Our Journey So Far

Let me forewarn you that this is going to be long, so hopefully you have time to read!

We started the adoption process (filling out the application) in March. We were promptly approved and we had our all-day adoption class on April 18th.

I was obviously a little nervous for the adoption class. Everything ran through my mind. "What would the class entail?" "Who else would be there?" "Why is it ALL DAY?" "How many other PAPs (Prospective Adoptive Parents) would be there?". We arrived at 9:20 (class started at 9:30) and took a seat at the conference table in our agency's office. There was a packet of information along with a book for us. Looking around the table I realized that there would only be one other couple with us. The other couple arrived (a husband and wife who looked to be around our ages, maybe a few years younger). Then one of the social workers came in and started the class.

Since this class was about 5 months ago, I'll admit (don't show my social worker this!) that I don't remember everything we went over in the class. We obviously went over information about what to expect with this adoption journey (fees, laws etc.). Some of the other things we did were pair up (boys vs. girls) and we had to talk over what we're missing by not having biological children and what we're gaining and also what we're missing and gaining by adopting. One of the things that I remember vividly (and I feel one of the most important things) was learning about the Adoption Triad. I'm not going to go into in detail about what every part of it means but you get the idea from this image:




We got a break halfway through the day and we went out to lunch with the other couple. We got to talk to them and find out what lead them to adoption and we talked a little about our journey as well. It was nice getting to know someone going through the same difficulties and emotions as us.

After we got back from lunch we met a local birthmother who had just given birth and made an adoption plan for her son a few months before. We listened to her story and I was completely in love with her! She is such an amazing young woman and all I could think was that I can only hope that our birthmother is as amazing as she is!

At the end of the class we made an appointment to go back next week to start our home study.

The home study...Ugh... just remembering the home study makes me slightly freak out. There was SO MUCH PAPERWORK! I still can't believe that somehow we got through it all. It took months for us (about 3 to be exact) to complete. Here's just a brief overview of what we had to do/fill out:

• fingerprinting/FBI and child abuse clearances
• tax reports for both of us for the last 10 years
• child abuse clearances for both of us
• copy of the deed to our house
• paperwork on all of our bills, income and savings/stocks/bonds etc.
• our high school or college diplomas
• we both had to get physicals
• and the hardest part... an autobiography for both of us

The autobiography was hard. VERY hard. There were so many questions about every part of our life. What are parent's names are. How we grew up. Where we grew up. How we were punished. Where you met your husband/wife. How long you dated. Those were the easy questions because they happened. The hard ones were: how do you plan on parenting (my first thought was "I'll tell you that AFTER I've parented". Questions like that also bothered me because those who are pregnant don't USUALLY think/talk about things like that, so why do we have to?) have you ever thought of a childless life. And even things about our marriage like: what are the strengths of our marriage, what are the areas for improvement, and how do we get along with our in-laws.

I wrote my autobiography while on vacation over our anniversary. It took me about 3 days to do and I wrote around 35 back-to-back pages. Then I had to go home and type it all!

After we got all of our paperwork done, we handed it in to our social worker. She read it all over then she came to our house for the actual home study part of the home study. I was a bit nervous but it was really nothing. She came in, sat down with us at our dining room table and just went over the home (i.e. town house with 3 bed, 1 1/2 bath, walk out finished basement etc.). Then she toured our house. That's it. Done. She said we were approved at the end of the home study and it would take her about 4 weeks to write up the paper work for us.

So what's next for us you ask? Well, surprisingly, the easy stuff is done and now comes the hard stuff! First of all, we need to raise/save/get in some way, $25,000 . This is the amount of cash we need available to us at a moment's notice before we can proceed (if you are one of those amazing people who would like to donate to our cause, we have a donate button through paypal in the upper right side of the screen... we swear that ALL of the money we raise will go toward our adoption!) We also have to create our profile (a 10 page booklet for the birth families to view), a video for the birth families (YIKES!)and we need to fill out our profile key.

Our profile key in and of itself is tough. It has basic info like what religion are we, what religion are we going to raise our child, how much time off work are we going to take, what type of care will the child have (daycare, family, full time stay-at-home parent) but the hardest part to fill out is the drugs and alcohol. Each section is broken up into drugs, and then broken up into trimester. So we could say we're ok with the birthmother drinking 1-2 drinks in her first trimester only. Or we're ok with heroin use throughout her entire pregnancy. Don't get me wrong when I say "we're ok with" these senarios. We're totally NOT ok with them. Actually, that's one of the things I've been struggling with the most throughout this process. I have NO control over what the birthmother does. Of course, If I were pregnant I wouldn't be doing any drugs or drinking at all and it really hurts me to have to relinquish the control over that as well as "be ok with" it. Its just so hard to decide what senarios we're willing to accept and which ones we're not.

Once we get the money, our profile, video and the profile key done THEN we can go into the books and officially be "waiting". Once we are waiting we can get called at any moment. Some people get called within a few days, some take a year or so. It really all depends. The two possible senarios for us are: 1. we get called with a birth mother who is still pregnant and is due in a few months. At that time, we would most likely meet the birth mother to see if we're a match. If we are a match... then we just wait until the baby is born. The other way is: 2. we get a call that says "you were just matched to a birth mother and your baby was born. Come to so and so hospital within 24 hrs to get your baby". At that point we need to get everything we need for a two week stay (if it is in another state) and travel to meet our new baby.

So that's where we are. For the most part we're caught up on what we've done and the technicals of everything. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!