Hello everyone.
This story will go on a hiatus for at least a month. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to it in January, albeit at a reduced pace (3 chapters a week instead of the daily delivery)
I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the story when it comes out.
For those who are interested in the reasons, I'll explain them below.
The short of it is that I'm as of today a father of a little girl. She was born two months ago, and I didn't even know about it! ahahahaha. Funny thing isn't it?
The long story goes like this:
I'm 36 years old guy. I've met my husband 18 years ago, and married him 10 years ago. And seven years ago, we had that strange notion that we wanted to have children. We are french. 11 years ago, there were some changes in the french law, that allowed LGBT people to get married, and allow them to adopt. Surrogacy is still illegal here.
So, for those of you who don't know a thing about adoption, it's a long and tedious process. French parliamentary have decided that it must start with a 9 month inquiry, because well... pregnancy usually last 9, so what's the heck(true story). This inquiry involves two kind of people: a psychiatrist, and a social worker. Both will ask globally the same questions, and each will look for their own stuff in four meeting of two to four hours each. Questions are mostly about who we are, what we do as a living, how our childhood has been, who were/are our parents, etc etc... lots and lots of fun questions. My favorite one was "What are the feminine qualities required to raise children?" from the psychiatrist, in close contention with the second one "What would you do, if your 3 years old child wake up screaming like all hell got loose because of a nightmare - probably related to the burning that had happened in his earlier life", also from the psychiatrist.
All told, very fun questions. Very easy to answer to.
Once the inquiry is done, you get a nice slap on the shoulder and now you wait. Depending on the kind of adoption you're doing, you'll wait more or less. For example: if you're looking to be parent to a child that is already grown (let's say around 7 or 8 years old) or with siblings (two or more children from the same family), you'll wait less than if you're looking for a newborn. Because it is a bit tragic to say that but these children are less wanted. Let's not talk about children with a handicap, because it's even worse. Some people can look for a child in a foreign country, but, as of today, there aren't many children available for adoption in foreign countries. In comparison to ten years ago, when in france, more than 3000 children were adopted in foreign countries, today, it's less than 500. Besides, LGBT people can't adopt in most of these countries anyway so that's a moot point.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
When we began this process, we were told the mean waiting time was around 3 years. We were lucky, we waited only five years and a half, with a nice renewal of the inquiry after 4 years (because it's only valid for 5 years, and that's a full inquiry again).
And now, we come to the grit of it all. The adoption itself. I don't know how it is in other countries, but here, it's even more fun than the inquiry. We've received a call from our department (sort of county in France) yesterday morning, summoning us without any further information today. This morning, we went there, and we were received by that nice woman who asked us why we were summoned... OBVIOUSLY there weren't twenty reason for such a summoning. And indeed, she told us that a child was available for adoption, and that have been selected to be her parents. She gave us her name, her date of birth, and that she was in good health. That's ALL we know about her, as of now. She also told us what was going to happen next:
* Friday: we will meet with the psychiatrist to get coached on how to handle the first meeting. We will probably learn more about the child there. We hope.
* Monday: we will meet with the child (probably for an hour or less), and her temporary foster parents who have been taking care of her for the last two months with strict instructions as to what they can or can't do. Like, they can't hold her in their arms, they can't kiss her, or anything like that. I'm probably exaggerating a bit, but they have to restrict this to a minimum. They can only take care of her basic needs. During our little girl's stay there, she was under the supervision of the psychiatrist who explained to her what was going on, and that she was going to meet her new parents, despite being barely a few months old. The point is: she mustn't be traumatized by the whole thing, she mustn't attach herself to her foster parents, and she must be able to attach herself to us.
* Tuesday - Wednesday: We get to spend the day with her and her foster parents. To get to know her, and to get her to know us. We'll also be told everything that happened to her in the interim, what she eats, what she likes, any medical issues they've found, etc.
* Thursday: We take her home. THE END.
MEANING: Next week, we will be full-time dads. Joy. Revolution. And a very happy Christmas gift. And also a hefty amount of work and schedule changes.
I hope to be able to get back to writing in January, once things have settled down a bit.