Whether you’re waiting to get pregnant or adopt, you won’t be able to count the number of times people tell you that it will happen when you least expect it. I hated hearing that but now I’m the one preaching to the choir as that’s exactly what happened to us.
On April 9th, I was at a work event when my husband called to tell me that we had been chosen by an expectant couple through an adoption agency we had registered with. The event I was at was a concert and I could barely hear him. All I heard was we would hopefully meet the couple within the next week and that they were due April 22nd. I immediately hopped in a cab and booted it home to find out more. We spent an hour on the phone with the agency and left it that the agency would confirm when we would meet the birth couple. How could we sleep after this news? What if they didn’t like us once we met them? I need to give my work the heads up but how do you explain when (in Canada), birth parents have 28 days to change their minds and decide to parent their child? These were just some of the thoughts running through my head.
The day before we were set to meet the couple the birth mother went into labour (1 week early). We found out the news on the day we were supposed to meet the couple and ended up meeting them in the hospital later that night. It was a great, though extremely emotional meeting, but we instantly liked them and their families. We also got to meet the beautiful baby boy which I will always remember and cherish.
Then the hard yet exciting part began. Everything had happened so fast that we didn’t have ministry approval to bring our baby home. He went to an amazing foster family for just under 3 weeks where we visited him a lot. So in 3 weeks we had to assemble a nursery, I had to wrap things up at work and we had to figure out things like formula but luckily we had the amazing expertise of the foster couple plus our family and friends to guide us. Not to mention, we’d been scheduled to go on a family trip shortly after but were more than happy to cancel it for our sweet, sweet son.
In Ontario, birth parents sign consents approx. 8 days after their baby is born and from that date there is a 21 waiting period where the birth parents can revoke consent. During the waiting period we kept the news of our son very quiet which was extremely hard for how open a person I am and that fact that we were finally parents. We had so much love for this baby boy but knew that it could disappear at any second during the waiting period.
I never liked the idea of our son going into foster care in the beginning but it was such an amazing couple and it did make the waiting period slightly easier. Once we got him home we had just 10 days left.
May 15th was THE DAY for us to officially be parents and shout our news from the rooftops. We are so blessed that everything worked out perfectly and we couldn’t love our bundle of joy any more than we do. We were all set to celebrate with a nice dinner and champagne but the build up was too much for me and I ended up in bed at 7pm for the night lol. So we celebrated with family that weekend instead.
It all still feels a bit surreal that our dream finally came true and how fast everything happened. Our son is the most precious gift ever and we couldn’t be happier. We are so thankful to the birth parents and their families and are very excited our son will get to know all of them and how much they love him through an open adoption. It really is true that it will happen when you least expect it and will be better than you’d ever imagined!
About the Author
Shannon Talbot is an Adoptive mom of beautiful baby boy living in Toronto, Ontario, wife of 5 years to an amazing man, marketer by trade, bilingual in Spanish, dog lover with 4 year old beagle and blogger who loves sharing my story to help others through infertility and adoption.
