So I have been searching the internet trying to find another Vietnam adoption blog in the Vancouver area.  I said before that I seem to find lots in Ontario, Quebec and the US.  Anyways, I finally came across one while searching last night.  It was more of an everything blog, adoption just happened to be one of the tags.

Just a bit of history here, we have met two other families in the Lower Mainland adopting from Vietnam, however they were both using an Ontario based agency.  Our agency has twice sent out e-mails about getting the Vietnam families together but so far nothing has materialized.  And of course now we are all on hold...

Anyways, reading the posts tagged "adoption" in this new blog that I found lets me try to put a few more pieces together.  Of course, I do not know any of this for sure I am just speculating from the little pieces of information I have.  It seems that this family had been told by their agency (could be the same as our agency - don't know) that they could expect a referral in about February or March of 2010.  Then in a post on Nov. 16 they say that they got a referral for a baby from Vietnam recently and they are expecting to travel to Vietnam on Dec. 7.  Now I have to comment here that this is unheard of in international adoption...getting a referral BEFORE the estimated time. WOW! Anyways, the next post is on Dec. 8th saying that their trip was postponed because the group from the agency that went prior to them to pick up their children were not back yet.  There had been a long delay in their paperwork and until the previous group returned the agency was not taking another group over and then with the holidays new dates would have to be set.

So now I think back to some of the dates that I know and try to speculate...

I last went into our agency in person on November 12th, I met with the Administrative Assistant to the Vietnam Program Coordinator because the Coordinator was on her way to Vietnam with a group of adoptive parents that very morning.  She also told me that they had more referrals to go out.  So I am thinking that perhaps the family on the blog that I found was the recipient of one of those referrals or perhaps already had one at that point as that would be a really fast turnaround.  The agency estimates the time from referral to travel to be 1-3 months.  Anyways, it said that they couldn't travel because the group ahead of them had not returned yet.  That would make sense if the group left on Nov. 12 with an estimated 3 weeks in Vietnam then they should have been back about Dec. 3rd - but they were not back by Dec. 7.  The next piece is that we received an e-mail from the director on Dec. 15 stating that Vietnam adoptions were being placed on temporary hold by our agency. 

So now I have more questions.  Perhaps I am just reading too much into everything thing because I have been on holidays for two weeks with nothing better to do.  Really I should know by now that timelines change and delays happen when dealing with international adoptions...that is NORMAL.

Anyways, I will take this opportunity to say Happy New Year to everyone reading.  If you are a fellow waiting adoptive parent then I will pray that 2010 is your year to bring home your sweet child. 

To Read or Not To Read...

The thing that made me start writing this blog in the first place was that I found myself searching the internet for any sort of connection to others who have adopted from Vietnam or who are in the process of adopting from Vietnam.  I find myself drawn to other Canadian blogs (as the process seems to be somewhat different in the US) and have read through quite a number by now.  So far I have only found blogs from Ontario, Quebec and the US...I am still searching for another BC blog. 

The part that concerns me when I read other blogs is the timeline.  I think in every single one "the agency" has estimated 5-9 months to get a referral once the dossier goes to Vietnam and in actuality it takes about 2-3 years.  This is worrisome for me because our agency said that we'd get a referral by March at the latest.  As I read these other blogs, I start to think...huh.  I suppose it stops me from getting too excited and reminds me to stay realistic...this will probably take years.  Especially since currently the Vietnam program is still closed at our agency.

One of the things that I like most about reading blogs is that I realize I am not alone.  I have good days and bad days, days that I know everything will turn out okay and days when I think the waiting will never end.  But by reading others' blogs I know that everyone has those types of days and I am NOT going crazy.

The best part about readings other blogs though, is that these families are now home with babies!  There is an end, it just takes time...and patience.  Seeing all of these families growing through adoption is absolutely, without a doubt, the most heart warming thing imaginable.

International Adoptions Declining or Not?

Here is a link to an interesting US article that I came across.  It talks about the the decline in international adoptions in the US in 2009 compared to 2008. 

http://portal.tds.net/news/read.php?id=17668516&ps=1011&cat=&cps=0&lang=en

I thought I would see if I could find any similar information for Canada and came up with this from the Adoption Council of Canada.

http://www.adoption.ca/2008%20International%20Adoption%20Stats.htm

In 2008, 1,908 children were adopted internationally in Canada.  Which is actually an increase from previous years. 

Not So Bad

We got an e-mail the other day saying that our adoption agency has temporarily closed Vietnam adoptions.  Erwin telephoned the agency the next day to see if they thought it was a temporary closure or likely to be a long, drawn out closure.  And if the latter was the case then could we perhaps put our name on the local list as well.

The response seemed fairly positive, the agency does not see it being a long closure and is fairly confident they will be able to continue adoptions for the families already on the Vietnam waitlist.  They are still waiting for a government response but definitely recommended waiting it out rather than starting to explore other lists.  They seemed to think we would hear more in about two weeks.

