Christmas will have a new meaning this year for Nadine and Mike Booth.
They now have a two-and-a-half-year-old boy from Ethiopia named Seeley to help them celebrate the holiday season, the ultimate gift after a three-year struggle with a bankrupt adoption agency.
Full of energy, with a warm and inquisitive nature, Seeley has given the Booths a new focal point in their lives as he adapts to his new surroundings in a foreign country, where snow is no longer such a big mystery to him.
"He's slowly adjusting to snow but I'm not so sure about the cold," said Mike Booth. "A lot of people who don't know us can't believe he's only been here two months. He's meshed into our family like he's always been here."
In the summer of 2009, more than a year after the Booths first applied with Imagine Adoption, a Cambridge, Ont.-based agency that specialized in overseas adoptions, it filed for bankruptcy, pulling the rug out from the feet of more than 400 Canadian couples waiting for children.
"International adoption is such a roller-coaster ride to begin with, so you expect hurdles, but never one like that," said Mike. "You have to learn to roll with the punches."
Imagine owners - executive director Susan Hayhow and her husband Rick, the chief financial officer - have been charged with breach of trust, six counts of fraud under $5,000, and one count of fraud over $5,000. Police allege the couple spent close to $420,000 of the agency's funds on home renovations, luxury car leases, vacations and clothing. They appeared in court in Cambridge on May 26. Because there are so many couples involved, a lengthy trial is expected.
Having already sent close to $25,000 to Imagine, the Booths and 250 of the other families involved agreed to invest another $4,000 each, which allowed the agency to be restructured and eventually taken over by Toronto-based adoption agency Mission of Tears.
The Booths made two trips to Ethiopia. In June they met Seeley for the first time at the Adana Children Centre and made a short court appearance, as required by the Ethiopian Ministry of Women and Affairs, to determine if both parents are suitable for adoption. Three months later they brought him home.
Seeley is from Wolayta, the southernmost part of the country, and he was 18 months old when he was put into adoptive care due to the poverty of his family. Having spent the first years of his life hearing nothing but Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, Seeley is quickly learning English. The Booths spent 10 days in Ethiopia learning a few key words in Amharic to help them communicate with Seeley. They plan on bringing him back in five years for a visit with his birth family.
Mike, 37, and Nadine, 32, both lead active lifestyles, as regular competitors in the Prince George Iceman, and Seeley is showing all the signs he'll be sports-minded as well. As part of the screening process, the Ethiopian authorities required the Booths to submit a dossier of their lives. For the Booths, it led to a perfect match with Seeley.
"He's quick," said Nadine. "That's one of the first things they said to us when we first met him in June. He was very calm and quiet and relaxed when we first met him and then when we first took him into our care [in September] we saw what they were talking about."
The cost of an international adoption ranges from $30,000 to $50,000. The Booths have been through a lot of growing pains but the thrill and excitement of being parents is
showing no signs of wearing off.
"You can't put a dollar figure on a child's life," said Nadine. "It's been an amazing experience."
