Moving on...

Before, I was preoccupied in all the paper work as I said before, now I’m concern about the travel to Ghana. We don’t have a strong character when it comes poverty and things that make us sad. I guess we are both alike and that’s why we love children and animals so much. We don’t like to see anyone suffer so for us, it’s going to be a big impact to be in a 3rd word country. We’ve traveled to the Caribbean and we can’t even go visit the villages, we usually stay on the resorts, not because we are snobs, but because we could not bear seeing the reality. Well this is it, it’s not really a choice anymore, it’s a decision we maid and we have to come prepare. I’ve been googling a lot lately, found some interesting video’s on Ghana on UTUBE. I guess I want to be exposed as much as I can and when we are there, it won’t be as much as a shock. I’m pretty sure that when the time comes that we are going to get our phone call for our referral, this will be the least of my worries. I won’t have time to think or worry. I will be all set to leave to get our daughter.

This week I send Genevieve our financial report and Victor’s medical report and test results. The only thing missing was his divorce certificate and when I got home from work tonight it was in the mail. So Tuesday morning I will be walking over to the Assumption building and dropping off the certificate to Genevieve and that will be it for our part for the documents she wanted. We still have some from Imagine Adoption, but that will be later. Genevieve said that once she has all our documents, we only have to wait for our reference letters to get back to her and then the home study will begin.

Funny thing happened today at lunch. Victor got a fortune cookie that said “Something special will happen at home soon.”

August 25, 2008 - 2nd Imagine Adoption package

Well today started off as a typical Monday morning. Late for work because of road construction and not really looking forward to start the day. All I have on my mind these days is the adoption and I have a hard time to concentrate on work. One of my dear friends, Angele emailed me back with more information regarding lawyers. She is so sweet to have gotten all this information for us. I contacted Isabelle to see who they took to notarize their documents. She said we only needed a lawyer to notarize our documents and all other legal stuff is taken care by Imagine Adoption.

Victor called me to let me know he went to pick up the window for the baby room. I guess the room is in progress. Yoopi! When I got home from work, to my surprise I had 2 packages in the mail from Imagine Adoption. Like every time that I come home from work, I got the dogs out and played with them for a few minutes. I then opened the packages and found a book on Ghana. This is great! I’ll be able to read tonight and learn about my child’s birth Country. I can’t wait. In the other package, we got a welcome letter and the next documents we have to prepare for the adoption, Immigration, visa…

I guess this means that we are progressing through this journey and we are getting closer and closer every day J

Police check and fingerprints - July 30, 2008

Right after work, Victor and I met at the Shediac Police Station. We got our criminal check and Fingerprints done. This was really weird, but all part of the process. It didn’t’ take long to do.

I had tried to get an appointement early with them, but they were always busy and we could only go when there was an officer there because of the fingerprints.

August 11, 2008, we got our results in the mail. I guess we are clear.

Passport - July 16, 2008

Sent out my passport application on July 16, 2008 and received it at the Post Office August 11, 2008. I now have my passport with my married name stamped on it. It was a hassle traveling with my marriage certificate all the time. I am now truly a Cormier :)

Adventure of finding a doctor...July 15, 2008

During this week of waiting… (July 15, 2008)I decided to start calling for our medical appointments. Who knew how complicated this 1 piece of the puzzle would be. Because my doctor was on sick leave for 1 year, she is only starting part time and only taking emergencies. The new secretary did not want to book me for an appointment. She said I had to call back in the beginning of October to schedule an appointment. Not too happy…

I called Shediac Medical Clinique to see if they could take us and they did not say they were not able to fill out medical forms, however they doctor’s didn’t want to do them for adoption. I flipped on the phone with the poor receptionist. I know it’s not her fault but I guess she had to take my crap. One of our problems, is that Victor doesn’t have a family doctor and who would we get to fill out our medical forms. He doesn’t have a doctor and my doctor can’t do mine. What a mess!!! I called practically all the doctors I could find in the phone book and no one would accept new patients. I really got discourage and didn’t think we would be able to find someone to fill out our medical forms. I thought to myself that If this is the worst thing that could happened, it wasn’t the end of the word and I would find a way to overcome this obstacle. A f

