The day we met our daughter

A tattered Armenian flag danced in the breeze above our heads. This was it, this was our daughter’s home, an orphanage.

This is where she had lived since she was a few weeks old. We passed through a set of old metal gates and walked across a dusty path to an old stone building. Still we felt a little numb and a little in shock that we were here in Armenia and footsteps away from meeting our girl. With our lawyer leading the way we met the orphanage director and entered the nursery where our daughter has lived as an orphan almost all of her short life.

Ten numbered cribs were neatly lined up on one side of the room and on the other side babies played in a large playpen while others were being fed in a row of high chairs. We walked in, surveying the room for the baby girl we have waited forever to meet, feeling completely speechless.

Years of imagining this day, and what our child would look like, there she was our very own miniature Betty boop, gobbling down her breakfast. Her loving nannies had dressed her in a fluffy white dress for this fateful day, the day she would no longer be an orphan.

Our sweet daughter who had only ever known these nannies, these walls, these “orphanage siblings” had no idea how her life which had been contained to the walls of this building was about to grow and change.

We stood there watching, babies crawling around our feet, but we were fixated on her. Her big dark eyes met ours. This tiny girl who had only left the orphanage a handful of times for doctors appointments had a group of outsiders observing her every move. Worry and anxiety washed over her face, her perfect rosebud lips began to tremble, and tears poured down her chubby cheeks.

Placed on the prized rocking horse in an attempt to pacify her, we sat down beside her. Hysterical cries filled the room, our efforts to comfort and soothe her fell flat, feeling helpless, all we could do was wait.

Overwhelmed by the three strangers she had just met, she wanted her nannies and when they held her close and calmly reassured her, she slowly stopped crying. It makes our hearts ache to know their love is the only affection she has known since the moment she was abandoned, their love is real and genuine but also like a revolving door, constantly turning and moving, disappearing at the end of each nanny’s shift.

More than two years of training and research taught us this was normal, but even Benjamin, who is normally unfazed in stressful situations, looked shaken. I had to remind myself that this is completely normal for any child and a really good sign for a child living in an orphanage. It showed her attachment to her nannies and how loving and compassionate they are.

Slowly she let us in and allowed me to pick her up. Examining every feature on my face, she sat in my arms, motionless and silent, she did not babble or cry, she did not speak. She just watched me with her wise eyes.

As the day moved on she gave herself permission to soften a little, we took her into the garden and she seemed pleased to escape the stuffiness of the un-air conditioned building.

Well loved swings, bikes, scooters and prams filled the garden where it was much cooler from the shade of the leafy branches of the huge apricot trees. Our day had been emotional, filled with a mix of emotions, and we really cannot praise our five year old enough for his compassion, composure and perseverance. He continuously attempted to engage with his sister, and didn’t take it personally when she wasn’t ready, he didn’t give up on her, instead he waited patiently for her to make the first move. He spoke gently, offered her toys and sang her songs through her floods of tears. And then his brilliant five year mind had a wonderful idea, he climbed into a pram and again he patiently waited for her. Filled with excitement her pudgy arms reached out to sit next to her brother. It was something so simple, yet monumentous.

We walked back and forth down the path and they sat side by side, watching each other, they laughed and touched hands and slowly tiny moments of connection grew into bigger ones and even bigger ones until it felt like she’d always been ours.

And just like that we felt everything shift, we felt the click, we knew our missing piece had been found and returned to its rightful place.

A Match made in heaven

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Ready, set, go… It’s Thursday and we feel like we are racing against the clock to get everything done.

Papers translated and notarised at lightning speed, check. (Thank you, Richard.)

Accommodation and flights booked, check.

Almost packed, check.

Feed our child takeaway every day this week, check.

It finally happened. The moment we waited for is here, and we can’t quite believe it and how quickly everything has unfolded.

Match maker, match maker…

Last week we were matched with a baby girl in need of life changing surgery/ surgeries, and we could not feel more blessed.

