I got an email last night saying that our profile had been posted on canadaadopts.com. I found a couple of small things I want changed but overall I am very happy with how it turned out. Click on this link to check it out. At the top of the page you can select Parent Profile or Photo Album to see more. They did offer a video package as well but we felt this was enough.
It all seems very real now. I am excited!!!!!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Did you know ...
that all of the following are adoptees:
Faith Hill
Mike Tyson
Ted Danson
KT Tunstall
Curtis "Cujo" Joseph
Sarah McLachlan
Herbert Hoover
Ray Liotta
Nancy Reagan
Ginger Rogers
Dave Thomas (Wendy's)
Huh!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Picton CAS Meeting
Yesterday we met with Marie the lady in charge of Adoption at the Picton CAS. She was really nice and Nic and I liked her right from the start. She had read our profile and homestudy and greeted Jessie and Emma by name. She has dogs of her own so was really comfortable around them which was nice.
She was here for a little over an hour and talked to us allot about the adoption program and how CAS handles things. As always it was a learning experience and I feel like we got allot out of it. Some of the surprising things we learned were:
-Picton CAS has been doing mainly open adoptions (either with the birth parents or extended family members) when it is safe for the child, for the last 25 years. This is a relatively new step for CAS so we were surprised to hear they had been doing it for so long.
-Marie has facilitated three newborn adoptions this year and is currently working on another one. Newborns available through the CAS for immediate adoption are rare. Often times the birth parents do not give immediate consent for the child to be adopted and the child is in foster care for at least a year. It was great to hear that sometimes newborns are available. She said to keep in mind that babies have challenges as well because if there are developmental issues they have not always presented yet. Also if the mother does not give a complete history there may be some question marks. If the child is a bit older at least there has been some time to see how they are growing and learning.
-Marie said that she would more than likely propose some children to us that were out of our acceptance zone. She said we did not need to feel pressure to accept these children. She said lots of people say no to 2, 3, 5, etc. children during the process of finding the right one. She truly believes that finding a child is about a connection so if she thinks the child might be right for us she would talk to us about it. Nice to know!
-She asked us for a smaller written profile with no pictures. She said sometimes it is better for people to read about us first before seeing us. More information is not always better.
-She will present us, along with any other new couples she has available at her next meeting with the three neighbouring CAS organizations. She wants me to send her our profile in PDF form so she can e-mail it ahead of time.
-The process for accepting a child has more steps than we anticipated. She said if we accept a child on paper we can then talk with the child's worker (if one exists) as well as the current foster parent to find out more about the child. From there we may have a meeting with any birth family and then if we still think it will be a good match we will see the child. We both thought this was great. It gives us lots of time to gather information before we make a decision.
After we talked she did take a quick look around the house and talked to us a bit about our business. She seemed pleased with what we had to offer and thought the spare room would be perfect. I was wondering if she would ask if all our safety measures were in place. We did talk about it but she said not to worry too much about that now. Depending on the age of the child what we need will be different. She says if we are placed with a child she will do a full inspection before we bring the child home.
Marie also mentioned an event going on October 1st. This is the third time someone has made us aware of it. We were already planning on going which she thought was good. At this event Hastings, Northumberland, Kawartha-Haliburton, and the County of Prince Edward will be presenting children who are currently available for adoption. These children are available because the agencies do not have any families in the area that will accept them. They will mostly be sibling groups and children over 6. Although Nic and I know the children are out of our range we think it is important to go. We are going to introduce our self to the person in each section and leave them with our profile and contact information. Meeting people in person is important and because we are very close to each of the departments we are hoping they will hold on to our profile and keep us in mind. Marie seemed to think they would and that this would be a good thing to do. Connections never hurt.
Overall another great meeting that we felt really good about. It is wonderful to be meeting so many nice people and learning so much. Marie also said she thought the Toronto Adoption Resource Exchange was in mid October. She did not know the exact date but was going to let me know. So October will be a good month to see lots of kids and make lots of CAS connections.
She was here for a little over an hour and talked to us allot about the adoption program and how CAS handles things. As always it was a learning experience and I feel like we got allot out of it. Some of the surprising things we learned were:
-Picton CAS has been doing mainly open adoptions (either with the birth parents or extended family members) when it is safe for the child, for the last 25 years. This is a relatively new step for CAS so we were surprised to hear they had been doing it for so long.
-Marie has facilitated three newborn adoptions this year and is currently working on another one. Newborns available through the CAS for immediate adoption are rare. Often times the birth parents do not give immediate consent for the child to be adopted and the child is in foster care for at least a year. It was great to hear that sometimes newborns are available. She said to keep in mind that babies have challenges as well because if there are developmental issues they have not always presented yet. Also if the mother does not give a complete history there may be some question marks. If the child is a bit older at least there has been some time to see how they are growing and learning.
