On Friday Eric and I attended our first adoption education class through our agency. As the day approached, we were filled with much anticipation and excitement. This day finally put our adoption journey into "physical" motion. We had been preparing, and celebrating, our decision for the past couple of months, and this class signified the buzzer sounding off! As we walked in, we were greeted by 4 other families going through the adoption process and 3 social workers from the agency {pre-placement social worker, post placement social worker, and the birth mom social worker}. We learned a lot and were joined with a wonderful community to walk with during this journey.
We have gotten many questions about our adoption journey over the past few weeks and have been working hard to come up with information to some of the most frequently asked questions. We thought it would be a good idea to post some of these and share with you as we learn! Feel free to ask us anything additional so that you can learn more as we do too!! :)
Where will Baby be born?
We are pursuing domestic adoption, meaning we are adopting from within the U.S. Hope Cottage works with birth mothers from the DFW metroplex, as well as pregnancy centers in Tyler, El Paso, and Lubbock Texas. This means that our baby and birth mom will be from of one of these areas in Texas. If they are born in an area other than DFW, we will travel there with our social worker to complete the adoption once they born!!
How does this process work?
The first step was to turn in our Pre-Placement Adoption Evaluation and Application to the agency. {Check} Next we have to attend our AES classes, which we are currently doing. {Check(ish) - We will have another one on Tuesday to finish up our hours} Once our hours are complete we will be released to schedule our fingerprints through the FBI {I have heard this is the most frustrating part of the process!}
During this time we will also begin our Pre-Placement Evaluation (Home Study) Process. Through this process we have:
a. Individual and joint interviews with the social worker
b. Home visits with all family members present
c. interview with any others living in the home
d. All supporting documentation gathered, complete, and signed off on
Once the pre-placement adoption evaluation is approved, we have to pay our first fee of $10,000 in order to finalize our license.
>>>We are currently working on our adoption profile book. Our profile book will play an important part in our adoption. This is basically a scrapbook of our lives-it includes pictures of us, describes our life, interests, beliefs and what kind of life we hope to give to a child. The purpose of this book is to allow the birthmother (and father if he is involved) to see if they can picture their child becoming part of our family. We even get to include a letter to the birthmother, thanking her for choosing life for her child and for considering us to parent her baby.<<<
Once we have completed our home study, profile book, and done more fundraising, we will be ready to present to birthmothers. This means that our social worker will start showing our profiles to potential birthmothers. If we accept the birthmother as a match, our profile book will then be presented to her. The birthmother could be presented with many books at a time! We might have to present our profile book to multiple birthmothers before one chooses us and we become a match! During this time, we will become a part of the "waiting families" and will continue quarterly training and contact with the agency.
How long will it take?
We aren’t sure, which is an answer that in and of itself gives me a bit of anxiety! The typical adoption process can take anywhere from just a few months {HOLY COW!} to over a year {PLEASE LORD NO!!}. Our adoption agency helps to make the process go as quick as they can, in a conservative and safe manner, and they rarely have a family wait more than 6-9 months (once the family is approved and “active”). Birth mom's that work with our agency are not shown adoptive families until they have gone through counseling and are in their 7th month of pregnancy, which means once we are matched, we will only have a few months to wait. There are also situations that arise where our agency is contacted by a hospital and in that case we could be contacted right after baby is delivered. In that case we would have our baby 48 hours after we are contacted.
What are the expenses of adoption?
Adoptions are expensive. Adoptions in the U.S. typically range from $20,000-$45,000. The cost is very intimidating and most people are shocked when they learn about the financial side of adoption. We are currently researching and thinking about multiple ways to fund-raise and help finance our adoption. We have also been looking into grants and adoption loan options to help with the balance of fees left after we fund-raise. We will be fundraising throughout our adoption process so that we will be prepared financially when Baby Ferraris is ready to come home!
How old? Gender? Race?
We are adopting a newborn. We are hoping to be there (wherever it ends up being) the day our baby is born (or as soon as possible) but we know that Gods plans are set and we are preparing our hearts to be accepting of it however it comes! We are excited to see what baby God has picked out for our family and ready for the adventure!
When praying and talking about our adoption options, we both felt like we should be open minded and not put many limitations on what baby could be ours. That being said, we don’t have a preference for gender! We might be able to find out the gender once we are matched with a birth mother, but there is a high chance that we will not know the sex until the baby is born!
We are also open to a baby from any race or ethnicity. We know adopting a child from a different race will be a challenge in many ways, but we are excited about the possibility of having a diverse family and look forward to learning more about raising a family in this way! We are currently reading {A LOT} on adoption in general, but some of our reading has included information on having a trans-racial family. We know that this will be a different situation for many of our family and friends and we plan on sharing our learning along with you. :)
How can we help?
The number one way we would love for you to be a part of our journey is through prayer! There are so many unknowns in this process; we believe that God has a plan for us and that HE is in control! Pray for our hearts to fully trust in Him through the journey!
You can consider donating to our adoption through the YouCaring sight our friends have set up for us!
We are working on getting t-shirts set up now for our next adoption fundraiser! We’re hoping it will be up and running in the next few weeks! You can also participate in the fundraisers that we will be putting on throughout the coming months. We are brainstorming about fundraisers right now and will definitely need people who are willing to volunteer, donate items, time and resources! Finally, keep asking us about our adoption adventure! We LOVE to talk about it and it helps us feel encouraged, supported and excited!
Lastly, in our classes this week we focused a lot on how adoption has changed over the years. Along with this changes have come changes in the way we talk about adoption and the words we use. We, ourselves, have been guilty of using language that may have been hurtful or offensive to those going through, or have gone through, adoption before. I hope this chart is useful for all of us to help shed the positive light adoption has on our world and to help encourage those who have ever walked in these shoes.
As ALWAYS, we love and appreciate all the support we have had through this journey. We hope you will continue to follow along and share our story!!! :) -Xoxo
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