Encouragement? Maybe :-)

Late yesterday afternoon April 29, 2009, I received an email from my CW that they were continuing to work towards a resolution with CHC and DoSW. They stated that the director of HoM was going to Ghana next week to meet with the authorities of DoSW and the orphanage legal counsel. This email was extremely encouraging to me. I can see that they are doing their best to resolve this issue ASAP.

My dear husband of mine came home from work last night and could see that I was not myself. He tried to comfort me and told me that it was all going to work out. For some reason, when he believes in something it always seems to turn on his side. The road may be long but he always gets to the end. After our talk, I decided to snap out of it and went to get a movie with the dogs. I rented Hotel for Dogs. It’s a childish movie, but it made me laugh and forget my pain.

How Ironic

In February, my mom and I went shopping for the nursery set. One of the pieces were on back order so we asked them to ship everything together. This was supposed to be an exciting moment when we would go pick up the boxes at our Sears Depot in Cap-Pelé. Well I got the call today that our set had arrived. Do you think I’m in the mood to go get it??? I am so sick to my stomach right now, it isn’t event funny. My head has been spinning all day.

Whoever is reading my blog, please pray that we can bring our girl home!

The shocking FACTS!

Well here it is...

Here is some information that has been going on with our adoption. At this point I am speechless.


The Canadian High Commission has concerns with respect to the Hands of Mercy orphanage in Ghana. The adoption authority (The Department of Social Welfare) has provided conflicting information about the orphanage to us (the agency), as well as to the Canadian High Commission. Given this, we are attempting to seek clarification in an effort to process our adoption files. Daily communication with Ghana is ongoing in order to seek a resolution as quickly as possible.We have been advised by the Department of Social Welfare that The Hands of Mercy Orphanage is not closed, and the Orphanage Director has further advised us that the home continues to operate and facilitate adoptions into the United States.

The Canadian High Commission is extremely hesitant to process adoption files and issue travel visas for Canadians wishing to adopt from Ghana.

So basicaly, the program is currently on hold, until a clear resolution can be found between Social Welfare, the orphanage, and the Canadian High Commission.


After this weekend, I had lots of time to process the news and came to the same conclusion as always. Whatever Victor and I want, we have to work EXTREAMLY hard to get it. Nothing is handed to us. We have to fight for everything we want so I am under the impression at this point that the battle is just staring to bring our baby girl home. I will certainly not give up. If I have to fight against a Country well so be it. I am up for the challenge.

Family and Friends are the BEST!

Family and Friends are the BEST!

April 25, 2009 – Last night for me did not end all that good. I did not sleep at all. The adoption was processing in my mind all night long. I was thinking, what I was going to do if I got a call from our SW next week and its bad news. Saturday morning, I got up and ran to my laptop to check my yahoo group and received an email from Isabelle telling me not to worry and call her. I decided to go jogging first to be able to relax for the rest of the day. I gave her a call after lunch and she explained to me that they went through the same thing when they were in the process of adopting to Ethiopia. She said it delayed the referral for 1 month. She said that when Imagine got the audit, they passed without any problem because they are all up to standard. That phone call made me feel so much better. I know that we are still not certain what the immigration part is all about. Hopefully our case worker will reply to my email on Monday with some answers.












Funny thing today, only in April and we were out sun tanning on patio, when I got back from jogging, I had a sunburn on my face. I kind of look like a raccoon LOL! Today is Renée’s 19 Birthday. We had a family super planed and because of the nice weather, it turned out to be a party full of family and friends. This is what happens when you live on the beach. I would not trade our place for the world. Friends and family are always dropping in to see us and we just love it. Having all these people at our place yesterday made me realize how fortunate we were to have such good people surrounding us. I was still thinking of the adoption during the day but it was again with excitement. I was back to my old self… I mean young self LOL!!!!

