The baby watch is over for now...

I'm not talking about the royal baby.

On July 9th, a baby was born somewhere in Toronto. The birth mother contacted an agency to start the process to find adoptive parents.

Our social worker called us on July 10th to let us know what she knew about this placement (which was not a lot), and confirmed she was submitting our profile to the agency. Most likely, we were one out of 3-5 profiles being presented to the birth mother.

I will admit that I blanked out a bit during that phone conversation. We had her on speaker, all the while staring at each other with incredulous looks. When I hung up the phone, I noticed just how much my hands were shaking.

And so our baby watch began.


What do you do when you're waiting for the news you have waited so long to hear?

- We made sure all of the items needed to pass the final home inspection have been completed. I now have a spiffy handrail up to my attic, all to code.

- We put the call out for baby items to some close friends and family. A car load of items came back from a visit to my brother-in-law's house. They had a lot of things to give us, now that our niece is two years old. I don't think I could have squeezed another thing in the car! It just goes to show how supportive our friends and family are, that we literally do not have to purchase a single thing.

- We mostly cleared the room that will house the nursery. My office desk is still in there, but it is now joined by bassinets, mobiles, bedding, clothing, baby bottles, and anything else we will need. The desk will be moved of course once we have our child.


And then we waited some more. We were cautiously optimistic. Our social worker was great in keeping us up to date as much as possible, letting us know at each point the agency confirmed that the birth mother still had not decided.

We got word two days ago that the birth mother has decided to parent.

How am I feeling? I am happy for the birth mother and the baby. All throughout this wait, I kept her in my thoughts knowing how hard of a decision it would be. I never wished that she would give the baby up. That is a horrible thing to wish for, and all I hoped during the wait is that she would do what was the best for her baby.

Of course, I am sad for us. It just wasn't our time to become parents. I am also sad for the others who were chosen to be presented to the birth mother and also received this news. I wish them well in their own adoption journeys.

I haven't been into the room we set up. It will be ready for us when we need it. A part of me wanted to sit in the room on Saturday night and let all my emotions overwhelm me.

I didn't. That room is all about dreams coming true. I want the crying in that room to be my tears of joy, or cries from my baby wanting our comforting arms around them.

I chose to shed my sad tears while lying on my couch, letting my beagle lick them off my hand. 

All I ever wanted...

Little girls have varying answers to 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' A princess, a teacher, a doctor....

My only answer was that I wanted to become a mother. As a child, I would tell people that I wanted five kids. I even had a preferred order to them: boy, girl, boy, boy, girl. My reasons? A boy first, to be a big brother to everyone. A girl to even out the pair of them. Two precious boys that follow that would be best friends and playmates for life. And finally, a baby sister that would even out the group and be the little darling of the siblings.

I dreamed about their personalities, of everyone piling onto the bed for bedtime stories and snuggles, of the fights that I would have to break up between them. I have to smile a little, thinking about that little girl with big dreams of a large brood to look after (and yes, even a planner at that age!)

Those dreams have changed, and the little girl isn't so little anymore. Five has turned into 'we would be so happy with one'. But the desire to be a mother has never gone away.

There are simply no words to describe how much we want to be parents. No words. If hearts could burst with the amount of love just ready to spill out, they would. We will love them through every dirty diaper, every late night feed, every temper tantrum.

My medical issues are such that we will never be able to have kids of our own. There will be no unplanned pregnancies, and no magical oopsies that people always talk about when when couples have given up on trying to have a baby. Adoption is our only option. And I'm perfectly OK with that. We will love our children as much as any parent could.

I still wonder why I was unable to conceive when it is so easy for others. You can't help but wonder what the master plan is.

My only answer is that there must be some child out there that needs our love. Maybe they have already been born. Maybe they have yet to be conceived.

All we can do is wait, and trust that it will happen.

Remember me? My nose has been in books...

