THE GOOSE HAS COOKED

ALL THINGS MUST COME TO AN END!
Christmas holidays were great, but it's "back to grind" of employment tomorrow. I had hoped to paint the nursery while I was off as the paint has been sitting in my hallway for weeks, but we never seemed to get around to it. Perhaps it will get done over this coming weekend. We have more paperwork to fill out this week and a few things we need to mail to our AP (Adoption Practitioner) but we're almost done - at least until the next stack arrives!

A PARTRIGE IN A PEAR TREE

T'IS THE SEASON
Mr. Claus came to the house last night...and boy did he deliver. The stockings were stuffed, and the presents were left under the tree with care.

Sleeping in on holiday, although seemingly a grand idea, was not going to happen. I rudely awoke at 6am by our spoiled little brat, our morkie Pip, jumping on my head. I swear she's worse than a toddler.

The morning was perfectly lazy - brewed some coffee, ate some marble cake, opened our gifts, played with the dogs, visited the folks for a few hours and returned home to relax and eat some chocolate. It's a great day to kick back and do nothing.

T'WAS 2 TWEETS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

REALITY RECAP

From the very beginning of our relationship more than ten years ago, we spoke about how important it was for us to be a family. We love kids and without them in our lives something very important feels missing. Both my husband and I have large extended families, so when we finally took the conformative plunge into matrimony, we knew we wanted to start a family right away.

When things didn’t go as originally planned, we spent hours and hours worth of researching so that we could become informed of the adoption and fertility methods available to us, but after much discussion about our hopes and morals, we decided that adopting children internationally was the best decision for our family.

To us, the importance of becoming a family truly out weighed the method in which it occurred. Simply stated – we want to be parents. OMG – did I just admit that.

THE WHY'S
Time to answer the most common, sometimes ridiculous questions that we have received since we started to announce our plan to adopt:

Why can't you get pregnant? We never said we couldn’t,
we simply haven’t.

Why adopt? There are many ways to make a family. We decided this was the best path for us.

Why go international? The need is there, we fit the inter-country eligibility requirements and it suited what we wanted. Although international adoption is full of ups and downs, mounds of red tape, paperwork galore and many uncertainties, it is controllable and has the inevitable light at the end of the tunnel. This is not the case with private or domestic adoptions in Canada – there are no guarantees.

Why Vietnam? Tough to answer. Like a hot cup of hot cocoa in front of the fire on a cold winter’s night, the thoughts of a child from Vietnam warmed the sole and felt right. Although a vibrant and lovely country, Vietnam is among one of the poorest in the world and single parenthood is unfortunately unaccepted and severally frowned up on. Many children are abandoned or registered to the care of an orphanage because of this social prejudice and extreme poverty.

On a more positive note, VN is generally a healthy country. The Vietnamese eat well, get lots of natural vitamin D and actively take care of themselves. They also have very low percentages of drug and alcohol abuse, unlike Canada, which means that most little “dragonflies” come into the world healthy and without addiction.

Although VN is half way around the globe, it is a beautiful country with a culture that interested us both. When we decided on which country to pursue, it was important that we were not only willing to open our hearts and home to a Vietnamese child, but that we lovingly embrace the responsibility of teaching her about the heritage and culture of her birth country as we will forever be connected to it.

Why a girl? There are several personal reasons why we gender selected but they are just that, personal and they will remain so, respectively. However, let it be known to those who say “If you conceived a birth child, you’d get whatever grew within you, with no choice” This is true – but there’s also the misconception that adoption is a replacement for a pregnancy. Believe me it’s not, nor is it remotely comparable. It is just a different way to build a family and with it, came choices – this was ours.

EPIPHANY

Epiphany: the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something.

When I married my wonderful husband two years ago, I never would have imagined that I would one day be creating a personal blog about our journey to create a family. Even though we officially began this unbelievable adventure over four months ago, I have been apprehensive. Who knows, maybe I’m becoming superstitious as I get older or perhaps I was scared to start typing until we got the final approval to proceed. Now that we have it and are moving forward in what feels like a lightening bolt, it feels surreal. I'm going to be a mommy...

