The Process Begins

Since I was young I have always wanted to adopt internationally.  When Jon and I were first together, I of course told him my hope to adopt in the future.  He was totally on board for that.  We knew that it would be a long and heart wrenching experience, but so worth it!

We knew the general adoption laws and that we had to be married for three years before we could adopt internationally.  When we were close to our 2 year anniversary, and after we bought our house in April we started researching adoption agencies.  We found only one that has a Latin American program - Imagine Adoption in Cambridge.  We contacted them and received all the information on their Ecuador program.  Unfortunately, due to changing circumstances in Ecuador, they had to close down their program and were no longer accepting applications.  We were very disappointed as the adoption laws in Canada have changed and you can no longer adopt on your own with a lawyer, but you have to go through an agency.

On Monday, November 9, 2008 I received an email from the Latin American program coordinator at Imagine letting me know that they have just re-opened their Ecuador program, but their requirements have become very strict from Ecuador's end.  There is many ways that this effects us.  

• You have to be married for 3 years.
• Both parents need to be 25 years old.
• For Ecuadorian adoption, the child will be no younger than 3 years old at the time they are matched. (Which means about 4 yrs+ when actually picking up the child).
• When going to pick up your child you have to be in Ecuador for 8-10 weeks.
• the adoption process will cost about $25,000 CDN and that does not include the PRIDE Training ($1400), the SAFE Homestudy ($3000) or any travel expenses - which is a lot when you consider being in another country for 8-10 weeks.

In Canada they have standardized the adoption process to include adoption training and the home study is done differently.  Those two things alone take at least 3 months.  Plus there are a million things that are included in the home study process:  financial information, job letters, references, police checks, psychological assessments, medical assessments.  And all of those take about 3-6 months to collect.  All of those things need to be approved by the Canadian government before it is sent to Ecuador for matching.   The great thing is we can do all of that before we are 25, and just submit it once we have both turned 25 (September 2010).  Once you have submitted everything to the country the process then takes around another 1.5 years until you are travelling to pick up your child.

In Ecuador it takes 3 years for a child to be officially "abandoned" which is why that is the minimum age the child will be when matched with their adopting family.  So the child could be between 3 and 4 at the time of adoption.  That is a little older than Jon and I had originally planned, which means that child could be born right around now!

Jon and I have already started researching little ways to make extra money and save it up too!