After a few days, I was talking to Margo and she said that she could ask Serge if he could do them for us. We went with that idea for awhile until I realized that we might have to get more test done and more forms before it was all done. I then called my doctor’s office and demanded that she sees me. I said that it was an emergency and she had to schedule me. I could tell she was not impressed but booked me for the next morning. Now how’s that! Not able to schedule an appointment before October and I got in the next day. This to me means that If you believe in something and you want it bad, don’t give up. Do what it takes to make it happen!!!
The next day (August 7, 2008) I went to get my forms filled out by my doctor. When I was done, I had a brilliant idea to go see every receptionist and see if they would take a new patient. After being refused several time I seen a new door to the left of the building that I had not seen before. I seen a bunch on new names that I had not seen before. Got to the first one and said the usual Sorry , Dr. ??? doesn’t take new patients. I got to the next one and this sweet girl, was smiling and seemed like she actually wanted to help me. I explained to her why we needed a doctor for my husband. You could tell that she didn’t want to say no but unfortunatly Dr. O. Was not talking new patients at the moment, however in October she was probably going to start again. She asked me to sit down and she would ask the Dr if she would at least sign the medical forms to help us with the adoption process. A few minutes went by and she came back with a smile and said Dr. O. would do his medical. I was so relieved!!! When we were setting up the appointment for the following day, Dr. O. came by and we taked. She was really happy to hear that we were adoptin from Ghana. This Dr is an African Women. She was going on and on, about the adoption and how exciting this was going to be. I asked her politely if she was take my husband as a patient. She just smiled and ask me why I was making my husband decisions. We just laught and she took out an application form and told me that she would see him tomorrow. This was the best news ever. We just couldn’t find a doctor for Victor and now we have an African Dr that will be able to help us care for our baby girl when we bring her home. I already feel that this is all going to work out. I guess there was a reason why Victor didn’t have a Dr. and I couldn’t find one until today. When Victor met with her the next day, she asked if she could be our child’s doctor.

Got package from Imagine Adoption - July 13, 2008

Saturday Morning, got up and went to the mail and I had received my first package from Imagine Adoption. I got all excited. I drove home to quickly open the package. They had included information for all the programs they have. I read each and every one of them. At this time, Victor and I talked and decided that it was Ghana that we wanted to go with and we were ready to start the process. I was so happy to have gotten the package. It made me feel like things are progressing and it’s no longer just an idea. This is really happening. Monday morning arrived and I called Geneviève right away and to my big surprise she had her out of office on that said she is on vacation till Aug 11, 2008. I was not too happy. That meant that I had to wait 3 weeks before we could start the process. I was not ready to just sit and wait for her return. I started making calls to her supervisor (found on GNB.ca site). Her supervisor assured me that Genevieve was coming in on the next Monday for a few hours and she would get her to send us the package. Now that’s not so bad, having to wait 1 week.

Frist visit with Adoption Services - July 7, 2008

Like I said, there will be good and bad experiences . For some reason, I didn’t get a warm fussy felling going there. It was like being at a service counter and asking for some directions and you don’t understand a word they are saying. This actually happens to me quite often as I don’t have any sense of directions LOL! Anyways, back to my point, I felt that I had to make a decision based on no information and no way of getting any information. When I left, I had given her a few Countries that were of interest for us. The next day, she called me back with some answers. They weren’t answers that I wanted to hear, however it made me realize that if we were going to go through this process it’s certainly
not based on the information that is provided by the province.

This is the feedback from the places we asked for:

Ghana – Have to live in the country for 6 months
St. Vincent – Not up to Canadian Law
Dominica – No specifications and no agency (orphanage)available
Thailand – Long process
China – Not open
Philippines – Double the paper work and no time frame
South Korea – 4 years
Guyna – Have to live in the country for 1 year
Jamaica – Cannot bring child back
Cambodia – Closed
Haiti – On hold and long process

After talking to Isabelle and André, we knew we wanted to adopt, however we didn’t feel right about Ethiopia. It seemed like a nice program, well established, however it wasn’t right for us. I wasn’t sure why we weren’t connecting until I did more research on Ghana. Isabelle told me all about the agency they adopted from. The agency is called Imagine Adoption, located in Cambridge, Ontario. We went through their site and did some researched on Google ( my truly best friend). We immediately connected with Ghana. Reason… they are located on the North West Coast of Africa on the Atlantic ocean. The ocean, beach, made our connection to the place. My husband and I are what you call typical beach bums. We rarely leave our house during the summer because we live right on the beach. If we go on vacation and there is no ocean, lake, river… we feel lost. After looking at the map and seeing were Ethiopia was, I don’t think we could of lasted a week or 2 there. I already feel more comfortable to go to Africa, now that I know that we’ll be able to see the ocean. Basically we’ll see the other end of our beach :)

