One step closer...

I was getting ready to leave work yesterday for my dentist appointment (found out I have an infection in the root of two of my molars - my wisdom tooth needs to be extracted and I'm seeing a specialist to see if the second molar can be saved with a root canal & if not, I'm losing that tooth too) and my phone rang, I almost didn't pick it up b/c I was running late, but I am so glad I did...Grant & I have our first home-study scheduled for Thurs. Jan 31 at 6:00pm!!! The worker conducting our home study is anticipating we will only need two home visits and then she will be able to write her report b/c Grant & I are eager beavers and all of our paperwork is already completed and submitted! Words cannot express how excited we are to begin the next step of this journey. Grant & I celebrated by ordering Greek food and ate it on our good China, said a prayer of thanksgiving & praise and raised our wine glasses and made a toast! Grant was so cute all evening/night, he told our cats numerous times that we are going to be parents and leaned over to me and proclaimed the same exciting news!

We are finally motivated and encouraged enough to complete our profile album - wooohoooo!!!!

The night before my mom had a dream that I placed a baby in her arms....soon, umma, very soon this will be reality!

Thank you for all your prayers & support.

New Life

Our newest god-son entered the world this morning! Grant & I went to meet him as soon as we could after work. He is absolutely precious - God's perfect handiwork!! I had the privilege of feeding him and in that moment everything I know about handling and positioning when feeding a newborn and observing the suck, swallow, breath sequence, etc., etc., went out the window, I threw away my OT lenses and I found myself lost in the beauty and awe of the new life I was holding in my arms.

Today marks a significant day in our adoption journey - January 3rd is the anniversary of when we officially began the adoption process with F&CS. I was aware all day of the significance of today's date and yesterday was a tough day emotionally in anticipation of today, but when I held the baby in my arms my hope was restored. As Grant & I waited for the elevator back to the lobby we realized that the next time we take that same elevator ride will probably be to finally bring our baby home. I am hopeful again that this journey will have a happy ending. I heard back from the supervisor at F&CS and unfortunately there is another delay to the start of our home-study.......

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
~Matthew 7:7-8~

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

I began writing this post on Christmas Eve and it has taken me a few days to be able to return to it and complete my entry – It’s just minutes before New Year’s Eve as I sit in the rocking chair Grant surprised me with on our 5^th anniversary this August. I look around the nursery we have prepared, all painted and furnished and continue to reflect on our journey in 2007…

On this Christmas eve it's almost impossible not to be reminded that Grant & I are still just a family of two, with two adorable cats. There are moments when I celebrate Christmas with the masses, trimming our tree with ornaments collected during our travels and bringing out our Christmas plates, towels and place-mats...Then, there are moments where I am reminded again that Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

As I sat in church this Christmas Eve joining in the great celebration of Christmas and reflecting on the beauty of the gift of Christ’s birth I found myself fighting to hold back tears. Tonight, this Christmas, this December, I am reminded that Grant & I have an empty place in our family. It was last December we first met with the fertility clinic to begin the investigative testing. It was last December we decided that we were going to pursue adoption instead of fertility treatments (We didn’t receive the results of all the tests until February, but we both knew in our hearts that something wasn’t right because we had already been trying to conceive for a few years). What is it about Christmas and holidays that makes being childless so difficult? Is it watching the excitement on the children’s faces when they see Santa or the fun I had picking out gifts for all the special children in my life? Is it taking a group picture with my extended family and noticing that Grant & I are the only couple without children? Or is it waking up Christmas morning and preparing our traditional Christmas morning waffle breakfast, for just the two of us again…

On Christmas day we sat around the tree at Grant’s parent’s home opening gifts like we do every year and one gift brought me back to the emptiness I felt the night before – My in-laws received the thoughtful gift of a family portrait to be taken and they suggested we wait to take the portrait until after my sister-in-law’s baby is born (she’s expecting in May), I would’ve suggested the same thing. A gift of a family portrait is a wonderful gift for parents, something I did for my own parents the first year I graduated from undergrad and finally had money to give them something a bit more, but it was also another reminder that Grant & I will be the only childless couple and we have no anticipated due date to plan for.

