My Journey

It's been a little over a year that Jonathan and I have been trying to conceive. We have had no such luck.(don't get me wrong, the trying is still fun!) After some disappointing negative home pregnancy tests, 2 chemical pregnancies and people around us popping out babies like there was no tomorrow (I still love you all) we sat down and started to discuss our next steps in starting a family. We decided that we would look into adopting. Let me just start by saying that choosing adoption is no easy task. It's not like picking out what you're going to wear, or what to make for supper. It takes a lot of thought, a lot of discussion, and in our case a lot of prayer.

We started our process in Hamilton through CAS, and went to an information session. They basically tell you about the many steps involved in adoption, and all the paperwork involved. The paperwork is: medical reports, family history questionnaires, home safety checklists, criminal record checks, vulnerable screening tests, and financial information. We had completed our paperwork in Hamilton, and were waiting to hear about the PRIDE training sessions, which is 8 weeks of parenting classes, teaching you about how to be an adoptive parent (to generalize) Basically, you need the PRIDE training before you can really do anything. There are also 3 home studies involved, the initial meet and greet, meeting us separately, and the final home study before the child is placed in the home. This seems like it's easy and takes no time, but in Hamilton we had to wait about a YEAR before we could even start the PRIDE training. I was discouraged. THEN, we moved.

Here in Huntsville, we started our adoption process through the Muskoka CAS in mid September. Early October, we met with our social worker who did the initial home study. I was so nervous I barely slept the night before. We had a lot of questions to answer (the key one being "Why do you want to adopt?) and it was a lot of information to take in. Our next phase was to start in January, which would have been the PRIDE training, but at that time, we didn't think that we were ready to adopt, or that it was our journey. So, we put that on hold and continued to try to conceive naturally.

We tried from mid October and said we'd give it until the end of July, and if nothing happens, we'll look back into adopting. In November, we had a chemical pregnancy which is another way of saying an early miscarriage. A chemical is a miscarriage before a heartbeat can be detected, usually happens about 2-4 weeks pregnant. While I was devastated, I was hopeful since this meant we could get pregnant, and surely by that God wants us to keep trying. So, of course we kept trying. I took folic acid, pre-natal vitamins, tracked my days, and basically it became a chore rather than an intimate time with my husband. In March, we got another positive test, and a few days later, we had another loss. While we were still praying about what God's plan was, we decided to go forward with fertility testing to really SEE if we could conceive. So, Jonathan did his "boy test" and I did my girl test, and everything came back normal. Again I was happy, because this meant we could get pregnant. About a month ago, I've started to think about adopting again. I started wondering if maybe I really was meant to adopt. I thought about it more, and started praying about it more, and the more I thought about it, and the more I prayed about it, the more at peace and content I became with the idea. I shared the idea with Jonathan, and he was so happy to see I had finally "come around" and could see what he was trying to say all this time.

  I'll say this. Adopting isn't for the flighty or the impatient (a thing I'm working on) You have to want to adopt, knowing that although this child is yours, it's not entirely "yours". You have to know and understand especially with a CAS child, there are going to be obstacles in raising that child, and they may require extra time, patience, love and compassion. There's a lot of prayer and preparation involved. Maybe that's why it takes a while from the time you submit the application to having the child placed.

I've decided to start this blog because I want to enlighten people about the journey of adoption. I don't think a lot of people know what it takes to adopt. We see celebrities on TV adopting all the time, and it seems so easy *cough cough brangelina cough cough* Maybe for them it is. I know for Jonathan and I, it's far from it, but I know in the end it will be the most rewarding experience of our lives.

So I ask this my dear readers: if you're the praying type, please pray for us. We feel this is the path God has lined for us. (not that we won't still enjoy the other thing haha) Right now we don't care how long it takes, we have handed everything over to God, and know it's in His time, not ours. If you're not the praying type, then please think happy thoughts for us. I hope to keep you all updated the best I can.