Week 2 Progress

Now that we are in the second week of our adoption process (and homeschooling, which means my days have been busy!), I've begun to feel a bit of pressure to make some significant progress. Unfortunately, the to do list is long and rather intimidating at this point, so it's hard to figure out where to start. I decided the most important next step would be to establish some contact with our social worker (the person in charge of our home study, who will ultimately decide whether or not we are "fit" to adopt) to find out what part of the home study we should tackle first. I wish I had called her last week! She was such a sweet, calming person who immediately relieved my fears of a stern, drill sergeant-type person pointing out every single flaw. I was able to ask a lot of questions to figure out what she expects of us and will be looking for, which gives some sense of direction to the whole thing.

I also managed to schedule some of our medical evaluations (basically to find out if we have any communicable diseases or any physical issue that could prevent or affect our ability to parent), set up one of our three background checks (which will be another $200-$300--sheesh!), and knocked out another 6 or 7 pages of paperwork. When Darling got home from work, he completed several pages of his portion of the paperwork too, so we are on a roll!

I finished reading another book about adoption over the weekend, and I've started the next one. I can't remember their titles now, so I'll have to post about them another time. For now, I'm exhausted!

Nesting and Such

As mentioned in my last post, we are now in the early stages of adopting a precious little one into our family! I'm still somewhat in shock that this is actually happening, because it's something that has always been deferred to that obscure "someday" that rarely ever arrives. We went from discussing it as a possibility one day, to printing out about 90 pages of paperwork the next day. Since reading personal accounts of other people's adoption journeys has given me a much better understanding of the process and what to expect along the way, I'd like to share our experience along the way as well. Maybe it will give someone else the courage to pursue adoption for themselves, or maybe it will just help dispel some of the adoption myths that are out there. I'll do my best to be open about even the personal details for this reason, so hopefully none of it seems like oversharing.

Our first step after finding a wonderful consultant to guide us through this unknown territory is to complete our home study. The home study is the process that allows a social worker to determine if we are fit to be adoptive parents, so it's a pretty big deal. And intimidating! It includes that mountain of paperwork I mentioned before, background checks, home visits, interviews, medical evaluations, fingerprints, and copies of pretty much every important document we have ever possessed. They will evaluate our home to see if it is safe enough and clean enough (Is there such a thing?! I'm just going to bleach everything non-porous and scrub everything else to be on the safe side.), which makes me anxious. And the idea of someone else looking into our lives to see if we meet their standard is pretty scary. The very thought of it makes me feel inadequate, even though I can't think of a good reason for them to turn us down. Neither of us have a criminal history or anything, and we have 2 walking, talking bits of evidence that we can be decent parents. But still...!

Darling was on leave this past week, so he took advantage of his time off to finally finish painting our bathroom and updating the light switches and outlet covers (they were that horrid "almond" color before, so his handy self changed them to the much crisper-looking white). I delayed our homeschooling a few hours one day in order to bleach the grout on our kitchen floor. I think it's safe to say we are in full-on nesting mode.

Since we have already invested close to $3000 into this process and have another $1500 or so coming up for the home study, we need to figure out a plan to pay for the whole thing. Once we (hopefully!) pass the home study, our family profile will be shown to prospective birth parents. Our remaining expenses will depend on who we get matched with, as some might have more medical expenses, etc. than others. From what I've read so far, this can be in the $20,000-$30,000 range, but I guess we will find out for sure soon. And of course, we will most likely have to travel to get our baby, which will be another undetermined amount we will be surprised with later. Thankfully, we have a decent amount of savings, but some of that will probably have to go toward our move next year, especially if we can't sell our house first. There are adoption grants that we will be applying for, tax credits that we can take advantage of after the fact, and even low-to-no interest loans that we will use as a last resort. We also are taking advantage of Amazon's affiliate program to raise some money to cushion the blow as well. It allows Amazon shoppers to make their purchases as usual, but a percentage of the purchase will go to our adoption fund!

A lot of people have negative things to say about the high costs associated with adoption, and some even say it is basically "buying a child." While it saddens me that it costs more to adopt a child than it does to abort one, I understand the need to have intense screening processes (all costing money) and legal proceedings (again, more money) in order to protect the child and the families involved. If kids were adopted for the same price as a stray pet in a shelter, many of them would end up abused and neglected. I know that is still a possibility even now, but the extra costs and extensive steps probably deter a lot of ill-meaning people from adopting. I just wish it didn't deter so many good-intentioned people from adopting as well.

A Special Announcement!

I've mentioned before that Darling and I had discussed the possibility of adoption, and decided to remain open to the idea of it "in the future." I recently finished reading The Spirit of Adoption: Winning the Battle for the Children [affiliate link] by Randy Bohlender, which got me thinking about it even more. (It's a fantastic book, and I highly recommend reading it!) I guess my thinking about it more turned into talking about it more, because we soon reopened the discussion about whether or not adoption was right for us. While I had always envisioned adopting internationally, Darling had some valid concerns about it that made it seem like a good idea...but just not right now. After reading Bohlender's book, my heart was more open to the idea of domestic adoption, which is what Darling had been pushing for all along. I started doing more research into it, and we finally discovered that we were on the same page at last.

We recently contacted an adoption consultant to find out if pursuing adoption at this time is even possible with a strong likelihood of moving to a different state sometime next year. She answered our questions and gave us a better understanding of the whole thing, so WE ARE GOING TO ADOPT A BABY!!! (Sorry for "yelling", but I'm so flipping excited!!!)

Our first and most time-consuming step is the dreaded home study, where we submit a mountain of paperwork about ourselves and have home visits and interviews to determine if we are fit to adopt. (Please say yes!) Please keep us in your prayers during the coming months, as we deal with whatever challenges and financial hurdles that lay ahead. And don't forget to pray for the birth parents, as they probably have a lot of difficulties to deal with as well. ♥