The adoption journey has already been a very time intensive process. We officially submitted our "Pre-Application" to our agency on the 2nd of January 2012. This application was a quick summary of who we are and allowed the agency the information to decide on whether or not they wanted us to formally apply for adoption approval. We were pre-approved quickly and moved into the "Formal Application". The formal application was submitted a few days after our pre-application. We were pleased to be approved by our agency and were sent a "Welcome Package" with all of the information on our specific program as well as all of the initial documentation to enter into an agency agreement with our agency. The first round of paperwork was pretty straightforward, but still took some time and a notary public to complete. This was also the first round of significant adoption costs.
After the actual adoption agreement was signed between us and the agency, we were sent everything we needed to get ready for our "Home Study". The home study is a combination of social interaction with a social worker, verification of income and assets, lengthy essays filled out not only by us, but by our references, and much more. This process is typically what takes the longest. It's the "second leg" of the 3 leg journey. We are fully immersed in the home study process right now and have completed a lot of the paperwork, have had our fingerprints & criminal background info sent to local, state & federal authorities, and have sent out our letters of recommendation to family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, our pastor & the boys' teachers. Once all of the documentation has been processed, fingerprints and background checks are done, and reference letters are in, we will be scheduled for the visit with our social worker. She will spend a total of 6 hours with our family in either one 6 hour session or two 3 hour sessions. Once the home study is complete, we will be able to get our "Family Album" together and ready for prospective birth mothers. Our family album will be a general description of our family, our lives, our likes and dislikes, work, extended family, etc. We will also include a lot of pictures of us that represent who we are and what we like to do. This will begin our "third leg".
The third leg can sometimes be the must frustrating (as we've been told) because there's really nothing for us to do to speed up the process. We will have our family album shown to prospective birth mothers that are in their 3rd trimester. Once we are chosen, we have the opportunity to get information on the birth mother, her family history, etc and we ultimately get to decide on whether or not to move forward with the birth mother. If all goes well, we will then be in a holding pattern, waiting for our new baby boy or girl to be born. Once the baby is born, we will be required to travel to Georgia to formally take possession of our baby. We must wait there up to 10 days after the baby is born for the birth mother to fully relinquish her parental rights and for the interstate transport papers to be filed and approved. Once that's all clear, we can head home and begin to adjust to the newest member of our family. The adoption agency will set up visits at the 2 month, 4 month and 6 month marks of us formally arriving at home. If all goes well after the 6 month visit, the final adoption papers are drawn up and sent to the State of Oregon for their final approval and we're good to go.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. We know that you may have many more questions and would also like to know where we're at in this journey. The blog will be updated regularly, but if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail us at snogolf@hotmail.com.
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