0:08 Well, now I feel like pressure is on. 0:12 For married couple, Mike and Lisa, the pressure to start a family is on. They've been trying for the past five years, but unfortunately, have been unsuccessful. 0:24 My name is Lisa Madiazie. I am 35 years old. 0:29 My name is Mike Capobianco. I'm 37 years old. From the beginning, we there was something this was something that we have discussed that being wanting to start a family together. 0:43 However, due to fertility issues, that plan now seems improbable. So they've decided to adopt, and they've been undergoing the process for about a year now. But it's proving to me more difficult than either of them expected. 1:01 There's a bunch of weird things about adopting in Canada that I've kind of come across as well. One is that it's provincially mandated. So even if we knew of a child in Alberta, who needed a home, we can't legally adopt them. It, it's frustrating, because if it was nationally mandated, like I was saying, then we would have access to kids all over the country, rather than just in our province. 1:37 Canada has a high number of Indigenous children up for adoption, but the government makes it difficult for couples like Mike and Lisa to adopt them. 1:47 There are stipulations and files of these kids that so for Indigenous kids, they want at least some Indigenous heritage which we don't have. 1:58 So what about international adoption? Well, that comes with its own set of particular issues, as well as a hefty price tag. 2:07 I don't think a lot of people realize is that with the international system, once you make an application for one country you are done. Then depending on which country, there are different issues with children coming out of that country and political issues and financial issues. Some countries want 10s of thousands of dollars, even just to look at your application. So we're thinking well might as well keep it at home, because there are kids here that definitely need to be adopted. 2:38 If the couple decided to widen their scope, the process of adoption could become much quicker. But for Lisa, it comes at a cost that she isn't willing to pay. 2:51 As someone who wants to be a parent, you always imagine that you're going to get a baby, you know. You don't expect to, like grow your family with a 13 year old. Right now, I think our limit what did we tell Marie is about five? Because five is still really young and I mean, we have relationships with quite a few children like with our friends and, and families and stuff. And I just think of my coworker, she has an eight year old daughter, and as much as I love this little girl, and you know, she is great, I know that if something happened to her mom, her mom would always be her mom. You know? I, I'll never be her mom. 3:46 So after all the paperwork is said and done now, it's simply a waiting game. 3:53 Basically, we've been told that we're looking at about a two year waiting period, if not more. If we're looking for an infant through the public system. But if we're willing to, you know, look at children who are a little bit older or have some a little bit weightier issues, then that kind of opens up the public system to us. So if you want this to happen, you need to kind of like let your guard down a little bit, open your gates open open your mind, be willing to do a little bit of work, and hopefully it'll happen faster, but it might not so.