Hey Good news!
Wednesday we received the call that we were approved for our adoption agency, YEAH! I was really stressing, I wanted everything to run smoothly. Independent Adoption Center is who we are using. They are based out of California, and have an office in Houston. We headed out Thursday morning and were off on our journey. The ride there wasn't bad, my husband and I enjoy a good road trip! I tricked him into playing the question game, which you know us women love and men hate!! Anyway, the meeting went really well. It was us, another couple and a single woman. This is one reason I love IAC because they are open to everyone adopting. A lot of agencies have stipulations: Age requirements, health requirements, heterosexual only...things like this. That isn't right!! Who are they to say who can love and who can't? This really upsets me. I have plenty of older friends or gay & lesbian friends. What makes them less able to love a child?!?!?! Yes, IAC was the right choice for us, even though we are a heterosexual couple, we love the fact that IAC realizes that everyone is capable of love.
There are so many things to consider when adopting. What race, what age, what state you want to adopt from. Those things I guess you would expect to have to decide on. But, you have to make so many other decisions too that you may not be ready to face. Will you consider a child with potentially emotional, physical or mental needs?!? So many things to consider and think about. I will get more into this later.
When you want to adopt you have to have a home study. There is so much paperwork involved and things that they need to approve for your home study. I turned a lot of it in and thought I was ahead of the game. However, I learned there is so much more I need to do before they can actually come to my home. In my adoption agency (I imagine most go this way), I have to do the following before we can be on the "live" list, which means that we are available for birth moms to look at our profile. Here, in short, is what we have to do before we get to this point:
* Fill our all paperwork including home study questionnaire, reference letters, birth certificates, etc. (A lot of this is done!!)
* Prepare pictures and text for the birth mom letter. This is what we found out yesterday and it's going to be very time consuming with all their requirements. They said this will go through several stages of editing.
* Create our profile on the Iheartadoption web site.
* Conference call for approval.
* Meet all requirements for home study visit and have them come out and assess our home.
* Send print to IAC California office, and they start the matching process.
WHEW!!! See, not easy. I didn't know there was so much to do. They want to make sure the baby/child will have a good home, so we will comply. I don't mind doing it. The birth mom letter will help ensure she picks the best family for her baby. We really like that adoption agencies have the mom pick the baby now a days.
Well, this is where we are at right now. Knee deep in paperwork. Let the journey begin, my love will only grow for our future child.
Kerrie
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