Preparing to be a Dad

Jeannine and I have spent a lot of time along the C&O canal over the years, and have had a lot of conversations about adoption while hiking that trail.  This weekend, while taking a walk along our favorite section of the trail, we started talking about how the whole adoption process has been preparing us to be parents. 

By this point in our lives, most of our friends have settled down and had at least one child.  I love it when it becomes “facebook official” and there is a cute post announcing that there is a new baby on the way.  My personal favorite is a picture of a family with the big-sibling-to-be saying, “I’m going to be a big sister/brother.”  Then for the next couple of months, there will be posts about how the mom-to-be is doing, as well as congratulatory posts and updates during the whole process.  You can always see what the new family is doing to get ready, and how the mom- and dad-to-be are changing to become parents.  It is great to see.  I love the happiness of my friends and rejoice when, after several months, I get to see cute baby pictures of their little ones. 

The process during our adoption journey has been a little different (although I am sure that I will be posting plenty of pictures when God blesses us with a child!).  There are no physical marks of pregnancy.  We do not have a set due date for which we can prepare.  At any time, we could get a call that could change our lives.  As slow as this whole process has been, when that time comes our lives will change in a flash.  So how do we prepare?  Well, I am a procrastinator (shocking, I know).  I mean, why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?  And since there are no physical signs, it is very easy to forget that this whole thing is real.  The classes were real.  The paperwork was real.  The child will be real.  But now what?  What is there to do?  What can I do to make sure that my future child has a safe and loving place in this world?  These are questions that have been on my mind.  

This is not the place for some big, “I’ve got it!” announcement.  I have not come up with anything that will shake the world.  I guess that I just have to remember that even though there is no physical pregnancy for Jeannine and me this is our time to prepare for the change that we are waiting for.  God is using the books that we are reading, the training classes we attended, and our interactions with friends and family who have children to teach us the things that we need to know to become parents.  I have so many friends at church who have new babies that I now know how to hold a child the right way (um, no, I have not learned how to change diapers yet).  Our friends who have adopted have shared parts of their journeys to encourage us.  The people I work with have asked and wanted to know how Jeannine and I are doing and if there are any updates.  And we keep moving forward and getting ready, mostly patiently, for the day when we can meet the child whom God is preparing for us to parent.

~Jason

 

Catching Up

It’s been a while since we last posted (over two months, actually).  I could say that it’s because we’ve been busy – which is true.  But it’s also been a time of processing things and not being sure how to write about them yet.  It’s a weird thing, this being in limbo thing.  Not bad, just weird.

Anyway, to catch you up briefly, here’s what’s been going on since our last update:

Jeannine’s switch to part-time work

I (Jeannine) have reduced my hours at work, and am now only working four days each week.  This was something I had talked about with my bosses as a way to transition to more part-time work once we have a child placed with us.  Do we know for sure that I plan on working part-time once we have a child?  Nope.  No idea – just taking it one day at a time and trying to make reasonable plans in the meantime. 

I’m loving having this extra day off each week – I’ve been able to volunteer some of that time doing some other types of work for my school, I’ve been able to take some of the load off of Jason with things at home, I’ve been able to catch up with friends and spend time helping people from church with various things, etc.  It’s been great!

Dear friends bring home a baby girl

Our dear friend from college and her husband adopted a baby girl a few weeks ago.  They live in another state where the laws are much different than they are here in MD.  In MD, the birthparents can’t sign away their rights until the baby is born, and then they have 30 days from the date of signing to change their minds.  This means that the earliest we would be able to bring a baby home would be at a month old.  In our friends’ state, the birthparents can sign away their rights before birth, and then only have 72 hours after birth to change their minds.  It was so exciting to hear the news that our friends had gotten “the call” and were at the hospital with a little girl.  They asked for prayer as, at the time of their email, there were still four hours to go until the 72 hours were up.  It was good news for them and they received the “all clear” that night. 

Would you join us in praying for them as they adjust to being parents?  Also, please pray for their daughter’s birthparents, that they would experience emotional healing and that the Lord would surround them with a good support system during this time of grief. 