-Marie said that she would more than likely propose some children to us that were out of our acceptance zone. She said we did not need to feel pressure to accept these children. She said lots of people say no to 2, 3, 5, etc. children during the process of finding the right one. She truly believes that finding a child is about a connection so if she thinks the child might be right for us she would talk to us about it. Nice to know!
-She asked us for a smaller written profile with no pictures. She said sometimes it is better for people to read about us first before seeing us. More information is not always better.
-She will present us, along with any other new couples she has available at her next meeting with the three neighbouring CAS organizations. She wants me to send her our profile in PDF form so she can e-mail it ahead of time.
-The process for accepting a child has more steps than we anticipated. She said if we accept a child on paper we can then talk with the child's worker (if one exists) as well as the current foster parent to find out more about the child. From there we may have a meeting with any birth family and then if we still think it will be a good match we will see the child. We both thought this was great. It gives us lots of time to gather information before we make a decision.
After we talked she did take a quick look around the house and talked to us a bit about our business. She seemed pleased with what we had to offer and thought the spare room would be perfect. I was wondering if she would ask if all our safety measures were in place. We did talk about it but she said not to worry too much about that now. Depending on the age of the child what we need will be different. She says if we are placed with a child she will do a full inspection before we bring the child home.
Marie also mentioned an event going on October 1st. This is the third time someone has made us aware of it. We were already planning on going which she thought was good. At this event Hastings, Northumberland, Kawartha-Haliburton, and the County of Prince Edward will be presenting children who are currently available for adoption. These children are available because the agencies do not have any families in the area that will accept them. They will mostly be sibling groups and children over 6. Although Nic and I know the children are out of our range we think it is important to go. We are going to introduce our self to the person in each section and leave them with our profile and contact information. Meeting people in person is important and because we are very close to each of the departments we are hoping they will hold on to our profile and keep us in mind. Marie seemed to think they would and that this would be a good thing to do. Connections never hurt.
Overall another great meeting that we felt really good about. It is wonderful to be meeting so many nice people and learning so much. Marie also said she thought the Toronto Adoption Resource Exchange was in mid October. She did not know the exact date but was going to let me know. So October will be a good month to see lots of kids and make lots of CAS connections.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The Wheels are in Motion
Since my last post we have slowly been moving forward. Work right now is extremely busy which has caused a few delays in adoption stuff but you have to make money to spend money.
Last week I signed us up for the Canada Adopts website. Out of the three websites that have a waiting parent registry we liked them the best. They seem to be the most well known and have been around the longest. We managed to get the questionnaire they require filled out but I am still working on condensing our 16 page profile into 1000 words and 8 pictures. I need to find a few minutes of quiet time to give it a final read over and possibly send it off to one more person to proof read. Once we e-mail it to Canada Adopts they will proof read it again and it should be up online in a week or so.
I also sent off our registration to Beginnings Family Services in Hamilton. They are an adoption agency that came highly recommended. I received an e-mail as soon as they processed our registration asking for a copy of our homestudy and profile. They also made it clear that they had a 3 to 4 month waiting list and we would be contacted somewhere in that time frame to talk with their adoption practitioner. Once we talk with her we will go on their official waiting parent list. The 3 to 4 months is a bit longer than I anticipated but not much we can do.
We have an appointment this coming Tuesday with the lady in charge of adoption at the Picton CAS. She is going to come by the house to take a look around and get to know us a bit. She seems very nice so we are both excited to meet her and see what she says about the adoption program in Picton and the surrounding areas (Quinte and Hastings). I mailed her our profile and homestudy so she has an idea of what to expect.
We also had a great meeting this past Tuesday with a women named Sandra Webb. She is an adoption practitioner and also provides counselling services for parents and adopted children. She has visited orphanages abroad, worked with the CAS and now has a private practice. Her office is located in Cobourg which was a little over an hour from us. Overall Nic and I really enjoyed talking with her. She asked us a ton of questions about our past, present and future. We explained our adoption journey to date and she gave us some excellent feedback. It was nice to hear her say she felt we were in a good place and had done more research than most people do. She felt we were prepared to make an educated decision about what type of child we would accept from either the public or private systems. Since we have done allot of this without guidance from our current practitioner it was reassuring to know we were still on the right track.
Overall Sandra was very nice and we enjoyed talking with her. She said some of the same things that a woman I have been talking with from the Ministry of Child and Youth Services has been saying. That right at this moment we do not necessarily need a practitioner. Because we are mainly applying to places and talking to people we can do this part on our own. She said a practitioner is wonderful when you are matched with a birth family and need advice but until then we should be okay on our own.
