Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A New Direction

Back in September, while still licking my wounds after our failed attempt at a baby through in vitro and surrogacy, I posted that I had not discovered anything new about myself or my quest for motherhood during that process. I was wrong, of course, but one only sees things clearly when one is ready to move on. What I learned is that I had let go of my deep desire to carry my biological child in my womb, thus fortuitously helping me to move on to the next step: adoption.

I learned that I am ready to become the mother of a child through love, dedication and hard work – even red tape! That I don’t need to puke my guts out for 3 months and then gain a lot of weight and stretch marks, or feel the baby move inside of me to feel that a child is my own. Yes, it will be hard work, and yes, there will be many feelings of loss both for us and for the child, but we will work through these together, the three of us. And Lucas will help too.

Since I last updated the blog, AndrĂ©s and I have done a lot towards this new and final phase of our journey. We’ve attended seminars and read a lot of literature on adoption; we’ve completed our P.R.I.D.E. training (a mandatory 27 hour course called Parenting Resources Information Development Education); we’ve gathered birth, marriage and name change certificates, letters of reference from some family members, friends and doctors, police and other law enforcement agency letters of clearance, fingerprinting, financial information, and are currently waiting for results of TB and HIV tests to hand in our final documentation: the medical report. We’ve also met 4 times with our adoption practitioner; two of those meetings were individual and the last one, this past Saturday, was at our house, where she got to meet Lucas and tour our place. No, she didn’t open cabinets or drawers and she didn’t wear a white glove to see if the place was clean. However, our beloved Gloria did come the day before and worked feverishly to leave the place spotless, just in case.

Within two or three weeks we will have a completed homestudy and will be ready to send out our paperwork to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services to get approval of our dossier and begin the next stage: sending our file to the country that we have chosen, where within a year they will find the child who will be our son or daughter.

Parallel to the international adoption process, we will also put together a book, called a “Profile” that will tell our story through text and photos and will be distributed to adoption agencies that will show the book to women wanting to make adoption plans for their babies (unborn or already born) here, in Ontario. Essentially, the minute one of these two fronts – international or domestic – pans out, the other will be put on hold to maybe pick up once again in the future, when we apply for a sibling. The reason we’re doing both is that domestic adoptions are quite unpredictable in terms of timing, since it is the birth mother who picks the couple and then there is the matter of her having about a month after giving birth where she can change her mind, even after the child comes home with us. It can be a really fast process and take a few days or weeks or months. Or it can be a process that never yields a child for us. So, we’re basically hedging our bets by going abroad too.

The country that is tugging at our hearts right now is Peru, the country where I was born. Lucky for us that adoptions between Ontario and Peru are only processed if one of the two parents is Peruvian. Finally something good has come from having Peruvian citizenship, aside from my skill at preparing ceviche and pisco sours! But we’re still studying other options, among which are Russia and Ethiopia. More on this in later posts.

That’s it up to this point. Just wanted to get the blog up again. I’ve updated its “look and feel”, so now I believe you can subscribe to it if you’re interested in getting update notifications. Oh, the picture at the top right of this page was taken in 1999, in case you’re marvelling at how young we all look (including Lucas). We lived in a teensy bachelor apartment on Broadview and Danforth back then, were just married, had just adopted Lucas and lived in total blissful ignorance of hardship. Aaah, youth!

5 comments:

Karen said...

How unbelievably exciting Patty! I'm so happy for all three of you, and I hope the adoption process is quick. What a lucky child, to have parents who want it sooo much!!!!!

Sheona said...

You guys rock!

I'm on board to make the video portion of the journey any time after April 5th, let's set a plan in action.
xoxoox

Judy Bailey Sabari said...

wonderful!!

Unknown said...

Thinking of the fortunate child who will be blessed with you as parents brings tears to my eyes. I believe a child adopted by the two of you has been blessed in the heavens and waiting for you to be ready.

Kerri said...

Hi there,
You don't know me, but I found your blog when doing a search for blogs on Peruvian adoption. I am also in Canada and have started the process to adopt from Peru. I wish you much luck and a speedy process. :)
Kerri