Reflection

I have been reflecting on the past 3 years since we started the adoption process.

Since we have lost our son Liam (still-birth) March 2005 , the brother we promessed Josh, it has been a difficult road. Both Sean & I lost our fathers within 2 months of each other , only a few months after we lost our son. My mother was hospitalized at that same time and almost died. That has also been a rough road for our son Josh. He was excited to be a big brother and so far this has only been a wish because we have no sibling for him thus far. We have had 3 miscarrages since we lost Liam and as I was going to be 40 years old at that time we made a decision to stop our trials at having another biological child & to adopt one instead. Sean & his sister are after all adopted & I have a sister who is adopted & my step sister adopted 2 children from Tailand. As we are more fortunate than the people in those countries of adoption, we have decided to request a girl and to give her a better chance at life & for her to enrich ours.

We have experience a lot of set backs since we started the adoption process, first with China and the expected travel going from 1 yr to 7 years. We then decided to cancel the adoption in China, loose over $8,000. and pursue our adoption with a different country. We researched different countries that Saskatchewan allowes for international adoption and Kazakhstan seem to be a great place to find our daughter. The caregivers care about the children as they would do their own and the country is very concerned & dedicated in finding the right families for their children. After reading some stories of Kazak adoptions, specially of Sally & Izak, we concluded that Kazakhstan was the right place for us.

We started the adoption process for Kazakhstan in late 2007 & since, we have experienced a lot of stress & disapointments. From the Blogs that I have been reading, it appears that stress & disapointments come hand in hand & is a natural process of international adoptions. After all, I have been pregnant several times with 2 full deliveries and one healthy child & we do know for a fact that stress & disapointment comes with pregnancy & childbirth. So perhaps this is the normal process a couple has to go through to experience it all. After all the big man up there knowns what he is doing.

In all I know that once I will be looking into her eyes, face to face, I will forget all the troubles & turbulence that came with the process just as a birth mother does about pregnancy & childbirth the moment she hold her newborn into her arms & be thankful that God has granted us the priviledge of having another child and to honor her birth-mother, who ever she might be.

Until then, I read about Kasakhstan as much as I can so I know what to tell her about her birth country and their traditions and hope she honors them in her own way.

Malory