And now, we wait.

I’ve been writing for our adoption for the past 4 months. It all started with a simple questionnaire to apply to The Gladney Center for Adoption. After we were accepted and attended orientation, we had to fill out an application, seems redundant, but it wasn’t. This application was for our home study and was a thick stack of documents filled with our autobiographies, a statement of faith, an income summary, our health history, birth parent matching opportunities and so on… We made tabs for each type of document and we made it to Tab W. This application encompassed every aspect of our life that you could imagine.

Remember this post?

After the application was completed, then it was time for the home study. This meant writing out answers to questions we knew we would be asked. We aren’t people who just ‘wing’ things; we prepare and over-prepare for everything. We learned during our home study process, both the interview and the home visit, that over-preparing goes a long way. Both processes went by smoothly and best of all quickly.

After our home study came the writing of our profile book. If I thought I was tired of writing for our adoption before then, well, I certainly am now. I had NO idea the pressures and importance of every word I wrote until I dove into writing about our life. You don’t want to say too much, but you also don’t want to say too little. You want to say the ‘right’ words and simple words that appeal to all ages. It was a large task that didn’t end with the writing.

And just when I thought I was finally done writing for our adoption, what do you know – there’s more! I then found out I had to write or shorten a version of our profile book for our web pages that Gladney completes for us. We send the text, 25 pictures and a completed questionnaire of all of our favorite things and they put together our web profiles. As of today, we are on two websites and by tomorrow we will be on a third.

We have officially completed all the paperwork, documentation and profiles for our adoption! And now, we wait, educate ourselves on adoption as much as we can and prepare ourselves for bringing home a baby just as any expectant parents would.

We have been told by our caseworker that it could be 6-9 months until our profile book is shown to a birthparent.  No one is certain on the time frame, but she is setting our expectations realistically.  This was very hard for Kris and I to hear, much less fathom, so we decided to be proactive and take a step of our own to reach out to birth families.  Kris came up with the idea of making business cards and I loved the idea, but I told him to run with it. I was and really am now, over writing for our adoption – I mean, it’s been 4 months! I think he did an amazing job and I’m so thankful to him for creating this opportunity for us. Who knows, his idea could one day lead to a tiny blessing in our arms…
Here is the card he created and a little message from my sweet hubby:

Ashley and I wanted to ask each of you, our friends and family, for your help with something that's very near and dear to us. As many of you know, we are absolutely excited to adopt our first child and begin our new family. We have been working with a domestic adoption agency over the last few months and are now officially approved - which means we now wait to be chosen by a birth mother. This may take a few weeks or a few years - it's completely out of our control. So in the meantime, we are reaching out to our friends and family to keep us in mind if you should hear of a birth mother considering placing a newborn child for adoption. Our adoption agency is one of the oldest in the nation and is able to place children for adoption in almost any state in the U.S. The agency can also provide the birth mother with counseling, housing, and lots of emotional care. As part of our adoption process, Ashley and I have created a website and Facebook page where birth mothers can find out more about us; our story, as well as contact info for our adoption agency (see the attached card). Please note, it's absolutely necessary for both us and the birth mother that we keep confidential our identities and therefore ask that you don't pass along our contact information, just the websites. If you know of someone considering adoption, please keep Ashley and I in mind and pass along our website information. Thank you so much! - Kris

WE ARE NOW OFFICALLY APPROVED AND WAITING!  We received our certificate in the mail this week and we are approved to adopt!  Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for your love and support of us these last four months.  They have been trying and stressful times, but we can say honestly that this process has been rewarding and now we walk away with many special gifts we wouldn't otherwise have.  Now, we just sit back and enjoy our life especially all the things we can still do before we bring home our baby.  Our goal is to live everyday as we normally would and wait for the one phone call that will change our lives forever.