Somethings aren't meant to be...

Last night I got a phone call from a dear friend of mine. She asked me if I wanted to adopt a one-month old baby girl. Apparently her sister called her asking if she wanted to adopt. My friend has a very sick little boy (as in life threatening illness) and isn't in any situation to adopt - but she immediately thought of me. So I get the call. I was thrown off right away! I didn't know how to respond.

Apparently, a young woman in a town about an hour down the road from us has had her one-month old daughter taken from her. The woman is unable to care for the baby, but the baby is healthy. The father of the baby is a 73-year-old man, so is unable to care for the baby as well. My friend's sister is friends with the grandmother of the baby and the grandmother is trying to find someone to adopt the baby.

As much as I want to just say YES YES YES and do it, I know that it's impossible. Here is why:

Presently, we are not in a financial situation that allows us to go out and buy everything that we'd need for a baby in a matter of hours. We are going to struggle to pay all of the bills over the summer, so taking on another mouth to feed, as well as legal bills, and baby supplies is not in the budget.

I haven't given the appropriate notice to my employer for a leave to deal with a new baby. At this point, I wouldn't be able to get the full year off because I need to give them a heads up that it would be coming.

We haven't been cleared for adoption by Social Services. We would need a home study, and complete application and we haven't done that.

Private adoptions in our province are against the law. You can only adopt a baby directly from the parents if it is a close relative. It is to stop people from selling their babies apparently. So, regardless of whether the mother is willing to sign away her rights or not, she can't decide who gets her baby - it's illegal.

It wouldn't be as if we would automatically get to adopt the baby. It takes months (if not years) for parental rights to be stripped. I can't believe for a second that any woman who has her baby taken from her is going to willingly give up her rights... so that would mean years of waiting while bonding with a baby and potentially have them taken away. Plus, the mother's rights may be taken away, but there is no reason to strip the father's rights apparently (it is only because of his age that he is unable to care for the infant).

Finally, I can't imagine that an adoption of a baby from an hour away, who's parents and grandparents know who we are, won't cause some sort of issues in the future. Honestly, I don't have much problem with open adoption, but when the child has been removed from the home against the will of the mother, that doesn't strike me as a situation that would turn out well for us in the end. I have visions of an angry mother showing up on my doorstep in a few months demanding her baby back.

In the end, I would love to say yes! I would to be able to just drop everything and get our family started, but both me and DH have agreed that for us, in this situation, it's just not right.