New Manitoba Adoption Policy for Criminal/Abuse Record Checks

A new policy has been put into place in Manitoba that adoptive parents need to be aware of. The policy requires that, when the adoption is brought before the court, criminal record and sexual abuse registry checks must have been completed within 6 months of the hearing date.

Many adoptive parents have these checks done when their file is opened with the respective agency, and are typically required to be redone on a yearly basis. This new policy means that you have to be aware of how old your checks are when the court date is finalized.

In our case, we had our checks updated in the Spring of this year. Even though this policy was only communicated last week (today was our court date), there was no grace period for those already booked…ergo, we’re now postponed at least another week.

And that “week” assumes that we can get expedited checks performed and returned by Friday of this week. It is what it is, but if anyone else gearing up for their court date in Manitoba is reading this, make sure you know whether you need updated checks done beforehand.

Santa: Lying to your Child, or Protecting their Innocence?

My sister in law and her husband decided this week to tell their three kids (7, 5, and 3) that Santa Clause wasn’t real, that it was really them. Their reasoning behind this was that they weren’t comfortable lying to their children. No report on how the kids took it, other than the youngest didn’t really *get* it yet. I actually feel bad for him the most since he’ll have no Christmases with the excitement of waking up to see what Santa had brought and checking that the cookies were eaten.

But, parents are allowed to make these decisions. For our daughter, we’re intending on carrying on the Santa tradition for a number of years. Ideally, she’ll just come to realize what’s really going on as she matures…the same way that she’ll understand about the world beyond her childhood realm.

I was thinking about the notion that propagating the Santa “myth” was somehow lying to the child, that it was a breakage of trust between parent and child. I think back to my own awakening to reality, which to be honest was a long time coming by that point (I was a very naive child).

It was Easter, and I was in grade 4 or 5. I walked into the kitchen while my dad was getting a drink of something, and he had the cupboard door open. In plain sight on the top shelf was the soon-to-be hidden chocolate stash, with the Easter Bunny obviously being the accused culprit. In that moment, I realized something: my parents had lied to me…there was no Santa, there was no bunny, there was none of it. I was devastated. I remember crying to my mom, asking her why she had lied to me. You might be thinking that my story should make me want to adopt what my sister in law has decided for her kids. But to the contrary, that experience was in many ways the beginning of my first real education about the world.

When I look back on my childhood, I have many good memories of getting up early on Christmas morning and being thrilled at what Santa had brought me. I remember Easter’s at my grandparents hunting for chocolates hidden all over the house. I also remember leaving a note for the Tooth Fairy asking for a higher-than-normal amount for a loose tooth so I could buy a toy (she left the tooth). Those memories leave more of an impact on me than the few hours I was upset at realizing what I really should have picked up on my own. In a way that experience forced me, as a child, to grow up a little bit more…to re-evaluate the world around me, what I believed, what I thought I knew. In a way, it was a first step to losing my childhood innocence.

When I look at my daughter, I see the value in that innocence though. Children today grow up so fast, being bombarded with marketing and enticed with toys, clothes, and programming that force them to face life circumstances far before they should. It’s us as parents against the world for control over how long our children stay children.

If my daughter ends up finding joy, happiness, and excitement in the myths and traditions that we associate with our holidays, far be it from me to rob her of those experiences.

The Value of Innocence

Wore camouflage on Halloween
A plastic bag, an M16
Door to door and house to house
There ain't nobody handing it out

At night it's cold
We sit and freeze
Running red lights in our Humvees
Never thought I'd live to see see the day, I'd be
Afraid of little kids playing in the streets

Well this ain't the woods behind the house
There ain't nobody screaming out
For you to come inside and eat
You're just holding your friends and watching them bleed

- Matthew Good,
Silent Army In The Trees

I was spoiled as a kid, and I got pretty much any toy I wanted: Transformers, He-Man, GoBots, Starriors, MASK, Visionaries, etc. I say pretty much because there was one toy that my parents never bought me, and that I would routinely get denied if I ever asked: GI Joe. I had friends that had GI Joe’s and I thought the toys were pretty kewl. But my parents didn’t budge. I never really got an answer for why, just that they didn’t approve.

Now I know why. Or more, I understand why.

At some point, my daughter will begin to understand how the world works. She’ll grow to learn about wars, hate, racism, poverty, drug and alcohol use, divorce, cancer, vehicle accidents, historical atrocities, kidnappings, thieves, liars, politics, discrimination…all the things that we as adults are aware exist in our world.

I was feeding my daughter this morning…she’s almost 3 months old. Looking into her eyes, I realized the value of innocence…how beautiful it was that this person I was holding had no grasp of the reality going on around her: the war in Afghanistan, the financial struggles of so many, the upcoming flu pandemic, the fear of countries with questionable intentions having nuclear weapons, etc.

Our children are constantly being pressured to grow up faster and faster. As children begin to engage in technology earlier in life, the dangers of exposing them to the reality of the world too early is heightened.

Its somewhat overwhelming. You want to protect them and keep them safe from all harm, and yet part of parenthood is easing them into the reality of the world, guiding them as they begin to experience and realize how the world works.

As a child, I didn’t understand the big deal about not playing with war toys. Now as an adult, I get it. I get why Halo 3 has an M rating. I understand better why, for the last year or so, I’ve thought it weird that more R rated content seems to be seeping into PG rated movies.

We, as parents, have such a better appreciation of what “innocence” really means and how valuable it is. We know it won’t last, but we can prolong its destruction by protecting our children from a continuously intrusive world for as long as possible.

Surprise Package from Nestle Good Start

There are tonnes of point programs available to new parents. Pampers, Huggies, Nestle Good Start all offer different programs where people can log on to a website and enter a code which translates to points that can be used towards products, sweepstakes, or coupons.

My wife set up something with Nestle after we switched to their Good Start formula and after signing up she was notified that some coupons would be sent. Great, nice gesture.

Well we got a package in the mail this week and it was quite the package from Nestle!

We got a diaper bag (complete with change pad), a bottle, a can of formula, a free subscription to Baby Magazine, pamphlets…oh yeah, and those coupons!

Very kewl gift and greatly appreciated (I had no problem using the pink-accented diaper bag my wife picked up, but its nice to have a solid-black-more-manly option now ;) )

How I Danced With The Car Seat Devil…and Won!

Nothing will frustrate a new father more than realizing he can’t seem to get that blasted car seat in tight enough! If you’re like me, you just assumed that it was going to be easy: put the seat or base in the car, loop the seatbelt through, and finished! But after trying to install two different car seat bases via the seatbelt in our Rav4 and having absolutely no luck with really securing it, I turned to the trusty internet.

So let’s back up first and cover off some important car seat points. You may find yourself the recipient of a used car seat and this may or may not be a good thing. For one, car seats have a relatively short lifespan. Due to regular use, exposure to heat and cold, etc., a car seat is only good for 5 – 7 years. Also, technology from early 00’s to today has changed (as we’ll see below), so you may be stuck with the archaic seat-belt installation if your seat/base doesn’t have LATCH hookups.

So with that said, my opinion is that its better to drop the coin (because yes, this stuff ain’t cheap) and get a new car seat. For those of us with newborns (and up to approx 50lbs), there are great travel systems available that bundle car seat, base, and stroller. We purchased the Chicco Cortina travel system and LOVE it! So many good things about it, but for the purpose of this blog post let me say the car seat base installation was super easy.

Let’s talk about installation. At first I tried to install my seat base via the seat belt method. I checked my vehicle’s manual and that was the only option it listed, so I assumed I was doing things correctly. The problem is that, for whatever reason, the seatbelt just wouldn’t tighten enough to hold the base in place properly…even after doing things by the book. If your vehicle was manufactured in 2003 or later, and you’re trying to use the seatbelt…

You’re doing it wrong!

Don’t get offended, just trust me. My car seat base visibly laughed at me as I toiled and swore trying to get this thing secure. But then, I learned about LATCH.