Some of our friends who knew about this wondered if it was hard for us to watch our friends take their baby home, especially because they got approved just a few months before we did.  God has really blessed us through this, because both Jason and I can truly say that we were joyful for them – there was no envy or bitterness or sadness on our part.  I’m sure that as our process goes on (our agency has warned us that we could have a wait of five years, after all), we might experience these feelings as other friends adopt or have biological children.  For now, though, we are at peace with waiting and are enjoying seeing our friends blessed with little ones!  This is truly a gift from God, because (as Jason can testify), I am not an especially patient person. J

Waiting families support group meetings

We’ve been to two support group meetings that our agency facilitates.  We are required to attend two a year, and so far, they have been worthwhile.

At the first one, a couple spoke to us about their adoption journey.  They waited for just over five years for a placement, and adopted their little boy in May.  It was helpful, but a bit daunting, to hear their perspective after such a long wait.

The second one was quite interesting and encouraging.  A mother came and spoke about her experience with adoption – both as a birthmother when she was younger, and now as the parent of two adopted daughters.  One of her children was born in China and because of the way things work in China (birthmothers have to anonymously give up their children because the law prohibits it), there is no way to ever find out who her daughter’s birthmother is, let alone have any contact with her.  Her other daughter, though, was born here in MD and they have ongoing contact (what is known as an “open adoption”) with those birthparents.  This mother’s perspective was wonderful, especially given the complicated situation with her children (how do you explain to one child that she can’t know her birthmother, but her sister gets to see her birthmother several times a year) and with her experience as a birthmother herself.  Fascinating, eye-opening, and encouraging.

Building new relationships

This past weekend, we had a chance to meet up with another couple from our adoption training classes.  We really hit it off with them during our training classes and were thrilled to be able to continue that relationship.  We met for a casual dinner and it was great to hear what they had been up to over the past couple of months.  When we started this process, we didn’t anticipate making new friends through it, but we are really blessed to have done so!

We’ll try to post again soon.  One thing that we want to do is pick up on the series that we started right before we got news that we were approved – regarding our preferences for what we are looking for in a child.  See our July 31^st post, which was the first (and so far, only) post in that series.  If you have specific questions about this topic, let us know so that we can be sure to address those questions!

On Waiting

We are about two months into our “waiting” period.  Basically, we sit around waiting for “the call” from our agency, which will let us know that there is a child waiting for us.  Ok, we don’t really just sit around – in fact, our social worker specifically told us to NOT to sit around waiting for a phone call – to live our lives as normal, plan for vacations, etc.  But still, we do know that any minute – whether now or five years from now – we could get a life-changing phone call.

I thought I would have a tough time with waiting because I am soooooo not a patient person.  Surprisingly, THAT hasn’t been an issue for me yet.  Rather, I’ve struggled getting back to “normal life” almost TOO easily.  I find myself feeling like the entire adoption process was a dream, or a movie I saw long ago.  It seems much less “real” than it did before.  I find myself second-guessing this our decision to have a family.  I’m selfishly enjoying time without the responsibilities of children.  It’s becoming difficult to imagine life with a child, while just a few months ago it was easy to do so. 

So, are we still going forward with the plan?  Yes.  We know that we have been called to adopt and that our feelings and level of emotional excitement about it don’t change that calling.  We’re content to “ride it out” and see what’s in store for us along the way!

The Stuff...

A few weeks ago, we went and registered.  I know it sounds crazy – I mean, shouldn’t we wait until we get word of placement before we do such a crazy thing?

Well, here’s the thing.  We are going to be NEW parents.  We have NO idea what we need and what we don’t need.  We didn’t even know what all was out there or where to start.  For example, did you know that there are at least 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 types of bottles to choose from, all claiming to be the only bottle that will work for your child? :) 

For most things, we’re going to wait until we have word of placement before we actually go buy them.  But, to save time when that happens, we wanted to at least get some of our research done and have some decisions made.  We don’t want to get word of placement and have to go out the next day and make all of these decisions.  Instead, we want to have most of the decisions made and be able to just go and purchase stuff off a list.

So, we registered.  Yep, we got to use the cool little scanner thing and go around the store scanning things we needed or wanted.  It was a two-day process totaling six hours.  It was overwhelming.  And exhausting.  And fun.  And quite educational.

And we realized just how expensive everything could be.  Even the basics, like a car seat, stroller, crib, changing table/dresser, and rocking chair were insanely expensive.  Add that to the already-staggering cost of adoption, and we decided we’d need to start being smart about this whole endeavor. 