Picture of sunset from our balcony

First adoptive parent contact - July 3, 2008

After only a few days that we had spread the news, everyone was excited for us. My niece, Julie called me at work to give me the name of a couple (André et Isabelle)that had just arrived the week before with a baby girl (Lexis)from Ethiopia. She said to give her a call because she was really nice and she would talk to me. I didn’t even wait 5 minutes to give her a call or even think about what I was going to ask her. I just picked up the receiver and dialed her number. Just as Julie explained, she was really nice on the phone. I asked her right away if she would meet us to talk about their journey to Africa.

… 2 days later… We were knocking on their door step. To our surprise they had the movie camera all setup with the video clips and pictures they took while in Ethiopia. We spend a few hours with them, talking, laughing and crying. When I saw the video when they first met their daughter and when they arrived at the airport in Moncton, I felt this weird feeling that just made me cry. I was feeling so emotional. At that moment I knew that one day, it would be us walking through those doors.

When I first told my dad that we were going to adopt, I told him not to get too excited in case something happened that it would not work out. He couldn’t not understand what I meant with “if it doesn’t work out’. He told me that we would make it work. Until that moment, watching the video, I didn’t’ felt 100% that we would go through this journey, but that changed my mind. Like my dad said, I’ll make this adoption happen.

That afternoon, we were celebrating my dad’s 70th Birthday. We announced the news to all the Landry family. Let me tell you, it was quite the emotional thing. I just couldn’t believe that we would get this great support from everyone. I used to live my life always worrying what others would say if… and I always thought that if we ever went with this adoption journey, people would say we’re not thinking strait… But this has been the most wonderful experience so fare announcing the news. We have family on all sides that loves us and supports us. This is truly the best feeling!

Here is a picture of future grandma, and all of little’s cousins that our daughter will be have be able to play with.

Canda Day 2008

This year, Canada Day was pretty special for me. My dad came to spend the day with me since Victor was working. When he arrived, I told him the big news. He was in shock. He did not believe me at first. He kept on repeating what I just said to make sure he had it right. It was actually funny to see his reaction. He just couldn’t believe that he was finally going to be a grandpa! xoxo

My family

Here is a picture of who I call my family. For all of you who don't know my family, starting at the left, we have Sam (dog), Renée (my step daughter), Nicole ( my step dauther), Victor ( my husband and Nicole and Renée's dad), Amanda (Nicole and Renée's sister) and Ricky ( Amanda's dad and Nicole and Renée's step dad).

This is it! - June 30, 2008

After all these years of talking about adopting a little girl, we finally made the decision to go ahead with our dream. After my cousin's wedding (Lisanne&Gerlad), I just coudn't keep this out of my mind. We talked about it and finaly, on June 30th, we went to see the girls (Nicole and Renée) to give them the news. We will soon have a new addition to our family.

Retainer agreement and questionnaires - All done!

August 14, 2008

Today was a big day. I had all our questionnaires completed and dropped them of at Adoption Services in Moncton. I then drove to the Post Office to mail our certified check and Retainer Agreement to Imagine Adoption. I was such a nervous wreck today. I was just not functioning properly. It was 2 simple things that I had to do and yet I felt so unorganized and I just couldn’t get all the right papers in the right envelop. Wow!!! I just can’t wait till I have to send the papers for immigration and stuff like that LOL!

I felt such a relieve when I dropped off the Retainer Agreement. I just wanted to scream out loud and reach the sky!

When all of this is happening, we are in the process of buying our new dream spot. Next door to our home. I know this sounds silly but we will be building our dream home next door to our current house. This is all exciting because we’ll have a new home for our new baby girl.

On Monday, August 17, 2008, I got an email from Imagine Adoption that they received our cheque and Retainer Agreement. We are now officially on board with them. She said they will be sending us a 2nd package with more details and forms to fill out