We went on the waiting list with our adoption agency in June 2008 to begin our second adoption from Vietnam. We knew things would not move as quickly as they did with Maiya, but we would never have guessed we'd still be waiting 4 years later!
We began our home study in January 2009 and submitted it in March 2009. For some reason our file was not submitted to the Ontario Ministry right away, but was sent at the beginning of April 2009. Unfortunately, it was not a fast process and was further impacted by the bankruptcy of another agency, which slowed things down as the Ministry scrambled to help those families. We finally received our approval in September 2009, a process which should have taken no more than 12 weeks at most!
By the beginning of 2010 we were told we were very close to the top of the waiting list for a child with minor special needs, and we were continuing to move on the regular waiting list as well. As we waited for our referral, Vietnam decided to implement the Hague Convention, an international treaty on adoption, which virtually shut down the processing of adoptions from December 2010, and things continue to be tied up as processes are being developed and implemented. We were very close to being one of the families through before the shut down, but we didn't quite make it.
In March 2011 we were told we were at the top of the special needs list (special needs referrals continued to be processed during the shutdown) and it was hoped we would receive a referral very soon. Once again things did not go as planned and we were required to do a new home study in June 2011 since our documents were going to stale date (expire). We sent it off at the beginning of July hoping for a quicker approval this time around, and hoping we'd hear of a referral too. By October we still hadn't received approval and after some investigation realized our file was sitting at the agency and had never even been sent! A stressful set back, but it was sent off immediately. We finally received our approval in November or December, but still no referral.
We anxiously awaited a referral for January and February, but nothing came our way. At the beginning of March 2012 we were told we may be referred to a baby boy who was born with congenital cataracts (congenital means he had them at birth) but they were still waiting to hear back from another family.
The Thursday before March Break in the middle of the day I happened to check my email and had 6 messages from our agency with photos, medical info and info from the Opthamologist - and the opportunity to consider this baby boy.
The process for special needs is different than the regular process - with a regular one they tell you you have a referral, you say you are ready to accept, and you are then given the details. For special needs, they give you as much information as they can and ask you to speak to doctors, etc. to determine if your family is able to provide the best care possible to meet this child's needs.
We spoke with our doctor, optometrist, another adoptive family whose daughter was born with cataracts and had the same Opthamologist in Vietnam, etc. We headed off to Florida for the break and continued to ask a lot of questions, pour over every picture - and ultimately fall in love.We told our agency at the end of March that we wanted this little boy to be part of our family. They began to process the paperwork (some was already in process) and we began to tell our families.We told Maiya the news on the Friday before Easter. She didn't know we had been working on this for almost 4 years and was completely surprised and elated! Every day since she has asked when we can go to bring him home and she can't wait to meet him.
We waited on paperwork until the end of June 2012. On June 29, we received the official referral paperwork and rushed to meet with our social worker on July 2nd. We had hoped our luck would change and our file would be read quickly by the Ministry, but it took until July 26th to be approved and sent out to our agency. This was the big news yesterday!
Today we found out they were able to take our file to the Department of Adoption in Hanoi today, and the file was signed off on right away (we had expected it to take about a week). This means that both Ontario and Vietnam have now officially approved of us and consented to the adoption.
Our file is now on its way to Ho Chi Minh City(HMC). Here the adoption date will be sent - hopefully by the middle of next week - and we can book our flights. Travel should be within 3-4 weeks from now, so our hopes of being there for his birthday on Aug. 27 should be possible after all!
So it's been a very big roller coaster this time around and we are more than happy that the ride is almost over! Fingers crossed that they will set the date as quickly as possible and we will be on our way.
All of the contact lenses that were purchased for him have now been lost, so he is without properly corrected vision until we can get there and bring new ones to him. I will explain more about his vision needs in another post!
