Adoption

Carl and I are starting our journey of adoption. We have been married almost 3 years and have been trying to conceive for 3 years. It just hasnt happened yet. Been to the doctor, had some tests and no medical reason so far that it hasnt happened. We have been completely open to adoption since we first discussed having children.  Carl is almost 40 and I am in my middle 30s. We both want kids and a family so we discussed our options right from the beginning. Being parents is important to us and we both know there are children out there who need homes, love and guidance. And whether children were biologically ours or not wouldnt make us love them any less. It seems like all our friends and family have children or on their own journey to parenthood, and the longer into our journey the harder it gets to see more friends and family adding to their families while we seem to be unable to make it happen for ourselves. We are extremely happy for others when they are expecting but its still hard. You can be happy for others and be sad for yourself at the same time. Last fall we had a discussion about what our next step was going to be....either keep trying to conceive our own child, try to adopt, try both at the same time or give up and live happy as a childless couple. I would have been happy with any of those choices but I felt like we needed to make a choice soon. At first we decided to continue to conceive on our own for 6 months and if at that time it hadnt happened we were going to go the adoption route. A few days later, after much thinking about it, I decided to call and get some information on adoption. After talking to the adoption counsellor, I realized the wait in this province for infants and toddlers is a longtime and the average age of children available for adoption in NB is 10. So Carl and I had a serious discussion about what age and how long we were willing to wait. And we decided that a 10 year wait wasnt realistic for us, we would be in our late 40s. We decided a older child would fit in to our lifestyle more comfortably and we also decided to not wait another 6 months, that we would start the process now. We got all the forms, our medicals done, got our references, gathered our financial records, had criminal checks done and sent everything into the Deptartment of Social Developement. A few weeks later we got a letter in the mail saying we could take our Pride course in Woodstock over 4 weekends right away or wait until they had the next training in Fredericton in a few months, we decided to start right away. A few weeks later we had a visit from Charlotte the adoption coorindator in Fredericton. It will probably be awhile before they complete our home study since there is a backlog in Fredericton and it is the summer season. But we are being patient, we know it will happen as its meant to, so far everything else has fallen into place like it was meant to. We have redone our spareroom to make it ready for a child. We are reading books and searching the internet for info that will better prepare us. We know the children we are seeking to adopt come with complicated pasts, histories of neglect, abuse and medical problems. But we think we can handle it, we have great support with our families, friends and our church. We will lean on the social workers, teachers, family and foster family of the child that comes into our lives for support also. In the end we hope to start our family and hopefully help a child in need. I will keep you updated along our journey!