Starfish

Good news - got more paper work done and delivered tonight. Our finger print checks are done and back. So as far as papers go - the big stuff is all in except our physicals which are going to be done the end of the month.

This weekend i gave up my 'required reading' for a more recreational read. It is still on topic and very relevant but not on the 'lists'. It is called "There is no me without you" by Mellisa Faye Green. Its not exactly 'light reading' but i would highly reccommend it. This is the manning account of the book: Its the story of one middle aged woman in Addis Ababa (capital of Ethiopia) who was not afraid to love the children around her orphaned by AIDS. While grieving the deaths of her husband and then her daughter, a priest came to her door with a child and begged her to look after this little orphan. Before too long she has 60 kids living with her. Its just a moving story of a woman making a difference. It really brings the issue of AIDS and lack of medication, all these orphaned kids and poverty to the surface to me. Eventually this woman found out that Europeans and North Americans were willing to adopt these orphans. The whole story touched me in a deep way. They talk about the older kids - when the adoption people would come for the babies -the older kids would get all dressed up, clean themselves up trying to impress the adoption people - hoping that they would get adopted too. It breaks my heart to think of these kids whose futures look pretty grim. It made me wonder if our wanting a baby is purely selfish. Hard things to come to terms with. I was telling my friend at work today about how i was feeling and her response to me was - "one starfish at a time". Its from the poem below - we will adopt the child that God has planned for us. We can't save all the kids - but we can save them one starfish at a time.

There once was a man walking down a beach that was completely covered in starfish that had washed ashore. They were absolutely everywhere that the old man looked. As he walked along, he bent down and picked up one starfish at a time and deliberately tossed it back into the sea.
A young boy watched curiously as the old man continued tossing starfish one at a time into the sea. He approached the old man and asked him "What in the world are you doing? Why are you even bothering? You will never get them all back into the sea! There are so many it just doesn't even matter!"
The old man looked at the young boy, bent down, and picked up another starfish. With purpose he showed the boy the starfish and said, "Young man, to this one starfish it matters!" And with that he flung the starfish back into the sea.

Sigh of relief

The other night we handed in some of our paperwork!!! Yipppeee - I am starting to be able to see my kitchen table again. It feels great to have some of the hard stuff behind us. We are still waiting on physicals, finger prints, references and a few more pieces of paper. Next we will start meeting with our AP (Adoption Practitioner) to finish up the home study. She will eventually come here for an inspection of our home - kind of scary - no doubt my house will never be that clean again.

I joined a group on yahoo this week. Look at me - first a blog and now a group on yahoo!!!! Its a group for Canadians adopting from Ethiopia. Today there were about 4 people who received visas from Ethiopia and will be travelling in the next 2 weeks to pick up their kids. I tried to imagine what that would be like - after soooo long of waiting to have a family - to get a phone call saying - get your butt to Africa and pick up your kid!!!!! Not sure that i will get any sleep after that call comes!!! Just seems surreal to me right now.

Anyhoo - that's about it for me. Its too nice outside to be sitting at a computer - my weeds await.

Light at the end of the tunnel...

Well - taking off yesterday and today has helped tremendously in getting the paperwork done. Its almost ready to go. I feel like i can breathe again. And Mike has enjoyed having me cook for him for a change :)

Yesterday I talked about the support we feel from family and friends. i forgot the comments we get from complete strangers. When we got our fingerprints done - the lady was pretty excited and told us all about her experience in adoption. When we got our police checks done, the Sergeant told us all about a friend that has adopted (and gave us a bit of a deal). When Mike got his passport photos done, the clerk gave him a mitt full of coupons so we can have photos of our 'blessed one' developed for free. When he went to the passport office, the clerk was all excited. Its really neat to feel the support of the larger community.

Thanks!

Its really cool how everyone is so excited for us. I always knew we had supportive family and friends - but this is over the top. I really appreciate it. This adoption thing is going to be tough sometimes and its so cool to know we have lots of people behind us.

