Our Adoption Story

Again, in an attempt to show people that they are not alone, we felt that we should share our life journey right up until this year.

We got married in October 2001, and both looked forward to approximately a year of life with just the two of us, and then hopefully a life filled with children.  Little did we know what kind of journey lay ahead for us.

In 2005, after we had been married for 4 years, and trying to have children for 3 years, we decided to start looking into whether adoption was for us.  We finally decided that we would enter the world of adoption one year later, and signed up with Adoption Options located in Winnipeg in February of 2006.

Looking back, we were unaware of what challenges there were in the adoption world, even though we were warned time and time again.  We entered this stage of our lives with great anticipation as to which child we would ultimately end up adopting.  We were blessed to have a number of close friends offer us encouragement, and support, and our church has been amazing all through the journey.

Also, our families have been a model of support throughout the process.  They have been prayer warriors for us, and have supported each and every decision we have made, and cheered us on when there is good news, as well as comfort us when we have negative news.  We thank each and every one of them, and appreciate them all as family.

As the year continued, we began growing more and more antsy about our position in the adoption world.  When would we see some movement in our file?  Are we meant to even have children after all?  Will we suddenly get pregnant as many people suggested?  This was an incredibly difficult couple of years, and it wore us down to the point that we had to consider other options as well.

It was around this time (Winter 06/07) that we began to start thinking about international adoption, and whether this was another avenue we should consider.  As we considered international adoption, a situation was presented to us in Spring of 2007.  There was a child that was probably going to be placed for adoption.... This case had come up outside of our agency's mandate, so while they knew about it and were supportive of it, it was up to us to get more information, and get some of the preparations out of the way before getting our agency involved.  We became obsessed with getting everything figured out to bring this child to what we felt was his rightful home.  We were in contact with the social worker, we were in contact with the birth mother.  We felt that it was only a matter of time before the child was in our house.  Then, suddenly, the communications dried up.  Every time we tried to contact the birth mother, she was cordial on the phone, but never really giving up any more information, and finally we felt (for our own sanity) that we needed to stop pursuing this.  We told the birth mother, that we wanted what was best for the child, but that unless it was something she wanted to do, we would no longer pursue it until we heard from her again.  We waited a couple of months and we heard nothing, and so we grieved the loss of what we thought was going to be our child.

Shortly after this incident (Fall of 2008), we began talking more with Adoption Options regarding an international adoption.  We went into these discussions with 2 countries in mind, and left with only one, Ethiopia.  Once again, we failed to heed the warnings of everyone involved with how uncertain the adoption process is.  We felt that it had been implied that this adoption could be completed relatively quickly compared to some of the other timelines we had heard.  I don't think we also totally realized just how costly this was all going to be.  At any rate, all our paperwork was completed in time to be sent to Ethiopia on March 10, 2009.  We had requested either 1 or 2 children, basically as young as possible.  We were excited that maybe something would happen soon.  Again, we continued on our journey as if the worst was over, and everything was going to move forward exactly how everyone told us it would.  Sadly, it seems that this was just the beginning of one of the toughest points of our adoption journey.

On Friday, July 17, 2009, our world was rocked.  This was the day that we found out that the agency that was facilitating our international adoption out of Cambridge, Ontario, Imagine Adoption, was filing for bankruptcy.  It was not a fun weekend, but by Monday afternoon, all across the country, many of the Imagine Adoption's 300ish clients were meeting to discuss possible solutions to the bankruptcy.  Hilary went to a meeting with a number of Manitoba families, and came away from that meeting a great deal of optimism.  By July 30th, we had submitted some documents to BDO stating how much money we had spent to date in our adoption, and throughout August, word of potential solutions that would possibly be proposed by BDO Dunwoody (company reviewing the bankruptcy filing) started to surface, and while it was not ideal, it was a chance for us to continue with this dream of bringing children into our home.

Labour Day weekend of 2009, I remember receiving the proposal, and spent most of the weekend mulling over what was being proposed.  When all was said and done, the agency was resurrected, with each family contributing an extra $4,000 to continue moving forward.  As the agency began moving forward, the first referrals were celebrated in late December, 2009.  This was a monumental feet that had been accomplished after only 5 short months earlier, it seemed Ethiopia adoptions were dead in the water.  We spent the next year excited to continue, but still a little unsure whether anything would ever come of our adoption plans.  We have been overjoyed to celebrate other adoptions from what has become a somewhat close Ethiopian Adoption community.  We have also made a number of friends through contact on the forums, emails, and later meeting in person, especially Geoff & Ruth from Ruth's Rambles, and lately to Doug & Jessa from La Belle Vie (whom we hope to meet in Ethiopia).

On June 17, 2011, the call came......

Since this post is already quite long, I will post the details of that fateful day in a new post, probably later tonite :).