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

Today, we went down to the International Fingerprinting Services office and had our prints taken. It was a very quick and painless process and the files were sent automatically to the RCMP, which will save us a step.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

We had our homestudy meeting #2 today. Everything seemed to be going well. We discussed some of the results from the papers we had submitted. It was interesting to see how well they truly described each of our individual personalities. We also went over some details about selecting gender and country. Diane seems very nice. She is easy to talk to, very helpful and has lots of good information for us. At the end of the meeting, we were sent home with another stack of paperwork to fill out. We will also need to get electronically fingerprinted and photographed in order for the RCMP to do our Interpol checks, which is a mandatory requirement for International Adoption.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

Got an email from TDH saying:

I have received your cheque for the registration fee and forwarded it to our Montreal office, and registered you on the TDHO Preliminary Waitlist.
I cannot accept your homestudy right now, I will communicate with you when I am able to transfer you onto the process list which will mean that you can send me your homestudy (I don’t expect this to happen before 1st quarter of 2010). I hope this helps you understand the process.
Manon

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIAIRES

Daddy and I had our homestudy meeting #1 with Diane today. It lased for a few hours but I think it went well. She seems very nice and said that we sounded like excellent candidates. She sent us home with a stack of paperwork to fill out. Some of the things we need to do now are: Get medicals done for both of us, get a police record check done for both of us, get a child welfare checks done for both of us, read and sign two different memorandums, sign our contract for our Diane, get our house in order for the home safety inspection, get everything organized for our Home Safety check and fill out a questionnaire for Myers Briggs. We also had to write personal Autobiographies explaining our relationship with parents, our childhood and explain why we want to adopt and what we want to provide for you.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

We just made it by a few days, but we are almost on the list. We are SO happy!

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

I went on to the TDH website today to see if any new updates had been listed. To my shocking surprise, there was a new tagline added saying: TDH Vietnam Program Full

I immediately panicked, as we had not heard anything from TDH since Daddy had mailed our Application in on Aug14. I urgently sent an email inquiry to TDH asking if someone could get back to me as soon as possible, confirming whether or not we made it in on time. The thought of having to start all over was a horrible feeling and I began to feel my heart sinking…but just then (as I was talking to Nanny, who was trying to calm me down) I received a reply email. I started at it for a few moments (scared to open it), took a deep breathe with Nanny still on the phone with me and began to cry uncontrollable tears of joy as I read;
 
Hello Jennifer,
I received your application this morning!
Do not worry, you will be placed on the preliminary waitlist.
I left you a message on your voicemail at home asking you to send the registration fee and that you had just made the cut-off.
Cheers! Manon
 
Phew, we just made it by a few days, but we are almost on the list. We are SO happy!

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIAIRES

We filled out and mailed our official Preliminary Application to Terres Des Hommes.

Daddy and I went for supper tonight, to celebrate the first step taken with our selected Agency; the mailing of our Application for a Vietnam Adoption. As part of the TDH forms, we had to write a paragraph on why we want to adopt – this is what we wrote to them:

From the very beginning of our relationship more than nine years ago, we spoke about how important it was for us to be a family. We love children and without them in our lives something very important is missing. We both come from large families and so when we finally married two years ago, we knew we wanted to have children. The need to become parents has been what has led us and our hearts here to writing this letter with the utmost sincerity... When we learned of the many children around the world, specifically in Vietnam, in need of loving homes, we knew this was our calling. After a few years of attempting to become pregnant, we have accepted that this may never be a possibility. To us, the importance of becoming a family truly out weighs the method in which it occurs – as the addition of a child or children would finally make our family whole and this is why we want to adopt. We feel we have a lot to offer a child(s), as they would us. Dirk and I have a wonderful, fun loving relationship. We have grown together over the years, supporting each other with all endeavours, over coming many of life’s obstacles and still our love and life together continues to grow stronger and better with every passing day. We have a wonderful family surrounding us, filled with love, laughter, support and encouragement and if we are fortunate enough to be able to share our lives with that of an adopted child(s), we will devote everything we have, and everything we are to making sure their life is filled with joy and happiness. We thank you with all our hearts for considering us and for helping to make our dreams of a “complete” family come true.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

Today, we announced to both our parents and your Aunty Chantale that we began the process to bring you home. They are all very excited, as are we. We asked Chantale to be your legal guardian should anything happen to us. She accepted immediately and said she would be honoured!