Yes, it has been a while since I've posted. In that span of time, we've received the final version of the home study, worked on our adoption profile book (which is challenging, as I hate being in photos!), went on vacation. But we haven't stopped hoping for our little one to come along.

I have been doing some reading on adoption, and have been taking books out from our public library.

The library in the little Ontario town where I grew up in had a great kids section. I remember leafing through the magazine Owl sitting on tiny chairs and tiny tables. There was an huge ostrich egg in a glass dome on a shelf that always piqued my curiosity. I would secretly hope that while watching, a little beak would peck its way through and imprint on me so that I would be forced to take it home and make it my pet. I would read everything I could get my hands on, so much so that in Grade 1 I was working from the Grade 3 reader and assignments.

Fast forward to today, and I will admit, my literary appetite has lessened considerably. Sadly, my reading is usually work documentation, and books that TV shows and movies based on books. I  am currently reading the Game of Thrones series. I gleefully read all of the Harry Potter books.

Every so often, I do get into a "I need to read everything I can about <blah>". The last subject was international human rights. Lately, it's all been about adoption and I suspect this will go on for some time, expanding to various parenting books that swear that one method is the tried and true solution to all of a child's problems.

So on to the adoption reading. One of the pages I follow on Facebook is Portrait of an Adoption. The 30 Adoption Portraits in 30 Days on the right hand side of their web site is a fantastic read, exploring adoption from all angles - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

J and I have been taking turns reading out loud to one another from The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades before Roe v. Wade. How times have changed. My voice may have quivered a bit as I read the stories out loud to my husband. Somehow, it made me feel better to read out loud... these women, whose stories may have never been told before out of shame, out of guilt. By reading out loud, I felt like I was giving them their voice. It was a  recognition of what they went through. It might have been a heavy read, but cemented the fact that should a birth mother want an open adoption, we would be all for it.

The other book on the coffee table right now is Attaching in adoption: practical tools for today's parents. I will admit that I have not started this one yet. I think this is one for this weekend in the hammock!

I'll end off this post with a quote from a book that I haven't read yet but might also pick it up this weekend... Nia Vardlos's Instant Mom:

“Anyone who ever wondered how much they could love a child who did not spring from their own loins, know this: it is the same. The feeling of love is so profound, it's incredible and surprising.”

I cannot wait!

Reference checks and fingerprints!

We needed five names in total to give as references: a friend and family member for each of us, and a couple who knows both of us.

Everyone we chose jumped at the chance to help us out by filling out a questionnaire and sending it to our social worker, and we are so thankful to have such great friends and family that have helped us through one more step of the journey!

A local police and an RCMP check is also mandatory for all who wish to adopt. The local check was just a form, but the RCMP required our fingerprints and so we headed off to an agency to have this done.

I grew up in the 80s watching crime dramas when the innocent protagonist gets fingerprinted and you see the ink all over their hands. Alas, we are in the digital age, and so instead of an ink pad I was presented with a scanner. It was still really neat. The tech geek in me loves this kind of stuff!

First they took your hand and gently pressed your four fingertips down on your hand and captured those images. They then captured an image of just the thumb.

Then they took each finger and did a wide print: rolling your finger from one edge to the other (same as in the movies). The program them matches this wide print with the gently pressed print. If there are too many anomalies between the two, it will make the user scan the wide print again until there are fewer anomalies.

My left pinky kept giving us problems. I made a joke that if I ever committed a crime, I should only use that pinky. Finally it scanned with some anomalies, so it was flagged orange. Still useable and they assured me that the RCMP would not reject them for quality.

Next was J's turn. Right away there were issues! Almost every single print he did came back as having to repeat at least 4 times. Finally we managed to complete his digital prints, but out of 10 prints I think about 6 were red (acceptable but with many anomalies).

The agency thought it should be fine to send to the RCMP as is, but just in case, they decided to take a set of ink prints from him.

Small signs... check out the box of Pampers wipes in the corner!

Three more things checked off the list!

Not flesh nor bone...

