48 replies to this topic

[lesley1978]

Very possible, depends on your area cas on wait times/ matches available. Foster to adopt is a great option as well, if cas in your area offers it.

[Aiglee]

@Alex, if you want to try both private and public, then you need to do the PRIDE training and the Home Study privately, so I would say the first thing would be to find a social worker you are comfortable with and have that first appointment towards the home study. She/He would also guide you through the process and what the next steps should be.

 

@PerfectlyImperfect, no tips so far as I'm in the middle of the home study, also adopting for CAS. This morning I was reading in a group about all these people waiting for 3 years at their CAS, even open to older kids, so I am a bit down, but trying to keep my hopes up that each family is different and each CAS is different.

[WishinNhopin]

Alex I can tell you 100% as a white couple you can adopt in Nunavut -one of my friend in Halifax (white couple) have a beautiful 4 month old baby from there. They got yo take him home at like 5 days old. ..they found out about the pregnancy in late July and sept they were holding him. She has already said she will take a sibling if it happens or adopt agsin from there...

[CarCar1979]

We adopted privately here in Ontario in 2013. 
 

We also had a failed private adoption in June 2015. It was heartbreaking for everyone involved, not to mention really expensive (we never ended up even meeting the baby we were supposed to adopt). 

[WishinNhopin]

Aww sorry to hear that CarCar. This is what would just kill me ....I hope your healing from that heartbreak.

[CarCar1979]

We're OK. I still think about that boy (8 months later) and what our family might be like today if he had joined us. 

Hoping 2016 is a good year for all of us!

[Aiglee]

All the best CarCar!

 

If anyone is interested, I got this morning the next dates for the Openness and Foster to Adopt seminars from Waterloo CAS.

[fawnrain]

Interesting thread. I will be adopting through CAS also. i have an infant relative i have custody of already. They mentioned the pride course as well as the home study. but i found an adoption website that said relative adoptions are the only ones that do not require you to take these courses. yet they said i would have to take them? anyone heard of this?

 

peace

[lesley1978]

In our pride class the kinship placements required pride and I would assume a homestudy.

[fawnrain]

you mean placements as in custody or adoption?

[lesley1978]

I would guess both, if a resource(foster) parent has to have a homestudy and pride, I think that would carry over to anyone caring or adopting a child involved with cas. I am not sure if the kin placements were adoptions, I would assume placements . We had to do a homestudy and pride with foster to adopt. I would hope that both would be completed with a child in care of cas.

[fawnrain]

well, no, i have had her for 10 months now, all i did was a criminal check and a house safety and a couple of interviews. everyone in the house had to have a criminal check.no pride or home study. and i will get permanent custody of her without those courses too. but i was told to ADOPT i would need them. but on the adoption council of ontario website, it said kinship does not have to do these courses to adopt. that is what i am confused about.

she is kinship out of care. they said if i take those courses, she would turn into kinship in care. i dont think i want that. i want her out of the system all togeather.

[GraceM]

Why not call an adoption attorney/licensee. Cheryl Appell in Toronto has a good reputation.

[Lesley1225]

Wondering if anyone is trying to adopt or had any experience with Guelph Family and Children's Services? We are just starting with them and going to information night next week.

[Aiglee]

Hi everyone,

 

I have a question about Foster to Adopt. I know that if we get a child on the foster to adopt program, we can take parental leave as soon as the foster placement is done (or at least that is what I'm understanding). IF the child returns to their birth family, can we take parental leave again as soon as we get another match? And does the original parental leave ends as soon as the child is taken away?

[idream]

I used to work at Service Canada enforcing these programs.

 

Parental leave is for the care of a child. If the child returns to the birth family then you are not longer caring for the child and the parental leave would end as of the day the child in no longer in your care. You will have to report this to Service Canada, which can be done in person or by phone.

 

Parental leave is granted for adoptions based on each adoption process. So if you adopt two children together (siblings) you get one parental leave.  If you adopt two children at different times you get two parental leaves PROVIDING you have accumulated the required hours between the adoptions. (400-700 hours)  

 

Does this help?

 

idream

[lesley1978]

I was given 10% chance that the judge would make the judgement for the bio parents in a foster to adopt situation, the social workers feel that the child will most likely become a crown ward and the resource parents will go onto adoption probation. I went on parental leave the day the children moved in, you have to keep in mind the child/children will have visits with the bio parents until the child becomes a crown ward. The amount of visits per week depends on alot of factors. From start to finish it took us 1 yr and 7 months for the adoption to be complete doing the foster to adopt option with cas. I only wished the parental leave was a yr, great bonding time.

[Aiglee]

Thank you iDream, it does help a lot! I didn't know about the 400-700 hours. Good to know!

 

Thanks for sharing your experience Lesley We did know about the visits (for us it would be once a week) and I do know it can take a long time to become the official adoptive parents. We are still unsure because the pain of giving her back would be too much, but I do see the point of bonding from the beginning so we just have to decide if it's worth it. 

 

I agree with parental leave being 1 year. I am soooo crossing my fingers that it happens, but not holding my breath. 

[Kadima]

A few months back, I looked into fostering and adopting through CAS Ottawa and found that actively pursuing infertility treatments (IVF, IUI, etc..) would disqualify you from the process. Did any of you dabble in treatment and adoption?

[Melissa Celeste]

I dont know if this thread is still alive, but i thought i would join...

My DH and I have been TTC for 4 years. We've done 3 rounds of IVF, 2 rounds completely unsuccessful, we have had two miscarriage in the last 4 months, and have 1 frozen embryo left. I am, quite done at this point with IVF. WE are both healthy and have no real problems.. unexplained infertility. We really thought IVF would be our miracle and its really hard wrapping our head around the fact that is just isn't working. So we are now looking into adoption. We both want newborn, but my DH is more open to a young child as well. We are open to both private and non private adoption and international!

Everything I've read so far is really depressing... is it really that hard to adopt a baby in Ontario? How do you start with the process with CAS?

Any advice anyone has would be greatly appreciated!

 

[SecondAct]

I would call your local CAS. We were told if we just wanted to adopt a newborn it was a waste of time but foster adopt of an older infant or toddler was possible based on our background. Call the intake worker to discuss but I would not count on a newborn through CAS.

[BrandyM]

We went private both times and we had 2 beautiful newborn daughters (one is 2012 and one is 2016). We got lucky, some people wait a long time. It went fairly quick for us the first time, second time was longer and we had a failed match in there too which really really sucked! 

[StretchyPants]

Have you considered embryo adoption? If you want a newborn, that's probably your best bet and shortest wait time. Public adoption of newborns can be upwards of 7 years waiting.

[Aiglee]

@Melissa, sorry you have had a hard time with IVF. I think we can all understand.

 

Regarding adoption with CAS, it can depend on where you live too. Waterloo CAS has an infant consent program. Works the same as private in that birth mom/dad chose the family from a book but you have CAS's support and you don't have to pay. We got a newborn with them and know of 3 other couples that did too (all last year). It's a matter of luck though, same as private, you don't know how a birth mom will chose. All 4 of us (couples) had to wait less than a year, but we do know we are the exception to the rule, I'm sure there are lots of other couples that have been waiting for a long time in our same CAS.

 

I know we are not the common case, but I also want to make sure people know that it's not impossible. All I read before I tried was how long or hard it would be with CAS, and my experience has been completely opposite, fast and awesome workers. So I just want that experience to also count  

 

Look into what your limits are for acceptance (including financially), and go from there on how you chose which road to take. The better your range of acceptance (we were open to siblings and up to 4 years old) the better chance for an adoption match to happen sooner.