Their journeys to adoption are as varied as the trails around Squamish. For some local adoptive parents the path was clear from a young age, for others the opportunity to adopt was a route that sprung up seemingly out of nowhere.
Each is a family with bonds as strong as any other.
The Squamish Chief met with three families living in the Sea to Sky Corridor who chose to adopt through B.C.’s Ministry of Children and Family Development.
To protect the privacy of the children, some whose adoption is not fully complete, the names of the parents in this story have been changed.
For single mom Karen, adoption was a familiar way to expand a family. Her parents adopted her brother when she was growing up.
But, since she wasn’t in a relationship, she wasn’t sure she would be able to adopt.
Then she met a single woman with a foster child and a light bulb went off in her mind.
Karen started out as a foster parent in 2012. The next year, a six-year-old girl was placed with her as a foster child. In 2015, the ministry informed Karen the girl would not be returning to her biological family and she was being put up for adoption.
“How could I say, ‘Nope, sorry, you have to move on,’” Karen recalled recently in her living room that is filled chockablock with toys from her daughter and her three-and-half-year-old foster son who she has had with her since he was born.
“For me it is about a child not having a place to call home,” Karen said.
For couple Sally and Sam the option to adopt came to them after they tried without success to have their own child.
They brought their now two-year-old daughter home in August.
“We are very, very lucky,” Sally said, her eyes filling with tears. “She is a very happy girl and came from a very loving place and so it has been very easy for us.”
Sally said at first she and Sam were worried about what unknowns come with adopting in terms of special needs that may arise with a child they didn’t create, but that fear quickly disappeared.
“A hurdle for us and for a lot of people, I think, is that these children [could be] damaged, but the love that you have for them when they become yours wipes all of that stuff away,” she said while sitting in her living room as her daughter took a nap in the next room.
“It quickly shifted from being afraid and not knowing to we would happily support her for the rest of our lives, no matter what her needs are, like you would with any other child.”
For single adoptive mom Vicky it was trips overseas in her 20s that led her to adoption.
“I did a lot of volunteer work with kids in remote villages in Nepal or street kids in Peru or orphans in Thailand,” she said. “I guess, like all kids in their 20s, I had the idea that I was going to save the world.”
Back in the corridor, Vicky investigated overseas adoption, but couldn’t afford the approximately $60,000 required. When she turned 34 she decided it was time to research other ways of adopting.
For families in B.C. there are three routes to adoption, according to Tanya Sinnes, Squamish’s permanency planning social worker.
There’s international adoption, domestic private adoption and through the ministry.
It doesn’t cost anything to adopt with the ministry and there are few prerequisites other than to be able to offer a loving home.
“You can be single, you can be same sex,” Sinnes said. “The only requirements are that you are over the age of 19 and have resided in British Columbia for six months.” There is also post adoption assistance, Sinnes added.
Two years ago Vicky met with Sinnes to find out more about the adoption process.
Six months later Vicky was matched with a two-year-old boy. She picked him up in March.
“For the first time in my life I feel like I am exactly where I should be,” Vicky told The Squamish Chief last week.
All three mothers said that children who come to a family through adoption come with some emotional trauma that needs to be acknowledged.
“There’s an underlying trauma that effects how they relate to other people,” Karen said. “Building friendships and making connections, there’s a trauma that effects that.”
None regrets their decision.
Vicky recalls when she went to meet her son during the transition phase from his foster family to her home and her son was waiting with his foster mom.
“As I am walking towards the house [his foster mom] says ‘Who is this?’ and he says ‘Mommy,’” Vicky recalled, adding her heart filled and she thought “Oh my God, this is so awesome.”
Currently there are more than 1,000 children in B.C. waiting to be adopted, according to the ministry.
To learn more about adoption, call Sinnes at 604 892-1408 and for more information go to www.gov.bc.ca/adoptbckids.