Weekend that did not start as planned

April 24, 2009

All week, it was announcing a sunny and warm weekend. We had a nice Friday evening planned out with friend for a BBQ at our place. Before I left from work, I received the Imagine Adoption Monthly Update email at work. I read the paragraph for Ghana about 4 times, not really understanding a word they were saying. It was basically saying that some information was being transmitted between Canadian High Commission Immigration in Accra, Ghana and the Hands of Mercy Orphanage. They also said that they were asking people to contact them prior to sending an application for Ghana. That just doesn’t sound good in any shape or form. To top it all off, all orphanages in Ghana are being inspected. So much for the smooth process that we were enjoying so far. It seems that something else had to hit me right in the face. So far my 2009 year has not started on the right track. I was driving home from work and was rushing to post a message on my yahoo group to see if other members understood that update. As I was about to write the email, I seen 2 new post, asking the same questions as I had. Let’s just say that my BBQ did not go as planned. I was not able to follow my friends conversations. I was in a total other zone and refreshing my yahoo screen every 5 minutes to see who else posted an update. By the end of the evening, after midnight, I got a little bit of hope from one of the families that posted a message that said that they had spoken to their social worker and Imagine was trying to resolve the issue with Immigration as quickly as possible. So at this point I am going crazy. We’ve gone such a long way to get where we are right now that I can’t afford to lose this wonderful excitement in my life. This is what’s keeping me going right now.

Tomorrow will be another day and hopefully I will be able to enjoy Renée, my stepdaughter’s 19 Birthday. I guess I will have to wait to talk to my case worker on Monday and see what she has to say.

That’s it for now.
Chow!

Good News

I am happy to announce that my cousin Chantal had a baby girl “Maika” Saturday, April 18,2009. I’m sure Kyanna will be excited to meet her cousin. Kyanna should be around the same age as Maika so hopfully they will be able to grow up together like I did with all my cousins. While growing, I lived very close to my cousins. After school, we were always outside playing ball or playing at someone's house. I know that its going to be different for our children because we dont live close to each other, however we have been able to maintain a close relationship so i'm sure our children will be able to do the same. Every summer, we started a tradition called the 'Cousin Bash'. It's a fun day that we gather up, do a potlock, setup tents and have bonfire.

I am going to be posting several picutres of my cousins and some dear friends of mine.






Birthday Party

Janie

Picture of me and Monique, my sister in law.

Me and my dear friend Monique.

Picture of the Cormier Family, Victor's side of the family. We have a family gathering ever summer.

Another post for my dad

Few weeks ago, I was still crying for no reason for my dad and got mad at myself. I walked up to the closet and got my sneakers, jacket and IPOD and just ran out the door and went for a run. For some odd reason, I did not feel out of breath. I have never ran before. Few days after I tried it again, and again and I can manage to run ‘au tour de Cap-Pele’ and back. It feels so good to just be able to run and feel good. My dad and I were always comparing how much exercise we had done during the day when we talked before I went to bed. Sometimes (a lot of time) he won. At one point, he was actually biking from Memramcook to my place in Cap-Pele. I think that I now have the determination to run because his presence is with me. He’s the one giving me the courage to do it. I am really thankful for that.

Here are 2 pictures of my dad and I xox...






Today, April 18, 2009, I sat down with a cup of tea after my run and red my whole blog archive. It feels so good to see how far we’ve come. Up until my dad’s funeral, I still had some fear of going to Ghana. Now, I am 100% ready. They could call me tonight and I would leave on the first flight to Ghana. I was laughing by myself earlier when I read the posting when I told my dad not to get too excited about the adoption because I was not sure that It would all workout and he looked at me like I had 3 heads and said that it would happened and we would make it happen no questions asked. LOL!

In an earlier post, I was saying how Victor and I changed our lives because of my dad. We are still seeing a Naturopath and feel good about our life change. I cook from scratch, eat healthy food and exercise more. I told Victor this morning how great I feel. I’ve never felt this healthy in my life. Even our dear friends, Monique and Louis started seeing our Naturopath. It feels good to see that my dad wanted to change his eating habits and live but unfortunately it was too late for him. Because of him, WE ( friends and family) our changing our eating habits, and are more health conscious. I’m sure he must feel so Empowered up there in heaven to see that he made an impact on all of us and we are continuing what he wanted to do…live.

