I Don't Know...

I am slowly telling more people about our baby boy in Vietnam, family and friends are always very excited for us and I appreciate their congratulations and well wishes. But fairly quickly I am asked the question “when do you go get him?” This is a hard question both to answer and for people to understand. The real answer is “I don’t know.” I wish I knew, and I wish it was sooner, like tomorrow, but the reality is I just do not know.

In Vietnam there is a mandatory 60 day search for birth family for every infant before an international adoption can proceed. So right now we are in that stage. We are waiting for those 60 days to be up so that all of the paperwork can proceed. Many people ask me if I am worried about this. What if the birth family wants him back? Honestly, I am not really worried about this. This is an obligatory stage in the international adoption process but with the number of Vietnam blogs I’ve read and in all the questions I’ve asked, I’ve never heard of birth family claiming back a baby. There are many different social reasons for this, which I will not go into – but suffice it to say, it just does not happen. I am actually more concerned that political policy or relations between Canada and Vietnam would change and hinder the adoption than I am about the birth family search.

Once the 60 days are up, we should be able to get updated information (medical and other) about the baby and more pictures. It is at that point that the paperwork process can proceed. There are many different people and departments which must review and approve our application to adopt. As each level approves and stamps / signs the paperwork, it is able to proceed to the next level. As I am sure all of you can empathise with governments and paperwork are two terms that never seem to go quickly, in our country or abroad! The other thing to remember is that for some of the departments that need to sign off on things such as police investigations, adoptions are really not their main focus so even though we are anxious to get the baby, for them it is business as usual and I am sure they have many pressing matters in their daily work schedules.

Taking all of this into consideration, it has been predicted that we will travel in November but that is not a sure thing. It could be sooner or it could be later. We are also waiting for Group 7 to get travel dates. Once we know how long it takes for their paperwork to be completed, we should be able to make a better estimate on when we can expect to travel. Realistically, we will probably not get travel dates until 10 – 14 days before we are to be in Vietnam. So, if you think it seems odd that I don’t know when we will be able to see, hold, and have our little guy for real, now you know why...we just don’t know!