17 replies to this topic

[AdeleC]

Hi all,

 

My husband and I are going to do one more round of FET then we will most likely be calling the ART process quits.  We have always been very open to adoption- however felt I wanted to give having a biological child a shot prior to making our final decision.  Well we are almost there, and I am starting to do my research.

I'm hoping to sign up for the Adoption Council of Ontario's webinar on September 10th which I believe will give me a good idea of what to expect. 

 

I've done some research into PRIDE and the homestudy, however my big question that I'm struggling with is what are the pro's and con's of an adoption agency, an adoption practicitioner, and an individual?

Is one or the other more appropriate for different types of adoption?  At this point, we are looking at private and/or international.

 

Any insight or information you could provide me would be fabulous- I have gone on various websites of all of the above and am struggling with who offers what, and how you do your research on what suits each situation best.

 

Thanks

[Tilly]

Hi AdeleC,

 

Sorry, I can't give you any advice as I am based in Alberta and don't really know how the system works over there. Hopefully someone will chime in soon.

 

Just wanted to wish you luck on your continued journey.

 

[s00n]

Absolutely, if you're adopting internationally, you need to go through an agency that handles your selected country.

Public is CAS adoption (go to an info session in your area to check it out) - they will use their practitioners.

 

If you want to adopt privately (infant) then you can go through the private process with an agency, or practitioner.

 

You will need to take PRIDE training (funded by CAS if you're adopting publicly, otherwise funded by you through your agency or practitioner) and the SAFE home study.

 

One of the most recent talked about trends in adoption literature and conferences is that with adoption the focus is finding a family for a child (and not a child for a family) although with private adoption the focus is on finding a child for you.

 

The process is rewarding whatever you choose to go with.

 

Parenting through adoption will always be different than parenting by birth, but also with many similarities.  It's not a solution to infertility it's a solution to family building.

 

Our family looked in to all kinds of adoption, but ultimately we were most comfortable with public (because parental rights were terminated, and we wouldn't go through a situation of the child potentially coming into and then leaving our family) and because we weren't dead set on having a newborn (nor was it the preference for adoption.)

Go to http://www.canadaado.../ultimatebb.cgi for more information and talk groups.

 

You will see there are streams for private, public, and international adoption.

 

You will find what seems to be the best match for your family, no doubt.

 

Disclaimer- we adopted publicly, and I'm a strong proponent of the public system.  My comments will often be biased in that direction.  There's a lot of great support on this board too.

[s00n]

 Sorry about your BFN and good luck with your last FET also.

[BrandyM]

We chose to go the private route because we did want a newborn and an open adoption. Our reasoning was we are young and we wanted to have the full experience by raising a child from a newborn, we also highly value our daughter's birthmom and want to have her involved in all of our lives. Each couple is different you just need to figure out what will work for your family

[nervus optimist]

we did our PRIDE training and homestudy privately - this gave us the ability to apply both for private and CAS adoption and to have everything ready without having to wait for CAS waitlist to have time to do our homestudy. 

 

in terms of logistics, there are 3 types of adoption, international, private and CAS.  if you are applying for international you are not able to apply for any domestic adoption private or CAS because your international application will have gone through multiple steps of government approvals and if you are matched internationally there is a long wait time, but you can't get matched domestically in that time, so if you are applying internationally as others have said you need to work with an agency that works with the country you've chosen and do homestudy and paperwork with them.  you can't even apply to more than one international country at the same time.

 

PRIDE is the same (more or less, it's regulated) for all 3 types of adoption so one option is to do PRIDE first either privately if you don't want to wait, or through CAS, and then decide.  in the course they will explain the different types of adoption, the process for each, risk factors to consider in each type etc.  we did PRIDE privately and it helped us decide what we were interested in applying for and that doing private homestudy was the best choice for us.