We are still planning on meeting with at least one more practitioner. If nothing else we are doing some networking which can't hurt. We are looking forward to November when we can go to our open adoption seminar put on by Jennie Painter who is the founder of Adoption Resource & Counselling Services. She sounds like a wonderful women and everyone we talk to that has been to her seminar has gotten allot out of it. We have already learned allot about open adoption and our views on it keep growing and changing. We know this seminar will help with that process. Once we have completed the seminar we can make an appointment with Jennie and hopefully they will have room for us on their waiting parent registry.
When we have some time we are planning on researching a few more agencies to apply to. I have sent e-mails off to a few lawyers in Toronto that I heard were often approached by birth parents but have not heard back. Sandra said there was an agency in Ottawa that I should look into as well.
It is very exciting to be getting so much done and moving forward. I have already sent out the three profiles I had printed so I think I will get another 6 done this week so I have them on hand. They are pretty quick at Staples getting them printed but I don't always have time to run over to Belleville to pick them up.
Next to adoption stuff Nic and I have been trying to enjoy our summer. We have been doing lots of camping with our new to us trailer and seeing lots of friends. It had been busy but allot of fun. A nice change from our usual summers chained to work and the house.
Last week I signed us up for the Canada Adopts website. Out of the three websites that have a waiting parent registry we liked them the best. They seem to be the most well known and have been around the longest. We managed to get the questionnaire they require filled out but I am still working on condensing our 16 page profile into 1000 words and 8 pictures. I need to find a few minutes of quiet time to give it a final read over and possibly send it off to one more person to proof read. Once we e-mail it to Canada Adopts they will proof read it again and it should be up online in a week or so.
I also sent off our registration to Beginnings Family Services in Hamilton. They are an adoption agency that came highly recommended. I received an e-mail as soon as they processed our registration asking for a copy of our homestudy and profile. They also made it clear that they had a 3 to 4 month waiting list and we would be contacted somewhere in that time frame to talk with their adoption practitioner. Once we talk with her we will go on their official waiting parent list. The 3 to 4 months is a bit longer than I anticipated but not much we can do.
We have an appointment this coming Tuesday with the lady in charge of adoption at the Picton CAS. She is going to come by the house to take a look around and get to know us a bit. She seems very nice so we are both excited to meet her and see what she says about the adoption program in Picton and the surrounding areas (Quinte and Hastings). I mailed her our profile and homestudy so she has an idea of what to expect.
We also had a great meeting this past Tuesday with a women named Sandra Webb. She is an adoption practitioner and also provides counselling services for parents and adopted children. She has visited orphanages abroad, worked with the CAS and now has a private practice. Her office is located in Cobourg which was a little over an hour from us. Overall Nic and I really enjoyed talking with her. She asked us a ton of questions about our past, present and future. We explained our adoption journey to date and she gave us some excellent feedback. It was nice to hear her say she felt we were in a good place and had done more research than most people do. She felt we were prepared to make an educated decision about what type of child we would accept from either the public or private systems. Since we have done allot of this without guidance from our current practitioner it was reassuring to know we were still on the right track.
Overall Sandra was very nice and we enjoyed talking with her. She said some of the same things that a woman I have been talking with from the Ministry of Child and Youth Services has been saying. That right at this moment we do not necessarily need a practitioner. Because we are mainly applying to places and talking to people we can do this part on our own. She said a practitioner is wonderful when you are matched with a birth family and need advice but until then we should be okay on our own.
We are still planning on meeting with at least one more practitioner. If nothing else we are doing some networking which can't hurt. We are looking forward to November when we can go to our open adoption seminar put on by Jennie Painter who is the founder of Adoption Resource & Counselling Services. She sounds like a wonderful women and everyone we talk to that has been to her seminar has gotten allot out of it. We have already learned allot about open adoption and our views on it keep growing and changing. We know this seminar will help with that process. Once we have completed the seminar we can make an appointment with Jennie and hopefully they will have room for us on their waiting parent registry.
When we have some time we are planning on researching a few more agencies to apply to. I have sent e-mails off to a few lawyers in Toronto that I heard were often approached by birth parents but have not heard back. Sandra said there was an agency in Ottawa that I should look into as well.
It is very exciting to be getting so much done and moving forward. I have already sent out the three profiles I had printed so I think I will get another 6 done this week so I have them on hand. They are pretty quick at Staples getting them printed but I don't always have time to run over to Belleville to pick them up.
Next to adoption stuff Nic and I have been trying to enjoy our summer. We have been doing lots of camping with our new to us trailer and seeing lots of friends. It had been busy but allot of fun. A nice change from our usual summers chained to work and the house.
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