Adoption

I have been wanting to share our adoption story for quite some time now. if you read our blog, you know that the story is no where near done! However, I wanted to share it in the broader context of parenting...so pull up a chair, grab a chai & stay a while! I hope & pray that our story is an encouragement and blessing to you!

Candra

Part 1...and then there were 3!

I first became a mom on december 23, 2002. This was the day I found out that i was expecting our first child. Riley was out rock climbing with my brother and sister and I had to wait until we were alone. It was an amazing moment when we knew we were going to be parents. Our first baby girl was born august of the next year, with dark hair, wide open eyes and an incredibly sweet disposition...she is still that way!  We didn't wait to long to decide to have our second. I was hoping that the morning sickness I experienced with our first would be the same or less, but it got worse and instead of 5 months of being sick it was 9 months...morning, day and night. Thank goodness for diclectin and a great husband! We were blessed with a baby boy who was welcomed dearly by his big sister. He had a few more health issues when he was young so we waited a little bit and prayed about having our third. We knew we were not done our family but the question was when. 

The answer was march of 2008. Throughout this pregnancy, I was again really sick and out of commission. I would make it through work, come home and spend about 30 minutes with the kids and then crash. my last trimester my diet literally consisted of slurps and caramilks. Fast sugar. That is literally all that would stay down. I lost weight and had 8 cavities by the end of it...go figure. Our baby girl came out kicking and really hasn't stopped moving since. She Is so full of life and energy and I don't doubt the slurpees had something to do with it! 

I have to say that moving from 2 to 3 was tricky and it took a little longer to get into routine and to think about another addition. I remember that with each of our children we were content with our family...that it wasn't that we needed to have more children, but rather we got to! I think both of us were ready to be done after three children- mainly because I did not want to be sick again for 9 months and riley would have to become the essentially the only parent for our kids. They way things had been going I was scared I would be hospitalized... I was on and off content with this decision. I had always thought I would have 4 kids- no particular reason just what I had imagined. But I was truly content. But things were about to change. God had other plans. And that time happened in October 2009...

Part 2...The decision

In October of 2009, my husband & I (sans kids)  were amazingly blessed to get to attend Catalyst 09 - a conference  of about 13000 people in Atlanta, GA that is all about godly leadership. Its focus is on young leaders, which I love cause rarely do young leaders get the encouragement and support to go for it! It often seems like there is an age requirement  to be a good leader. Maturity is necessary but that doesn't necessarily equate to age.... anyways, it was an amazing, inspiring, crazy, challenging, worship filled conference. Hope we can go again soon!  
Throughout the conference, they had people sharing about their life and a continuous theme (although not directly what the conference was about)  that kept coming up in these people's lives was adoption. Both of their/our adoption in Christ and their adoption of children into their family. They discussed adoption as a way to give a child a family, to be blessed by that child and extend the grace and love of Christ in a practical way.During some of the breaks, as we were walking around we started discussing it again. We had always been open to adoption and was something that early on in our marriage we had talked about. We were both encouraged to hear about other families adopting and started wondering what if? I went to a couple of booths of adoption agencies to find out a little more but because we were from Canada they couldn't really help me. So, I just thought that this is something we should think and pray about when we get home and look into it a little more. The second last night of the conference Mac Powell was up on stage sharing God's story in his life. And instead of trying to rewrite what I wrote back then, here it is written in jan of 2010 before we had little man home..
 At one point, Mac Powell (singer for 3rd day) was on stage and brought his wife and new son on to join him. He spoke about the gift of adoption and the gift that his new son was to him. What can only be described as a God moment came next - Riley and I knew in an instant that this is what God was asking us to do. With great excitement and anticipation, we committed to having our fourth child through adoption!
Now, if you know Riley and I, when we commit to something there is no going back. Even on that trip, we began the process of praying and researching adoption agencies, finding out procedures with Saskatchewan and Canada and beginning a to do list (my favorite thing to do!). On a side note, I have to say that I have been amazed and blessed by the leadership and willingness of Riley to do a lot of the leg work through this process thus far! It has grown my love for him to watch him parent our expectant child, even in these initial stages.
On returning home, we spent many late nights and many emails and phone calls, narrowing down the agency we would work with. We knew that we wanted to adopt internationally from Africa (another whole story on its own) but also knew that our options were limited. On speaking to some agencies, we found out the wait or some countries was up to 4 years. This was a little discouraging but also knew that we were committed. We came across a smaller agency based in Ontario that upon reading their website, we felt immediately encouraged by. It is a Christian based agency who works with several countries, but the one that stood out to us was South Africa.
After speaking with the director, we knew this was the direction we were going to take! So, we are adopting from South Africa, a child between the ages of 0-12 months! Then, the process we had to go through began. We were recommended a wonderful home study practitioner who completed our home study in 5 weeks! All of our other dossier requirements were processed very quickly - reminding us to thank God even during the process. Our references  came in very quickly and thanks to all of Riley's computer wisdom, were were able to put together our personal profile, the final part of our dossier. We were hoping to have our part done by the end of December and it happened! Yay! Riley and I were talking one night and felt strongly that anything we could do on our end to make the process go faster, we would. We did not want our child to have to wait on us to complete our paperwork.
God's timing is always incredible; it may seem insane or unmanageable at the time but He knows, which is a great source of comfort to me.  Following Atlanta, we had 4 more days of holiday in Florida where we were able to pray through this decision and enjoy the moment. All of our paperwork was officially into the agency in January of 2010 and we were offically in the waiting stage of becoming a family of 6! To end with on Part 2, this song has been incredibly meaningful to us...enjoy!

