I'm sorry I have gotten a bit behind so this entry will be a big one. There has been allot going on in our adoption world. With our homestudy completed we now have the difficult job of getting our names out there, so we have the best chance of being connected with a child.
Last Thursday we had an appointment with Michael Blugerman. We have been trying to get in with a Toronto area agency and he is the only one who we could get an appointment with. I have heard allot about him because he has been in the business forever and also facilitates international and US adoptions. Many people said he was a bit old school but overall did a good job.
Our appointment was at 2pm so we arrived about 15 minutes early to find his office locked and no one around. We waited until 2:15 and then I called to see if anyone would answer the phone. No luck. He finally showed up at 2:25 which is lucky. I am sure if he had been 5 minutes later we probably would have left. He was all surprised to find us waiting outside. He knew he had an appointment with us but thought his secretary would be around to get us started on our paper work. Not so much.
We helped him carry in his bags from the car and sat down for our meeting. I was surprised to find an ashtray on his desk with butts in it which confirmed just how old school he is. Overall we had a great conversation and he was realistic about private adoption now a days. He said at one time it was similar to a waiting list and you could see yourself getting closer to the top. Now with such a small amount of birth mothers it is more like a lottery. You never know how long it will take or if you will even be chosen. He said he had just been to a meeting and they said that only 70 private adoptions had been completed this year. Does not seem like much in the grand scheme of things.
We paid our registration fee and he said he would call us if he showed our profile to anyone. At least we are registered with someone in Toronto which is great. It is also nice to be connected with someone who deals with US adoption. We have heard allot about a rise in infant adoptions in Florida. We are not interested in pursuing that now but may in the future.
On Sunday we went to the Toronto Adoption Resource Exchange (ARE). The day did not start out great. We had stayed overnight at The Westin by the airport. Nic wanted to drop by the snowmobile show that was near by so we thought a night in a hotel might be a nice treat. We did have a relaxing evening but when we went to leave in the morning we discovered that our truck had been broken into. We had a bunch of items stolen but by far the most upsetting was my bag with all of our adoption profiles and information I had prepared for the ARE. We had not done a ton of networking at the Napanee ARE because we knew it might be better in Toronto. Now I had absolutely nothing to present to any of the workers. Even my notepad was stolen that had all the cards I made for us in it.
This experience was very upsetting for both of us. We looked all over the parking lot hoping that they had ditched our adoption information once they found it but we had no luck. We finally left the hotel an hour late, empty handed. It took us forever to get downtown to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre where the ARE was because of street closures. It was the Toronto Waterfront Marathon and all the major roads were closed. I of course had prepared for this and printed out directions and a list of all the road closures but all the information was in my notepad which was stolen. We eventually made it to the ARE a good two hours after it had started. Not the best start to our day.
We watched videos until the first break then took off to find Nic a coffee. He had not had one yet and it was close to 11am. When we were outside I checked my messages and there was one for a man I did not know. He said he had been out hunting that morning and had found our truck? Our truck was not stolen so I was a bit confused at first. I called him back and it turned out he just assumed it was our truck since it had our adoption profiles in it. How crazy is that?!? He continued to tell me he lived on a 6 Nations Native Reserve South of Hamilton and if we wanted we could come and get them or he would turn them over the police. We told him we would definitely come and get them we were just not sure when.
Nic and I went back to the ARE since two girls that we had seen in Napanee were coming up in the theatre. We watched their video and then talk to their worker to find out some more information. We also had a nice chat with our worker who was there as well. Then after some discussion we decided Nic should head to Hamilton and get our profiles. If he really moved he might be able to make it back in time for us to hand some out. I stayed behind and watched the rest of the videos and talked to a few more workers.
In the end Nic did not make it back in time for us to hand out any profiles but we were both happy to at least have our information back. Although we lost close to $500 worth of stuff in the theft and Nic's truck was damaged, the adoption information was by far the most valuable to us. We were both upset that we could not do the networking we wanted to but there is nothing we can do about it.
In the end we decided not to put an information request form in for the girls we were interested in. They sounded really amazing but we just had such a bad vibe about the entire day it did not seem like the right thing to do. Marie from the Prince Edward CAS said if we changed our mind in a week or so she could always do it for us then. We discussed it allot on the way home so I don't think we will but it is good to know we have the option if we want it.
So not exactly a successful day. I don't imagine I will get Nic to stay in a Toronto hotel anytime soon. Just a heads up to our friends and family in Toronto. You are going to be stuck with us on our next trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment