We have been available to adopt for a year now, and we haven't yet found our baby. Any other suggestions are welcome. We are already registered with 4 different licencees and this website.

If it's legal to advertise in Ontario, go for it. Each province has different laws. For example, advertising for adoption is illegal in NB. I think you'd get better results in weekly papers and usually you can buy ads in a whole bunch of papers for a reduced price.

Another option is to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper on an issue pertaining to adoption. A reporter may decide to do a "news story" on the issue and talk to you and take photos. A reporter may even decide to do a story on adoption when they see your ad, maybe on creative ways to "find" a baby. You can't pay for that kind of advertising. This is what led to our adoption of Jack.

Word of mouth can work really well also -tell everyone you know, and even people you don't.

Chestercat, I understand your point about other members of the adoption constellation possibly being offended, but if I restricted myself to only doing things that didn't offend Anyone, I wouldn't be able to do anything at all, ever. There is always someone to dislike what one does.

And I'm inclined to think that perhaps by mentioning adoption in a paper it will raise awareness that adoption is an option for people. There is very little information "out there" for society to even know about it, and to realize that birth parents can now choose and know the people that adopt their child.

We have done a lot of word of mouth networking with everyone we know and with absolutely everyone we meet. They all ask "where are you on list?" when the topic comes up, like it is still 1960-something! Very frustrating!

We are definitely more than ready for parenthood...been ready for 7 years, ...and we're way over-educated for the pre-adoptive phase!!! I know there is always more to learn, but at some point we need to be able to put what we learn into practice. Real life is usually different than books and seminars.

I do apologize if this message is sounding very down. But, the length of time is really becoming too much to bear. And today my sister-in-law gave birth to her first child. It is wonderful, but at the same time very sad for us. She and her husband only waited less than a year for their family to come into being. Why do we have to wait for 7 years, with no end in sight???

Each year here there are a couple of special needs adoption awareness meetings where the social workers pool the information they have and present various files to families with completed homestudies. I know several people who managed to build their families that way, one of my former co-workers adopted an 11 month old who had been presented, and another friend managed to find two siblings.

This year's A.R.E. is on Sunday, April 27 at the International Plaza Hotel in Toronto. The Adoption Council of Ontario will have an education and seminar day on Saturday, April 26 at the same location. They usually have a lot of interesting sessions to attend, and it is a good day to network.

We have been to 3 previous A.R.E.'s. They are held twice a year. We have only submitted our name once, for twin boys just under the age of 3. But we were not selected, as they wanted parents with more experience.

To be honest, it is a difficult day. Most of the children have special needs. A majority have exposure to prenatal alcohol and/or drugs and suffer the consequences of such exposure. There are a few healthy children, but they are usually much older (12 or 13) or they are non-white and they really want the child placed with people of similar racial backgrounds.

I agree that those days are extremely difficult.

What makes it more frustrating here, is that a) the workers don't necessarily bring all the files of all the children in their area, the workers are so stressed for time and overworked, there doesn't appear to be a system to bring forward files after a certain amount of time.
and b) who gets invited to the sessions is again a somewhat random thing depending on which county you are in.

Topics might include open adoption, attachment issues, birthfathers, avenues of adoption, etc. You can meet other couples seeking to adopt, social workers, and they usually have a lot of resource books available to buy. Robin Hilborn is ususally there with his excellent Adoption Helper and Post-Adoption Helper magazines.

It does cost to attend, but the price is usually reasonable and lunch usually included. The big conference they had in November was very expensive, but this one-day event shouldn't be.