Back on Track

It’s been a year plus since we started the adoption process, a year of government meetings, classroom work, home visits, studying, researching and mostly waiting. After a couple of months waiting for a new social worker, we seem to back on track with a new one and the last of our home study visits. After that, a report gets written on us and more waiting.

I knew this would be a long process, I knew working with the government wouldn’t be easy, but what I didn’t expect was the long gaps when life goes on and nothing happens. Being pregnant must be a constant reminder that someone is coming – government adoption, it’s mostly a reminder that wheels just go really slow sometimes.

Stuck in the System …

It’s been a while faithful reader and no, a child hasn’t shown up on our door in a wicker basket wrapped in a little white blanket. I think that only happens in the Bible.

We had two sessions left with our social worker. Two stinking sessions left before a ginormous report was written on us and we enter the pool of mix and match parents. Then our social worker emailed to tell us she was going on sick leave for an indeterminate length of time. Don’t get me wrong, I love our social worker, she has been amazing throughout this whole process and is someone that we really liked and, despite the questions and probing, someone we looked forward to seeing. I hope that she’s ok and it’s just a matter of having had too much government.

What it means for us though is a little murky. A month after we received the email we received an official letter from the ministry letting us know our social worker is absent and priority will go to supporting families with adoptions already in the works.

Fair enough, there are probably some new families out there freaking out that the social worker is now absent from their lives. But it’s been two months and we haven’t heard a thing.

Momentum doesn’t seem to be the key in this process, get excited, be stalled, get excited, be stalled … Maybe we’ll go back to the baby idea and pay for the security a private adoption will give us.

Home Study Progress

We’re more than half way through our adoption home study with the Ministry of Children and Families.  We’ve spent a lot of time talking about why we want to adopt, our beliefs and values, our families, our relationship, our childhoods and, oddly enough, our dogs.  In fact, we spent a lot of time talking about the pups – they are reflective of our potential parenting styles.  Except we can crate the dogs when we’re gone – not so much with kids.

We’ve taken it really slow with the home study; I changed jobs half way through the adoption process, we’re on a house search (in what is proving to be one of the most expensive markets in the freaking world) and life just seemed to go upside down the past year.  So it felt prudent to wait to adopt until things were a bit more settled.  Now things are drawing to a close on this process though and I feel I should be excited, I feel like I should be shaking with anticipation, but I’m kinda not.  I’m still keen and committed, and everyone I talk with who has had a first kid has said that they felt trepidation before they were born but I am hoping that first level of excitement, that good feeling in the pit of my stomach comes back soon.  The process is far from over, so I need a little energy kick to keep momentum going.

Next, we have a couple of individual sessions with our social worker and a couple more ‘together’ sessions.  Then a report on us is written and passed on to the appropriate department/ministry/person.  From there the matching begins and then the meeting.  At some point we’ll choose the right kid and they’ll choose us and the dogs will weigh in and we’ll be a family.

Home Study

Two things happened last week that restarted our adoption plans.  The first – we started our home study and surprisingly it went well.  I write surprisingly because it was causing me complete and utter anxiety.  I really like our social worker, she’s great, kind, patient and an all around decent human being.  But I had visions of her coming into our house, checking out our place, looking into closets, asking embarrassingly personal questions and leaving us little quivering masses of goo whimpering in the corner.  It wasn’t like that at all, we spent a couple of hours going over the process, having tea and cake and talking about our dogs.  It was like having my great aunt over – really casual and pleasant.  I’m sure it won’t always be like that, but it was a good start.  And despite cleaning the condo like a banshee the night before, she didn’t even do a single dust test.

The second kick start was attending a make up session for adoption school.  Yes faithful readers, we missed a class.  I know, how can we be good parents and miss an adoption school class.  We didn’t even have a great excuse – we missed a ferry because we were too lazy to leave downtown Vancouver on time.  We had to parachute into a brand new class of people about half way through their own set of adoption classes.  It was interesting being an outsider and looking at the dynamics.  Some had that caught in a headlight look of confusion, dread and panic that we maintained, but most were confident and excited about what they were doing.  Most had kids and most seemed to have kids they were living with that they wanted to adopt.  It got me excited again and realizing that the reward is going to be worth it.  Though it’s now been more than a year since we started the process and as much fun as the home study was, I’m not really looking forward to another 10 sessions.   The cleaning is going to kill me …

Can Same Sex Parents Parent?

A study by sociologists Timothy Biblarz from the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Judith Stacey from the New York University looked at the presumption that children need both a mother and a father.  They found:

In their analysis, the researchers found no evidence of gender-based parenting abilities, with the partial exception of lactation, noting that very little about the gender of the parent has significance for children’s psychological adjustment and social success.

and …

Stacey concluded: The family type that is best for children is one that has responsible, committed, stable parenting. Two parents are, on average, better than one, but one really good parent is better than two not-so-good ones. The gender of parents only matters in ways that don’t matter.

The Next Step

We’ve finished adoption education – 10 weeks of learning, bonding a whole lot of both total excitement and joy mixed with absolute terror and now what …

It feels like a bit of a let down, almost as though I was expecting to be passed a kid at the door on the way out.  Like a certificate of completion but with a whole bunch of needs and wants.  Next stage is the homestudy and like the adoption education class, I have no idea what to expect.  I have the spare bedroom made up just in case our social worker decides to move in for a while …

Still Closer …

Yeah, totally got it wrong.  This week is our last adoption class!  Ten weeks went super quickly.   Last week was all about FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome) and FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) and man was it scary.  It was one of those down classes that left me less than excited about this process and experience.  Don’t get me wrong, I still want to adopt but last week the desire had waned slightly.