During our last post I said that we were hoping we would get back our Ontario Government approval (Letter of Approval) before Christmas. Unfortunately, we received an email on Christmas eve from our Adoption Practitioner letting us know that the person reviewing our file from the Government wanted clarification on a few things (it ended up being 5 things) from our application. I chose not to read the email until Boxing Day because my initial reaction was frustration and anger. It turns out the items they requested more information on were fairly simple. I did have to go back to my Doctor's office and request that my new Doctor (as my previous Doctor who filled out my medical has since retired) fill out some additional information on my report. Although it was frustrating to receive our application back we know that this will likely be one of many delays that will happen in our adoption journey. It is good to know that adoption applications are looked at very closely, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating. Especially when we were expecting good news before the New Year. We added the information the Government requested to our report and our Adoption Practitioner had our paperwork ready to be sent back to the Children's Bridge (for them to send it back to the Government) for when their offices opened back up after the holidays. And then we waited...again.
Today, after waiting for 2.5 months we finally received our Letter of Approval. Hooray.
The letter basically says that we have been approved to adopt through the Children's Bridge by the Ontario Government and that they agree with our Adoption Practitioners recommendations in our homestudy report. One interesting section of the letter states that once the adoption is finalized, Ontario legislation recognizes the child as a full member of the adopting family and as such the child is treated in the same manner as all other children of legally constructed families. And that, Ontario welcomes the child from China as the legal child of the applicants. We both found it surprising that the Ontario Government would need to tell the Chinese government this information, but I suppose it is just part of the process.
So now that we have received the green light the next steps in the process are as follows:
1. Children's Bridge sends our Letter of Approval and China Application package to be notarized by their Lawyer (this should be completed by next week).
2. Children's Bridge will then send all of the above documents to be authenticated through Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Consulate in Toronto (this will take approximately 3 weeks).
And then we wait some more....
