Do you have AOCD? Take this test to find out.

If you answer "yes" to any of the following questions you may need to be treated for Adoption Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (AOCD). You should immediately consult with family, friends, and especially fellow adoption blogger.

 Repeated actions over and over - Do you ritually check adoption blogs and forums MANY times a day; especially at the most unusual/inappropriate times like during work or before your coat and shoes are off when you get home from being out for any amount of time?
 Involuntarily persistent thoughts - Do you wake up every morning and go to bed each night (and most hours in between) thinking about adoption? Or do you find yourself trying to steer conversations onto the topic of adoption because it is the only topic you can seem to concentrate on for any period of time?
 Arranging and having things orderly - Do you keep a tracker and/or spreadsheet tracking wait times and referrals (if you use a color coding system, add two points to your score)? Or do you check other peoples trackers and/or databases to count where you are "in line"?
 Aggressive or horrific thoughts - When people say "Hang in there!" and you smile and say "thanks", would you rather hang them? Or when people say "Good things come to those who wait", do you wonder if they have ever had to wait for something this important (we are talking about a baby, not dessert)? Or after someone says "Everything happens for a reason", would you like to smack them and say "I'll show you my reason!"
 Uncontrolled emotions - When you see beautiful black babies at the grocery store do you become overwhelmed with emotion? Do you get disappointed when someone doesn't comment on your blog, even when you know lots of people are reading it? Do you scream into your pillow for, what seems like, no particular reason?
 Repeated doubts - Do you wonder if your adoption will ever happen? Do you wonder if your file got lost/misplaced somehow, so technically, you are not on the "waiting list"? Do you ever think that they might forget you are waiting and skip your referral?
 Demanding reassurance - Do you depend on regular updates and correspondence from your agency for your sanity? And if you don't hear from your agency, do you email and/or call them to subtly remind them that you are still waiting?

Feeling defeated.

I am having a bad week. I am feeling completely defeated and doubtful that this is ever going to happen. I am feeling panicked that "something" is going to happen before we get our referral and that this will NEVER happen. I have a heavy chest just thinking about it right now. I look at the loooooong list of families ahead of us and selfishly wish that we should be bumped to the front, just because...then I feel guilty for even feeling this way, because I know there are so many families that have been waiting a lot longer then us, just as desperate to hold their babies as I am. And to add to my guilt, I have a beautiful, amazing, remarkable 4-year-old daughter and husband that I should be putting all this energy into.

I feel like every time a referral comes in that we get a little closer, then a new family appears on the forum who are ahead of us or I hear of families switching from siblings to singles, which puts us right back to the end of line again.

I sometimes feel like a fraud with my friends and family; they ask "Soooo, anything new?" and I respond "No, still waiting, but hopefully we will hear by Christmas...in the new year...in late winter...in the spring." - my answer changes every time someone asks. Was I ever a fool, when we started this process back in January, I actually thought that maybe we will be home with our baby by Christmas - jokes on me - little did I know that Christmas really meant 2009, not 2008.

Is it really that Black and White...

I'm sure most have seen a version of this at some point, but every time I see it I get the chills. How can we teach our children that they are strong, powerful, beautiful, and deserving in their own skin, that diversity should be celebrated and honoured. I feel that as much as I believe and teach this, society sets such a powerful message that tells us that we all need to look like "this" or act like "that" to fit in. So sad.



Chad and I did a version of this experiment with our 4-year-old daughter; the results were very encouraging. She seemed to "randomly" select the white or black doll regardless of the questions (nice vs bad, pretty vs ugly). Her comments included: the white doll is ugly "because she is not smiling", the black doll is pretty "because she has pretty eyes." She pointed at both dolls when asked "Which doll do you want to be your friend?" I want my children to honour themselves inside and outside. I want to ensure that my children grow up to be confident in who they are and respect others as they are. I hope I can?

FAM...my other baby.

Friends of Adoption Manitoba (FAM) is an organization that I was part of establishing a couple of years ago. It started with a group of families that identified several gaps in adoption services and support in Manitoba. We are now working towards addressing these issues in our province. You can learn more about our organization at our newly launched website - www.friendsofadoption.mb.ca/.

We most recently held a Candle Lighting Ceremony at the Legislative Building in Winnipeg to launch Adoption Awareness Month. We honoured adoptees and everyone who loves them. We had about 150 people attend - it was great!

Wicked witch?

Do I even dare say it!

We are at 4 months (18 weeks) today - Do I even dare say that we are now passed the half way mark...I hope I did not just jinx myself. I feel like we are getting soooo close...

However, as you can see, we are all going a little crazier by the day with this wait!

It is great to hear about all the recent referrals. Congrats to all the families who have recieved such wonderful news!

I guess I shouldn't have said it...Just heard from Imagine this afternoon - we are now being told "7+ months" for our referral - How quickly things change in just one month! Wonder what the delay next month will be? That brings us to at least Feburary now - @#$% - not feeling so close anymore. I feel like I am running a dog race around the track for the rabbit...

