I've been waiting several years to use this term! Ever since we first thought about adoption I always grieved the fact that we would never get to be pregnant. Then one day on a forum a lady said that she was paper pregnant... I thought it was the greatest thing! I finally get to say that we're "pregnant"! We just don't know exactly how long the "pregnancy" will be! lol!
Just so you know, Paper Pregnant means that our homestudy is finally complete. The adoption coordinator signed off on it this week and we are officially on the list to adopt a child. That means that if any children become available our social worker will put our names forward and if our profile is a good match for the child we could potentially adopt him/her. It's pretty exciting!
The other good thing about having our homestudy complete is that now we can begin doing our own searching. We are going to send our profile to the doctors offices in town and are also hoping to get a web page of our profile so that people like YOU can refer potential birth moms to check us out. This will take a while of course, but it's exciting to know that we can start working on it! As soon as it's up and running I will be sure to post the link.
EXCITING!! :o)
Friday, July 23, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Heartbroken... again
I've said before that this adoption has been like a roller coaster... well the ride has unfortunately come to a stop. :o(
Jeff and I have decided, through much prayer, that as of now (unless something drastic changes) we will not be adopting Anesu. As you can imagine we are heartbroken over this decision and we definitely did not come to this conclusion lightly. We met with the adoption coordinator last week and after getting from her a couple pieces of bad news (to add to the other's we already knew) we decided the risk of things not working out, after pouring in LOTS of money, was just too great.
Jeff and I really want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers and for helping us with money. It was such a blessing to see how many people are behind us and really want to see us complete our family.
Shannon
Jeff and I have decided, through much prayer, that as of now (unless something drastic changes) we will not be adopting Anesu. As you can imagine we are heartbroken over this decision and we definitely did not come to this conclusion lightly. We met with the adoption coordinator last week and after getting from her a couple pieces of bad news (to add to the other's we already knew) we decided the risk of things not working out, after pouring in LOTS of money, was just too great.
Jeff and I really want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers and for helping us with money. It was such a blessing to see how many people are behind us and really want to see us complete our family.
Shannon
Saturday, July 3, 2010
We have a plan...
Well, what a journey adoption has been so far! Because this adoption is so out of the ordinary it's made it really difficult to get all the answers we needed. I have phoned what feels like a ton of people in Immigration, Service Canada, our local government and our Family Services to which I kept getting the same pat answer "It all sounds great.. what a nice thing your doing!" Well that doesn't help me people! lol!
Finally, through a friend of ours, we discovered that the plan we had in place would not work and that it was actually illegal. The illegal part being that we were bringing him to Canada with the intent to adopt and that I guess is not allowed. We finally decided we would go to a lawyer ourselves to get all the information we needed. We met with the lawyer, explained our situation and she promised she would find out the answers.
Well the next day we get a call from our Social Worker saying that the lawyer had contacted the Adoption Coordinator about the adoption (the lawyer was looking for information) which had brought our case to her attention. The Adoption Coordinator called our Social Worker to see why we were going through a lawyer when family services would be able to give us all the answers we needed and as well would help us get everything done!! I must say I was a little annoyed at the thought that we could have skipped a whole lot of time if, when we brought this to Family Services attention back in March, they had told us this.
But here we are, and however long it took to get the answers we needed we at least know now what the process has to be. So here it is...
Jeff and I will begin the paperwork to sponsor Anesu with the intent to adopt him once he is here in Canada. There is an actual process for this kind of adoption ( which no one told me about when I called immigration... grrrr). The sponsorship takes anywhere from 6-8 months OR up to two years. We are seriously hoping for the 6-8 month time frame. Once Anesu has been sponsored and has his permanent resident card his Aunt will fly over and bring him back here to us. Once he is here we will begin both the adoption process and the citizenship process. Not really sure how long those will take, but I don't really care since he will be here with us then.
The only glitch with this plan is whether Zimbabwe will agree to Anesu coming here to be adopted. They are a hard country to work with so please pray that whatever official makes the decision will have a softened heart.
Another slight problem is the fact that we will probably need to send our friend over to Zimbabwe twice. The first time, this summer, will be to fill out the necessary paperwork and the second time would be to bring him home to us. That puts another financial strain on us, so we are really praying that we can figure out a way to get the money together.
Well, I think that's all the update I have for now. Please keep praying that things work out!
Finally, through a friend of ours, we discovered that the plan we had in place would not work and that it was actually illegal. The illegal part being that we were bringing him to Canada with the intent to adopt and that I guess is not allowed. We finally decided we would go to a lawyer ourselves to get all the information we needed. We met with the lawyer, explained our situation and she promised she would find out the answers.
Well the next day we get a call from our Social Worker saying that the lawyer had contacted the Adoption Coordinator about the adoption (the lawyer was looking for information) which had brought our case to her attention. The Adoption Coordinator called our Social Worker to see why we were going through a lawyer when family services would be able to give us all the answers we needed and as well would help us get everything done!! I must say I was a little annoyed at the thought that we could have skipped a whole lot of time if, when we brought this to Family Services attention back in March, they had told us this.
But here we are, and however long it took to get the answers we needed we at least know now what the process has to be. So here it is...
Jeff and I will begin the paperwork to sponsor Anesu with the intent to adopt him once he is here in Canada. There is an actual process for this kind of adoption ( which no one told me about when I called immigration... grrrr). The sponsorship takes anywhere from 6-8 months OR up to two years. We are seriously hoping for the 6-8 month time frame. Once Anesu has been sponsored and has his permanent resident card his Aunt will fly over and bring him back here to us. Once he is here we will begin both the adoption process and the citizenship process. Not really sure how long those will take, but I don't really care since he will be here with us then.
The only glitch with this plan is whether Zimbabwe will agree to Anesu coming here to be adopted. They are a hard country to work with so please pray that whatever official makes the decision will have a softened heart.
Another slight problem is the fact that we will probably need to send our friend over to Zimbabwe twice. The first time, this summer, will be to fill out the necessary paperwork and the second time would be to bring him home to us. That puts another financial strain on us, so we are really praying that we can figure out a way to get the money together.
Well, I think that's all the update I have for now. Please keep praying that things work out!
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