Let's hope so!  I'll post as soon as we hear anything.

The Latest

Erwin spoke with our adoption agency today and it doesn't sound as bad as we had originally feared - I'll post more on that tomorrow.  In the meantime I thought I'd provide a link to two documents for anyone who is interested. 

The first one is The ISS Report on Adoption from Vietnam November 2009 and the second one is the Molisa Report 2009.

http://www.omc.gov.ie/cgi-bin/search.asp?q=vietnam+%2B+canada

Bad News

Just finished reading an e-mail from our adoption agency.  They have put Vietnam adoptions on hold temporarily due to a new report written by ISS (International Social Services) about adoption practices in Vietnam.  As I previously wrote, our agency has already closed Vietnam to new applicants however, they had wanted to get everybody who had already applied home with children before Vietnam closed to make some needed policy revisions.  Our agency is waiting to see how the Canadian government is going to respond to this new report before deciding on whether to complete adoptions for already waiting families. 

The not knowing is very frustrating to waiting families.  Of course I realize that proper procedures and practices need to be followed.  And it is our humanitarian duty to ensure that children are protected.  But as a prospective adoptive parent I can tell you that the hard part is the waiting to find out what is going to happen, especially with the Christmas holidays upon us.  I just hope a decision does not take too long.

One More Piece...

Just received a letter from Citizenship and Immigration Canada confirming that they have received our application for Canadian Citizenship for our adopted child.  And that they estimate that it will take 8 weeks to process the paperwork as to whether we are approved or not.

Just to be clear this is only Part 1of the Application to adopt a child internationally.  This paperwork is to have the Canadian Government confirm that at least one of the adoptive parents is a Canadian citizen.  In our case, that would be me, as Erwin is Australian.  Anyways, once they prove that I am a Canadian citizen, (personally I think my Birth Certificate is a dead give away) it gives our child to be, the right to get Canadian citizenship as soon as an adoption is finalized.  Our adoption will be finalized in Vietnam and then we would apply for a Canadian passport immediately for our child (that is Part 2).  So basically this is just getting all of our ducks in a row so to speak!

Why Vietnam?

When we tell people that we are in the process of adopting internationally from Vietnam, often the question why did we choose Vietnam comes up. We did not go into this saying let’s adopt from Vietnam, really it was just the country that seemed to work out best for us.
When we started talking about international adoption we discussed adopting from an Eastern European country because my family background is European or from Asia because Erwin was born in Malaysia. The other place that we considered was India because a child from India would look like us. India was quickly ruled out because unless you are doing a relative adoption it is very difficult to adopt from India and none of the adoption agencies that we contacted would do an India adoption. China is a country that seems to be synonymous with international adoption but in researching it more the wait times have really increased over the last few years. At one point I was hearing that an adoption from China took about a year but then we stared hearing about three years and even more recently I have heard of waits of up to 6-7 years. So the wait time really deterred us from China.

So when we first enlisted the services of our adoption agency we actually indicated that we were interested in the Bulgaria program or the Philippines program. As it turned out the Philippines program got put on hold until their government could complete at least half of the referrals that were in progress or waiting, basically stalling any new applications. And with a bit more research I found out that in order to complete a Bulgaria adoption we would have to travel to Bulgaria twice. Once at the time of referral to meet and accept the child and then you had to leave the child there while about three more months of paperwork took place before you could return to take the child home. We did not want the logistics and added expense of travelling twice as well as I thought it would kill me to meet a child, my child, and then have to leave my child in an orphanage for three months. Just too hard emotionally.

So then we found out that our agency was running a Vietnam program. They estimated the wait time to be about a year and we qualified. Although after reading so many blogs where families have waited over two years for their Vietnam adoptions to be finalized I am not so sure about the timeline, but we are here now!

Soon after we signed onto the Vietnam waitlist our agency decided to shut down their Vietnam program. They suspect that the Vietnamese government may stop international adoptions soon (due to needing to make some changes to their procedures) so our agency is not adding anyone else to the waitlist in anticipation of Vietnam closing. They hope to get everyone who is waiting, home with babies before it closes. Of course, we need to remember that it is not a sure thing. The Vietnamese government could close international adoptions at any time and then we would have to start from scratch again with another country.

So at the moment Vietnam it is. At this point Erwin and I are cautiously optimistic! Keep you fingers crossed for us.

Welcome to Blogging!

Well I never thought I'd be a blogger but I have been seaching the internet, trying to find other Canadian families who have adopted from Vietnam so that I can experience their jouney and have a better understanding of what to expect in the coming months (or years). But there is not very much out there, so I thought I'd start my own blog so that we can document our journey. Perhaps it will help someone else out one day. It will also be a journal of all of the events, joys, troubles and excitment that we will face as we embark on this journey. Who knows maybe one day it can be a made into a book for our little one to know how much he / she was anticipated, loved and wanted!!