In October of 2010, our journey began with the decision to submit an application to adopt with the Children’s Aid Society. As part of the process, an adoption worker came to our home in Elmira. Together with the adoption worker, my husband and I filled out the paper work to open our file. It was during this visit that the worker informed us we could be facing a 2-4 year wait before we would be matched with a child. I was not expecting the wait to be that long. It was devastating for us to hear and difficult to accept. We asked if there anything we could do to speed up the process. We were told that if we could obtain PRIDE and our SAFE home study privately rather than through the Children’s Aid Society and then submit them to CAS, the process may take less than the 2-4 years expected time. I was certainly keen to pursue that avenue; however my husband was not as certain about going that route. And so it was with sadness that I prepared myself to wait.
On January 24 of 2011 we received a call from CAS. They called to ask us if we were interested in adopting twins; boys who were 5 months old. Scarcely believing our good fortune, we said yes! Our 2010 application to adopt was with our local CAS. However the twins were with another CAS office out of our jurisdiction. This particular CAS was looking for a family that was a culturally similar match with the twins. They had contacted the CAS that held our file and asked for files that were a cultural match. Within 4 days, on January 28 2011, we had our matching interview. That very afternoon we received a call informing us that they had been chosen as a match for these baby boys. Interestingly, we were matched with our twin boys before we had even completed the approval process with CAS. Because of this, we were in a whirlwind of completing our PRIDE, our SAFE home study AND having our transition visits all at the same time. This all made the process happen much more quickly than we thought it would.
Ontario knows how to do it right! Adoption is a long process – the completion of the process shouldn’t be the only requirement allowed in order to be consider a family. Too often, we overlook what is right – A family in the process of becoming AdoptReady could be the perfect match!