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

I did our preliminary draft of forms to send with cheque for our PRIDE Training; will have Daddy double check before sending. Must go to the bank and switch funds over. Cheque sent! Phew.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

Martha wrote me back, attaching our outline for costs, dates and times. Daddy and I will fill these out over the next few days and send them off on Wednesday with our payment included.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

Went online, found directory for up coming PRIDE Training courses – the next available date is in October, so I have sent an email out to the Director asking for the Registry Application.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

I sent an email to Diane as soon as I got into work. To my surprise, she did not write back to me but rather decided to call instead. I was not prepared for a verbal discussion however I was really excited to hear a real voice on the other end. She was filled with information, answered many of my questions and concerns, staying on the phone with me for over an hour. She mentioned that she was not going to take on any further cases on for quite awhile but after speaking with me she said we sounded like wonderful candidates and she would take us on and make an exception. I have never felt luckier. Granted, there were other people we could call, but she had been mentioned several times during my research and she came highly recommend by the Agency we are considering. She explained the process for the Homestudy, timing and costs involved. I'm looking forward to getting started.

We will have 6 meetings in total, with the first beginning on September 9h, 2009 at 11 o’clock – over the duration of 9+ months. Although 9 months sounds like along time, other practitioners are running over a year. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we get you! My motivation is at an all time high. There will be a lot of paper work to fill out so we will need this extra time to stay on track of all demands required.

In the mean time, she suggested I register us for the mandatory PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development and Education) training, which is put on by the Children’s Aid Society of Ontario. It is a total of 4 days, over the course of two weekends. We need to have this course completed before Diane can close our file and send it to the Agency.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

It was only 4 days ago that I sent the email inquiry to Diane and yet I already feel so nervous. We have so many thing to do to prepare for your arrival but still I wish the wait was not so long. I hear from online chatting that there is going to be a lot of confusing paperwork to fill out as we go along but I don’t care what it takes because I know it will all be worth it.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

It’s Friday, leaving us exactly one week away from the day I can make the call to connect with Diane again. I had trouble sleeping last night. Strange dreams kept me awake the majority of the night, which unfortunately disturbed Daddy’s sleep as well; he tossed and
turned consistently.

One dream in particular woke me completely. Although I can’t recall where or who I was with, I remember hearing a child calling out from a distance. I tried to run towards the voice, but the sounds kept moving direction. The faster I ran, the further away the sound became…it was like it was waiting for me to reach out and make contact. I never saw or connected with the child, but the voice I heard calling out for me is as fresh in my mind now as it was when I awoke this morning. I wonder if this dream was meant to mean something? Was it a sign? Was it a symbol of our newly ventured quest? I truly do not know. Dreams can feel so real, but are so hard to understand at times.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

It’s funny how when you make one life-changing decision, it seems to affect every little thing you do from that point on.

I took the bus to work today. A few stops after I boarded, a family of three stepped on. The child was of Asian decent, the parents were not. She was a beautiful little girl. I’m guessing around three years old. She had red rosy cheeks, jet black hair in pigtails and white porcelain skin. I found myself mesmerized, unable to look away as if thinking “that could be us someday”. I hope they were not offended by my stare, as I simply couldn’t help myself…it felt like a strange foreshadowing of my future life with you.

WAITING FOR YOU - MOMMY DIARIES

Once up on a time, in a far away land on the opposite side of the globe – a beautiful child is born. This is the story of your Mommy & Daddy’s journey to adopt from overseas’ and bring you home to your forever family. Today, at 12:57pm, we made the first step to begin “WAITING FOR YOU”.

There have been countless discussions, inquiries and research completed over the past few years. Finally, after much consideration, we have decided today is the day. Today, we vow to commit ourselves to you and the process of adopting you forever.

Our journey begins with an email inquiry to Diane Thornton, a registered Adoption Practitioner (AP) in the Ottawa area that is licensed to perform what is called a “homestudy”. She will also guide us throughout the information session and our approval process. From all that I have read so far, the homestudy process can take between 4-9 months to complete. Our new life mission is within her hands, as she is the one who will grant us “approval”. Diane replied to my email immediately and is unfortunately going on holiday until Thursday, August 6 and so, the waiting begins…