VANCOUVER — A Surrey cardiologist returned to Vancouver on Thursday with her newly adopted 15-month-old daughter after nine weeks of waiting in Nepal for Canada to issue visa documents.
Dr. Salima Shariff and her husband Aziz Nurmohamed arrived with Sophia at Vancouver International Airport where they were greeted by family and friends.
"I just feel so happy," said Sheriff during the emotional reunion. "You know, all she's known is an orphanage and a hotel room and now she has an entire family and community waiting for her here."
The Surrey couple adopted the girl in Kathmandu, Nepal. She had been abandoned and brought to the orphanage when she was one week old.
Sheriff and Nurmohamed said it was frustrating being tied up in red tape for so many weeks. They had left Canada on Sept. 17 after being told by a Victoria-based adoption agency that Canada was in the final stages of issuing a permanent residency visa.
But shortly after they became the girl's legal parents on Oct. 5 in Kathmandu, they were told by Canadian immigration officials in Delhi, India, that Citizenship and Immigration Canada had not yet recognized the Nepali adoption process.
"You know someone dropped the ball somewhere," Sheriff said. "But what can you say? I wouldn't want another Canadian family to go through this, ever."
Sheriff said the holdup stemmed from a two-year suspension of adoptions from Nepal because of concerns about child trafficking.
Nurmohamed said the couple became despondent early last week when they were told that Canada still wasn't ready to issue a visa.
"We were planning on staying there for Christmas and that's just how we were looking at it: as long as it takes," Nurmohamed said.
"You're not going to leave a child behind."
Then last Friday, a Canadian immigration official in India told them a visa was ready for delivery.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office said last week the federal government shouldn't be criticized for doing its due diligence.
Shariff said media reports in Canada about the family's long wait in Nepal probably prompted immigration officials to accelerate the paperwork process.
"I think it definitely helped for sure. It seemed to cause the government to pay a little bit more attention."
Sheriff had sent Kenney a letter, saying that she was torn between her responsibilities as a new mother and a physician with patients and colleagues who needed her back at Surrey Memorial Hospital.
The cardiologist said she and her husband decided to adopt a Nepali child because as Ismailis, their roots go back to South Asia.
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