Emotional Pain Part #1

   Last blog post was about physical pain.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to blog about emotional pain.

   So, here we are…

   This is kind of a long story… taking place over the last 8 years.  I’ll try and keep it relatively concise, but I also kinda need the outlet.

   My wife and I always wanted a child, that was part of the plan when we got together.  We bought our house, with the extra room, in hopes that there’d be a child in that extra space.

   Over time, we realized the way to make that happen, was to adopt.  In January 2010, we attended what they call an adoption intake meeting and met Children’s Aid Society personnel and started going through the steps outlined by CAS.  Each step costs money, because of everyone signing off on us and the paperwork involved… the bank, the doctors, the police checks… everything costs money.  Fine.  No problem.   If that’s part of the process, cool, we’ll do it. 

   Then, my wife and I lost our jobs.  The same time, the same day.  As wacky as that sounds, it’s the truth. 

   I contacted our rep and Children’s Aid and explained that we needed to put this adoption process on hold.  We can’t really bring a child into our house with both of us out of work.  So, our file was put on hold until we were able to get our employment situation stabilized.  

   Four months later, we both had new jobs.  I contacted CAS again, and told them the good news.  They reopened our file and we got back into the adoption process. 

   Then my wife got pregnant!  Well, we chatted with our rep again at CAS, it was recommended that we put the adoption process on hold again.  Sadly, that pregnancy ended up in another miscarriage.   I contacted our CAS rep again, to get things rolling again.  Our Children’s Aid representative replied exactly:

   I am so sorry to hear that your wife had a miscarriage and you have my sympathies.  Please take all the time you need and don’t worry about having your file closed.   It really sounds like you have been through a lot lately and understandably need some time.  I will wait to hear from you keeping in mind that you want to complete your probation period and needing time to heal.

   I called her on the phone and asked her if this was the best course of action.  She explained with us losing our jobs, and the miscarriage in a relatively short period of time, we really needed to take time and properly heal before bringing a child into our home.   Ok, that kinda made sense.   Enough with the on again, off again as far as our file was concerned. 

  

   So, after we stabilized our jobs, and healed as best we could, I reached out again to our CAS rep.  Once again, let’s get back on track and really focus on getting this adoption done!

   Our rep replied that our file was closed and we’d have to start all over from the beginning!   Losing any paperwork, money spent and momentum.  Everything gone and having to start all over from scratch.

   To this day, I still haven’t gotten over the fact that our rep, in writing, told us to take a break, take time to heal, and not to worry about having the file closed and then did exactly that, closing our file!   It was their idea to take a break, and then they close the file on us?  Not cool. 

   My wife and I were just really emotionally spent.  Most people wouldn’t understand the emotions we went through during that process.  On again, off again.  Back and forth.   At the time, it was the most emotionally draining time in my life.  We decided, maybe it just ‘wasn’t meant to be’.

   ...and that's where I'll stop the therapeutic note of... let's call this Emotional Pain Part #1 ... to be continued...  

#torontoCAS