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.

2 comments:

  1. I only have one bit of advice for you BUY, BUY, BUY baby stuff like crazy!!! What we did is we said we'd buy one baby item every time we went to the store. Some days when we had more money then others we bought extra outfits or diapers or whatever. It puts you in a guilt trip at first spending money on a kid you don't have but now our nursery is almost 100% complete and I KNOW that once we have our little one we won't regret getting so much prior to placement. ESPECIALLY if it's a last minute placement!

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  2. That is good advice. It does feel a little weird to buy stuff for a baby while we aren't even in the waiting pool yet, but you are right, what if we get a last minute placement! I do find myself knitting up a storm for when the little one arrives! Soon I will post my little baby knit items.

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