Teaching moment with a 4-year-old

Sara: "Mommy, am I white?"
Mommy: "Well, we are kind of whitish, beigey, pink."
Sara: "And our new baby will be brown?"
Mommy: "That's right."
Sara: "Well, our new baby won't match."
Mommy: "The new baby may not match our skin, but he/she will match our family in other ways. The new baby will have brown eyes and black hair just like Daddy. You and me have the same skin, but look at how we are different - what is different about our hair?"
Sara: "You have straight hair and mine is curly!"
Mommy: "People come is all different shapes and sizes, that is what makes us all special."

Let it rain...

Let it pour...let the referrals begin again...first one announced today after a 2 month drought.

Because a few friends have asked...

Well, this post will certainly not be anything new or informative to my fellow Etho-adoptive bloggers, but I have had a few questions lately from friends and family regarding our international adoption process and thought I would break it down from the beginning. Please add comments/clarity/questions as you feel necessary.

Deciding to go international - An international adoption has always been a possibility for us, we said that if Sara turned four and we were still waiting domestically that we would start the international adoption process. So we probably started talking about it approximately 2 years ago, began exploring our options more seriously in summer 2007, and made our decision in fall 2007 (see the "Why Ethiopia?" post). If this would have been our first adoption or used a different local agency we would have been required to take an educational course on adoption; however, we took this course before we applied for our first adoption in 2003, which saved us several months of time.

Applying for international adoption - Our first meeting with our Adoption Agency was scheduled in February 2008, where we signed our "Letter of intent" to adopt internationally and were provided with the endless paperwork to start our homestudy.

Completing a homestudy (3 months) - So we completed one homestudy for Sara's adoption, one homestudy for our second domestic adoption, and a third for our international adoption. Fortunately for us, we had our domestic adoption file open with our agency so we were able to use most of the history content to develop our international file. For clarity, an international adoption file or application is called a "dossier". So, I will now refer to our "file/application" as a "dossier".

The following is a list of just some of the documents/tasks/materials we had to complete/compile/gather as part of our homestudy approval:

* Security Clearance (Fingerprint Check through Interpol in Ottawa)
* Medical Reports from Family Doctor
* Handwritten letter to Minister of Women's Affairs in Ethiopia - explaining our desire/reasons to adopt a child from Ethiopia
* Proof of Life Insurance and Health Benefits
* Passport photos
* Criminal Checks
* Notices of Assessment
* Letter from Employers
* 4 reference letters from non-family members
* 2 pages of labelled photos of our family
* 12ish page personal, work, family, parenting, etc. questionnaire
* Trans-racial questionnaire
* Request questionnaire - selecting gender, age range, and why

Homestudy Interview - Again, fortunately for us, because we had already completed a VERY intensive homestudy interview as part of our first adoption application, we simply had to provide an update homestudy interview.

Provincial approval (1 month) - After our interview, our local adoption worker compiles ALL the documents we have collected/completed and requests our approval for an international adoption, our dossier then goes to our provincial government for formal approval. This means that the province approves our dossier and our gender/age request.

Foreign Affairs approval (1 month) - Our local agency then sends our approved dossier to the international adoption agency, who then sends it to Ottawa where it gets legalized and authenticated by Foreign Affairs and the Ethiopian Embassy.

Dossier travels to Ethiopia (Less than 1 week) - Once our dossier is returned to the international adoption agency, they send it to their contacts in Ethiopia and we are officially put on the "waiting list" (for lack of better words). Currently, we are being told that our referral will come approximately 6 months from this time.

Referral (about 6 months) - This is where the real fun begins! A "referral" means that we have been "matched" with a child; we receive photos and a medical and social history of a child. Our international agency will send the referral to our local agency, whom, in turn, will inform us that our referral is in. We will review the referral and formally accept the referral. At this point, the child is put "on hold" (again, for lack of better words). The child is NOT legally ours until after court.

Court (1-3 months) - Receiving a court date can take anywhere between 1-3 months. This is the legal process in which the child legally becomes ours, granted by the Judge in the Ethiopia courts.

Waiting to Travel (2-4 months) - Once this Adoption Order has been granted, we will wait another 2-4 months for the immigration documentation to be prepared for our child (passport, birth certificate, visa). Once the final piece of documentation has been prepared by the High Commission, we will be notified and then we can travel to Ethiopia.

Travelling to Ethiopia (7-10 days) - Once we receive notice to travel, we are required to travel to Ethiopia for at least 7-10 days to pick up our child. We are only required to send one parent to Ethiopia; however, we will be travelling as a family (Chad, Laura and Sara) to pick up the final member of our clan.

And worth EVERY second of our time, energy, frustration, labour and waiting!!!!!!

Countries of Africa Game

Enjoy and good luck - http://www.purposegames.com/game/countries-of-africa-quiz - I think I need to go back to geography class.