It’s holiday time for most of Europe, especially in Finland where everyone one migrates to their summer cottages a.k.a. Mokki (it should have an O with Umlaut but my daughter’s Italian computer doesn’t seem to have O with dots).
A new week of holiday has started for us too but as a long term expat, I end up using all my holiday money for Christmas and Easter to fly back home. As a family of two, grandparents are an important part of our lives especially for my daughter. She loves spending time with Nonni (grandparents) even more at Christmas, as she gets double presents.
July is when I usually book our Christmas’s trip back home. This year, as I was punching the keys to the skyscanner URL, I paused and wrote this post instead.
I just realized our lives have been put on hold. Since the dossier has reached Kenya (has it?) we have been waiting to receive the so much awaited approval, followed by a child referral, followed by our move to Kenya.
What if it happens during Christmas holiday? wouldn’t you just love that. Even the thought of becoming a mother for the second time, sharing the happiness of my daughter becoming a sister for her first time, puts a smile on my face 🙂
Isn’t this holding just a very small price to pay in exchange for the great joy of extending your family? who wouldn’t love that!
Instead of Christmas with grandparents you get the amazing opportunity to spend it with your new family member. Stop your current life, drop all you are doing and start your new life: super exciting.
Adoptive parents know what they are signing into when they enter into an adoption’s ‘contract’. More or less they are ready to anything. And that’s what makes it difficult for the other family’s members. Will they understand what you’ve signed into? Will my daughter be fine if the call to move to Kenya comes right before her school trip that she has so long awaited for? Will her grandparents be happy to spend Christmas without her or me for the sake of a new unknown family member…
Christmas comes every year the same day, at least in those countries where it’s celebrated. School starts and ends more or less around the same times.With internet I can well find out when school starts in Kerala if I so wish. I can find our what is rush hour in Jakarta if I so wish.
Half of this planet works, goes to school, has holiday, sports and we follow routines. It’s safe to say that all over Europe every adoptive parent’s child is off school. Did I guess? It’s also safe to assume that all Kenyans children who attend school are not on holiday. Did I guess again? So says internet. I don’t have a crystal ball. I have just searched it.
So how come, in such highly informed and technologically driven world, where every company has learnt how to plan ahead and make Panettone Christmas cake magically appears on the shelves of Italian supermarkets right on time for Christmas celebrations, adoptions procedures are still in the stone age of process and procedures?!
-No list of documents is ever turned into a complete list of any kind: couples got rejected with reasons which were never even mentioned in the pre-requisites list to adopt. Rules are changed on the go. The finishing line has wheels on.
-No waiting time is ever planned, discussed or even allowed to be guessed.
-No guarantees given that you will be approved by the local adoption committee, although you have been already heavily pre-screened for years from your local social services and actually approved!
It’s just like waiting behind a door to a room you don’t know if someone will ever open nor once it finally gets opened, how long you will be staying in the room! My point being does our adoptive parents life really need to be on hold? could this adoption procedure actually be orchestrated a bit better, maybe with the help of technologies?
European are on holiday in June/ July/ August they can easily move to Kenya causing less stress to an existing child in the family or to extended family members. Is it really that difficult to plan which countries should be approved in which months? or how many dossier per licensed agency should be approved per committee meeting? So many things I would change if I could be part of the adoption procedures’ process, but I am not.
A long time ago whilst I was waiting for the adoption of my daughter, the company I was working for was having the Nth re-structuring plan. I felt my whole life was in the hands of someone else. My private life, my working life, I felt I couldn’t control anything but in fact I could. I took control, I made my decisions, I stopped waiting. Now that I have a daughter, I owe it to her too. Our lives, our happiness cannot be in the hands of someone else.
Our hearts might be on hold to share the love with the new comer… but our lives must go on: I booked our flights home for Christmas…