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.