I promise this will be the last posting on funeral stuff but I have to let it all out. If it wasn’t for my cousin, Margo we would of never had the opportunity to gain the knowledge in natural ways to heal your body. When Margo found out that my dad, her uncle was diagnose with cancer, she made phone calls, sent emails to try and help out my dad. For the 9 days my dad lived knowing he had cancer, Margo and her mother, my aunt Helene prepared my dad meals to try and boost his immune system. Because of them, I believed there was hope to save my dad. I thank her from the bottom of my heart for what she did. As well, I thank my whole family that were with us at the hospital and at home watching after him. That’s when you see that family is the most important thing in the world. It felt great to have there presence with us.

One thing that is keeping me strong as well is seeing how strong Nicole and Renée ( my step daughters) are. After going through the same emotions and lost of their mother, they are able to be happy again and go on with their lives. There is not one day that I don’t think of her either. I’m always thinking that she is looking after us and making sure her girls are fine. When I say that I believe that my father is watching over me, well I know for a fact that during Renée’s graduation last summer, Bernice was with us. There is no dough in my mind that she was celebrating with us. Last summer was a pretty busy time for us. Both Nicole and Renée graduated. Nicole from College in Ottawa and Renée from High School and then at the end of the same month in June, we decided to adopt. Funny how life turned a 90 degree for us. I’ve been with Victor for more than 12 years now, seen both girls grow up and we were saying how they are all grown up and now we would be able to be somewhat more free since the girls are now more independent and t hats when I panicked. I felt alone and it seemed that it was the end. What would we do now that Nicole and Renée are independent and they would no longer be relying on us. I think that’s what triggered my need to be a mommy. Before last summer, I had never really wanted to have a child. I have Nicole and Renee that I love and they are fulfilling my need to be a mother. I have enjoyed every minute of being part of their lives. I had accepted that we were going to be a family and that was it. Weird thing happened when Bernice, their mother was in the hospital before she passed away. I spend some time with her in the hospital and we had some great conversations. She made me realize how important life was and how to appreciate the time we have left to spend with the ones we love . After she passed away, we went through both graduations and my cousin Lisannes’s wedding and something happened to me. Every time I saw children, I had this weird feeling that I needed to love and comfort a child. I didn’t know what or why it was happening but it just wasn’t going away.



Nicole's Graduation in Ottawa.



Renée's Graduation in Cap-Pelé, NB


Well that’s it for now. I hope that my next posting will be our referral.

Hands of Mercy

Today, not able to get my mind off the adoption. I decided to go check out the Hands of Mercy Christian Outreach website. They posted some new information and pictures of the Imagine Adoption Headquarters in Accra.

This is a picture of Pastor Deborah who is the Founder and in charge of Public Relations of Hands of Mercy and Sue Hayhow, Founder/Executive Director of Imagine Adoption.

Easter

My grandfather's funeral was harder for me than my dad’s funeral. I think it was still too fresh in my mind and I re-lived the whole thing again. I was actually crying for him to come back. It was really weird because I was more hurt and sad the week of my grandfathers funeral. I think I am now realizing that my daddy was not coming back. I must of said that already but it doesn’t seem to get any easier. I just have to believe that he is with me every day and that he is helping me become a stronger person. He will be with us every second of the adoption journey. He will make this be a positive and joyful event.


April 7th, 2009 – Week of Easter. Today for the first time, I could hear the ocean waves splashing on the cap. This means that summer is just around the corner. This is probably the most joyful time of the year for me. I can go outside with the dogs longer at night. By the time we get in, we are all tired. Easter weekend we were able to go for a walk on the beach with the dogs. I could just imagine us next year at this time with our daughter running as well.





While I am running outside and playing with the dogs, my wonderful husband is working hard to finish the upstairs of our house. We want to make sure that everything is ready when we get the call… This week, it will be 2 months that our dossier is in Ghana. Last time I spoke with our adoption agency, she said it could be between 2 to 6 months wait for a referral. So this is it. It could be anytime. I actually bumped into the SW that did our home study over the weekend at the grocery store. She told me that she was the one that would be contacting us for our referral. She said the process just changed and she is the one responsible for our region.






Here are some pictures of our daughter’s room so far. These are some toys that my mom had bought for Christmas and the Easter bunny I got her. I even went to get all my old Walt Disney books that I had while I was growing up.