And then there were two

So my agency has worked in 2 regions for the last while (before re-accreditation last month) and were exploring opening up another one which I was REALLY excited about. The one they were talking about was Novosibirsk (New Siberia). My friend Ole has family there and I was excited about the potential of having someone I "knew" there. Long story short, they aren't expanding at this point. Everything on the Chat groups indicates that this is an 'easy' 'accessible' and 'IA' friendly region not to mention being open to single adopters but, Choices decided that for them, this isn't the case. Likly, they just don't have the support system in place there to make this easy for them to get access to the children there. So, now I'm back to 2 regions. Perm - a blind travel region where there seems to be plenty of 05/06 boys on the database and reports are that referrals are coming quickly for the boys and that they are healthy. OR - Vladivostock way South / East. This is a referral region and is pretty accessible from Vancouver. You don't have to go through Moscow and documents can be sent rather than travel. So... which am I leaning towards? Maybe it's because I'm adventurous or calculated (where are the odds better at being matched with a son the soonest), or just plain selfish (If I'm going half way around the world I want to see Red Square)... Yup, I'm leaning towards Perm. It will be scary as hell doing a blind referral (this means that you don't even get a picture or medical history before getting on an airplane to travel - just "healthy 3 year old boy" go to the airport...) but there are fewer families waiting (which means I could travel sooner) and really, until you meet the little guy to begin with you don't have much of an idea of health or "compatibility" (God I've been Internet dating for too long...). This isn't to say that the first child I meet will be 'The One' just that I can travel to meet the one they have first on the list for me. If there are health concerns or something just not right I think (need to clarify for sure but it's the way others have been treated in the same situation) I will be shown other boys files. So... I need to discuss this with the agency and keep waiting for my HS to come back from the province approved. So until then, there are lawns to mow, work to be done and laughs to be had.
S.

I'm officially Pregnant

I'm not sure when it happened exactly - pretty sure it has nothing to do with when my last period was - but I picked up the first of many official documents from the HS agency yesterday and dropped it off completed today. So there it is... the little pink plus sign... Without the memento of the test. I know it's still so early on in things but I have a weird sort of calm about the whole thing. Sure, I did get a little testy about the extra week it took the HS folks to print out the copy of the file my SW worked so hard on but... I keep thinking of something that someone said to me after our accident... "God's trains are all on time". While I'm not a particularly religious person (in the dogmatic sense of the word) I would say that I am very spiritual and believe that things... yes... even really bad, sad, hurtful, agonizing, life altering things have a reason to be in our lives. So, if I can somehow accept those things, I can accept that maybe the week of "unrequired" waiting is required in some way that I don't know now. Jerri laughed really uncomfortably last night when I told her that I'm pregnant... she struggled out a "con... grat...ulations?" - you know the kind where the intonation goes wayyyyyy up at the end so it's more of a question than a statement. I laughed and explained the "Paper pregnant" term and suggested that perhaps I am in my first TRY-MESS-ter?
So, onto other life news - I get to meet a little boy and his family on Friday - they have just come home from Russia and I'll get to look life after adoption in the eyes and know it will be mine too sometime soon(ish) lol. If things work out right, my little guy and Jakob might be friends! But first - for tonight, I better finish cleaning the basement rug. I think God is getting even for me asking for a son who arrives potty trained. Lyric has developed a case of explosive diarrhea, managed to Houdini out of her kennel today, "decorated" the rugs in the basement and for reasons I'll never know chewed her mark into a doorway drywall... that should make her tummy feel better. Thank God for muzzles, little green carpet cleaners and red wine... just kidding... about the wine... in case there are any adoption agency moles on here... I meant warm milk.

Oiyvey... say what you mean!

