January 2018 is when we began the adoption process for kid #3 (as we lovingly refer to him/her when we pray for him/her). Everything started by moving along fairly quickly. By the end of January we had most of the documents in order that we needed and had almost completed our in class sessions.
We started our visits to complete our mutual family assessment (MFA) and were able to meet pretty regularly, about once a month. In June the process came to a complete stop due to concerns from our worker's supervisor. We were told that we would likely not be able to proceed. Our worker told us that we are one of the best families she has ever worked with and she was going to do everything she could to advocate for us to keep moving forward. Thankfully our file was not closed and instead just put on hold for 6 months and we were tasked with some extra training and classes if we wanted to keep moving forward.
We were so discouraged and frustrated. The reasons we were put on hold felt unfair. We decided to take a break. We left everything alone for a good 4-5 months, then we started to chip away at the extra tasks we'd been given. About mid 2019 we emailed our worker with our list of completed assignments and picked up from where we left off. She came for her next visit in July of 2019. We hadn't seen her in a year and a month. Unfortunately her workload was insane. The office was understaffed and overworked. We were at the bottom of her priority list, not by any fault of hers, that's just how it worked out. So we had one visit in July and the next one wasn't until fall, and the third one was February 2020. Also, a bunch of our documents we had completed in January of 2018 had expired so we had to redo those. Our last visit where we completed the MFA was at the beginning of March 2020. She did a walk through of our home and said once she got everything typed and put together we could come in and sign off on our MFA and officially be on the wait list!
Then Covid 19 happened. Everything shut down. We communicated through email and our MFA was completed and ready for us to sign but that just wasn't possible because their offices were closed. So again, we waited. Honestly this was almost the hardest wait. We were so close! Things were finally moving quicker and then again, everything slammed to a halt. Last week we got an email from our worker saying that we could meet in her office to sign off on our MFA! With Saskatchewan entering Phase 3, they were allowed back in their building again.
Today was that day! This morning we met and went through our MFA (30 pages long!) and signed off. We had to sit across the room from our worker and it was so hard not to jump up and give her a hug. Her supervisor was in the office today and she is signing off on it this afternoon, then it gets sent to Regina to the Central Adoption Registry and by early next week, we should be registered and in the waiting pool!
What a rollar coaster this has been! This adoption has felt like a fight every step of the way. Our worker even said we were admirable for sticking it out, she said not many people would be willing to go through all the hoops we had to go through. The truth is, I'm surprised we stuck it out too. I was ready to give up countless times, as was John. The thing was, whenever I was ready to give in, he pushed me through it and when he was feeling discouraged was when I was feeling persistent. I know this was not a coincidence. We have felt with everything in us that this is what God wants us to do. Even on the hardest days, we have been sure of this. I am so excited to meet this little one that God has picked out for us, because it has been a long road and we are more then ready to hold this child in our arms!
Please keep us in your prayers. We have no idea how long we will be waiting for. Our worker couldn't give us any kind of timeline because every situation is different. Also, because of Covid things are moving much slower. I'm just thankful that everything is out of our hands now and we can just sit back and wait for that phone call! I honestly can't believe that we are finally here. I have been guarding my heart and not fully letting myself believe that this is actually going to happen and now it's actually going to happen! There has been so much that God has taught me through this process (I could do a whole blog post on that alone) but the biggest thing is that His timing is perfect. One day we will look back on this and see that everything happened exactly how and when it was supposed to. I'm so thankful for His faithfulness to us, and His nudge in our hearts to keep going, keep going, keep going.
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