Pregnant? Considering Adoption? We are here to help.
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Chad & Blair
OUR PROMISE TO YOU:
We promise to dedicate our lives to ensuring this little human has a life of comfort and joy, surrounded by love and support from both of us and our large, loving families. We promise to honour the interests that arise within our children and to help foster the skills and talents they are drawn to and not to impose our own interests and goals onto them. It is important to us that the members in our family work toward their authentic selves, however that looks, and we will do everything we can to facilitate this. We promise to keep this child warm, nourished and healthy, and to do whatever is humanly possible to provide the necessary care if poor health occurs. We promise to be fun, creative, and adventurous, and to show our children as much of the world as possible. We promise to be transparent about the child’s birth story, and the journey we all took to becoming a family and to present opportunities for the child to learn about and engage with the culture of their ancestors.
ABOUT US:
Chad has a supervisory position as a Social Worker in a hospital; he has worked in healthcare since 2016. He has an undergraduate and masters degree in social work. He is also a volunteer step aerobics instructor and has been instructing for about 9 years. He is interested in art, scrapbooking, and travel. Chad’s favourite book is The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as it tells a wonderful story about learning yourself and coming to terms with who you are, however different. However, he recently got hooked on a sci-fi book series akin to Star Trek, much to his surprise. His favourite movie is Set It Off (because who doesn’t love heartfelt, tear-jerking action films filled with female leads!)
Blair is an Animator, working in the film industry from a home office. He has worked on many major films such as Smurfs, The Mitchells vs the Machines, Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy. He completed his education online at Animation Mentor in 2014. He moved from New Zealand to Vancouver in 2015. Blair’s favourite book is IT and some of his favourite movies are Star Wars, ET, Rear Window, Beauty and the Beast and Magnolia.
We met in 2016 and had our first date at English Bay in Vancouver. We quickly fell for each other and married in 2019 in New Zealand surrounded by friends and family from around the world.
Adoption to us means building a family and giving and receiving the gift of love. It means creating a place to learn and grow and make mistakes along the way.
ABOUT OUR FAMILY:
We both come from large families, with many aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and niblings. We both value our siblings greatly and the special bonds between us and we hope the same for our children. While Blair’s immediate family is all biologically linked, Chad’s is not. Chad comes from a family made up of 3 fathers, 2 mothers and 6 siblings, some biological, some step, and some half siblings. This has created an opportunity for Chad to see how bonds and attachments can be very deep and strong, regardless of blood.
Blair is a New Zealander, part Maori, Chinese and Scottish; and Chad is a Canadian, part Scottish, English, Irish, and Tsilhqot’in First Nations.
Our daughter, Kora, is 2 ½ years old and was conceived via surrogacy, made possible by the generosity of a friend (egg donor) and Blair’s sister-in-law (surrogate). Kora was born in New Zealand, where Blair’s family is from. Kora means “little spark” or “fire” in Maori, the indigenous language of NZ, and it is also a phonetic combination of the surrogate and donor’s names.
We have no pets currently, though we will surely get a cat or a dog someday. Blair is more of a dog guy, whereas Chad prefers cats. Kora is into tigers, but I don’t think we can have one as a pet.
Kora is very creative, and draws or paints daily. She is fiercely independent and wants to do everything by herself. She loves to climb and balance, and she recently started gymnastics. She loves to be tickled and to be tucked in at night.
OUR HOME & COMMUNITY:
We live in a townhouse in the Clayton neighbourhood of Surrey, BC. We recently bought this home and we love it. We are making it our own and giving it our own personality.
Chad loves plants and decorating creatively so our home always feels cozy and funky.
We have 3 bedrooms plus an office for Blair to work. The spare bedroom is currently reserved for what we call the “maybe baby”.
Our new neighbourhood is perfect for families, and there are a lot of children in the complex. We are near playgrounds, elementary schools, a community centre, duck ponds, etc. It really is a lovely place to raise kiddos.
We’re both from Western cultures and participate in much of the traditions one would expect, like Halloween and Christmas. Given historical repression of indigeneity, both of us lacked exposure to the traditions of our ancestors. In adulthood we have become more engaged with these aspects.”
OPENNESS:
We appreciate how difficult it could be to not have a full understanding of one's ancestry. It is so important to know the roots from which one has been grown, and for that reason we are open to openness. This part of the adoption is certainly open to discussion and we are flexible.
With Kora we kept a detailed “Baby Journey” binder, outlining the details of her conception, which included letters and information written by the egg donor, so one day Kora will be able to read about her biological mother. We would pursue something similar for any future children, to tell the story of how they came to be in our lives.
Chad has also been a sperm donor which has resulted in a beautiful little girl - Kora’s half-sister. We have no rights or responsibilities to this child, but we keep in touch with them. It has highlighted how meaningful periodic updates and photos can be. It’s nice to hear how this child is doing in life. We would understand if this was important to the birth parents.
PHOTO GALLERY:
