It only took the effort and dedication of a few workers to send 3 children home, forever.
The Portability of our homestudy was the key element that came to play in our Adoption Journey. Thanks to the CAS where our children were from, both our private Pride and private Homestudy were accepted without delay – This made the adoption a quick reality to the benefit of our children and our growing family.
One morning in March 2012, Julie woke up with a strong urge to start working on expanding her family before the end of the year - they already had a son who was then nineteen years old – Unsure of what had inspired her, all she knew in the depth of her soul was that in 2012, her family would be growing. Of that she was convinced!
Driven by her calling, she and her husband started the process that would lead them to growing their family both biologically and through adoption, as they always knew, adoption was never a 2nd choice for them.
In May, Julie had already booked training for an Open Private Adopting seminar with Jennie Painter, soon after, she and her husband completed their Private PRIDE training over a two weekend period! Time was of the essence: their first and only priority was to make sure that no time was wasted. In selecting their Adoption Practitioner, they looked for two things: a commitment to a tight deadline to finalize their Homestudy and a connection! With much enthusiasm, Julie was able to quickly connect with a Practitioner who would then be a key player in their success! Lisa, her practicioner, invited Julie to explore the local CASs – but Julie had already contacted them and never heard back for months– she knew better than to wait if her intuition were to become reality!
As soon as her practitioner handed Julie the TO DO list, she was on it! Background check, Reference letters, Veterinary Proof for their doggie, everything was done within weeks!
While ensuring they were becoming AdoptReady, they also pursued building their family biologically! Little did they know what to expect - In September, Julie became pregnant, only to find out a few weeks after that it was an ectopic pregnancy. Although saddened, Julie and her husband remained confident that their family was going to be formed by the end of the year.
That year, Toronto’s ARE (Adoption Resource Exchange) was taking place in October. Being curious in nature, Julie, her husband and their son decided to build a profile to hand out and go explore. Julie never contemplated to adopt through the public system, but thought it was worth getting some exposure! In their mind and heart, they wanted to grow their family through an open adoption so that their children would have more family members to be loved by! They wanted to expand the existing family of their adopted children, not replace them.
Surprisingly enough as they flipped the page of the children’s profile at the ARE, they got carried away, their minds opened up to the possibilities of adopting a girl, perhaps a sibling group of two. Watching the videos and reviewing the binders evoked many emotions - namely the desire to help the children they saw - yet one video brought about a completely different reaction. Julie’s husband described it as “being hit by a freight truck” - there, up on the screen he sat frozen watching the video of three children - their children. Dragging Julie to the CAS booth, her husband pointed at their picture as the CAS team was wrapping up. They knew it the minute they saw their children and suddenly their world changed. Without speaking a word about it, they stopped trying for a biological child right away and spent their mornings looking at their children’s picture. All they could do was wait to see if they had been shortlisted.
In the next few weeks, after having their hearts stolen by their children, they couldn’t help but visualize their lives with them. Thankfully, their prayers were answered! On December 5th, they received the call that would change their lives forever. The CAS intake worker later told them that she knew from the moment she met them at the ARE that they were the ones. She, the practitioner and the children’s social worker were big driving forces in making the adoption happen. To this day both Julie and her husband can’t thank them enough for the three precious gifts they helped bring to their lives.
There was no need to meet their children to decide - they were committed since the day they saw their picture and decided to embrace the journey. They met for the first time on 12/12/12 and life for the six of them has never been the same since!
In retrospect, Julie realized: “ I knew deep down in my heart that no time could be wasted, our children were calling us and it was my responsibility to get us fully AdoptReady.“ The Portability of our homestudy was the key element that came to play in our Adoption Journey. Thanks to the CAS where our children were from, both our private Pride and private Homestudy were accepted without delay – This made the adoption a quick reality to the benefit of our children and our growing family.