LATCH stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children and is mandatory for all vehicles built in 2003 and after. Two metal bars are installed just under the rear right and left seats that special, magical hooks can be attached to. I could explain it to you, but this guy does a great job showing how it works (and it looks like he’s using our model of car seat base too! Chicco FTW!):

Once your base is latched in, it will not move! Our base is now a permanent fixture of our back seat. If your vehicle manual doesn’t mention LATCH, it doesn’t mean you don’t have it. If you have a newer model vehicle, you *should* have the bars available. You’ll be able to determine it, in part, if you find identifiers on your rear seats showing where the bars are located (round plastic labels showing a child in a car seat at the bottom left and right of your rear seats).

So in summary:

- Loaner seats might seem thrifty, but you may be saddled with older technology
- Car seats have an expiry date that you need to check for any offered equipment
- To ensure your car seat is safe and technically up to date, buy new
- LATCH is your friend…seat belts are your enemy!
- If your vehicle was manufactured after 2003, you have LATCH hookups

Good luck and don’t let the car seat win!

Not Lullabies As We Remember Them

Taking a break from blogging about the adoption process to talk instead about children’s music, specifically for new born babies.

My wife and I have been looking on iTunes for some lullaby type music to download and play for our daughter. I cringed a bit when I realized that I may be downloading the same Raffi and Fred Penner songs that I’m sure I had on LP in my own childhood. While I have nothing against Baby Beluga, I was hoping there would be *some* new children’s artists that weren’t being pimped by Disney.

Luckily, we came across some amazing baby lullaby options on iTunes that, while I’m sure is part marketing-to-the-parents, are awesome: taking music we have grown up with or are listening to now and lullabying them! Below are two of the groups that provide the albums.

Rockabye Baby

Rockabye Baby has a fantastic selection of popular music that’s been babyified! Below are the links to each album’s page where you can sample the music.

Classics	Contemporary	WTF?!
Rolling Stones Beach Boys Beatles Bob Marley The Eagles Led Zeppelin Pink Floyd Queen	AC/DC ColdPlay The Cure Green Day Metallica Nirvana No Doubt Pixies Ramones Radiohead Smashing Pumpkins U2	Bjork Tool Nine Inch Nails (complete with a Lullaby version of Closer)

Some translate better than others. For instance, while NIN may *sound* like a cool idea, its hard to translate the music Trent makes into a lullaby with a limited set of instruments. On the flipside, Billy Joe and the other guys from Green Day make music that translates unbelievably well!

The Rockabye site lists the CD’s as $16.95 but you can get them all on iTunes for under $10 each.

Lullaby Players

I can’t find a website for these guys, but you can find them on iTunes by entering their name in the search. They have a limited and very varied selection of artists that they’ve converted into lullabies. For instance, there’s Jimmy Buffet, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Mathews Band, and Johnny Cash.

But to add to the mix, they also have a collection of Christian lullaby albums: Casting Crowns, Third Day, Jars of Clay, and Steven Curtis Chapman.

Others Available

There’s also other compilations available on iTunes by different groups, including one that does a hair metal collection featuring GnR’s Sweet Child o’ Mine, Poison’s Every Rose Has Its Thorn, and Extreme’s More Than Words.

There’s something very kewl about knowing my 1 month old daughter will be drifting off to sleep now with Stairway to Heaven crooning in the background. And for the record, while I did get NIN’s Hand That Feeds, I did decide to leave Closer and Head Like a Hole off of her playlist.

The Adoption Process Part 3 – The Home Study

Once you’ve selected your chosen agency and adoption type, the next step is to create your homestudy. I don’t know if this step is required for international, but our private adoption agency required it and I’m almost 100% sure that CFS required one as well.

The home study does a few things. For one, the adoption counsellor will be able to use the home study to determine eligibility and ensure that you’re a valid adoptive home. For another, you receive excellent information and guidance to get you started in the adoption process. Finally, you create a package that communicates who you are to a prospective birth mother.

