The journey of adoption

The act of adoption is far more than just the moment a new family member is welcomed. 

Adoption is a journey: one that is often full of love and hope, but also comes with feelings of expectation and fear. 

So in honour of adoption awareness month, Now or Never is diving into the deeply personal, sometimes messy, ever-changing experience of adoption.

• Can you adopt an adult? It's a question you may not have thought a lot about, but Shannon Culkeen sure has. She's in the process of adopting 20-year-old Cheyenne and opens up about what it is like to pop the big question: "Can I adopt you?"

• Trying to find your biological parents or searching for the child you placed for adoption can be a difficult, emotional process. That's why, once a month, Marnie Tetz, Diane Herbert and Rob G get together with other members of the Forget Me Not Family Society adoption support group — to help each other heal. In doing so, they've created their own family with each other.

• What do you get when you put two sisters, two adopted sons and two adopted adult brothers on a mini-bus together? Just a typical family outing if you're Heather and Andrea Keno. The two sisters come from a family built around adoption and are now working together to show they have what it takes to raise an unconventional family of their own.

• Sandra Charlie didn't give birth to her daughter Crystal — her cousin-in-law did. But thanks to a long-established Indigenous practice known as kinship care, she has been able to raise Crystal as her own. Along the way, they're healing from intergenerational trauma and keeping their family and community strong. 

• Lenard Monkman has always introduced Bella as his daughter but now that she is 13, she wants to make it official. Listen in as they sit together and talk about what it would mean for her to be "officially" adopted.
   

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  Originally aired November, 2020