Not flesh of my flesh,
Nor bone of my bone,
But nevertheless still my own.
Never forget for a single minute
You weren't born under my heart
But in it.

~Fleur Conkling Heyliger

Budget day - adoption tax credit

Yesterday Canada's finance minister revealed the federal budget, and lo and behold, there are changes to the adoption tax credit!

Unfortunately, I think this is just a clarification and nothing really new.

"Economic Action Plan 2013 proposes to enhance the Adoption Expense Tax Credit to better recognize the costs unique to adoption.

Strong and stable families are critical to Canada’s long-term prosperity. Families provide children with permanency, connections, and support—and yet an estimated 30,000 children are currently in the care of child welfare agencies across Canada, waiting to be adopted.

The Adoption Expense Tax Credit recognizes costs unique to adopting a child. To provide better tax recognition of the costs incurred by adoptive parents, Economic Action Plan 2013 proposes to allow additional adoption-related expenses (such as fees for a provincially required home study and mandatory adoption courses) to be eligible for the credit. This change will apply to adoptions finalized after 2012."

Full text here: http://www.budget.gc.ca/2013/doc/plan/chap3-5-eng.html

From my understanding, people have already been claiming their PRIDE training and home study expenses. So this is nothing new, really. I was already planning on claiming these two expenses.

Also - it's not as if the tax credit is a large amount. For the 2012 tax year, the maximum amount that you can claim for this is $11,440 for each child. If you claim the full amount, then that equates to $1716 back to you.

I am a little annoyed that the government has added this to the budget, saying that they support Canadians who wish to adopt, but the truth is that there is no change. How can they do this?!?

Home study - last interview! And baby gates...

Our home study interviews are done!

To be honest, I am a little sad that it's over. Our social worker is great, and we have such a great time when she visits. I had heard stories about how intrusive the home study could be, but we didn't have any issues with any of the questions. It was interesting to look back at my childhood and examine how I was raised. And she was just so nice to work with. I'm happy she is part of my adoption team!

We talked a bit more about our marriage, and who does what around the house. And then we did the walk through of the house. There was a check list that we had to go through, indicating what we were in compliance with.

Some of these were things like no locks on the bedroom doors, and a separate room for the child that was not separate from the main house (!?!). Yes, they have it on there that you can't put your adopted child in a room over the garage. Sadly, if it's in the checklist it's because someone once tried to do this.

We also had to do a fire evacuation plan. This really should be something that we thought about before the adoption process. We ended up buying two nifty fire escape rope ladders for our two upper floors. I am going to buy one for my parents as well, as if the stairway was blocked they would have no way of getting out save for jumping out the window. Happy that I posted this on Facebook too, asking if my friends had an evacuation plan... I know one person did end up buying a ladder themselves, and reviewed their plan with their two little girls.

As for things that are marked as "will comply", we have things on the list like baby gates, crib/toddler bed, and outlet covers. Those items are usually on a "will comply" list since we do not know the age of our child, or when it will happen. These are things that can be easily bought.

I've already started researching though (surprise surprise) and have picked out a baby gate for the second floor of the house.

Our house is upside down, in that the bedrooms are on the ground floor, and the kitchen/living room/dining room are on the second floor (where we spend most of our time).

Since we have a useable attic on the third floor, we need a gate large enough to block off both stair cases. The family who lived in the house before us had one in a very wide 78" doorway.

The snazzy KidCo G3000. Is it just me or does everything looked Photoshopped into this picture? :)

We are toying around with getting and installing it anyway since our god-daughter is now a toddler and walking around, and it would be peace of mind having it up for when she is visiting.

If you're out there...

When I was trying to get pregnant, there were six months of hoping and daydreaming about all the things that would happen. In my mind, everything was planned out and all I had to do was get pregnant.

Six months passed, and hopes of having an easy pregnancy were dashed. Four years of fertility treatments later, and it was just not meant to be.

