So we have been reading a few books about open adoption and wanted to share these titles with all of you. Not only are they wonderful books for pre-adoptive parents, but they are great primers for family and friends. Here is our list so far...
Raising Adopted Children by Lois Ruskai Melina
Real Parents, Real Children: Parenting the adoptive child by Holly van Gulden and Lisa Bartels-Rabb
Our agency recommends the following two books as well:
Making Room in our Hearts by Micky Duxbury
Inside Transracial Adoption by Gail Steinberg and Beth Hall
Finally, our favorite book so far, given to us by our friends that recently completed their adoption. We love this book and have read it several times and can't wait to read it to our little one!
Over the Moon: An Adoption Tale by Karen Katz
If anyone else has other good books about adoption and parenting please let us know!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Fingerprints and Paperwork
Today we spent lots of time waiting in the cop shop to get our fingerprints...check out our great prints!
We also spent a lot of time working on our pile of paperwork...which is a lot!
We also spent a lot of time working on our pile of paperwork...which is a lot!
Monday, April 19, 2010
We jumped another hurdle
It was a busy weekend for us and we are finally able to take a deep breath and write a blog post about completing another big step in the adoption process. Last Friday we became "officially" enrolled in the adoption program with Journeys of the Heart Adoption Services. We had our first in-person meeting/interview with the executive director and a program coordinator and they were wonderful.
The interview was a great opportunity for us to learn more about the adoption process with Journeys and to ask some of our burning questions. The thing that we learned during the interview that overwhelms us was not how much it was going to cost (which is a lot) or even the piles and piles of paperwork we need to complete (which is a lot) - it was how quickly the adoption could happen.
We are already a few months into the process and once we finish this next pile of paperwork and the homestudy (approximately 2-3 months) we will be in the midst of the matching process, which happens anywhere from 1 week to 6 months. This means that we could be bringing our new child home by the end of this year. Over and over we have been preparing ourselves for how long this is going to take, but I think we have been focusing so much on the waiting we didn't seem to notice the time going by.
Of course, we could be waiting much longer, so who really knows.
Anyways, we are full-on in the process and we are so excited. We know now more than ever this is the perfect way for our family to grow. The meeting was such a great first introductions to the staff at Journeys and we couldn't be happier to be working with them. Their devotion to children and placing them in loving homes was so apparent.
We are getting our physicals, fingerpints, FBI background checks, writing our biographies, taking pictures and getting our friends to be our references...you know who you are! Looking forward to our many hours of paperwork over the next month and of course updating you all on our journey.
The interview was a great opportunity for us to learn more about the adoption process with Journeys and to ask some of our burning questions. The thing that we learned during the interview that overwhelms us was not how much it was going to cost (which is a lot) or even the piles and piles of paperwork we need to complete (which is a lot) - it was how quickly the adoption could happen.
We are already a few months into the process and once we finish this next pile of paperwork and the homestudy (approximately 2-3 months) we will be in the midst of the matching process, which happens anywhere from 1 week to 6 months. This means that we could be bringing our new child home by the end of this year. Over and over we have been preparing ourselves for how long this is going to take, but I think we have been focusing so much on the waiting we didn't seem to notice the time going by.
Of course, we could be waiting much longer, so who really knows.
Anyways, we are full-on in the process and we are so excited. We know now more than ever this is the perfect way for our family to grow. The meeting was such a great first introductions to the staff at Journeys and we couldn't be happier to be working with them. Their devotion to children and placing them in loving homes was so apparent.
We are getting our physicals, fingerpints, FBI background checks, writing our biographies, taking pictures and getting our friends to be our references...you know who you are! Looking forward to our many hours of paperwork over the next month and of course updating you all on our journey.
Monday, April 5, 2010
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