Dossier Submitted

I finally collected the last of the documents together and got them mailed off. They were notarized by my BC agency last Tuesday and poped in the mail Wednesday to OWAS. So as soon as they get it I will officially be waiting on a referral :) In the meantime I have agreed to be a contact for this program for my agency and so am already fielding questions about it. It is interesting all the questions people have who are soo much earlier in their adoption journey than I am. After three years apparently I have learned something :) Now the long wait begins again.

CIC approval

Yeah, I received my CIC approval letter in the mail yesterday. So my dossier is quickly coming together. Hopefully I will have it all gathered shortly to send off to my agency in BC for notarization!

Canadian Immigration ?single??

Sorry it's been so long since I have blogged. I have been having some issues with accessing my account now that I have a gmail email address...have to love technology. I am fooling it right now by blogging from my work computer ...and hopefully IT at work (not really I have no clients to see and never take breaks).

So I have applyed immigration clearance to sponsor my future congolese child to be able to enter the country. I got a call while at work last week from CIC. They asked if I was the same person who had applying to bring a child into the country from the US. So I said 'yes'. Then began an interesting conversation. "Well that person is down as married." "Oh" I said, "I am not married". "So you think it is a mistake"she said. "Yes" I say. She then askes if I have ever been married -No. Then she asks me if I am sure. Hummm let me think, did I accidentally get married somewhere along the way and forget about it? No! Okay she saiys, must have been a mistake..Yup! And I'm pretty sure on their end. But after the phone call I was wondering how you would prove you are single? It's pretty hard to prove a negative. Apparently I also didn't include a form I needed to but that it wasn't clear that I needed to include, but she was nice enough to give me a fax number and name to fax it attention to. So hopefully I will have immigration clearance shortly and can tick off one more thing on the dossier check list!

On to my dossier

So I have been accepted by OWAS and have now been sent the list to compile my dossier. Nothing looks like it should take too long but I have to get immigration approval first. I have immiigration approval to bring an infant from the US into Canada but apparently they no longer to revisions, so I have to re-apply. I have filled out the forms, collected a letter of employment stating I am indeed employed and am just waiting for an option C print out from CRA. Then I can mail in for immigration approva, while it is getting approved I should have no problem gathering the other few documents needed. Then I can officially be waiting.

On the issue of J we had a Judicial Case Conference infront of the judge on Tuesday. J's father has decided to fight me all the way for custody. However I was granted in the short term without prejudice sole custody, joint guardianship with her parents. this will stay in effect until her father undergoes a parental capacity assessment and the outcome of that is assessed by the lawyers. Have hope for this to seal the deal.

Will update as things happen :)

New Plan

So it has been a while and a bit has changed :) There have been changes with J and with the adoption plans. I will post about J later. I had decided a while ago that I would give the adoption with the US with my current agency 1 year to go somewhere and then re-evaluate. While the one year anniversary was the end of Sept. So at the end of August I started researching other options out there for single women. I came across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It seemed like a really good program and fit for me. I would be on a list moving up to the top, not waiting for a birthparent to pick me. Also my original plan 2.5 years ago was to adopt from Africa, so it was going back to my original plan. So I found an agency that was already working with Canadians in several provincies including Canada. I asked my agency in BC to research them and if they looked good to please sign a contract with them so I could work with them. This was after I had a conversation with the program director for DRC and was happy with the answers. So my agency started researching and working on a contract. This has taken many months. I finally got an email last week saying they had signed the contact and I could start my application process with the DRC agency. So Dec 24th I filled out the online application with them and am now just waiting for it to be processed. So as of right now I am still registered with the US and have started the process with a DRC agency. At some point soon I will hae to stop the process with the US due to financial reasons but will stay registered with them for as long as possible just in case. So there is my update for now. More will be happening now, so I will try to keep this blog updated more :)

Active again!

So when J came ot live with me the province of BC decided to withdraw there approval of my adoption plans putting everything on hold until a homestudy update was done. This was despite the fact that I was approved for two children to join my family by adoption.

So on Sunday a new social worker (old on was unavailable) came for a home study update. I really didn't know what to expect. After all the original homestudy is pretty intensive. However my social worker just had me go through my original homestudy circle anything that had changed and then explain how J came to be with me. Then he just asked me if I wanted to change my ages or countries or anything. It was all over in 45mins and was soo not stressful! And now I am updated!! Back on the active list!

So now you know I have my niece J living with me. This has not been an easy process with the Ministry of Children and Family Development (mcfd)though. Although I had a homestudy already done with references and criminal records checks etc. They still needed to do a home inspection, criminal records check and needed 3 references and all asap. However due to being an approved adoptive parent i was allowed to have J while waiting for all this to come through. Also because mcfd is involved no one is allowed to care for her accept people who have had a criminal records check and prior contact with the ministry check done. This was a big problem because I instantly had J but could only take a couple days off work and all the daycares in town where full. I was told by one social worker at the ministry to just find someone safe and so lined up my mom and cousin in the short term and found a daycare that was in the process of opening that could take her Fridays and full time once registered. She said that the ministry would ignore the criminal records checks for the time being due to all the day cares being full and just get them in as soon as possible. so I handed them out and dropped them off (they take 7-10 days). Then got a call a couple days later from a different social worker saying that we couldn't ignore the criminal record check anymore, so I paniced because what was I supposed to do with J while I was working. Fortunately my mom and cousin could go to the RCMP and get a verbal to the Ministry that they were fine. However I am still waiting for the almost open daycare owner's to come back from the ministry after 2 weeks which is frustrating. I also get phone calls from the ministry saying things like you need to come to the office tomorrow morning to sign a contract that must be in tomorrow. I work out of town sometimes and was that day. So things have been stressful. Especially when you add in 4 weekly parental visits, on both Saturday and Sunday so I am very tied down (hoping to move one and get one weekend day free) and I have been a bit stressed out with the being a 'new mom' in role if not title and the other issues associated with J. We did have a big meeting on Tuesday and so I now know for sure that J will be with me until the end of Nov.
Well thats all for now!