the beginning of ...something?

after somewhat of a lull between posts, i've decided it's 'high time' (as my dad would say) to update everyone.

It's been an interesting couple of months of researching, reading and learning for us. It seems like every day I am coming home and telling Andrew about a new tidbit of information I learned in the day about a certain country or a new rule for domestic adoption. I've learned a lot by contacting private agencies in Canada or just lurking on various forums.

About a month ago, we felt we were 90% for sure choosing Russia for international adoption. It seemed like a program that was moving relatively fast (around the 2 year mark) and the children were still under 2 at the time they were being brought home. The major downside is the cost (over $50,000) and the THREE trips required. We felt (and still feel) that if God wanted us to move in that direction, He would supply our needs for that.

However, that same week, I received an email from my Auntie, who passed on a message of hope and encouragement from her friend, whom we will dub “Sarah”. My aunt mentioned that we had ruled out domestic adoption (adopting within our province), since we had heard reports of a 5-7 wait time. But Sarah told my aunt that she felt this was an exaggeration and went on to explain that they adopted their beautiful, healthy infant girl, after waiting only ONE YEAR! What an amazing story it was to read that! Sarah and I connected via email after that and she told me her whole inspiring and encouraging story.  One little sentence she wrote jumped out at me:

"If this is the path God has chosen for you, just be confident that he has someone planned to call you mom and dad. They just aren't ready yet!"

So I chose to trust that that was God's way of telling us NOT to give up on domestic adoption.

The process COULD be a long time, or it could be short. It's an absolute shot in the dark.

A wonderful piece of news that I just received was that we can now be on both international AND domestic waiting lists. So, if we choose to pursue Russia in the future, we could have that option.

We have requested our “Orientation Workbook” from our local support centre and once we've completed that, we'll get referred to a social worker. At that point, we'll officially submit an application for domestic adoption. 

I am feeling a tiny bit scared of the unknowns but also hopeful.

thanks for reading and partnering with us. Any questions?