Have a great weekend! Part 3 to come...our referral!

Part 3...the Referral!


Wednesday evening I left for Regina for a course for work. Funny enough, or great timing, the course was on "the neurological basis of attachment in children". I was super excited to take the course as I am privileged enough to work with children in my job and this was extremely relevant to my job as a physical therapist. So Thursday morning, the course started bright and early and I was super excited. Around 11:00 that morning the facilitator for the course gave me a note to call home as soon as possible. My heart immediately jumped to my throat as my grandma had been quite sick and recently in hospital. I thought something happened to her. So I was worried as I picked up the phone and dialed. My husband answered and I said hello and then he said hi. And then there was a pause and quietly he said something. I couldnt quite hear so I said "pardon me?"

" we have a son"

And time stood still. 

Only for a moment. And then my arms started flapping wildly and my feet jumping up and down. Not all on my own volition may I add! I calmed down enough to hear that he had received a call from our social worker that morning that we had a referral. He was about 9 months old and beautiful. My husband told me to try and find a computer so that I could read a little and see PICTURES! So I frantically ran around this rehab facility and found a computer that would let me on and print. I found one and he was gorgeous. 
By this time my colleagues were getting a little worried and it was lunch so I went back to the room where the course was. One of my colleagues (who amazingly and not coincidentally is a mom who has adopted herself) asked if everything is ok and I replied that we just received a referral for our son! I received a huge hug and lots of congratulations...
So through all this I am in another city from the rest of my family. I was blessed to be able to concentrate the rest of the day on the course & keep glancing and the pictures I had just printed off of my son! That evening, with both my husband and I on the phone and the kids on speaker phone, we gave them each a picture of their brother and told them that he was about to join our family. My husband took pictures of their response and I have never seen bigger smiles! As an aside, my little princess slept with that picture each and every night until he came home...so so sweet. So I still had 2 days of the course left, which was great but I could not wait to get home! Saturday night I returned home to a house full of people(mom & dad and my sisters and families we there) as the next day we were celebrating my husband's and little princess' birthdays (born on the same day 30 years apart). I walked right into my best friend's arms ( my amazing husband) and was overwhelmed and thankful that we got to be parents for the fourth time! The next morning, we signed the papers to officially accept the referral - what a great birthday present! And that was how we welcomed our precious fourth child into our growing family...

Many people ask us how long it took us? Suffice to say that it was a very short time between when we started the process and received the referral. It doesn't make sense practically, as the process often takes longer, but God knew what He was doing. His timing is always perfect and there are so many things in our experience that can only be attributed to His work in little man's life and in the life of our family! 

Part 4...travel & joy!!
So we had about three weeks between the time we accepted the referral and when we had to be in little man's birth country. Needless to say it was a excited and crazy whirlwind. I have to say,a everything LITERALLY fell into place. Our families, who were behind us from day 1, stepped up and a plan was almost immediately in place to take care of our three older children. At work, about 2 weeks before a coworker had asked for an adoption leave as she had just received a referral! So my manager knew exactly what paperwork need to be filled out and how to go about getting everything done. I was able to transfer my caseload fairly smoothly and all the families I worked with were fairly supportive. And the most amazing part- my husband had just started, about 2 months before, a 6 month sabbatical from his job. he had always had a sense that we would bring our child home during this time but I was doubtful...I was definitely proved wrong! As an aside, the time we had as a family, once little man came home was a gift- both parents off, summer holidays right around the corner for the 2 older kids and little princess in love with her brother- it truly bonded us a a family of 6.
Anyways, with suitcases packed we said goodbye to our kids... Which was so so hard. Thank goodness for Skype! Our flights were uneventful and we arrived on time in little man's birth country. We were driven to our amazing bed and breakfast that we would call home for the next 3 weeks! The host was amazing and she holds a very special place in our hearts! We wish we weren't so far away....Anyways, we unloaded and then went with her and another adoptive family to grab an authentic cuisine based supper. So good and a great first experience. 11 hours later, after jet lag, some sleep (for me more than my husband) we were in a car with an amazing woman ( our social worker) off to the baby home where little man was. We were able to see a lot of the countryside and soak in a bit of the culture. We had a great conversation on the way and heard more about little man and the wonderful people who were taking care of him. Just after lunch we pulled into the yard. We followed our social worker in and met the director of the babyhome. 
looking back, this moment was so special and surreal. Knowing how much our son was loved and what a delight he was to those who knew him was such great experience. And knowing that each and every one of us had been and continues to pray for him is something that is is beyond incredible! 
So very quickly we were invited into the kitchen area, when around the corner one of the caregivers came carrying him in their arms!! To finally meet him was a moment like none other...
He was more precious in person, smiley and was quite content to be in our arms ( I must admit that he was partial to daddy's arms those first few days!). We played with him, learned as much about him as we could, took lots of pictures, met everybody there that cared for him and just hung out for about 3 hours. And then it was time to leave.
I had a hard time as I grieved for those that he was leaving. The people that had invested in his life, who had soothed him, gave him hugs and kisses and for the other little ones that had been  his playmates. And yet, this moment int time was to set his and our lives on a trajectory far greater! We were able to welcome another son into our family and he became a part of our family! 




"God sets the lonely in families...."

I hope you enjoyed our story and that in some small way it may be an encouragement to you and a testimony of God's work in our lives! 

Blessings,
Candra