Its fun telling people 'our news'. We have brought tears to the eyes of more than one person -and its really neat the reactions we get. I am so thankful our baby is already loved by so many.

One down a million to go...

So we now are finished our PRIDE training. Still feels like we have a million things to do - and true to my personality - i am blogging instead of doing what i should be. The stress of all this paperwork hanging over my head caused me to take a few days off from work and actually 'ground' myself. So now i am grounded and supposed to be getting stuff done.

We really got lots done last night so i am thinking we are on a roll. I really want to be able to hand most of it in by the end of the week. Seems like they ask the same questions over and over - so hopefully we are giving the same answers.

One cool part of the PRIDE training was meeting people in the same 'boat' as us. We are at the same stage as many people so it could be that we travel to Ethiopia at the same time! That would be cool. Anyhoo - a shout out to our PRIDE friends.

Well - i guess i should get at the work - knowing me - I will get the laundry done, clean the house and all that other 'fun' jazz before i get to the homework. Reminds me of high school!! Procrastination is my middle name.

Why Ethiopia?

This is a question that we get asked alot.

When we were deciding to adopt there were many ways to go. We could adopt Domestically - within Canada. We could foster through FACS with the intention to adopt. We could adopt privately (find our own Birth Mother) or we could adopt internationally.

We decided to go internationally for a few reasons. One is that there is a greater chance of adopting an infant internationally (especially from Ethiopia). Domestically there aren't too many infants being adopted any more. Lots of Birth Moms are choosing to keep their babies these days. However, it seems like these babies aren't so cute when they get to be toddlers - so the chances of adopting a toddler is much higher. Birth Moms who do put their babies up for adoption often get to choose the adoptive parents - and sometimes people can wait for many years. For our first child :) we decided it was important to get a baby as young as possible. Who knows - maybe for 2, 3 and 4 (ha ha - just threw that in to freak Mike out) we will adopt a toddler from FACS. Also - for us - adopting from FACS really scared us as first time parents. We feel we could handle some experience before going that route.

So - why Ethiopia?? When we were starting out, we knew that it didn't matter what nationality our baby was - that really wasn't an issue. Canada only allows you to adopt from certain countries. If not - we would have been in Burkina Faso by now adopting little ones that Mike's dad has come in contact with in an orphanage near where he lives. So - the list of countries you can adopt from is a short one. Some countries place various restrictions on adoptive parents that we didn't meet - and some require extensive travel/living time in country that we couldn't do. Africa was drawing us in - and our agency deals with Ethiopia and with Zambia. In the end we chose Ethiopia - it seems like a good fit. There are so many orphans in Africa - i wish we could bring more than one home - but for now - we will change the life of one child. This child will change our lives more than they could ever know.

Here we go...

So last night in my cold-induced-stooper we had our first meeting with our adoption practitioner. It went really well and helped to re-enforce our desire to adopt internationally and from Ethiopia. We left her office with a huge stack of papers - even more paper work than we knew about previously. So now its time to 'buckle down' and get moving. It was good to know we are on the right track with some of the stuff we have been doing - and books we have been reading. But if we thought we were prepared we got a wake up call last night. Things we need to think about/figure out - day care plans for after the parental leave, checking out local schools, figuring out legal guardians and so much more. Not sure that newly pregnant couples think through all this stuff - but we will. My head was swimming by the end of the evening and it wasn't from cold medication!

So now the ball is in our court. Lots of papers to fill out and then we go from there. Still pretty exciting.

Sometimes i need to stop and remember why we are doing this. Sometimes the paperwork seems bigger than the adoption. One day we will go there and bring home a baby that will change our lives!! Over in Ethiopia at this point (or some time soon) there is a pregnant woman... and one day she will give us the chance to be parents to her child. Unbelievable. I pray for her at night. I would love nothing more than to have a child - so I can not imagine what giving one up for adoption must be like. If you think about it - and pray for us in this process (which I know many of you do) then please remember to pray for this amazing woman.