As I sit here in a rocking chair in an empty nursery, I can’t help but wonder if the only babies who have and will ever get to use this room are my god-daughter and nephew. With 2007 quickly coming to an end I am not feeling very hopeful for the year ahead. I know Grant & I were told that our home-study may begin in January, so we have one potential thing to look forward to. But 2007 also began with many hopes and dreams for a great year. I naively thought that the adoption process would proceed smoothly and without delays and waitlists. Grant & I submitted our adoption application package in January and met with our recruitment worker immediately. We thought we’d have our baby in our arms by the end of the year and we prepared our home (& I began my stroller obsession!). I but it just seems as if 2007 went by with constant disappointments, emptiness and frustration and all the positive memories have been overshadowed and buried. I don’t know if I have the strength to endure another Christmas and New Year’s like this one and the last one…

My cat Carson must’ve sensed my sadness and my need for a cuddle because he just came into the room, snuggled onto my lap and is purring away as I finish my post.

Adoption Story Lines Everywhere

I don't know if you've been noticing what I've been noticing....adoption-related story lines are popping up everywhere!! Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, August Rush (amazing movie btw) and even Today's Parent has an article in their most recent issue about adoption!!! I was sharing my observations about this recent string of "coincidences" with my good friend and she wondered if this is all a sign (I am hoping for that myself too). She also asked me when and or if Grant and I plan to move back to the Toronto area - I told her that other than my job and our house keeping us in Waterloo, the stronger force keeping us in Waterloo is the hopes of adoption. We began the adoption process here in Waterloo way back in January and we are hopefully just a month or two away from having our homestudy conducted. I don't want to risk moving to another jurisdiction and find ourselves back at the bottom of another wait list - Grant & I had a wonderful date-night tonight, enjoying dinner and a movie. We talked about our adoption dreams and the conversation I had on the phone this morning with my dear friend and Grant looked at me and said "If we don't have a child in 5 years, let's move back to Toronto and buy a loft." As sad as the idea is of waiting another 5 years and still not being able to adopt our child, maybe it will be time to pursue another dream we share as a couple, an idea we planned for our earlier years of marriage or later years (a time without children in the home) - the dream of living in a big old loft in the core of Toronto and opening the doors of our home as a safe retreat for youth who need a place to go. A place to hang out, play music, eat, chat, sleep, and most importantly, a place to feel safe and welcomed...

Showers...

I'm glad I switched over to my snow tires yesterday with the wet snow we had today in Waterloo!!

I opened my email today to find out I have been invited to another baby shower...it's another reminder that Grant & I are still childless. I don't know if it's hormones, the cold weather, or dropping my lunch on the floor today, but I'm very emotional right now - reading the email from my friend's husband made me sad. I don't like feeling sad, especially over something as exciting as celebrating the birth of a new life.

November Update

Just in case you were wondering....here's the latest response I received from the Foster/Adoption Recruitment Supervisor at F&CS

Hi Janet,

Thanks for checking in. The waitlist is moving, albeit slowly. The next to assign are those who applied last December. You applied in January, just to give you a sense.

I can't believe it has been 11 months since we submitted our application form to F&CS to be adoptive parents. We had our first home-visit Feb 20, 2007. Signed up for the PRIDE course starting March 20 and were asked to wait for the next session of PRIDE due to priorities given to Foster family and Kin-adoption applicants. Signed up for PRIDE starting April 18 (my 30th birthday) and again we were bumped. Finally got into PRIDE out of our jurisdiction with courses running weekly from May 1 - July 3 and here we are at Nov 2, 2007 and we are still waiting to have our home-study conducted, which can take anywhere from 4 sessions to many months to complete from start to finish - WOW...when I lay it out like that, this has already been a very long journey and we are only at the beginning of this process because we still have not been "approved" to adopt yet!!! BUT, for every new baby we meet to every new milestone we experience with a child in our life, we know there is an amazingly precious gift waiting for us at the end of this journey.

The movie Evan Almighty had a great line in it that both Grant & I connected with and looked at each other with agreement..."When you pray for patience, do you think God gives you patience or opportunities to be patient? When you pray for endurance, do you think God give you endurance or opportunities to endure?"

Two-in-One

This post with have two parts - two very different topics. I'll start with the "lighter" one...

