Good evening all! Hope this find you all well!
We had our first of three home study visits tonight with our social worker, Jillian. It was great to meet her in person! We both found her to be very personable and down to earth and felt very comfortable opening up to her.
During this first visit we reviewed many of the details that we learned in our initial introductory meeting. The refresher was nice since there are so many details to learn and remember. Jillian had several "interview" style questions for us...and we had many questions for her too!
During our next home study visit Jillian will actually come to our home. They use such 'customer friendly' terminology, which is kind of nice! So instead of doing an "inspection" of our home she will be "touring" our home! :) The tour is basically to assure that we can provide a safe environment to raise a baby/child in. We will also work on an openness questionnaire with her that will ask some really tough questions about different circumstances and our willingness to give consideration to accepting a child coming from such circumstances. Examples would include a family history of mental illness (like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc), or if the birth mother is addicted to and uses drugs, alcohol, etc. These are hard questions to answer and require lots of thought, discussion, and prayer on our part.
Now on to the exciting news--although we are maintaining our composure!!! As discussed in a previous post, the agency caps their waiting list for a domestic Caucasian newborn at twenty-two adoptive parents/families. We had prepared ourselves to "wait to be placed on the waiting list" once our home study was complete. Tonight we were delighted to learn that we are actually already on the waiting list, and that currently there are only eleven families waiting. There are also already five expected births/placements expected between January and March of 2010. I'm not sure how many more placements could occur in 2009. Essentially, once our home study is complete and approved we could receive that call at any time. This was very exciting for us and we are truly hopeful that our wait will not be as long as we anticipated. We keep in the fore-front of our minds that the birth mother will be choosing us and there is no time frame for that, so we need to continue to be patient!
Interesting tid-bit of information: A few people have asked us, "could you get twins?" The answer is yes and we would be delighted if that would happen!!!! During 2009 there was one set of twins placed with an adoptive family. Also (and this is freakishly coincidental!!!!), of the 17 babies that have been placed so far in 2009 through the Bethany office that we are working with 16 of the babies were BOYS! WOW! The agency has never had a trend quite like this one and all of the social workers are baffled!
Thanks to all of you for following our journey! We ask that you all keep us in your prayers as we get closer to the waiting period. All of the "homework" that we have had to do over the past several weeks has been a cinch compared to the passing of time waiting for that magical phone call to come! We prayer for patience and understanding and acceptance of circumstances beyond our control and appreciate your prayers in these areas for us!
Much love to you all!
Amy & David
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Adoption Support Group
Hi everyone!
Things are progressing very positively for us. We have submitted most of the paperwork required for our home study. As of now we are waiting for the responses to our requests for background checks and financial information from the IRS. We also have upcoming appointments for our physical exams. Once we have these things completed we will have home visits with our social worker, Jillian. We have met her by phone and she seems to be delightful and we look forward to meeting her in person.
Today we went to the Bethany office and participated in our first, and also required, domestic adoption support group. There we met the birth mother counselor and the adoptive partent counselor. The experience was very enlightening and inspiring. Most of the meeting focused on the perspective of the birth mother and the hardships that she endures giving up her baby. The social worker shared many stories of her experiences with the birth mothers. We have always selfishly given ALL of our consideration in this process to our own challenges with infertility and none to the selflessness of the decision that the birth mother is making. Wow! It was quite eye-opening to learn of the emotional hardship that these women and young girls experience. We learned that in most cases the birth mothers have a completely unselfish and endless love for this baby and are making this decision knowing that they cannot provide the life that they want that child to have and out of love, they commit that child's life to adoptive parents. Interestingly enough, we learned that many of the birth mothers are very particular about what they want for their baby and that they have criteria in choosing adoptive parents for their baby just the same as we have criteria in choosing the type of child we want. It was quite amazing to hear this perspective.
We are thankful to be working with an agency that really focuses on protecting and advocating for both the birth mother and for the adoptive parents! Thank the Lord we have had another experience that confirms that we made the right decsion in choosing Bethany.
We hope that you are enjoying reading about and following our journey. Please don't hesitate to ask questions or make comments. We love hearing from you!
