Adopton Process Part II: Still Trying

(See Part I of this post here.)

When I told my friend that I had just turned in the rest of the paperwork, she excitedly asked if we were approved and being shown to birth moms.  Unfortunately...no.  It has just taken us this long to finish the paperwork.  We had to have our physicals done and at my doctor's office, only the doctor can do these (but PA's can do well-women check ups...go figure.)  It took us three weeks to get an appointment for our doctor.  Zane and I both had to take a CPR class.  There was one class offered in my area which again was at the end of May.  While we waited for these appointments, we requested certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificates and started researching other agencies.  Our plan is to get our home study to a couple of different agencies so that we are shown to more birth moms.  When researching agencies it is important to find out how many birth moms they help and how well they advertise.  We also like to find out the support given to birth moms.  Then it comes down to how money is spent.  This of course is the part I would love to ignore, but it is definitely a huge part of adoption.  We like to find out if the fee covers birth mom expenses, medical expenses, and what happens to our money if a birth mom changes her mind (which she has every right to do before she relinquishes her rights which is anywhere from 24 hours to 3 months depending on the state.)  It is important to see a break down on how the money is spent (advertising, lawyer fees, agency fees etc.)  We have done a lot of research now and I have a nice spreadsheet with the information I have found.  We picked two agencies in Utah, which has laws for adoption.  We have since filled out the paperwork required for those agencies (so now we have done three sets of paperwork).  I think we will stick with these two (and the agency doing our home study) because other agencies have an application fee and every agency requires an adoption profile (more to come on that.)

Zane and I made some mistakes because we assumed that the agency doing our home study would pass on copies of all our documents.  Agencies can't accept copies though so we should have requested multiple copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificates.  We are now doing that step again (and spending more money.)

We have now turned everything in and are waiting for the caseworker to come to our house and do the home study.  While we wait, we are putting together our adoption profile.

The adoption profile:  This is a scrapbook which includes a letter to birth parents telling them all about our family and pictures of our life.  This scrapbook is what is shown to birth parents when they are looking at couples to pick.  It is also something the birth mom gets to keep once we are matched.  This scrapbook stresses me out.  Luckily I have a good friend who will do it for me once I get everything to her.  I also have a wonderful sister-in-law who will come and take more pictures of us and edit them making our family look more beautiful than we really are.  With their help we can pull this off!

For someone who is thinking about adoption and reading this post, please don't get discourage with everything that has to be done.  Maybe instead of comparing this part to the trying part, I should call it our "morning sickness."  I haven't because the part where we are approved to the part where we are at the hospital (which with Dallin was 9 months and with Gavin, two years) were full of ups and downs, lots of waiting, lots of patience and even stretch marks (to my heart).  And yet every day I play with my sons, read stories to them, and get hugs and kisses with the I love you's, I know it is all worth it.  Just like I'm sure my sister-in-law would say the throwing up she did every day of her pregnancy was all worth it to get her cute little girl.