The long road to adoption

Some kids are obsessed with lego, others with cars, barbies or stuffed animals, but when I was a little girl I was obsessed with dolls. Dolls, dolls and more dolls. Cabbage Patch dolls particularly struck my fancy, those sweet little dimpled faced babies who needed homes, and came with their very own adoption certificate. Every year, without fail I received a cabbage patch doll for either my birthday or Christmas, or sometimes both, and this tradition embarrass’sgly continued well into my teens… by my request, of course.

Did I know then, with my pile of baby powdered scented dolls that I would go on to adopt a real baby when I was older?

I can remember always feeling drawn to adoption, but I have no idea why. I can recall watching shows about it, researching it as I got older, and in my mind the perfect image of what my future family would look like was one of both adopted, and biological children.

In those very early days of meeting we discussed our ideas of what our family might look like. I liked the idea of a blend of adopted and biological kids, where Benjamin really liked the idea of fostering and having children biologically.

Although fostering is absolutely amazing and necessary, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t love a child and have to return them afterward, and I take my hat off to the people who do. They are often the first responders, opening their hearts and homes to children who have suffered terrible neglect, abuse and trauma. Teaching them how to love again, what a safe home feels like, and that there is hope that they will find a happy, loving and secure family. It is unbelievably generous and an act of pure selflessness. I truly can’t comprehend the courage foster carers have helping so many little ones in their greatest hour of need and grief, and my husband completely understood that my heart could not bear the idea of bonding with a child and then having them torn away.

The thought of adoption stuck in the back of our minds, we lived our lives like everyone does, and time ticked on. Then we were pregnant with our gorgeous boy, and as this amazing little child grew inside me, so did my terrible, chronic morning sickness, my horrible fibroids, my pain and exhaustion. As quickly as I became pregnant, he just as quickly entered the world and changed it for us forever.

As most parents would attest, he changed our hearts in ways we never knew possible, he made us more patient, compassionate, driven and willing to learn, he has made us feel love in a way we never thought humanly possible and he has opened our eyes to things that we previously did not see. As each day passed we fell deeper and deeper in love with this astounding and fascinating little creature, and as he grew we wondered, is it time for number two yet?

Falling into it – Autumn 2016 

As teachers and students returned to school, summer drew to an end and as the leaves on the trees turned, that thought in the back of our minds still lingered there.

For months we had occasionally brought up the topic of when we wanted a second child, and how we wanted to have one. For most young, fertile couples the question of how is relatively obvious, but for us it wasn’t. Still, we had a deep desire to give a home to a child who didn’t have one. The desire to open our hearts to a little one waiting for a Mummy and Daddy.

Although we very quickly and easily became pregnant with our son, my pregnancy was far from easy, and I struggled with postpartum difficulties and a slew of other issues which led to a near death experience after developing sepsis. My body had always been sensitive, and I wasn’t sure my body could manage another pregnancy at that time.

It seemed like an easy answer to us, there are plenty of children out there who need homes and we had a wonderful home to provide. We are blessed and have so much to be grateful for. I am a stay at home Mum, and Benjamin is frequently able to work from home, we have loving and supportive families, friends, mentors and colleagues, and a warm and inviting home filled with love, kindness and compassion.

So, the research began…

Closed doors lead to open windows 

“You are not eligible!”

These words cut through us like a knife, and rang through our ears for weeks as we received rejection after rejection. We contacted adoption agencies, and at first, they replied eagerly. Eagerly, until they found out that we already had a biological two year old child. With over 50,000 kids in foster care, we were completely stunned to learn that we were not eligible due to our son’s age. We couldn’t believe this was true, but it was.

With so many children in need of loving homes, we couldn’t grasp it, and we hit a point where we thought about abandoning our adoption dream, when I decided to make one last phone call.

A social worker greeted me on the other end of the phone, I explained our situation, and as I expected she confirmed that our son was too young for us to adopt domestically in England. However, she mentioned that he was old enough for us to be considered as international adopters. The rules were slightly more relaxed than domestic adoption, our son had to remain the oldest child in our home, therefore any child we welcomed into our family had to be a minimum of 18 months younger than our little guy, leaving it only possible for us to adopt a baby 12 months old or younger. Finally, I felt as though I had made a small breakthrough.

I needed to learn more about where and how we could adopt from another country, the cost, the legalities and how it would be done ethically. She wasn’t able to answer any of these questions for me, she simply told me that throughout her long career she had had many positive experiences with international adoption. I put down the phone, and felt strange mix of emotions wash over me, terribly excited as we were eligible to adopt somewhere, yet slightly deflated and lost as the realisation sunk in that we would have to navigate our way through the world of international adoption on our own.

After countless hours of hunting, like a bloodhound tracking a scent, I eventually found an organisation which provided information on international adoption, called, International Adoption Guide. Like a lighthouse in a storm Cecile, appeared and guided us gently through the chaos. She explained the ins and outs of intercountry adoption, the countries we could adopt from, the needs of the children, the state of the orphanages, the government bodies involved, the challenges, the visas required, and the cost associated with it.

