Adoption 101

Since this whole process began, my inbox on Facebook has been full of friends inquiring about the adoption process.  So, I thought I'd blog about it so the information is always there and so I know I haven't forgotten to mention anything.

We are adopting two children from within my side of the family.  I'm not too sure about the process for finding a child from another country or from within Canada.  I have heard that the wait for a newborn Canadian baby is approx 8 years and an international baby is approx 2-3 years.
The steps after you locate your wee babe are the same.

Find an excellent lawyer.  This is your family and your future babies.  It's worth the money.  Our lawyer is named Leslie Tallis.  She is the number one adoption lawyer in the city.  It's all she does and has been doing for years!  I have complete confidence in her.  Not once did anything go against our favour.

First we had to get their parents to go down to Social Services where they would be educated about what it actually means to give your child up for adoption.  It is an educational meeting for them and by no means do they try to convince them to keep them.  They also make sure that the adoptive parents are not bribing (paying, buying gifts, etc) the biological parents.  This is illegal in Canada.  Which in part why it takes so long to get a newborn baby.  It's not like Juno where you can just pick a pregnant lady, pay her way through the pregnancy and hope you get a newborn out of the deal.  Seriously...you cannot even buy the woman flowers in the hospital after birth.

Secondly the birth parents return to Social Services to sign an Adoption Certificate.  This process sounds easy enough but when you have to track down birth parents it's not easy.  We found Sage's dad and he was lazy and had to be threatened to be taken to court...which was enough to get him down to Social Services.  Hayden's dad we never did find.  We had to prove due process to show the courts that we did try to find him.  This way we could dispense of his consent.  And we did.
We were a little concerned about Sage's birth dad in case he decided to fight in court.  But Leslie said that in 25 years she has only had one birth dad show up in court!  And as soon as she mentioned how much he would have to pay in child support to see his child he gave up.  Easy.  (And sad.)

This process took 2 years.

Now you owe your lawyer some cash.  Because this next part is up to you and you won't be using her services for a while.  Approx $6,000.

Then your lawyer gives you a list of professionals to do a home study.  Approx $1800.  This is not meant to be scary!  It has been completely educational.  I love our social worker!  I want to keep her forever.  She has been so helpful and answered to many questions that I almost burst out crying at second meeting.  She helps with any questions you may have regarding the adoption.  Any aspect of it.  She also helps with parenting questions.  They are all about attachment parenting so they help provide tips on how to do develop a secure attachment with adopted children.  (She mentioned that it is easier to do this with older children than with babies under 3 that have been adopted!)  Point for the older kids that need homes!

We have to do 6 home studies.  This normally takes 6 weeks but it's summer.  I imagine we will be done near the end of September.  I really don't want her to go already.  The only other professional I have ever felt this way about was my midwife.

She also helps with your homework!  You will have to complete a Criminal Records Check, a Child Abuse Check (done at Social Services), a full medical examination, a personal history, and reference check.  The personal history and reference check is a lot.  And we will probably have to have friends and family over for drinks when they are done.  It's intense but it has to be.  These kids have been through enough.  And if you want them, you'll do it.  Oh yeah...pay your lawyer some more :)

Once that is done everything that we have completed up to this point is sent off to the courts.  Call up your lawyer again.  This takes approx 3 months depending where you end up in the pile.  Then we sign our lives away and we're done!....well just starting really ;)

Good luck!  It's so worth it!