Everyone is saying how lucky this little treasure is to be joining our family, but we truly feel as though we are the lucky ones. For reasons we can’t quite describe we know this is the girl we have been waiting for, she is the missing thread in our family tapestry.

To some, it may sound daunting to adopt a child with a serious need, but when we set out on this journey we had prepared ourselves for the outcome that our child may require a little extra tender love and care, and her medical need doesn’t overwhelm us.

It’s been two and a half years since we started this journey on the British side and almost a year since we were placed on a waiting list of adopters in Armenia waiting to be matched with a child.

There were points where it felt like time stood still, but we have always had a great belief that things work out as they should, when they should. And in moments of dread and panic when we waited to be matched, we reminded ourselves of this.

The perfect match…

Somewhere in an orphanage over 3,000 miles away sits a baby girl who has no idea that her mummy, daddy and brother are frantically preparing to come and meet her.

She has no idea that she shares a name with one of our cherished family members who passed away just months before we started this journey, and no idea how much we have yearned to meet her.

She has no idea how much her life is about to change, and we know how scary this will be for her.

She has no idea how our community has pulled together to try to help her and us unite as quickly as humanly possible.

We really can’t express how grateful we are to everyone who has been loving and supporting us, wishing us well, praying for us, keeping us close in their hearts. As our tanks run on empty our hearts are so full, and our spirits are high.

We are so blessed to have extraordinary friends and family, offering their help however they can, even offering to fly to the UK or Armenia to help with child and doggy care needs.

Family selflessly devoting themselves to dog-sit and housesit as long as we need.

Our son’s teachers and headmistress who have bent over backwards to accommodate our needs, our son’s needs and generously given our little guy space and a platform to share with his classmates about our adoption journey, not only this week but since he started reception this year.

Our school circle has felt like our second family. Pulling us in sharing in our excitement and doting on us. Friends with medical, physio, mental health and educational backgrounds have all come forward to ask how they can assist and support our family now, going into the orphanage and when we return home.

Our legal team, here, and in Armenia, and our adoption consultant, Cecile (International Adoption Guide) and Carolina have been answering our questions pretty much at all hours and advocating for us, and our social worker has made us and our daughter her main priority.

We are also unbelievably appreciative to our adoption community where many of them have openly and graciously shared their stories, their advice, and have always encouraged us to get over the next hurdle.

We couldn’t be in better hands or more grateful.

Thank you to everyone who has been sending love and well wishes.

We can’t wait to share more when we can…

The January Blues

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Christmas was over, and a new year had arrived. A new year full of possibility and promise, but as the ball dropped it also meant saying goodbye to our Canadian family and friends, without fail a heart wrenching experience.

Each time I leave Canada I feel as though a piece of my heart has been left behind. I love England completely. It is the place I regard as home, and I don’t regret following my heart

across the ocean to start a life with Benjamin. Still there are moments when I can hear Canada calling me, even if the call is a faint whisper, I can still hear it. I still feel the pull on my heartstrings and on occasion it feels as though my body is in Britain, and my heart beating outside of it, somewhere on Canadian soil.

With all of us suffering from jet lag, the toddler demands for 3 am sandwiches, and the homesickness for Canada, re-adjusting to our normal day to day life was difficult. We returned home to England, expecting change around several situations, and discovered everything had remained the same.

It had been one of those months where the to-do-list was endless, yet nothing seems to get ticked off. The suitcases we brought from Canada remained unpacked on our bedroom floor for weeks, ready meals were our meals of choice, and the 68 Thomas the tank engine mini trains, paw patrol pups, and hatchimals scattered across our living room floor had become a permanent fixture in our décor.

Explaining to our Christmas obsessed toddler that Santa wouldn’t visit again until next year as he searched under our Christmas tree for gifts, was a challenge of its own, as a hint of Christmas magic still filled the air.

