The information /documents we have requested should be provided to us within 30 days from the date of this email. No further requests will be made. If we do not receive the information within the time indicated, we will proceed to assess the application based on the information on file which may result in refusal."
And I did not add the bold and underlined...

Is it me or are they a lot less polite to my child? 
I hate to say it, but I think Citizenship and Immigration Canada thinks potential immigrants don't deserve to be treated as nicely as Canadian citizens.

We see ourselves as a pretty open, tolerant, multi-cultural people. It makes me wonder how welcoming our institutions really are...

On Hope

I find that Hope is a very tricky element of the adoption journey.

Anyone who has ever heard the word patience in regard to their family building effort knows that Hope can be a very dangerous thing. It’s a simple equation: the more hopeful you are, the more painful the fall. And anyone who talks about optimism and how it’s supposed to attract good luck has clearly never been there.

So there are good reasons for trying to keep your Hope levels under control, however difficult that sometimes is.

On the other hand, the balance has to flip sides at one point. How do you prepare for the child that’s coming when you keep thinking it won’t happen? How do you even start preparing the people around you, your family, your friends, even your work team? How do you plan financially for diapers and ballet classes if you’re sure you’ll never have to worry about these?

So managing our levels of Hope seems like a very delicate, yet critical task to me. It’s something I struggled with in a lot of different ways, those past few months. And it’s still a struggle.

I am willing to believe that we’ll be parents one day and that we can start preparing. But anything more concrete seems too dangerous.

Our agency gave us a range of 8 to 24 months to referral.

I think buying baby clothes is fine. But moving our bedroom to free up the baby’s room? Telling my boss that I may very well go on parental leave in a few months? I’m not quite ready. And please don’t tell me to let myself be hopeful, I’m the one who’s risking the fall.

I can’t help but notice that today, we’ve waited for 1 month, that this leaves 23 months to the longest waiting time our agency has seen and that, if those numbers are right, 4.2% of our pregnancy has passed. That’s not even 2 weeks of a biological pregnancy. For now, this is about as far as I’ll go in hoping that our timeline isn’t too far off…

Adoption-Free Saturdays

Pablo and I had a really good heart-to-heart, today. We talked openly about a lot of the complex issues surrounding adoption.
It felt like a good time in the process to regroup, we've been at it more than 6 months! I'm glad we did this.

One thing we have decided is to have Adoption-Free Saturdays! This process is so consuming, it's sometimes dfficult to back up and focus on ourselves. So from now on, Saturdays are a day off from the paperwork, the worrying, the waiting and all things adoption. We won't talk about it, read about it, take any adoption related action or blog about it. And we'll make Saturdays a time to be together as a couple.
It was Pablo's idea, and I think it's great. It may not be easy at first, but I'm sure we'll benefit from this!

I wonder if this is something a lot of families do... Are we the only ones getting so caught up in this process that it's hard to think about anything else?

A Better New Year!

I know it's not socially accepted to not be all cheery and happy on New Year's Eve. I know every single one of us is expected to smile so wide our cheeks hurt when we distribute happy and hopeful wishes to those we love.

But Hey! It's my party and I cry if I want to!
So if you're going to be shocked to read something depressing on New Year's Eve, have a happy new year and skip the rest of this post.

In all honesty, I don't feel like celebrating much today... I'm usually the first to wear Christmas lights earrings and to write long emails to reminisce all the sweet moments of the old year. But this year, the holidays are bitter-sweet.
I've spent 2011 in a job I love. Pablo and I have traveled a lot this year. We spent the very first minute of the year hugging my sister and brother-in-law with the Sydney Harbour fireworks in the background. We got married and decided on a beautiful way to have a child. We got an adorable new niece. I spent my 30th birthday being spoiled big time by my friends and family. For all that, I am grateful. Yet, I have a hard time seeing 2011 as an overall positive year. I have spent most of the year navigating from Hope to Shattered Hope, or trying to fill empty hours, days, waiting for time to pass.
And I dread the year to come. 2012 is going to be another 12 months of waiting, with a fun little surgery in spring, just to make it spicier. It's also going to be another childless Christmas and another bitter-sweet New Year's Eve.
I'm going to try very hard to have a good New Year's Eve party (we're having a friend over tonight).
I'm also going to remind myself the cool stuff that this new year has in store. A trip back to Australia, a new goddaughter, 2 very much anticipated visits from friends in out little western heaven, another year with the man of my life.

To all of you, I wish a healthy, happy 2012, filled with love and good surprises. For ourselves, I wish a lot of courage and resilience.

In Labor...

They say (jokingly) you get enough paper cuts to make up for the pain of delivering a new born. Adopting involves a lot of paperwork, and with is comes a lot of time and efforts invested in trying to deal with institutionnal bureaucracy and its bland representatives. There is also the indiscretion of the Home Study, and the feeling of being constantly judged. The social worker, the extended family, the agency (and we have two of these), even the random strangers who learn about our adoption have an opinion about us and about our project, and somehow feel entitled to sharing it with us. And there is the constant edginess that all this intrusion has left me with, I don't even recognize myself. There is also a lot of frustration, worry and uncertainty.

But you know what I find really difficult? It's the slow ticking of the seconds when nothing is left to do! At least, when we are chasing paperwork, there is something to be done, there is a sense of moving forward. I hated the Home Study interviews, but it felt awesome to cross these on my to-do list.

I can only imagine how hard it will be to wait for a referral once our Dossier is gone!

Action-Reaction

Let me just make one thing clear:

ADOPTION IS A BEAUTIFUL, HAPPY THING! We’re having a baby! We are really, honestly excited about it!

Adoption is not, to us, a sad, last resort solution we resigned to after grieving the “better option”. It may have different challenges than the other way of making babies, but it also has its own riches.

So thanks a million to all of those who understand that and celebrate our decision with us! We know you may have done things differently, if you were in our shoes, and we appreciate that you can respect our vision for our own life! We all have lessons to take from you...

To the few others, I understand where you’re standing: this is not how you would have handled things. Maybe you would have tried the old baby-making sport a bit longer, maybe you would have chosen the medical path to your family, maybe you would have waited until you’re 35, maybe you would even prefer not having children to adopting. And that’s all fine and respectable. But try to keep this in mind: it’s US walking in our shoes, here! And adoption is a beautiful, happy thing in our eyes. Isn’t that all that really matters? You guys are also teaching me a lesson, in a way...

Police-aucracy...

Arrggghhh!
We are waiting for the Interpol police clearance to be able to get started on the Home Study. We went to our local police station for fingerprints almost 3 weeks ago. The lady there said we only had to send our prints to an address in Ottawa, but she seemed rather unsure. We sent everything, with a return envelope and a small note saying that this was for Interpol checks and to call my cell phone if anything was missing.
Today, I got an RCMP envelope in the mail. I was all excited: we were going to be able to move on to the next step!
Well, the envelope had our forms, untouched, in it. It also had a printed sheet of paper saying that we had to send a money order or certified check to the Receiver General for Canada, for $25 per person.
It took them 3 weeks to tick the little box next to the unpaid fees statement... I just can't imagine how long it's going to take them to check our fingerprints in their database!
Deception, deception.
I find it hard to be patient with bureaucrats...