Mom of two (2007-07-30)

(Originally posted on 30 July 2007)

Upon returning from holidays in Alberta, I found an e-mail waiting for me indicating that the court date in Ethiopia had proceeded successfully.

This means I am now officially Poppet's mother!

It will be another three months, roughly, before I will meet him in person and take over the job for which I am now officially qualified... That time will be used, on the Ethiopian end, to obtain his passport and complete immigration proceedings for his coming to Canada. (In another four to six months, the immigration process will no longer be necessary, as Parliament recently passed Bill C14, which will treat adopted children more like birth children, in not requiring their parents to sponsor them for immigration. Apparently some sort of process will be put in place so the government can satisfy itself that this is a real, legitimate adoption, and not something entered into for the mere purpose of bringing someone to Canada - an "adoption of convenience?" - but it should not be as onerous as a full immigration sponsorship process. Once the government is satisfied tha the adoption is legit, the child will be recognized as a Canadian citizen.)

On the Canadian end, I'll have to review the clothing and toy situation, get yellow fever vaccinations, obtain passports for all of us to travel to Ethiopia, do a bit more investigation into possible travel inside Ethiopia (to see some of his country of birth), and wait for news that Poppet's immigration visa has arrived in Addis Ababa, at which time I'll be able to book tickets. So we're looking at around mid- to late October for travel. Which is very much what I was hoping for all along!

Also on the Canadian front, it seems I'll likely be starting another new job in September. In mid-June, as a result of one of several job competitions I had applied for earlier in the year, I moved into a new job with a different branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage. It was a promotion, but only on an "acting" basis for 11 months, at which point I would have had to return to my original job (unless I found something different). Well, just before going on holidays, I was informed that I was in two separate "pools" for two other job competitions I'd been in. (The practice these days is to assess candidates agains the job criteria, and successful candidates are placed into a "pool," which remains valid for up to a year. There are more "fully assessed" candidates in the pool than there are jobs. That way, if more job openings at that level come up, with similar job criteria as those for which the competition was held, managers can staff out of the pool rather than running a new competition. This is supposed to make it faster to staff some positions, as well as reducing costs for holidng competitions. But the people in the pool may not actually be offered a position right away.) Both the pools I am in are at a higher level than either my "substantive" job or my acting position.

Upon returning to work, I found a letter of offer for one of the positions (which I was fairly sure I would get). If I accept - which I will do unless a better offer comes along - I'll start that new job at the begiinning of September and have about 6 weeks in it before heading off on parental leave!

Stay tuned for holiday updates and pictures...