Our adoption journey...

“ He is an active child. Though he cannot communicate anything verbally, he follows commands and makes himself understood, but with continuous speech therapy, there is slight improvement. “   The above is an extract from our son’s report before we accepted his referral. We dwelled on it for some time as we were not sure if we would be able to handle it but after talking to the speech therapist in India who said there was a slight improvement we decided to accept him as our son. Why am I writing this post… two and a half months after picking him up he is a nonstop chatter box! It is true that in the first weeks he communicated with one word sentences but today oh my! Julian does not stop talking, he forms complete sentences uses past, present and future tenses and is so keen and eager to learn and repeat new words. Yes his pronunciation is sometimes a little off but my ears are already trained and I understand everything he says. I received some very nice advice from a good ...

The end of our Kerala trip is near... I can’t believe we’ve been here for seven days! Time seems to enter a whole new dimension when you become a parent; a day feels like five minutes. Kerala is beautiful and I wish we could stay here longer; we will definitely come back in the future. It is so peaceful and breathtaking. The food is delicious, the people are friendly, and although the air is more humid there is less pollution than in Bangalore. We had a fun week of swimming, walking, eating, sleeping and bonding. We made huge progress in the swimming, he has completely lost his fear of water and now loves jumping into the pool or going to sleep under the water with daddy. Every day things go better, we still have our moments though but they seem less frequent and they seem to pass quicker as well. He can still be stubborn and can get upset if we tell him not to do something but he seems to be more accepting now. This morning I checked on the tracking site for the passport a...

Yesterday I was chatting with a dear friend of mine who is expecting her first baby. Both of us have been on a long journey to motherhood. I think it’s pretty cool we are both arriving there at almost the same time. We were discussing what an emotional roller coaster this all has been. I look back on those five years and actually compared to what I’m feeling today those five years are really that first part of the roller coaster. When you take off and it slowly grinds its way up and you are full of anticipation. Today I feel I’m at that moment where your insides are twisted, your knuckles are white and there is a huge grin on your face because you are scared and excited and have no idea what’s coming. Today I’m at that point where my little cart is about to plunge down. The ride is only beginning... I’ve had more time to prepare than most but still can you ever be prepared? Can you ever read enough blogs, books, articles... I don’t think so because we don’t know how our son will rea...

This morning it finally arrived, the email we’d been waiting for such a long time... The adoption has been pronounced and we should start planning our trip. I can’t begin to describe how I feel. I feel like I’m in a bubble, it’s finally happening. Soon we will be with our son after what seems like an eternity.   Happiness, relief and excitement that we can finally say it is official. And the excitement and happiness is shared by everyone. Messages have been coming nonstop and everyone is so happy. It’s the end of one long journey and the beginning of another one even more exciting than this one. Am I ready? Yes I am... I know it is going to be a hard journey at times but I know I am not alone and with the support of my amazing husband, family and friends yes, I feel ready to love my son, to teach him how wonderful life is and to embrace him as my own. "Not of my blood, no genetic trace. No lineage known, no noble race. Not of my womb, but of my heart. And of my life, a specia...

Since we knew our file is going to court I have been suffering from positive adoption stress. I am so excited to know that we are on the final leg of our journey. Last week however we were asked to clear the issue of Raju’s citizenship. We had already researched this and decided that we would apply for Belgian citizenship for Raju. Initially we were asked to write a declaration to that effect, witness the signatures and send it to India. Piece of cake, Monday all was ready and posted. It was not to be this simple though... the court wanted an official document from the Belgian authorities that Raju will be issued with a Belgian passport. Positive stress immediately reversed into negative stress... where did I start! First port of call was our Central Authority who was of course unable to issue such a document but advised me to contact the embassy. The lady at the embassy was so excited about the adoption (kept congratulating me :))and explained to me the process of getting th...

We have a date! 5 th of November will be the first court date for our file. This is what they call a scrutiny check. Once we pass this, there will be another hearing. Hopefully we will only need two in total. I am beyond excited; it is so good to hear that things are moving. I am sure that many adoptive parents would agree that the bureaucracy is by far the most stressful thing. Perseverance is the message, in the end you will get there J don’t let it discourage you if a document is missing or gets lost. Many prospective parents ask how long does it take, but there is no hard and fast rule, every file is different. At the beginning I too looked at the official sites to see the official time lines set out but soon realised that reality is very different. So everybody spare a positive thought, prayer on the 5 th of November so all will go well. Don’t worry I will remind you on the day ;)

Welcome to our adoption blog. I hope our story will encourage and give hope to others on the same journey. It is a long and often difficult path to travel, surround yourself by people who believe in you and support you along the way. We started our journey 5 years ago when we sent our first letter to our central authority to enquire about adoption. One year later we had undergone our home study and we were approved for adoption. We choose to adopt from India, the desire to adopt was a long standing one and India seemed like a good choice. Here is in short our time line of adoption: September 2007: start of our journey December 2008: approved for adoption by our central authority June 2009: discovered our file had been lost in India January 2010: submitted our new file to CARA March 2011: CARA asssigned our file to the RIPA September 2011: we accepted the referral of Raju January 2012: submitted a new updated homestudy to CARA June 2012: NOC granted by CARA I will refer...