So what do I mean by “eligibility” and “a valid adoptive home”. Part of our homestudy, which I would think is common no matter where you live, is to have a criminal record check performed as well as a background check to ensure you’re not listed on any child sex offender registry. Also, during the course of the homestudy the counsellor will actually visit your home a few times. They may notice things of concern or discuss any issues they forsee. This is a worst case scenario of course. The counsellor isn’t going in to nitpick and go through some parenting checklist. If your house isn’t falling apart or you don’t have 5 pitbulls running free in your living room, I don’t think you should worry.

You also receive information and guidance which is of great help for any adoptive couple. In fact, before you can do your homestudy you may be required to attend some sort of class or workshop. This was our experience for private and Child and Family Services homestudies.

Then there’s the part about the package communicating who you are. For us this consisted of letters to the birth parents, pictorial collage of us, and our filled out profile.

All in all, this process can take a couple of months…its not a quick thing. You don’t just pay money to get your name added to a list…there’s a lot of time, care, and thought that goes into creating a homestudy, and for good reason. As we’ll see in the next post, your homestudy is what your birth mother will be using to base whether she feels you may be a fit.

The Adoption Process – Part 2: Where To Start

You’ve decided to enter into the adoption process. Great! But where to start? Laws and regulations will differ depending on your country and region. I live in Manitoba, a province in Canada, so my experiences will be from our system; I would think its similar to others though.

There are three types of adoptions that you can have:

- Ward of the Province
- Private Adoption
- International

Ward of the Province
Wards of regional governments are typically managed by a child & family services branch. Children who are wards may be in foster homes or other arrangements.

Private Adoption
A private adoption occurs when a birth mother and adoptive parents arrange for an adoption to occur. In Manitoba there are strict laws that govern how this can occur to prevent any sort of inappropriate transactions (i.e. buying a baby). An adoption agency licensed to oversee adoptions is required to be part of the process. In Manitoba this organization is Adoption Options although you could also facilitate a private adoption through CFS if you wanted.

In addition to facilitating adoptions, Adoption Options also facilitates the sourcing of adoptive parents for birth mothers. I’ll have a post entirely on this process later in this series.

International
Children can, as we’ve seen with Angelina Jolie and Madonna, be adopted from other countries. Specific organizations facilitate these adoptions. I’m not familiar with the one locally, although I do know that there’s a large community of inter-country adoptive families in Manitoba.

Each type of adoption offers its own nuances, and depending on what you’re looking for will determine which agency you connect with. Note also that there are limitations on the number of open files you can have across organizations. For instance, in Manitoba you could have a file open with CFS for a Ward of the Province type and with Adoption Options for a Private type, but you couldn’t have two of the same type opened with both organizations.

Adopting a Ward of the Province
There is a horrible misconception about adopting from a government agency. Many people see wards of the government as problem children with various physical and mental difficulties. This is obviously wrong, although we do need to also be honest.

Wards may not have their entire family history, which is important for knowing medical conditions that could exist or appear later. Wards are probably living in foster homes, potentially multiple ones, and could have attachment issues. Wards may be older as few babies are available (at least in Manitoba).

The reason that a child enters into this system are varied, but to write them off would be a travesty. So why bother with private adoptions? Why wouldn’t people just adopt all the children from the system if they all need homes? The answer may surprise you.

The role of an organization like Child and Family Services is not to find adoptive homes for their wards; its to ensure that the children are placed in the best environment for their development. That *could* be a foster home. Also, adoptive parents may not be comfortable not knowing the medical and/or family history of a child and being prepared for what the future might hold.

Cost for adopting a ward is typically nothing as fees are absorbed by the agency.

Adopting Privately
Private adoptions happen with a birth mother agrees to place her child with adoptive parents. Open Adoptions have become the defacto norm, at least here in Manitoba. By Openness, we mean that the birth mother/parents meet the adoptive parents. The idea that the birth parents and the adoptive parents never meet or are never introduced is a dead one. Today, relationships are encouraged as is information sharing.