Usually we don’t decorate our home for Christmas as we tend to be in Canada for the holidays, but this year we had the urge to add a flare of Christmas to our place.

We allowed our sparkly tree to linger a little longer to celebrate Orthodox (Armenian) Christmas. Celebrating Christmas to honour our baby whom we have never met, or laid eyes on. A baby to us, that doesn’t have a face yet, except the one we picture in our minds. It doesn’t seem real, waiting for a child that feels like a figment of our imaginations, a baby we know nothing about.

When I was pregnant with our son, we knew he would arrive somewhere around his due date. I could visualise a baby that resembled us, or certain features of ours. I felt him kicking inside me, and although we didn’t know his gender at the time, I bought him little outfits, we picked names, we heard his heartbeat. We knew after I delivered, that we would carry a newborn baby through our door. In this case, I know none of those things, and I may know nothing about this baby’s history or family.

All I know at this point is that our little one will be under 12 months old. Vague, to say the least.

We are inundated with questions about this baby we don’t know yet, and what information we may know about his or her history and birth family, and that’s okay, most of the time we welcome questions and we are excited to share what we do know.

With modern domestic adoptions, most of the time, there is a lot of background information on the child and the birth mother, and sometimes birth family, reasons why the child was placed into adoption or removed from the care of the biological family, past medical history of the child and mother.

However, when adopting internationally sometimes those records aren’t available. There could be many reasons for this. The birth parents may not have disclosed their histories, for anonymity, and sometimes, it is the choice of the country itself to keep the child’s records confidential. The bottom line is, we may not know anything about our baby’s birth family or why they were placed for adoption, which is a part of our child’s history that we will have to embrace.

I hope we know as much history about our child, and the birth family as possible, not for ourselves, but for our child. We will always be open with our little one and share what is age appropriate with them about their history and birth family. It would be nice if we are able to have some information about them, or at least have photos to share with our baby. Although I’m unsure if this will be possible, as open adoptions are uncommon when adopting internationally. This is a fact that we have come to accept.

January just sat there like a watched pot on a stove, and when February arrived, the water finally came to a boil. We felt the love in the air, and the days became a little brighter. Perhaps it was the red paper hearts, the Valentine’s day displays in the shop windows, or the fond memories of moving across several years ago on Valentine’s day, but as January faded into February, we felt a sudden shift. We could see everything starting to blossom and grow. It felt like a long winter, then suddenly little shocks of colour burst through the snow. As the little crocus gently reminded us that spring is on her way… it was the first sight of colour in our black and white existence, not full colour just yet, but just enough to give us hope that soon, things will transform and bloom into something beautiful.

Big Envelopes- Small Victories

Our hearts skipped a beat when one chilly morning, we received a letter notifying us that our PAR (Prospective Adopter’s Report) had been received in Armenia, and shortly after that we were told our documents were being translated, and that the translations should be completed by the end of February.

Like clockwork, we received word that they were complete. Our documents will be reviewed once more, and hopefully we will be matched with a little one in the next few months. The international adoption process is like a giant puzzle, and when a piece is put in its proper place it feels like a small victory. Getting a letter, or hearing a date on our completion of translations may sound mundane to some, but at the moment it’s really the only information we can cling to, it’s our life raft keeping us afloat in treacherous seas.

Timelines

We don’t know much more than you. We could get matched with a baby in three weeks, three months or even a year from now, and that uncertainty is agonising. It is especially diffcult for our three-year-old, who has truly shown patience and understanding beyond his years, maybe even better than mine somedays. Each day he asks, “Are we going to “Menia” to get my baby?”, “When do we get my baby?”, “Is my baby coming soon?”

Regularly he asks to buy gifts for his new sibling. It is heart wrenching to watch our kind and wonderful boy wait for our baby to arrive, though it also makes us grateful that he is going to be an extremely gentle, warm, nurturing and intuitive big brother to a little child who is in need of a lot of extra TLC.

