The Road to Adoption Part 2!

Dec 31^st was the 2^nd anniversary of my daughter’s arrival. It was about a year ago I wrote about our journey to get our daughter.   http://www.babypost.com/parents/parenting/our-road-adoption  In December we will mark 2 years since we were blessed with the arrival of a 10 month baby girl, yes the same one that today is the tricycle dare devil and queen of the question “Why?”

 Now with 2 years under our belt, with an adopted child in our midst am I an expert on Adoption? Not in the least…I can only share our journey with you. Our first child was born 8 years ago, and was placed into my arms at the old Women’s College Hospital moments after he was born. We had 9 months to prepare for his arrival.  Of course that experience was very different than getting a phone call from our Children’s Aid worker with the remark. “We have a match!”  But in both cases the emotions were powerful. Simultaneously there was anticipation, joy and fear.  The sense of powerlessness over all the unknowns was at times a little overwhelming.   When you have a child born to you, the only information you have leading up to the birth is from the few medical tests during the pregnancy.  When you are about to adopt you sit down with multiple people from Children’s Aid and they share as much medical history as they can find about the child, and the child’s parents.  Suddenly this becomes a decision not only of the heart but of the mind.  In our case we also had a young son to consider in the equation.  Our case worker was very cautious about showing us a picture of the child, as she felt once a photo was seen by us, we would definitely be swayed more by the heart than the mind.   As we sat in that first “discovery meeting” it was rather surreal to be discussing a child in this manner. In hindsight I wonder if any information would have changed our minds…I am pretty sure we were “all in” before we entered the room.

I suppose every parents experience with adoption is as unique as each child. I can only speak from my experience that our entry into becoming Adoptive parents was pretty magical. It was a classic case of hurry up and wait.  After about 4 years of paperwork and interviews we had begun to give up hope that the process would work.  But finally a single phone call launched a 3 week whirlwind of activity. And of course an emotional roller coaster ride.  Circumstances dictated that we would have to move quickly. Within 3 weeks we went from reviewing a file to this little girl coming home for keeps.

Our little girl was extremely blessed to have had a wonderful foster mother that was her care giver from almost the beginning of her life.  She is an amazing lady who we are lucky enough to have as a friend to this day.  We met our daughter for the first time in this ladies home.  I had forgotten what it was like to hold a 10 month old baby. But the instincts soon returned.  Our next meeting a day or 2 later included our son. I remember the moment we told him that a sister had been found. He lit up like a billboard and jumped up and down in glee.  We had wondered how our 6 year old would react to meeting his new sister. From day one this little girl has brought out the best in him, you won’t find a prouder big brother. It all went remarkably easy. If you don’t count the mad rush to turn a “spare room” into a nursery and meet the entire Children’s Aid regulations.   All this in the midst of holding down jobs and preparing for Christmas, because we got the call in mid- December!

We went from a few short visits to the Foster parents home, to visits in our home, than unsupervised all day visits, to an overnight visit and then voila…she came home for good, all in the span of 3 weeks.  Our experience with Children’s Aid at this part of our journey was quite positive.  Some of the safety regulations seemed ridiculous but we complied…this was a very small price to pay.  It is rather ironic that we had been able to keep our son alive for 6 years with no major calamities but now we were required to bolt all our furniture to the walls and move all our cleaning supplies from a locked kitchen cabinet to an unlocked room in the basement.  On many of these tedious details the CAS was very rigorous, but after our initial meetings with our daughter they really stepped back and let us be a family with minimal contact. From when our daughter arrived to stay, it was just over a year before we got the final court order that she was legally our daughter. Until that time she was technically still in the custody of the Children’s Aid Society.  What this meant was that once a month we were paid a scheduled visit by our Children’s Aid case worker.  Perhaps we were lucky, but our worker was a veteran that clearly is in the right profession. She demonstrated the optimum balance between professional and personal advice. Always supportive, never judgemental, the visits were informative and informal and we weren’t made to feel like we were being “policed”.  In our case, our worker is also our neighbour…living a block away. So we still meet in the grocery store and at the bakery.  

Anytime a child arrives it marks major changes in the family, and of course an adopted child is no exception.  We were concerned about what impact this would have on our son. He had been the center of our universe for 6 years and was the golden grandchild. However he had desperately wanted a sibling, and perhaps helped speed the process when he bluntly told our case worker a few years into the process that … “this is taking a REALLY long time!” She was kind of taken aback by his emotion and I saw a tear in the corner of her eye. 

  His adjustment to a new sister went far better than expected.  He handled the excitement and a whirlwind 3 week period quite well.  He did have a few bumps at school in the following months, mostly with a bit of attention seeking behaviour, but it was short lived.  From day one the 2 have been pretty much inseparable.  Even the foster mother and our case worker remarked that the bond between the 2 seemed almost immediate.  From the first visit she wanted to be with him and crawled over to play with him, and it’s been that way ever since. Despite an almost 6 year age gap, whatever he does…she also wants to do.  Whether it’s jumping off the diving board into the pool or playing soccer, she is only a few steps behind.

Another major change for this Dad was the decision to take the parental leave, to be a “stay at home dad.” I give my employer credit for handling this with grace. While he had been aware of our quest for adoption he had only a few weeks warning that I would be gone for 10 months.  I have written extensively about this journey on this site, and it indeed was a life changing time.  As trying as the process can be, I can now say that I have no regrets and cannot imagine my daughter not being here. She is no less my child than my son. Both are absolutes in my heart…no matter how frustrating they can be on a particular day when they won’t eat dinner or brush their teeth.

I went to an after school “beatbox” event with my son.  By this time he had become a veteran big brother.  During the show the kids were asked questions and at one point they were asked to raise their hands if they had a younger sibling. My son’s arm shot up like a rocket, and he turned to find me in the audience to make eye contact. We did…and that beaming smile said it all. As we learned in our adoption parenting sessions “families are formed in many different ways”.  In the end it’s not the how or the why that matters…simply, we are family.