She had adopted her son from Russia several years before and had the deep understanding of the entire process as a whole, physically, mentally and emotionally. Cecile was our beacon of hope, and she graciously provided us (and continues to do so), with all the information we needed to make the best choices for our family. With her help and support, she provided us with an in-depth look at several countries, and almost immediately we felt our hearts being pulled to Armenia.

Why Armenia? Red pomegranates, warm hearts, deep roots

Most people associate Armenia with The Kardashian family, Cher or Andre Agassi. However this is a disservice to this beautiful nation. Historically it is best known as the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD. Armenia is a small country formerly part of the Soviet block and has survived genocide, economic hardship and mass migration. It’s surrounded by Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey and Georgia and is rich in natural beauty, welcoming people and culture.

We have a special connection to Armenia. I grew up in a close knit, half Italian, half Polish family in Canada, and part of that family included my grandmother’s best friend, Margie. We lost my beautiful grandmother, affectionately called Mamaw, almost two years ago, and for over 65 years of her life Margie was her closest friend. Margie is Armenian, and her and her sister, Rose, were a large part of our lives as we grew. Margie and my grandmother shared in each other’s lives, and embraced each other’s cultures.

Rose and I had a special bond as we shared a birthday, and each year we visited each other to celebrate and exchanged gifts on our special day. My grandmother had many friends of Armenian decent, and took pride in being considered an honorary member of the Armenian community in the area where I grew up. She was also proud to be the only non-Armenian to attend their annual summer picnic and bring along the only Italian dish to add to the buffet.

Through Margie and Rosie I was exposed to some of the Armenian culture, and as I had through my entire life, I could feel my grandmother guiding us to the people and country that she had so admired and respected, and in a strange way, perhaps returning a favour to the culture who lifted her up and embraced her at some of her lowest points. Even though the same blood did not pass/run through her veins, she felt they were  a part of her family.

After reading and watching anything we could get our hands on, we were confident with our decision and completed our adoption application.  As we packed our bags to head to Canada for Christmas, we sent away our application to our local adoption agency. While all the little children sent off their much thought out letters to Santa, we joyfully sent away a very special letter of our own. We quickly received a reply, and a date for a social worker to come to our house to explain the process in more depth and to gather some more information about us as individuals, partners, parents and a family unit.

“We’ll take a cup o’kindness yet, For auld lang syne” – January 2017

In  January 2017 a wonderfully warm and bubbly social worker arrived on our doorstep and navigated her way past our giant barking dog and curious toddler. As our little boy showed her his collection of dinosaur toys and astounded her with his knowledge of these prehistoric reptiles, she sipped her cup of tea while we chatted about adoption, asked questions and learned how adoption had touched her life, not only through her job as a social worker, but also as a Mum of four children she and her partner had adopted more than a decade before.

After our uplifting meeting we signed up for our adoption classes and before we knew it, it was time to start our first class. The weeks passed on much faster than we expected and the classes that we were apprehensive to start turned into something we looked forward to attending.

Our class was very small with just two other couples adopting domestically, and our instructors were experienced social workers who were unbelievably knowledgeable, encouraging and generous with their time, experiences and assistance. Throughout our classes we met other people who had recently been through the adoption process, experts on attachment, and social workers who had worked on numerous international adoption cases.

The classes were great, but I’d be dishonest if I said I wasn’t a little tense after learning some of the information they shared with us. My husband flies by the seat of his pants and takes everything in stride, where there is a problem he finds a solution, which I suppose we all do in our own way, but when he is faced with a problem he thinks it out unemotionally and logically.

When I am faced with a problem, I panic. There were so many positive things that we took away from our classes, although after a guest speaker visited our class to discuss attachment disorders I was terrified. I eventually dug my own way out of the hole by researching. I read and educated myself on the issues I worried about, I reached out to other adopters, ones I knew, and got in touch with others I had never met. I tried my best to build up a network of adopters to help us, and to learn from them.   

One of my favourite tools was a book written by American journalist, Tina Traster, called, Rescuing Julia Twice. I apprehensively approached the book in the beginning, concerned it might terrify me, even more, but it did the opposite. Her story helped us, uplifted us and made me feel as though this was the path I was meant to take. As our classes came to an end, it felt bitter sweet leaving behind our new found friends and instructors that we adored, but also meant we were another step closer to adopting.

Our weekly home visits continued with the lovely social worker who had been appointed to us. Each week she visited us and enjoyed a coffee, while for a couple of hours we went through various topics including: life in general, our childhoods, parents, educations, past relationships, health, sibling relationships, support systems, jobs, hobbies, finances, our son, our dog and the list goes on and on.

We passed our home safety inspection and then had background checks, mine slightly more complicated than Benjamin’s as I needed to send fingerprints back to Canada and have a criminal check there as well, and then we were required to have medical exams.

We went down the list of requirements and systematically passed and ticked each task off the list and moved onto the next one. Throughout our weekly visits with our social worker, her job was to get to know us as a couple and as a family and to gather as much information about us as possible in order to create a document called the Prospective Adopter’s Report,  more commonly known in the adoption world as the PAR.

The PAR is a roughly 70 page document about us, containing everything we shared about ourselves along with interviews from personal and professional references. After a PAR is complete it is it read by a panel of judges who will then assess whether we are suitable to give a secure and loving home to a child. I really can’t emphasise the importance of the PAR, or how scary and intimidating it is to have every aspect of your life scrutinised and examined, though we were extremely grateful to have a kind, supportive and respectful social worker assigned to the task.

Our weekly meetings flew by and sooner than we expected we were given our panel date. The panel date is when adopters, along with their social worker appear before a panel of judges who have read their PAR, and the judges then decide if they find us fit to adopt. We had come full circle, as we started researching adoption seriously in September the year before, and we appeared in front of panel in the very early days of the following September.

Oh happy day! 

Benjamin has always been confident, perhaps a little too confident, and it’s not that I’m not confident, but I am a worrier. The lead up to our panel date flooded my mind with “what ifs”. “What if they felt our son was too young?” “What if they worried about my previous medical history?” “What if they felt we weren’t ready for a new baby?”

“What if?”

We arrived to the building where we had attended our adoption classes, and shared our hopes and fears with our fellow adopters. In front of us were nine, smiling and excited judges, some of whom we knew, but all ready to help us on our journey. The energy in the room was uplifting, happy and warm and our anxieties floated away.

We are often asked if we were nervous, but as we met the panel we felt calm and at ease as everyone there wanted us to succeed. They want to build loving and happy families. Each person in the room had been touched by adoption in some way, and they want nothing more than to find a loving family for a child in need, and wanted us to find the child fate had in store for us.

After some introductions, we were asked if we would return in a few moments. Our social worker entered the room where we were waiting to discuss some questions they had for us, and we re-entered the room with the panel.

After they asked us some very specific questions we waited back in the other room, yet again for what felt like seconds.  I wish I could give a better behind the scenes analysis of exactly what we were thinking and feeling in that very moment, but to be perfectly honest, I can’t recollect what went through our minds as it went by so quickly.

I suppose it was bit like opening a Wonka bar and finding a golden ticket, completely surreal. This moment we had been preparing for for months, had come and gone in a flash. I recall the chairwoman reappearing, beaming ear to ear with a massive cheshire cat grin, making our hearts skip a beat. She excitedly and proudly congratulated us and announced that the panel had unanimously recommended that we should be approved as international adopters.

Two weeks rolled around and still we hadn’t received our confirmation, after some chasing, which seems to be completely common in the adoption world, our letter arrived saying we had been approved to adopt a baby under 12 months old, from Armenia. Now we could breathe a small sigh of relief as we didn’t have any more home visits, classes or panels to prepare for in the near future, now the waiting began.

After we received our documents which approved us as international adopters our documents then circled through the Department of Education, (the agency which ensures things are being done legally, ethically, and with the birth family and child’s best interests in mind) the Foreign & Commonwealth office and goodness knows where else…

The Homestretch 

At this point we began sharing our news that we were adopting  internationally, and most people were very supportive, but of course it is impossible to please everyone.

Mostly everyone can sympathise with being judged and shamed at some point in their lives, and since becoming a parent its something that I have experienced from other people and other parents on more occasions than I wish to remember. I didn’t however, expect to feel judged for adopting a child, but of course, we have been. “Why are you adopting when you can have children biologically?”, “Why aren’t you adopting domestically?”, “How do you know there won’t be something “wrong” with this baby?”.

Questions that I answer with a smile and as kindly as I can muster, but inside I’m actually feeling annoyed and judged. I’m sure those questions are asked with the best of intentions, but after a while those questions really get under our skin. Ultimately, it shouldn’t matter why we are adopting or where we are adopting from, we’ve made what we feel is the best choice for our family and we are filled with hope and excitement.

We know that all of the hard work, the meetings, the paperwork, the wondering, the stress, the tears, the waiting and nerves will be worth it. This experience has made us reevaluate how we parent, and reminded us that every moment you spend with your children is a moment you can’t get back. Our year has not been easy or without sacrifice, but sacrifice and hard work are a part of parenthood, this we know for certain, in a situation that is itself so uncertain.

I had some of the same feelings bringing our little boy into this world, and though it feels similar in some ways, it also feels completely and totally different. Even though this baby won’t grow inside of me or pass through my body in order to enter this world, we have pushed and vigorously laboured to bring this baby into our world and we simply cannot wait to meet this wee one who has been growing in our hearts.

Sometimes in life we can’t see the purpose of a difficult situation, though through this entire process I have felt that every moment has happened for a reason, and because of that our story will end the way it is supposed to, and in its own way will be absolutely perfect.