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Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Our Adoption Journey so far...
Welcome! We wanted to start a blog to document our adoption process and keep you informed of what's going on with us. The journey
through this process so far has been nothing short of amazing! God has blessed
us tremendously in every way imaginable and it has been overwhelming to feel
His love poured out over us. Through friendships that we have developed with
our social worker and others who are adopting or have adopted, and stories we
have heard, we feel like we are as prepared as possible for whatever lies ahead from here.
From October through February we worked on loads of
paperwork and filled out countless forms that had to be sent for background
checks to both the state and federal government before we could be approved to
adopt. One of the first forms we completed was a “desired child” form and was
one of the most difficult to fill out. With this form you mark what
characteristics of both the child and parents we would be willing to accept.
This included sex, race, health, parent’s drug/alcohol use and many other
items. We have left our adoption completely open for the most part, however
some of the items we will pray about if it presents
itself to us.
There have been three home studies we have also completed in
the past few months. These were done after we filled out other paperwork
involving family history, beliefs, parenting goals, and a wide range of other
topics. Our social worker would ask us questions regarding all of these, but
for the most part it has been a fairly painless process, and she has been
amazing to work with!
In January we attended a mandatory all day training session
held at Brook Hills. The main focus of the class was to hear from those that
have adopted as well as a girl who is close to our age that placed her child
with an adoptive family. We learned a lot regarding open vs. closed adoptions
and how they differ. Our agency recommends open adoptions meaning we would most
likely meet the birth mother before hand and keep in touch with her through
pictures and e-mails for many years after the birth of the child. We are open
to whatever the birth mother wants, so we don’t know for certain how much
interaction we will have with her yet.
The last thing we had to do before we could be in the group
of parents possible for a birth mother to choose was to create a profile book.
Meg spent countless hours creating the book and it turned out amazing! It tells
the story of how we met, what our relationship is like, our wedding, friends,
family, pets and many other aspects of our life. This is the book that will get
shown along with others to a mother that decides she might like to place her child with an adoptive family.
From this point forward we are simply waiting for our child.
It could be a week or a year from now that we are chosen but we know that our
child will not pass us by and we trust completely in the Lord to give us the
perfect child He has for us. We ask that you would continue to pray for us that
we would be well prepared for whatever situation we find ourselves in relating
to the birth mother and that we could minister to her. We also ask for your
prayers in waiting well, and in putting our hope in Christ and not in ourselves
or doing things out of our own strength but trusting in Him. We have been
blessed tremendously through this process and ask for your prayers that we
would continue to be provided for financially. We are hoping to have a
fundraiser soon and would like for everyone to come and be a part of that.
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