I never lost hope, and most of the time I was optimistic. Of course, there were times that I felt like crawling under a rock so I wouldn't have to be witness to the world of baby strollers and swollen pregnant bellies. Our lifelines were my amazing network of friends and family who were always there at the worst of times when we needed an ear, a shoulder, a hug.

Regardless of my optimism, I never let myself think about paint colours for the nursery, or look at baby furniture, or change anything in the house that could be construed as 'a baby is about to come into the house'. I knew that letting my mind go there would devastate me if something happened and I could not get pregnant.

I am so happy that I stuck to this. I have read on online forums of hopeful mothers who have set up nurseries (diapers and all) before pregnancy, and I can't imagine having a furnished baby room in the house on the darkest days of infertility.

The only things I had that were baby related were some clothes that people have given me for when it was my turn to get pregnant.

When I received them, I was thankful for them. I went through and laundered the items that I thought needed laundering, tossed out the items that were too ratty to use, and sorted by gender and size. I may have had a box of Kleenex with me when I did this. It was during that first year of fertility treatments, when my body's failure was raw and emotional.

The stuffed animals that were in the bins were held and cuddled. I whispered to them that they would soon feel clutching baby fingers again.

Fast forward to now. The bins are gone from my attic. For every wonderful birth of children in my life, they have been gone through and offered. The rest have been donated, so that other toes can once again wriggle in tiny socks.

Empty baby clothes bins, empty room that would have been a nursery, empty womb.

Today, I am looking at baby gates for the house. The hunt is on for a good gate that is wide enough to span the width of a large doorway. Baby gates have been marked off as 'will comply' on the home study inspection checklist, and will need to be installed before a child is placed with us. I am researching all the items that will be needed to be rushed out and bought when we get word that we have been chosen to become parents.

I am scared. Dare I let myself go down that path that motherhood is around the corner? Can I start doing what any parent does when they are expecting their little one? What if it will be another four years of waiting, or five, or six, or never?

As always, things are not in my control. I am at the whim of an unknown chain of events that may result in the most precious of gifts.

Now more than ever, I am ready to take the leap of faith that it will be WHEN and not IF. I am brushing all my fears aside and preparing to have my child come home.Scary. Exhilarating.

Little one, if you're out there already, we are getting ready for you.

Home study - personal interviews

The next two meetings with our social worker were the individual interviews. We decided that I would go first, and J sat in on it as well. Later, we switched and it was J's turn to be in the hot seat.

From the piles of paperwork that we filled out, our social worker discussed anything that she felt needed more clarification. She also asked more questions about my childhood, my relationships with family and in-laws, and my marriage.

It's always interesting to look back on events in childhood, and to talk about events that shape who you are. I said that the most important moment in my life was when I was chosen to represent my school at a youth leadership weekend by a guidance counselor in grade 10.

I'm not sure how he chose me. I'd love to be able to sift through old school records to read comments about what teachers had to say about me. In the end, I really think that leadership weekend was a defining moment.

After that weekend, I felt like I wasn't just some high school kid from small town Ontario. No - I could make a difference and make our community a better place. Looking back, I am proud at the things that I have accomplished. It was just the little push I needed to become more involved in my community. In a country where we are so blessed to have comforts in life, there are still so many that struggle and go without. 

I would love to instill all of this in my child. They would understand that while they have all the comforts of life, that there are others less fortunate.

I have a friend from work who has an adorable daughter. Any time she receives any money (from birthdays, Christmas, etc) a portion goes into her bank account, another portion she is allowed to keep to spend, and the final portion goes to a charity of her choice.

When the tsunami hit in 2004, I was collecting money for the Red Cross and she came in to give me $20 from her charity fund. She was so happy knowing her money was going to help people who really needed it. I definitely would like to do this with my children because I think it's a good lesson in saving and philanthropy!

Home study: first interview

The last few weeks have been all about paperwork.

Throughout this home study process, there are lots of forms to fill out. There are about 10 assignments from the Pride training book, to tons of forms making you analyze your childhood, your relationships with your spouse, family and friends, to how you currently live your life. It's a very interesting self-reflective process to go through this.

