Monday's Adoption Seminar

Well, our seminar was really long but really good. There were 4 other couples there besides us and we were the only couple who had already been accepted to the agency. We found out that they have 50 couples in their waiting family pool and they do not like to accept more than that at any given time as they typically place around 50 babies a year...so as one couple leaves the pool, they'll introduce another, if that makes sense. I'm glad we are already in. So the meeting started with us meeting Patricia who is the lawyer and basically the head honcho of the agency. She's the head of the board that accepted our application so she recognized Matt and I and that was nice.

She started by going over all the initial paperwork...it was lots of legal talk that I didn't overly understand and she broke it down section by section explaining each piece. That was really helpful and she really took her time to make sure she answered all the questions everyone had. She went ahead and told us stories about adoptions that had taken place and the outcomes. She went into detail about birth father rights and made sure that we knew that if a birth father raised some sort of red flag after the baby had been placed (before she has no say) she will fight to the end to make sure we get the outcome we want. I can imagine that she would be scary in court, lol...I wouldn't want to go up against her. Definitely glad she's on our side!

So towards the end of our 5 hours, she started telling us about the different things that can hold up your adoption...or make it take longer. In terms of the stuff we choose on our application: If you choose a specific gender, it will increase your time. If you choose a boy, they won't show your profile to anyone who is carrying a girl or who do not know what they are having. That cuts you down...a lot. Age can affect your wait time but they seem to primarily deal with newborns. The race of the baby will most definitely increase your wait time for placement. Also, if you want a baby who was born to a mother with no medical issues and no drug use, that too will increase your time. After listening to all that, we decided to change a couple things on our application. We changed our choice on age...we told them that we prefer a newborn but wouldn't totally say no to a 1 - 3 month old baby. Matt said 6 months but I couldn't do that. Personal reasons on my part, so I compromised on the 1-3 months. We also changed our decision on mental health issues and drug use where the mother is concerned. We don't want a totally cracked out and severe mental issued mother but if at the beginning of the pregnancy, she wasn't aware and maybe smoked a little pot or something...those things happen. The baby's more often than not turn out fine. She gave us several instances where she dealt with baby's who had more severe drug use from the mother and they were healthier than a mother who had never used. We are comfortable with those changes so I guess we are ok with that.

Ummm...I think thats all I've got for now. Oh! We are almost done with our adoption profile. I just ordered a copy today to show to the adoption agency to approve so I can order final copies. I have to make 5 copies so I'll make 6 just in case. Oh! And while there we also spoke with our adoptive parent coordinator, Denise! She's great too. (We really liked everyone at the agency, lol) We told her we were having trouble coming up with the initial $5,000. So she told us to start with the $1200 portion of that $5000 for the home study. The home study takes 4 to 6 weeks to complete so we can at least get that started while we come up with the rest of the money. We think we'll be able to take out a loan by December. I have virtually all of our bills paid at that point (I think we are seriously going from around $6,000 in debt (not including the house) to around $300 in debt by December. Things are tight right now but oh so worth it.

Alright, I'm still feeling crappy so I'm gonna go to bed now. I had a rough day with not feeling well all while having to move my office. Good times. Night everyone! Thanks if you stayed with me this long!