With love,
Amy & David
Education: Interstate Adoptions
When we receive our baby it will most likely be from our region, which includes eastern Ohio. If we receive a baby from OH, then anything pertaining to the baby would be in accordance with OH laws, and anything pertaining to us as the adoptive parents would be in accordance with PA laws. The social workers we will be working with are highly knowledgeable of the law of both states.
If we should receive a baby from OH, then the baby must remain in the state of OH until both states have consented to the interstate adoption. Historically OH takes about 2-3 weeks to process and consent, while PA takes less than a week. In this case we would be living in a hotel for those 2-3 weeks, or until the adoption is consented by both states.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Hi everyone!
We are very happy to say that tonight we submitted our formal application for the adoption. The agency has a great web-site that we used to complete the forms. The application was quite lengthy--eight pages to be exact! It asked all kinds of demographic, family, employment, and financial information. We described our home and community, and we described the child that we see ourselves receiving. We also listed our references, which include three friends who have known us for a long time and a pastoral reference. We could not list any of our family as references.
We are also starting to work on our profile book, which includes lots of pictures and some descriptions of us and our family, as well as our interests, hobbies, etc. It will be fun to see our book come together.
A few weeks ago we met up with our friends Esther & Mike (and their daughter Tessa) in Pittsburgh for dinner. They had spent the day with their friends that we mentioned in our previous blog post. They shared their adoption story through Bethany with us. What a treat it was the meet them and their son!!! We all had dinner at the famous Primanti Brother's of Pittsburgh! They were so down to earth and open to sharing their experience with us, and what a blessing that is to have such great people to lean on for advise and reassurance!
Since this has been such a learning experience for us, we though it would be neat to pass along some of this education or little tid-bits of information to all of you as well, so here goes:
We are entering a semi-open adoptions--what does this mean?
This means that when the birth mother chooses us we will have some limited amount of contact with her. She may request to meet us in person prior to the birth of the baby, at the time of the birth, and after the birth. We will be known to her only by first name, and vise versa. She will not know any identifying information other than our first names. We have agreed that we would share an occasional letter/photo or visit after the birth of the child, though in many cases doing this makes separation very difficult for the birth mother and she will often choose to discontinue any further visits or contact. Any visits/meetings would always be held at a neutral location or at the agency office and can be with our social worker present, and any communication via mail is submitted through the agency. Finally, after the final decree is signed and the baby if legally ours, we have the right to also discontinue any visits/contact if we feel the need, as we are not legally bound to this.
Thanks for reading, everyone! We so greatly apprciate you all sharing in our excitement! We'll continue to keep you all posted!
Love,
Amy & Dave
We are very happy to say that tonight we submitted our formal application for the adoption. The agency has a great web-site that we used to complete the forms. The application was quite lengthy--eight pages to be exact! It asked all kinds of demographic, family, employment, and financial information. We described our home and community, and we described the child that we see ourselves receiving. We also listed our references, which include three friends who have known us for a long time and a pastoral reference. We could not list any of our family as references.
We are also starting to work on our profile book, which includes lots of pictures and some descriptions of us and our family, as well as our interests, hobbies, etc. It will be fun to see our book come together.
A few weeks ago we met up with our friends Esther & Mike (and their daughter Tessa) in Pittsburgh for dinner. They had spent the day with their friends that we mentioned in our previous blog post. They shared their adoption story through Bethany with us. What a treat it was the meet them and their son!!! We all had dinner at the famous Primanti Brother's of Pittsburgh! They were so down to earth and open to sharing their experience with us, and what a blessing that is to have such great people to lean on for advise and reassurance!
Since this has been such a learning experience for us, we though it would be neat to pass along some of this education or little tid-bits of information to all of you as well, so here goes:
We are entering a semi-open adoptions--what does this mean?
This means that when the birth mother chooses us we will have some limited amount of contact with her. She may request to meet us in person prior to the birth of the baby, at the time of the birth, and after the birth. We will be known to her only by first name, and vise versa. She will not know any identifying information other than our first names. We have agreed that we would share an occasional letter/photo or visit after the birth of the child, though in many cases doing this makes separation very difficult for the birth mother and she will often choose to discontinue any further visits or contact. Any visits/meetings would always be held at a neutral location or at the agency office and can be with our social worker present, and any communication via mail is submitted through the agency. Finally, after the final decree is signed and the baby if legally ours, we have the right to also discontinue any visits/contact if we feel the need, as we are not legally bound to this.
