One very important decision when you first decide to adopt is where you want to adopt from. You can either adopt domestically which would mean dealing with CAS (Children's Aid Society) or another country. If you choose not to go with CAS, you have many countries to consider, for example, Russia, China, Vietnam, South Africa, various countries in Europe and United States. Although all these countries have adoption programs the waiting times can very from 9 months to 7 years which is the case for China.
For Domestic adoptions, you learn alot about this in your mandatory Pride training which is a prerequisite for completing your homestudy. Since Pride's training format is determined by the government, they do focus on domestic adoptions and foster homes. You as prospective parents have to sell yourself to the birth parents. You do so by creating a book which outlines you and your partners life, consisting of photos of you and your family. So, if they don't like the way you look, too bad. Their first impression is some book with a bunch of your photos. All adoptions with CAS are considered open, very rarely are they not. What that means is that you must commit to maintaining ties with the birth parents. This may include emails updates of the child including recent photos and/or visits with the birth parents and your child. It may also include the birth grandparents. You are legally obligated by a contract to maintain ties throughout your childs life with their birth family. Legally obligated! If someone breaks the rules it can be contested in court and the contract can be reviewed.
So, you create your book telling your story and what relationship you are willing to accept with the birth parents. The birth parents get tons of these books to review based on what criteria they are looking for. They will interview prospective parents and keep narrowing the search down and pick one. Once they decide on the parents, you work on the contract explaining the terms of the relationship. I don't know much more than that. The costs are much lower than international. You don't pay any money to the birth parents directly in Canada.
I had difficulty wrapping my head around having a relationship with the birth parents. I think this would be confusing for a child, especially in their earlier years with them having two sets of parents. And what if you don't get along with them? What do you do? Your contract states what you must visit/email/whatever and if you don't the birth parents can bring this up in court. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night worrying about this. Luckily, my wife and I both felt this way and never considered this a viable option. In PRIDE training, I spoke up about this stating this seems like a difficult situation. They sold it like it was an extension of your family. I thought to myself, no, that's wrong. I am not legally entitled to talk to my family if I don't want to. This is forcing the birth parents into your life whether you like it or not. If you disagree and act accordingly, you can potentially lose your rights and their time with your child may increase. Ugh, sound like a mess. I don't mean to play this down as they are many children locally that do require homes, but it's not for me.
I will talk more about international adoptions next time. Each country is vastly different. Some countries may require you to stay there for a month or several months, some you only need to visit once or three times. Countries usually have rules for prospective parents, for example, parents must be married over two years, no same sex couples, couples must be below 45, and etc. The funniest one is that prospective parents must be within a certain BMI range. No two countries are the same.
Current Update: Nothing new, still waiting for proposal of child.
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