The Adoption Post

This is it. The adoption post. My goal is to give you a timeline of how we've gotten to where we are, and hopefully, give you a little education on what the adoption process looks like. Adoption can be a labyrinth of paperwork and errands, but it's also a labor to redeem someone. That, my friends, is a costly journey, and one worth the effort. But I could probably write more about that later.

January 10, 2012: Adoption orientation class with Christian Family Adoptions. It was after this meeting that we decided to go through this agency. We liked how they were  smaller, but well-networked. They were very straight forward about costs, and we just generally felt comfortable with the staff members that we met.

January 28, 2012: We mailed in our initial application and fee to CFA. 

Here we are with the initial stuff that we needed to mail in.

June 23, 2012: Waiting Families Seminar. At this seminar, we spent an entire day discussing adoption-related issues. We explored topics like racial identity, and ethnic hair care. We listened to a birth mother share her story, and heard from other adoptive families about what their experiences have been. We were in this seminar all day from 8 am to 5 pm. This is a required class with CFA, and part of the education hours needed as part of the home study. It was a LONG day!

June 29, 2012: We had all our documents ready to be mailed in for our home study. An adoption home study is a collection of documents. It has everything about yourself in it. We had to write a mini biography about ourselves, answer questions about why we want to adopt, parenting philosophy, our family, and our marriage. We needed to provide information about our finances and budget, as well as name guardians should we both pass. There is a criminal background check, and we also had to have current physicals with a document signed by our doctor rating our health. Letters from our employers were included, as well as information about our medical insurance stating when an adopted child would be covered under it. I'm sure there's more, but I'm just not remembering it all right now. You get the idea though.

Our entire lives, in one envelope.

Post office! A nice lady behind me in line was willing to take this picture. She was excited to help us document the moment.

 

October 25, 2012:  Last envelope to mail! The two final components of the home study were our reference letters and our education. Ten hours of education are required, and that came from the seminar as well as reading materials provided by CFA. We needed to answer questions about parenting an adopted child, and about some of the issues that can arise with adopted children- like questions that come up about why they were relinquished, why they look different than their parents, dealing with the loss of their biological family, etc. We needed to draw from the resources we were given.

We also got all our reference letters in. These were to be mailed directly to our agency. Once those all came in, we were able to schedule our first home visit.

November 7, 2012: First home visit. Becky, our case worker, came to our house, met our children, and spoke with us. She had some questions for the kids like what they thought would be different with a little brother or sister. She asked if they wanted to have a baby in the house, and what they like to play with. Becky used the things that we had already written as a launch pad for further questions about our marriage, parenting and our lives.

The home visit sounds scary, but all it really is, is a chance for the case worker to make sure that you have a safe home (there's a form that needed to be filled out ensuring that we have running water, electricity, proper living spaces, and smoke detectors), and to also get a sense of you as an adopting couple. Beyond the paperwork that we submitted, our caseworker needed to have information to best be able to write the "official" home study document that would describe who we  are and what our personalities are like.

She spent about 2 to 3 hours in our home, and in that time she took a tour of the house (led by Haddon!), interviewed our kids briefly, and did part of a joint interview with both of us, and did Casey's one-on-one interview.

November 20, 2012: Second home visit. Becky came for a second time to finish up what she started. This time she was able to look at the outside of our house, finish the second half of our joint interview, and do my interview.

January 2013: Final home study draft written, and photo books ordered! We got our final draft of the home study in early January, and then spent the remainder of the month finalizing our profile book. The profile book is a photo book that we put together to introduce ourselves to birth families. In it we include pictures of us, our kids, and our family and friends. We write about our activities, and likes and dislikes.

We were so grateful for the help we got to save money on ordering them! We needed to order 12 photo books, and they would have cost over $300, but with coupon codes and sale promos, we saved over $190! Praise the Lord! As of today, all of them have been shipped to us, but they haven't all arrived (though there may be more in our mailbox. We just haven't checked the mail yet!)

That's where we are. Once we get the books to CFA, we'll have a discussion with the director about some parameters in what we would be open to in an adoption. (There's a lot of things that can come up like lack or prenatal care or drug use and the like that has to be discussed.)

When there is a birth mother that may be a good match for us comes up, they will send us a "fact" sheet about her and the birth father, and then it's up to us to decide if we want to be "shown" to her as potential adoptive parents for her baby. If we choose to be shown, then it is up to her to decide if she wants to continue getting to know us better.

There you have it! The Adoption Post. Now you're caught up. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. We really want to be able to help people understand adoption more- as far as we understand things!