After reading book after book on adoption and newborns I decided to give my brain and emotions a little break and decided to read some light-hearted 'chick lit.' A friend shared her collection of Emily Giffin novels - "Something Borrowed," "Something Blue," & "Baby Proof." I enjoyed the first two books and breezed through them in a few days, but Baby Proof was a much slower read. The story was narrated by a woman who did not want to have children and divorced her husband because he decided he did. I just couldn't connect with her character and often became angry at things the character said about women who wanted children. I easily connected with the character's sister who went through fertility testing until the the last few chapters where she met a random pregnant university student in a shoe store and had such a great connection with the university student that one month later she was at home with her newborn adopted baby boy! That was soooooo not realistic. You don't just meet a pregnant woman while shoe shopping at Thanksgiving (American), pay the fees to her agency and bring a baby home days before Christmas!! There wasn't enough time for her & her husband to take the PRIDE course or to have a home-study conducted!!! I'll admit that I naively thought it would move that quickly for Grant & I....if only we lived in a chick-lit world filled with perfect timings and page limits to force a quick and happy ending.

Moving on to topic two FASD...

I attended a two-day course on "Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in our Schools" last week and my eyes were opened very wide! I had many misconceptions and an out-dated understanding of FASD. I will share the points that really impacted me and will not only influence the way I work with children on my caseload, but will better prepare me to interact with people who have FASD.

• FASD is not in the DSM-IV and not a recognized diagnosis in many school boards. Therefore, students who require supports in order to succeed in a school environment are not eligible for essential accommodations and services.
  
• FAS, FAE, pFAS, ARND, ARBD, PEA, FASD = all are labels for damage from prenatal exposure to alcohol.
• FASD is a lifetime challenge. It is organic brain damage caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol.
  
• The facial features commonly associated with FAS are only present if there was alcohol exposure between days 18-21, a time frame in which many woman are not even aware they are pregnant. If exposure to alcohol occurred between days 18-21 the characteristic facial features are typically only recognizable between the ages of 8 months and 8 years.
• During any given week in Canada 10,000 babies are born
• 20 of these babies will be born with full FAS (incl facial features)
  
• 100 of these babies are born with Alcohol Related Neuro-developmental Disabilities
• 77% of women with one child with FAS will have another child with FAS
  
• FASD is an invisible physical disability - The exposure to alcohol kills cells and changes neurology. Our brain controls our behaviours and when there are changes to the brain due to alcohol exposure changes to how we can control our behaviour will occur.
  
• Often ADHD is incorrectly diagnosed when FASD is a more appropriate diagnosis. Characteristic "red flags" that a person has FASD not ADHD are:
  
• 1. acts young for his/her age
  
• 2. cruel to others/bully
  
• 3. does not demonstrate guild or remorse
  
• 4. lies, cheats & steals
• The following is a list of symptoms/characteristics of a person who has FASD - keep in mind that the "S" stands for SPECTRUM and a person with FASD can fall anywhere along the spectrum from being highly functional and successful to requiring many support systems in place.
  
• Brain dysfunction - rigidity & perseveration = just can't stop; therefore, assure ability to achieve and have closure
• Primary behavioural symptoms - behavioural symptoms that most clearly reflect changes in brain structure and function: 1. Dysmaturity, are younger developmentally (average age of emotional maturity development is 5years) 2. slow auditory &/or cognitive pace 3. memory problems - will have on and off days 4. in the now - difficulty predicting outcomes 5. difficulty abstracting, planning, starting 6. impulsivity **these behaviours are symptoms of FASD and are not willful; therefore, we must support these behaviours not punish them.
  
• Secondary behavioural characteristics - defensive behaviours that develop when there is a "poor fit" between the person with FASD and his/her world/environment. These behaviours are preventable: 1. Fatigue, frustration 2. anxiety 3. anger 4. shut down, avoidance, blame 5. poor self-esteem 6. isolation 7. depression 8. poor impusle control 8. poor personal hygiene 9. problems with transitions 10. trouble with time concepts 11. trouble handling & keeping money 12. no fear 13. aggression 14. in trouble with law (will re-offend same crime over and over again).15.....
  
• Accommodations:
• FASD is an invisible physical disability
• Brain structure & function is changed permanently
• Behaviours are symptoms, they are not willful
  
• Trying harder to change behaviours makes things worse
• Recognizing the disability & providing accommodations prevents problems
• This is what we do for people with more obvious and physical disabilities
  

Janet's Paradigm shift!!
One of the presenters shared a recent research study published stating that in South Africa neurological changes were evident in babies born to women who worked on vineyards and drank 4 glasses of wine, each glass at a different stage of the pregnancy. I used think it was okay to have a sip or glass of wine here or there during pregnancy - I will NEVER think that way again. I am glad I attended the course as I now have a clear and accurate understanding of the impact alcohol has on the developing brain and the permanent life-long damage that occurs and most importantly that FASD is a preventable disability.