adoption

“Because now I know what I have been waiting for. I know exactly why the other processes didn't work. I know I was supposed to wait for this little girl.” ― Nia Vardalos

Adoption: the legal transfer of parental rights and obligations from birth parents to adoptive parents.

Dear readers,

DP and I are in the adoption screening process. I call it a process, but a better word might be interrogation … ordeal … trial … tribulation … inquiry … tribunal …

“There are times when the adoption process is exhausting and painful and makes you want to scream. But, I am told, so does childbirth.” ― Scott Simon

The process to become declared “adoption ready” is 

long, 

                 invasive, 

                                  emotional,

 intense, 

                         and a lot of work.

It begins with paperwork. 

Piles and piles of paperwork. 

Questionnaires about our lives, and personal habits, and our relationship. 

Intrusive questions.

Then there is the course. Parenting Resource Information Development and Education (PRIDE). 3 hours a week for 9 weeks. With topics like abuse and neglect and the effects on children. With homework each week that is evaluated by the instructors and then sent to the social worker who is doing the safe home study.

The safe home study.

“Despite the reams of paperwork, obstacles worthy of a horse show, and a wait that can rival an elephant's gestation, adoption feels no different on the inside.” ― Scott Simon

A social worker comes to your home and asks you a million questions to get to know you. And needs copies of everything you can think of from your birth certificate, to your taxes, to your life, car, and home insurance policies. This is followed by 3 or 4 more interviews by the social worker who wants to know everything about your life. And finishes up with an inspection of your house looking for things like working smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and a fire extinguisher. As well as things like furniture secured to the wall and a map of all the fire escape plans for each floor of your house.

And that is just the logistics of the process.

“Even though you weren't born to us, you grew in our hearts. We will be forever connected because love is what makes a family.” ― Deanna Kahler

What goes through your mind while you jump through hoop after hoop is wtf? You think about all those children out there, born to parents who don’t want them, who neglect and abuse them, who mistreat them, and who don’t cherish every moment with them. And you think about how unfair it is that those “parents” were able to just get pregnant and have children and not care for them and we have to go through all of this to get on a list.

So how do I get up every morning and do the next step? Jump through the next hoop? How do I sit through 3 hours of a course I resent having to take?

“Anyone who ever wondered how much they could love a child who did not spring from their own loins, know this: it is the same. The feeling of love is so profound, it's incredible and surprising.” ― Nia Vardalos

How do i keep my hope alive?

I think about the fact that out there in the world right now, somewhere in this city, there is a baby … my baby … s/he was born to parents who are not his/hers. s/he is in care, in a foster home, waiting for us to find her/him. Our baby is out there, and every night I think about our baby and wonder what her/his favourite toy is, and what song s/he likes to be sung. What does s/he like to eat?  And I send warm, loving thoughts, out into the universe to find their way to our baby who we are waiting for. 

out there is the baby that will make me a mother. maybe i am already a mother to him/her. i already love her/him ... s/he just hasn't met us yet. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

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