Thanks for reading, everyone! We so greatly apprciate you all sharing in our excitement! We'll continue to keep you all posted!
Love,
Amy & Dave
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Dear Friends and Family,
As most, if not all, of you already know we have been trying unsuccessfully for almost three years to start a family. We have experienced numerous peaks and troughs in our pursuit and with each disappointment we have had the reality of not having a child naturally grow more and more, and we aren't getting any younger either!!! On the bright side of that, we have always felt that the Lord would bless us with a child some way or another...and perhaps even more than one!
For quite some time we have talked openly about pursing the method of adoption to begin our family! Each day we grow more and more excited about this journey we are beginning. So with the love and support of our family, we are delighted to report that we have begun our formal application.
After some preliminary research and a short application, we had our first meeting with the adoption agency on Tuesday July 21, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. The agency that we have decided to use is called Bethany Christian Services and their office is located in Wexford, PA. There are many reasons that we chose this agency. First and foremost, they are a long standing Christian agency with offices all over the country, and are true to their Christian roots. They are also able to work with us on the type of adoption we are pursing, which is to receive a domestic newborn baby. Our initial meeting was very positive! We had a very informal (comfortable) introductory session with the supervisor of intake for domestic and international adoption. During our hour and a half long meeting we discussed all of the ins-and-outs of the process starting with the formal application, to financing, having our home study completed, all the way to the time we receive a baby and post-placement visits.
Prior to our initial meeting Amy had the opportunity to converse at length with a family who worked with Bethany Christian Services to adopt their son, who is now 6 years old--we have a mutual family friend! The conversation with her was refreshing and reassuring! She shared in great detail about their experience, gave advice, and spoke the praises of the staff and services at Bethany Christian Services. We now felt reassured that we were ready to begin this journey and that we were using the right agency to guide and direct us.
Over the next few months we will be submitting our formal application (which is actually almost complete!) and completing some of the requirements for our home study. Some of these requirements include getting FBI and child abuse background checks, getting finger printed, taking an adult & child first aid and CPR class, having a fire inspection of our home, obtaining the last 10-years worth of tax statements (which we can thankfully get for free from irs.gov!!!). We also have three books that we will be required to read, as well as two interviews and a home inspection in order to complete our home study. We sure do have lots of home work! The most fun part of our preparation will be to make our profile book! We will likely use snapfish.com to create it. The profile book is essentially just that--a profile, primarily pictorial, of the two of us, our family, friends, hobbies, interests, etc, etc. It is descriptive, but confidential. We will only use our first names, and be sure to exclude other identifying information like, where we live, work, go to church, etc. This will allow our adoption to remain semi-closed. At the completion of our home study / application we will be placed on a referral list at which time the agency is actively sharing our profile with birth-mothers who are seeking a family to place their baby with. In most cases the birth mother will choose the family herself.
It is also likely that we will have some contact with the birth mother during and after placement. The contact and communication will be kept semi-confidential. The agency will facilitate all of the contact / communication, so that even if and when we meet the birth mother in person, she will only know us by our first names. Potential and infrequent visitations will be held at the agency, or at another neutral location and can include the social worker from the agency. After much discussion and learning, we have come to realize that a semi-open adoption is really to our advantage and that of our future child. A semi-open adoption will allow us to know the medical/family history of the child we receive, and will also help to lessen the likelihood of feelings of abandonment that the child could potentially feel at some point in his/her life. We also feel that if the birth mother cares enough about where her baby is being placed, that she will also perhaps care more about her well-being during the pregnancy. Bethany Christian Services also has a counseling program for the birth mothers. The birth mothers are counseled throughout their pregnancy so that when the baby is born and they are giving it up, they are much more grounded in the decision that they have made and are less likely to change their mind.
We are hopeful that we will be on the referral list by the end of this year, and have a baby placed with us in less than two years!!!
