LO's Room Decor

Just a peek:

Yahoo!!!

Do remember this post? Well, guess what?

We just got our Sponsorship approval!!!!

The Privledges of A Biological Child

Recently, there was a hot debate on an internet forum (gasp!) about adoption. The conservation started out innocently enough, but quickly grew into something that can only be described as heated and emotional.

The focus of the conversation was how being adopted alters the adoptee's view of their families and life. The conversation went back and forth, until someone brought up another perspective.

How does not being adopted alter the view of family?

One person posted a link to this blog post about privileges the writer carries as a non-adopted person. I thought I would share.

Also, I can absolutely agree that these are privileges that I do not have. Nor will our child.

1. I can easily obtain accurate and complete information about my birth, including a copy of the official birth certificate issued.
2. I have never been expected to have an opinion about my parents' choice to birth and raise me.
3. I can criticize, critique, or express frustration about my childhood or my relationship with my parents without it being assumed that I am questioning our familial connection.
4. I am never asked to speak on behalf of all non-adopted people.
5. It is generally not assumed that my views on abortion or adoption have anything to do with my status as a non-adoptee.
6. I have access to at least two generations of my family's medical history.
7. I can be fairly confident that people will not praise or condemn my parents' act of bringing me into their family on moral grounds.
8. I can be fairly certain that unethical choices or illegal activity were not involved in my parents' creation of their family.
9. I can be fairly certain that monetary amounts were never directly or indirectly assigned to my gender, race, age or healthiness.
10. I can remain fairly oblivious to the experiences of first families and adoptees without feeling penalty in general society for such oblivion.
11. I have access to accurate and complete information about my life prior to my conscious memory, including my time in utero.
12. If I am struggling in relationships with my immediate family, I do not need to ask whether it is related to adoption.
13. If I am generally struggling emotionally, relationally or psychologically, I do not need to ask whether it is related to adoption.
14. Should my parents die, I do not worry that pension benefits or inheritance rights will not be assigned to me.
15. I do not see the process which created my family being used to promote such things as highway clean-ups or pet ownership (i.e. adopt-a-street programs).
16. I am usually in the company of other people who are not adopted.
17. I can expect that people will not have negative expectations about my behaviour or potential based on my non-adopted status.
18. I have never had someone question the authenticity of my family.
19. The various relationships in my extended family are reflected in greeting cards, books, television programs, movies and other forms of media.
20. I have never had my name changed without my knowledge and consent.
21. I have never had access to information about my genetic relatives limited or denied by state law or a private group's policies.
 

Wordy Wednesday

In honour of our last couple of weeks: 

In Russian, the word sick changes depending the gender it is being applied to.  

Sick (m)

bo-lin  ~  болен

Sick (f)

bal-na  ~  больна

Education Changes

Privet,

Recently, Russia has changed their education requirements. This is something that would have been managed easily in the past, however, there's a problem we're trying to figure out.

Many adoption education courses (aside from P.R.I.D.E. training) are available online. The ones that have been used by Canadians in the past are American courses. Now that Russia has imposed an adoption ban on the USA, the validity of these courses are being questioned and, quite possibly, halted.

Today, we were advised by our agency that we now require 50 hours of education, covering certain topics. Our previous training with the Province does not meet this need. We can not have our dossier registered in Russia until this requirement has been met. Unfortunately, our agency is unaware of a place of Canadian origin that can meet the requirements.

In order to address this, the agency is working with a Social Worker to create such a course. However, from inception to execution could be a very long wait.

Furthermore, the course would be run in another province. The option of video-conferencing is being investigated.

To add to the confusion, blogger friends of ours that use other agencies (some in the same region) have not yet been advised of this change.

At the moment it seems like a pretty substantial roadblock; one that is leaving us confused and uncertain of the next step. It's hard not to panic or worry when these roadblocks come up.

We know that the adoption process is long and drawn out and has multiple waiting periods over which we have no control. But when the rules keep changing, it's very difficult to have faith in the process.

We'll keep you posted.

Paka

The Flu, Blog Changes and Travel Routes

Hello everyone!

Adam and I are still sick. We haven't done much over the last week, but we've had plenty of opportunity read the journeys of others who have adopted from Vladivostok. And we've had many naps.

We added a new blog feature! We would like to draw your attention to the new tab above titled "Learning The Language". This will link to you to a sister blog called 'Pam And Adam Adopt Russian' (clever or corny?). We'll use this to post the Word Of The Day, the alphabet and anything else that may come in handy.

Yesterday we asked for your help finding a cost effective way to travel to Vladivostok and stay at the Vlad Motor Inn. We thought we'd let you know that the new price to beat is $5402.40! Although I'm pretty sure that's as low as it's going to get, it doesn't hurt to keep looking, right? Three return trips plus a week's stay in Moscow on the final trip for Immigration purposes - so we'd like to save whenever we can!

Thank you to those who have helped look so far!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Updates on our friends who were travelling Russia last week.  

Our dear blogger friend Candice will be travelling back to Russia in a month or so to see the judge. It's been a long journey so we certainly hope things will move quickly for a happy homecoming.

Our friend, K, whom we had met at International Adoption Training, signed the paperwork to formerly accept her referral. We wish her all the best and can't wait to hear about her trip!

So, How Are We Going To Get To Vladivostok?

Do you remember when many of you asked how you could help us on our adoption journey? Well, we need your help!

Since Adam and I found out that we're going to Vladivostok, we've been researching how we're going to get there and where we're going to stay. The best price we can come up with is $6334.06 from Toronto to Vlad with lodging.

We would like to ask our friends, family and readers if they could look around for the best deals. You may know of good resources we don't, and may have ideas that we haven't. :) 

$6334.06 is the number to beat folks!

First, let's look at the distance. If we cross the Atlantic Ocean and go through Moscow it's 13,054 kms aka 8117 miles. If we cross the Pacific, stopping in Seattle, USA is 22607 kms aka 14047 miles. We will stop just about anywhere, but anything more than 3 or 4 stops is just not realistic.
 
~ Our biggest concern is cost. The length of travel is a consideration (less than 30 hours is preferred), stop overs aren't a big deal and then there's lodgings.

~ There are a  number of hotels in Vlad, but where we will stay will be limited by: 1) what our driver and guide will be near, and 2) what is easy travel to the orphanage. We don't know what orphanage we will be lucky enough to go to, as there are over 86 in the surrounding area of Primorski Krai (the province).

~ In my extensive obsession with reading about adoption stories in the area, most of the people have stayed at the Vlad Motor Inn. There's no guarantee, but it's the best guess we've got at the moment. The Vlad Motor Inn has a restaurant and you can get rooms with a small kitchenette which is very important as I have a food sensitivity and need to control my food.

~ Also, we only get 7-10 days notice to travel. So there's no booking way in advance! We'll need to be there Monday - Friday.

~ Miles/Clubs/Points: Well, we started collecting Aeroplan miles last year and have enough to travel from Halifax to Toronto and return for the both of us (we have about 60,000 miles).  I say Toronto because a lot of searches we've done take us through there. Also, the # of miles needed jumps drastically when you use the points to leave Canada.

You can leave a comment on the blog or reach us by email at pamandadamadopt@gmail.com. 

Thank you everyone!