So, as we wait, we are trying our best to learn as much about Armenia as possible, so we can keep our child’s heritage alive in our day to day life. We try to enjoy each day as it comes, and live in the moment, though sometimes it is unbelievably difficult.

“Let all that you do be done in Love”

When the topic of adoption comes up there are various issues surrounding it, but one, that not many people are aware of, is loss.

Loss? What does loss have to do with adoption? There is so much to gain from adoption, however, adoption stems from loss.

As adopters, we completely honour and respect that a birth family has lost their child, and that a little one has lost their family, and most of the time, everything that is familiar.

Sometimes the adopters feel a sense of loss too. Perhaps they were unable to conceive a biological child and have that cross to bear, or potentially they feel a sense of loss over missing out on the first days, weeks, months or sometimes years of their child’s life. Somewhere in the triangle that connects birth family, adoptive family and child, there is loss.

Some people assume a baby is “given up” because a mother doesn’t want their child or can’t face the responsibilities associated with parenthood, but there is so much more to it than that. None of us have the right to assume what a birth family is feeling when placing their child for adoption.

Nobody knows the pressure they may be facing from their families or communities, or that in some countries there aren’t resources for women to seek help if they find themselves pregnant and without family or financial support. We simply have no idea, and we absolutely have no right to judge.

I know women personally who have placed their babies for adoption for various different reasons, and in all of those cases they did it out of love, not out of not caring, not in an attempt to shuck responsibility. I couldn’t think of a more loving and selfless act to do, giving up a baby because someone else could give them a better life than you could. Sacrificing your own happiness in order to give your child a better life, and possibly never feeling whole again afterwards.

Of course, some children are removed from the care of abusive or neglectful parents or abandoned in horrifying ways. It is absolutely appalling, but still it may be part of our child’s story that we need to acknowledge and accept.

We aren’t entirely sure what type of environment our baby will come from, most likely from an orphanage, though in some very rare cases, perhaps a foster home.

There is a lot of academic research regarding children who have been adopted, and how their neural pathways may have been rewired due to the trauma they have suffered (even if not immediately obvious), and they may struggle to bond and attach in the same way most parents experience with a biological child.

This is a hard fact of adoption, and the days, weeks, months and possibly years after we bring home that baby, a lot of our time will be spent rebuilding trust, bonding and overcoming the early childhood trauma they have potentially experienced.

We really can’t predict the outcome of the situation, I’ve heard wonderful adoption stories where children bond almost instantly and live very happily after they are adopted, but it is perhaps surprising that people outside of the adoption process, feel it is their duty to give a balanced view by sharing the horror stories they have come across. I don’t really see how this benefits anyone. We don’t pretend that everything will be rosy and perfect once our little one is welcomed into our arms, but we are also optimistic, and we are aware of the issues we could potentially face.

Each case is different, each child is different, and we will have to take it day by day. We are absolutely open to any therapy that can be beneficial to children who have been adopted, and we will always be willing and open to learning more on how we can support a child with whatever needs they have.

We will be taking a step back from social situations once we have our baby. This will be a crucial time for us as a family to bond with our new little one, learn about them, show them what love is, and to help our son bond and learn about his new sibling.

This may be perceived as over protective or strange to people when we politely decline invitations, turn away visitors, and refuse to allow others to hold our baby. However, this is a rational and educated decision based on the best practice advice we have received from numerous social workers and attachment specialists.

Over the past couple of months, things connected together, like the brush strokes of a painting, each one a part of a masterpiece. Our family portrait is being being painted and we don’t quite know what it will look like in the end, but we know each stroke is necessary, each movement, each colour, each shape.

The long road to adoption

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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.

When I met my husband, Benjamin, on a vacation in Spain, it was almost love at first sight, and within months of meeting we were married, and I was living in rainy England, far from snowy Canada where I grew up.

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.