Happy New Year

Back in March of 2014 we completed the first step in the adoption process. We paid a yearly Children's Bridge membership fee and we contacted the Program Manager for the Waiting Child (WC) China program. The phone call with our Program Manager covered information such as; age, gender, and special needs of the children in the WC China program. We discussed timelines for the program and the next steps for us.
After the phone conversation we were emailed reading material pertaining to cleft lip/palate, an information package outlining the adoption process, and the contact information of a family who has been through the WC China program. We were required to contact the family to hear their adoption story and ask them questions about the program. The purpose of the reading material and contacting the family was to ensure that the process was really right for us. We found the conversation with the family very helpful. It provided us with information that was not in any of the printed materials and gave us a contact to use throughout the process.

Once we felt confident that we wanted to proceed with the program we called back our Program Manager to be placed on the callback list. The callback list is for families that have paid their fees to be in the WC China program but do not have their paperwork complete (i.e. home study, background checks etc). We have also been placed on this list because the Chinese government requires that there be an 18 month age difference between the child we have and the child we adopt. That means our daughter needs to be 18 months older than the little boy we bring home from China. At the time of our initial conversation, the youngest boys with a clef lip/palate what were being adopted were 16-18 months of age. At this time our daughter wasn't even a year old yet so even if we had our paperwork complete we wouldn't  be able to move to the active families list (a list for families who are waiting for their paperwork to be accepted by the Chinese Government). Our Program Manager advised us to wait until January 2015 to start the next step in the process. The next step is finding an Adoption Practitioner (Social Worker) and doing PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education) Training. http://secure.adoptontario.ca/mobile/pride.main.aspx#&ui-state=dialog

 

 

So here we are, it's January 11, 2015 and we are starting the next step of our journey. Happy New Year everyone.