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.