 

the adoption council seminar also gives great info on the different types of adoption and processes - we went straight to PRIDE because we were certain we wanted to adopt, just needed to figure out which route - the adoption council workshops are helpful at an even earlier stage if you're thinking about it and not sure if it's right for you or not.

 

best of luck in your cycle, and in your adoption journey.  many will say it is more challenging than IF treatments, I wouldn't say more, just different, but definitely super challenging. also, many will say with respect to adoption 'at least I know that in the end I will definitely be a mom' I can say from my experience and from many others I know, that is not necessarily the case, just as with IF treatments there is uncertainty, there is uncertainty with adoption as well, but of course both routes can bring great joy to the families that are successful - just wanted to put it out there.

 

[s00n]

Best of luck with your last treatment.

 

Brandy put something important forward - open adoptions are very much the way going forward, these days.  And if you are hoping to raise a child from infancy, private adoption is a great route!

 

Openness can mean letters, or it can mean visits.  Openness means knowing details about birth parents, all the way to direct contact.

 

Some public adoptions including ours are open and include contact.  Most CAS's (and many birth moms in private adoption) want adoptive parents to be ready to take on openness and support it.

[AdeleC]

Thanks for all of your informative and supportive words!  Lots to research.

[SGD]

We chose to go the private route because we did want a newborn and an open adoption. Our reasoning was we are young and we wanted to have the full experience by raising a child from a newborn, we also highly value our daughter's birthmom and want to have her involved in all of our lives. Each couple is different you just need to figure out what will work for your family

Hi, I guess I'm just now starting to realize that a natural child may never happen for us.

We will start looking into adoption in the new year.

We want a newborn, which I know will be harder but it's something we feel strongly about.

 

Would love to hear about your process. I have no idea where to start.

[BrandyM]

Basically for us we started with Pride and our homestudy at the same time (we paid to do the homestudy privately as well since we knew we were not going with CAS). All of that took about 6 or 7 months to get everything in order, then we signed up with our agency in September 2011 and we were matched in December  Our match happened pretty quickly, so just know that it can take a couple years to find a match. We just got lucky and we were exactally what our daughters birthmom was looking for.

[LKT1975]

Hi,

We have 2 more rounds of FET ahead of us. The first one being at the end of November...hopefully.

Having said that, we are also thinking of adoption. We want 2 kids and I'm afraid even if one round of FET works, the second round won't.

My question is...do you have to deal with the CAS in your area? I live in York Region and they seem to want couples who are willing to deal with older children (over 3) with special needs. We want to go with the public adoption route first.

As this may be our first and only child, we would prefer a younger child.

Thoughts? We have chosen not to be public about this yet so I don't have too many people I can talk to about this.

Thanks!

[BrandyM]

Any CAS in Ontario is basically only accepting applications for older children. Ottawa wont even put you on a waiting list unless you want a child 5 or older. Basically the only way to adopt a younger child would be privately.

[LKT1975]

Hmm...we want to start with public first. If the remaining treatments do not work, we may look at private adoption. I assume it's the same cost in Ottawa. From what I read on the website, it's roughly $15-20K.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Jo1984]

We fostered-to-adopt an happy, healthy 11month old boy. He has been in our home for 2months and the adoption paperwork is well on its way. You CAN adopt infants through public.

[LKT1975]

Thanks Jo!

 

My friend knows 2 people who also went through public adoption and ended up adopting infants as well. I guess my first step is to get our application accepted

[BrandyM]

Pretty much All areas are different, if your in a less populated area you might have a better chance through public to adopt a "baby", I just know from experience in Ottawa, all areas are run different.

[mmorton]

Hey!!!  Just wanted to jump in and say we've started our process with the Kingston CAS and because our daughter is only 14mths, they're actually pushing the newborn on us.  They said they adopted 50 newborn babies last year in the "Foster with a view to Adopt" program.  I can't speak for any other CAS's.

[s00n]

Will Kingston work with Smith Falls for Foster to Adopt or do they keep all their kids close?