Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Updated pictures of our treasure - Gracie!
Here are a few updated pictures of our beautiful daughter Gracie! I can't believe that she will be four years old in April. Where does the time go? She is no longer a baby -- but a beautiful little woman!
Monday, December 04, 2006
An update from our agency
We spoke to our agency today, to seek further clarification. Here is what they said:
We brought the problem of log in dates to CCAA’s attention and requested that files be matched in the proper order of log in date, essentially so our families/groups be matched in order sent CCAA indicated they would consider our request, but we did not know what had been decided until the referrals arrived in the office. In matching the groups it did this month, CCAA evidently looked only at the Ontario CB files. I appreciate that this caused no end of confusion and upset for out of province families, aggravated by my not explaining this clearly in the update.
There is no way I can rectify what has happened. What we can and will do is to urge CCAA to match the next families in waiting before Christmas, if at all possible. We have no idea if we will be successful, but we will try.
We are still praying that we will get our referral in time to travel with the rest of our group.... but given our luck lately, I won't be banking on it!!!
We brought the problem of log in dates to CCAA’s attention and requested that files be matched in the proper order of log in date, essentially so our families/groups be matched in order sent CCAA indicated they would consider our request, but we did not know what had been decided until the referrals arrived in the office. In matching the groups it did this month, CCAA evidently looked only at the Ontario CB files. I appreciate that this caused no end of confusion and upset for out of province families, aggravated by my not explaining this clearly in the update.
There is no way I can rectify what has happened. What we can and will do is to urge CCAA to match the next families in waiting before Christmas, if at all possible. We have no idea if we will be successful, but we will try.
We are still praying that we will get our referral in time to travel with the rest of our group.... but given our luck lately, I won't be banking on it!!!
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Moving past this mess...
I am telling myself that I have to move past what has happened to us (and 3 other NL families) over the past few weeks and focus on something more positive -- GRACIE! Gracie has been with us for 1.5 years, and we can not wait for her adoption to be finalized. She is the light of our lives. Here is a recent picture. Isn't she the most precious and beautiful little girl? We love her sooo much!!
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Just when we thought things could not get worse...
As you are aware from my previous post, we were notified last week that we will not be getting our referral this month, as our LID had been changed from September 3rd to September 13th. Since the cut-off was September 8th, we had to wait until after Christmas to see our daughter's face. We were devestated, but sort of understood. You see, we are from Newfoundland and our file was logged in at a different time than the rest of our group (group 243) from Ontario and other provinces. We were logged in September 3rd, and the rest of our group was logged in September 14th. There was a mix-up at CCAA in September 2005 which resulted in them logging files in the wrong order. The group behind us at our agency (group 244) was actually logged in ahead of us on September 7th. Adjusting our LID to September 13th has placed us more in line with our group 243 .... but still behind group 244. It was hard to swallow, but we had to live with it.
Last night, we received a newsletter from our agency, which stated the following:
Referrals have arrived for groups 242-244! Congratulations to all the happy families. On the CCAA website it notes that files registered up until September 8th were matched. In fact group 243 was registered September 14, 2005, after group 244. There was a problem at CCAA during September 2005 resulting in some files being delayed in registration. Our groups were, in fact, logged in out of order. CCAA very kindly agreed to match all three groups.
Can you imagine our excitement???? The CCAA had decided to provide all of the groups with their referrals because of the error last fall. Yiiippppeee, we were so happy and excited! However we should have known better. When we checked with our agency, we were advised that the CCAA did not make this exception for the Newfoundland families (there are 4 Newfoundland families in this group with the exact same story, LID, etc.). We are so angry and hurt. Why would the CCAA include all of group 243 and exclude the NL families? That does not seem fair. Our LID is now actually one day ahead of the rest of our group.
It has been the most emotional week. Last week we were waiting for our referral (LID September 3) and we told ALL of our friends and family (big mistake). Our agency emailed us and said that our LID had changed to Setember 13th and to not expect a referral this month. We were devestated. Then yesterday our agency emailed the groups to say we were indeed getting our referral this month. And then hours later told us that we were not getting our referral this month. I am just about ready to crack.
To make matters even worse, the next group with our agency is not expecting their referrals for many months, so if we do indeed get our referral in January, we will have no group to travel with (except for the NL families who are equally affected). I am absolutely numb now.
Last night, we received a newsletter from our agency, which stated the following:
Referrals have arrived for groups 242-244! Congratulations to all the happy families. On the CCAA website it notes that files registered up until September 8th were matched. In fact group 243 was registered September 14, 2005, after group 244. There was a problem at CCAA during September 2005 resulting in some files being delayed in registration. Our groups were, in fact, logged in out of order. CCAA very kindly agreed to match all three groups.
Can you imagine our excitement???? The CCAA had decided to provide all of the groups with their referrals because of the error last fall. Yiiippppeee, we were so happy and excited! However we should have known better. When we checked with our agency, we were advised that the CCAA did not make this exception for the Newfoundland families (there are 4 Newfoundland families in this group with the exact same story, LID, etc.). We are so angry and hurt. Why would the CCAA include all of group 243 and exclude the NL families? That does not seem fair. Our LID is now actually one day ahead of the rest of our group.
It has been the most emotional week. Last week we were waiting for our referral (LID September 3) and we told ALL of our friends and family (big mistake). Our agency emailed us and said that our LID had changed to Setember 13th and to not expect a referral this month. We were devestated. Then yesterday our agency emailed the groups to say we were indeed getting our referral this month. And then hours later told us that we were not getting our referral this month. I am just about ready to crack.
To make matters even worse, the next group with our agency is not expecting their referrals for many months, so if we do indeed get our referral in January, we will have no group to travel with (except for the NL families who are equally affected). I am absolutely numb now.