So, there will be so many more details and experiences to share with everyone as we progress through this journey. We are excited to have a place like this to share with our family and friends, as well as to chronicle the journey of adopting a baby! We look forward to making periodic posts and having your feedback! Please keep us in your prayers!
With love,
Amy & David
As most, if not all, of you already know we have been trying unsuccessfully for almost three years to start a family. We have experienced numerous peaks and troughs in our pursuit and with each disappointment we have had the reality of not having a child naturally grow more and more, and we aren't getting any younger either!!! On the bright side of that, we have always felt that the Lord would bless us with a child some way or another...and perhaps even more than one!
For quite some time we have talked openly about pursing the method of adoption to begin our family! Each day we grow more and more excited about this journey we are beginning. So with the love and support of our family, we are delighted to report that we have begun our formal application.
After some preliminary research and a short application, we had our first meeting with the adoption agency on Tuesday July 21, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. The agency that we have decided to use is called Bethany Christian Services and their office is located in Wexford, PA. There are many reasons that we chose this agency. First and foremost, they are a long standing Christian agency with offices all over the country, and are true to their Christian roots. They are also able to work with us on the type of adoption we are pursing, which is to receive a domestic newborn baby. Our initial meeting was very positive! We had a very informal (comfortable) introductory session with the supervisor of intake for domestic and international adoption. During our hour and a half long meeting we discussed all of the ins-and-outs of the process starting with the formal application, to financing, having our home study completed, all the way to the time we receive a baby and post-placement visits.
Prior to our initial meeting Amy had the opportunity to converse at length with a family who worked with Bethany Christian Services to adopt their son, who is now 6 years old--we have a mutual family friend! The conversation with her was refreshing and reassuring! She shared in great detail about their experience, gave advice, and spoke the praises of the staff and services at Bethany Christian Services. We now felt reassured that we were ready to begin this journey and that we were using the right agency to guide and direct us.
Over the next few months we will be submitting our formal application (which is actually almost complete!) and completing some of the requirements for our home study. Some of these requirements include getting FBI and child abuse background checks, getting finger printed, taking an adult & child first aid and CPR class, having a fire inspection of our home, obtaining the last 10-years worth of tax statements (which we can thankfully get for free from irs.gov!!!). We also have three books that we will be required to read, as well as two interviews and a home inspection in order to complete our home study. We sure do have lots of home work! The most fun part of our preparation will be to make our profile book! We will likely use snapfish.com to create it. The profile book is essentially just that--a profile, primarily pictorial, of the two of us, our family, friends, hobbies, interests, etc, etc. It is descriptive, but confidential. We will only use our first names, and be sure to exclude other identifying information like, where we live, work, go to church, etc. This will allow our adoption to remain semi-closed. At the completion of our home study / application we will be placed on a referral list at which time the agency is actively sharing our profile with birth-mothers who are seeking a family to place their baby with. In most cases the birth mother will choose the family herself.
It is also likely that we will have some contact with the birth mother during and after placement. The contact and communication will be kept semi-confidential. The agency will facilitate all of the contact / communication, so that even if and when we meet the birth mother in person, she will only know us by our first names. Potential and infrequent visitations will be held at the agency, or at another neutral location and can include the social worker from the agency. After much discussion and learning, we have come to realize that a semi-open adoption is really to our advantage and that of our future child. A semi-open adoption will allow us to know the medical/family history of the child we receive, and will also help to lessen the likelihood of feelings of abandonment that the child could potentially feel at some point in his/her life. We also feel that if the birth mother cares enough about where her baby is being placed, that she will also perhaps care more about her well-being during the pregnancy. Bethany Christian Services also has a counseling program for the birth mothers. The birth mothers are counseled throughout their pregnancy so that when the baby is born and they are giving it up, they are much more grounded in the decision that they have made and are less likely to change their mind.
We are hopeful that we will be on the referral list by the end of this year, and have a baby placed with us in less than two years!!!
So, there will be so many more details and experiences to share with everyone as we progress through this journey. We are excited to have a place like this to share with our family and friends, as well as to chronicle the journey of adopting a baby! We look forward to making periodic posts and having your feedback! Please keep us in your prayers!
With love,
Amy & David
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