OK - so I'm pissy (and I'm not saying that because I just finished rug doctoring my carpets after old dog christened them at 5am this morning and Lord knows I couldn't sleep with that in my rug - I digress) ... I went to the mail box every day this week to check to see if I'm pregnant... you know the peeing on the stick 4 days before your period kind of go to the mail box even before my home study should have arrived sort of preggers. Well, I talked to the coordinator a week ago Thursday about some "minor additions" she had to add in and that she would be sending it out on MONDAY... I was patient until Friday and gave the agency a call... turns out that she was 'so busy' that she hadn't completed it yet and it would be sent out NEXT week after the long weekend. Not that I imagine that sitting down and reading a third person account of who I am and what I'm about would bring down the house, but I wanted it here none the less. What I think really happened? I originally had submitted documents to the AB government for approval for Kazakhstan and then changed my papers to Russia after being rebuffed by CAFAC (agency) because I was single. I was told it wouldn't matter at all that the AB government doc cited Kaz but just to be sure I sent an email on Wednesday to have the form amended. I sent the reply as requested to the agency Thursday... at which point I think the coordinator went Oh crap...I knew there was something I was supposed to do. I say this because I got about 3 phone calls from her on Friday afternoon for stupid things that didn't matter at all... and she wasn't even working. Smells like a guilty conscience to me... So, looks like I'll have some light reading to do on Tuesday (they said they'd call and have me pick it up once the formatting was done). Good thing I don't have to wait a whole month for this preggers thing like normal couples... sometimes it's good not to be normal :-)

And it begins...

From the beginning, I thought about adoption... about how giving a child who might never know a home or things of his own or opportunity in his life a place to grow up and be loved. I always considered international adoption because in my heart I want to go where I might do the most good... that lead me to research where I COULD adopt from. Who would entrust their orphaned children to a single mom? The list got considerably smaller... and smaller still when I wanted to choose somewhere that was consistent and established. So I chose Russia. Russia is a country of grand history and culture but also a country where over 200,000 children are in orphanages. LIttle girls are adopted more than little boys and the older they get... the less chance they have of ever knowing a life outside of the orphnage walls. I'm cheering for the underdog... a little toddler boy who might become my son.

I've taken the international adoption (IA) course twice... This time it's for real. In March 2008 I attended the course at Adoption Options here in Calgary and signed on to begin my home study a short time later. The home study was an interesting process that I felt blessed to have been partnered with my social worker. Talking to Chantelle was more like talking to a friend about the important things in life than being interrogated to see if I might be a good enough mom. A few more questions were clarified just 2 days ago and I hope to have a copy of it to read next week. From there, I wait for Provincial approval and then it's on to stage two... collecting dossier documents for my agency in B.C. "Choices". What I know for now is this: I was given a "favorable" review in my homestudy and have requested a 2 1/2 - 4 year old healthy boy... For now, I research regions in Russia, read books on IA and the challenges of adopting a toddler and I wait... I understand that I'll need to get good at that :-)

"Two wrongs might just make this right"

Welcome to my blog... I'm new to this so please bear with me as I create a place to record the adventure I'm on to adopting a son from Russia. This will be a place for me, for you and most importantly for him to come back to and see how this journey came to be. So, let's get started - how did this dream come to be?



Once upon a time, long long ago, I married the most amazing person I have ever known... I married my best friend. Some might say that "Love at first sight" is for dreamers or fools... well, I guess we were both. Scott was an amazing man full of life, light, passion, and humor - he was everything I ever dreamt of in a husband. We shared so many adventures in our time together but the best part was how he could make me laugh until my stomach hurt or smile by just walking into a room. He made me want to be a better person and together we wanted to raise a family. We knew we would be good parents and we knew that the adventures we shared as a couple would be made even better by sharing them with children... that was not to be. On April 30th, 1999, Scott died beside me in a roll over car accident. The years following that were the hardest I might ever have to endure. Through the tears, grief, pain, and sorrow I've learned that life and the dream of love and a family does go on... albeit in a different way. So here I am... 9 years later contemplating my family in a way so different than before but in my heart feels so right.

You see, I lost my family, my security, my love, my protection and my future when I lost Scott... and it took a long, long time to be able to picture my days without him... without my dreams. And I'm an adult. Somewhere, in an orphanage far away, there are children who, in ways that likely feel very much the same, lost their family, security, love, protection and future... perhaps this is one of the few exceptions to the rule where "Two wrongs might just make a right".