The first interview was some general questions about what kind of adoption we wanted to pursue, the age range of the child we wanted to adopt, and things like how we felt about open adoption, children with special needs, history of drug use or mental health issues with the birth parents. I won't go into details about what we said - I think that is better left as a private choice between my husband and I.

PRIDE lessons: Adopted children and their loss

From the Adopt Ontario website:

PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development and Education) is a nine-session course for a total of 27 hours of training that could be offered in a variety of ways, from once a week to sessions on weekends...All PRIDE trainers have received comprehensive training and have been approved by the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies which holds the Ontario license for PRIDE. Each session is led by co-leaders, one an adoption professional and the other an experienced adoptive or foster parent.

This is a mandatory for all in Ontario who wish to adopt (as of December 31, 2007).

We did our PRIDE training in August and cannot say enough about it. Initially, I thought it was yet another cash grab. What did we really need to know about adopting? What training could they possibly give us that I couldn't learn myself?

What an eye-opener. There are so many intricacies and challenges with adopted children. Probably the main thing that we took out of this training is how important open adoption is. I'll get into that later because it really does need its own post or two.

Another thing that was discussed is how much loss the child will have. We really went into this thinking, wow, isn't the child we get going to be SO thankful that we are giving him/her a loving home? Apparently I watched too many TV after school specials as a kid.

Just think of how SCARY it must be to suddenly have everything you have known taken away from you. And it doesn't matter how old you are. Everything that a child knows in its life is gone. Maybe there is one particular worker in the orphanage who sings him to sleep. Maybe there is some radiator that makes a sound that is familiar. A particular blanket that is clutched. Gone. Everything that you knew.

If a child has been placed in foster homes, it's yet another loss in their lives. They may be too young to understand why yet another move is happening. A child who was looking forward to future events such as a friend's birthday party. or who enjoy participating on a sports team could suddenly be moved away and thrust into the unknown. It's great that you've finally bonded with your foster family. Here are your new parents!

If everything that you knew and loved were taken away from you, how would that make you feel?

We will take every day in baby steps, one day at a time. I am really hoping that trust and attachment happens easily (the good kind of attachment, not the bad) but we are willing to do whatever it takes to form these important bonds with our child.

Ready when you are...

Our decision to move from fertility treatments to adoption was an easy one.

I am an eternal optimist. Low egg reserve? Whatever. You only need one embryo to implant. Blocked tubes? That's OK, we can afford IVF. 

Infertility beat me up until I was black and blue but I just kept getting up for the next round.

After three rounds of IVF with no frozen embryos each time, with the last resulting in a slow-growing, underachieving embryo (who we rooted on like there was no tomorrow), it was time to hang up our boxing gloves. We were not going to be conceiving. My bits were tired of being poked and prodded, and it was time to move on.

We were, and are ready to move on. There's honestly nothing much else I could have done to get pregnant.

Except for donor egg. I thought about it for 10 seconds and decided that wasn't right for me.

I know people who have undergone fertility treatments where there were donor egg/sperm used and they have beautiful children. I'm happy for them that they were able to use these to conceive.

Personally, I feel there are so many children out there deserving of a forever home that I could not seek out a donor egg for the sole purpose of giving my husband a biological child.

I am sad that I will never experience pregnancy. I will always experience that tinge of jealousy when I see a woman, carrying the most miraculous gift of all.

But I know that one day, hopefully soon, I'll be gifted with a miracle of my own. It doesn't matter that I wasn't the tummy mommy.

We are so ready.

The end of one journey and the beginning of another...

My journey to become pregnant has ended after years of infertility treatments. I had a blog about my infertility.

I was a crappy blogger.

I am hoping it was the subject content, because I'd love to have a record of what was going on in momma's mind during the ups and downs of our adoption journey.

We were sailing in choppy waters for awhile, but I've adjusted my sails and there are sunny skies ahead with our little one :)