There is some expectation of continual contact, but those details are discussed and agreed upon between the adoptive couple and the birth mother/couple. The idea is that the more information that can be shared and available to the child as he/she grows can only help the child in their development…as well as being fair to all adults involved. I’ll talk more to this idea of openness in an upcoming post.

Costs for adoptive parents include having their homestudy completed, lawyer fees, birth mother lawyer fees, birth mother counselling, and agency adoption fees.

Adopting Internationally
Another valid option is international adoption. China and Ethiopia are two common locales for adopting a child from. As we’ll see in my upcoming post on the private adoptive process, culture and race considerations do play a role when deciding to adopt internationally.

Culture and race? Isn’t this 2009? Aren’t we past those things? Well, no. Or more to the point, YOU may be past it, but you need to consider your neighbourhood, your family, and your community in large. As parents we love our children no matter what, but let’s say you adopt a child from Ethiopia. What is the sentiment in your community to black children? What is your family’s? Are there positive black role models in your community for your child to look up to?

Regardless of how much race doesn’t matter to you, it will matter to your child when they realize that they aren’t the same color as mom and dad. This is a reality, as real for private or ward adoptions but more prominent in International.

With that said, I know personally people that have realized this challenge and have met it head on. This is not a deterrent or a reason to rule out international adoption, but it is a consideration when choosing your agency.

As with wards, you may not have a full family medical history for the child.

Cost for international can be high. In addition to the adoption and legal costs of the adoption there is also the travel costs as you will need to go to the country where your child resides.

My experience is with private adoption and the rest of the series will talk about the experiences in that process. Next up we’ll look at what happens in setting up your file with the adoption agency and creating your home study.

The Adoption Process – Part 1: Second Choice, Not Second Best

One thing that I’ve learned over the last almost three years is how much misinformation there is about adoption. I’ve heard comments suggesting adoption is easier than child birth, that people should consider adoption before having their own kids because of the number of children in the system, and questioning whether openness is a good, safe thing.

Over the next few posts I want to educate you on my experience with adoption: the process, the timelines, and the general experience.
So let’s start with the beginning: deciding to pursue adoption.

Infertility is something that many couples deal with, far more than you may realize. In fact, one statistic suggests that 20% of all pregnancies end prematurely as a miscarriage; that’s 1 in 5. And that number could be higher since some women miscarry without even realizing that they were pregnant. Many women will continue their life being able to conceive again, but there are many (one stat suggested 20% again) who will never conceive children of their own. There are fertility drug treatments and procedures that are options, but these are not always successful or feasible due to costs or other reasons.

To many looking in from the outside of infertility they may see a series of steps to move through with adoption being a “last ditch” effort to have a child. This could not be furthest from the truth. In fact, any sort of ranking for how one comes to be a parent is insulting and infuriating. Life is life, and however a child comes to find itself in your care matters not. Adoption is not second best, its a second choice…choice in how you receive your child, as valid as artificial insemination or any other procedure or drug treatment. There is no lesser value in you as a parent or in the child that comes into your care.

I mentioned infertility because it is a common reason for people to enter the adoption process, but its obviously not the only reason. Many people who are able to conceive naturally adopt children as well and for a variety of reasons.

Making the choice to adopt a child is not a drastic measure, is not a last ditch option, and is not second best to natural child birth. As you’ll see over the next posts in this series it takes a huge amount of love, patience, openness, honesty, perseverance, and fortitude.

Welcome to the Fellowship!

Just over two years ago my wife and I entered into the process of opening a file with a local adoption agency. This past July, our daughter was born and placed with us. With her arrival I began my journey into parenting and membership into a very privileged group of men: those that are fathers.

You may be wondering why I chose to name this blog Fellowship of Fathers. Well to be honest, some guy from KC got to Adventures in Fatherhood first (and hasn’t posted since 2006 much to my dismay). I also caught a bit of Lord of the Rings on tv this past week, so the words just sort of came together.

But beyond how fate helped choose the name, I’m hoping this blog will be an opportunity to connect with other parents (fathers and mothers) to share the experiences of caring for children and to have some great discussion on issues and topics affecting us.