Enter Craigslist.

Yep, I’ve been trolling Craigslist every few days to look for some of the big furniture items – crib, changing table, and rocking chair.  We figure that if I can find some of these major things for a good price on Craigslist, why not go ahead and get them rather than purchasing everything new?  So far, we’ve purchased a glider and ottoman for only $100 and a crib for only $40!  The glider/ottoman is exactly what we picked out new (even the same wood and fabric colors), but $900 less than what we would have had to pay new.  $900!  The crib isn’t exactly what I pictured, but for $40, we figured we couldn’t go wrong.  We just have to make sure that it meets current safety regulations – if not, we’ll get rid of it and start looking again. 

So, are we crazy?  Are we just getting our hopes up too early?  Maybe, maybe not.  For those of you who have adopted or had biological children, when did you start amassing the basic and big “stuff?”

Encouraging Moments

I have been so encouraged these past few weeks!  Here are some of the highlights I want to be sure to remember:

1. On two separate Sundays, the two men who led the “shepherding prayer” at church (where someone prays for the needs within the congregation) has prayed specifically for Jason and me and our adoption process.  It has been such a blessing to be counted among all of the other expectant mothers in our congregation!

2. A colleague brought me flowers as congratulations for the approval of our homestudy.  It was such a lovely encouragement on an otherwise mundane day!

3. Several friends have offered to give and lend me baby stuff.  They have sent me lists of things they have found essential, lists of things they’d be willing to give us, etc.  It’s been so encouraging to be surrounded by friends who are willing – and excited – to support us in these ways!

4. A friend added me to a mom’s facebook group that has already been an amazing source of help regarding kid-related questions.  It’s been so cool to start participating in that whole “moms-transferring-knowledge-to-other-moms” phenomenon that usually happens when a woman is pregnant.

5. I saw someone who works at an organization which partners with my school.  She said that she heard that we were adopting, and that she and her husband had adopted, too.  What a blessing to get to chat with someone else who has gone through the process!

May you be encouraged as well!

Jeannine

What's Next?

So, you are probably wondering what, exactly, it means that our homestudy was approved.  What’s next?  Basically, we are now officially “cleared” to be adoptive parents.  We have to formally sign the document and send it back in, and then we enter the “waiting period.” 

During the waiting period, our profile* will be shown to any birthparents whose preferences match our preferences.  If a birthparent looks at our profile and likes what she sees, she can choose us to be parents of her child or opt to meet us first before making a choice.  Our agency says that this can take anywhere between four months and five years.  Quite the range, eh? 

*Our profile is basically a book containing pictures of us and text explaining who we are, why we are adopting, what we like to do, what our families are like, etc.  If you’d like to see an electronic version of our profile, click here.  Enjoy!

BIG news!

We got big news today.  BIG news, people!

Our homestudy was approved!  This means that we are now officially approved to be adoptive parents!

From Jeannine:  I got a notice in my email at 4:50pm that I had a message waiting for me on our adoption portal (how we communicate with the agency).  I was driving, on my way to a BBQ, but knew I had to check it right away.  I pulled over, put my four-way flashers on, and used my phone to log in to the portal (thank goodness for smartphones!).  There was a message that we were approved, and that we needed to review our homestudy document for any errors and then sign-off on it.  Of course, I had to read the entire thing right then.  Even though it was a fifteen page document with small text and I was reading it on my phone.  Half an hour later, I finished, and called Jason (whom I was meeting at the BBQ) to say that I was running late.  I was itching to tell him over the phone, but really wanted to do it in person.  The whole rest of the way there I just kept laughing – it was such great news!  As soon as I got to the BBQ, I found Jason and said, “So, you want to know why I was late?  I was pulled over in my car (at this point he thought I meant by a cop – I may or may not have paused dramatically at this point...) reading our APPROVED homestudy!”  He was really excited and we told our friends at the BBQ right away.  Our friends were wonderful and rejoiced with us and tolerated us talking about it the entire night!

From Jason:  Last night, Jeannine told me that she had gotten a call from our social worker regarding our home study.  She had said that we would most likely get word today about whether we were approved by the agency.  I was pretty confident that it would go well, but at about 4:00 this afternoon, I was wondering if we were going to hear.  I didn’t really want to call Jeannine and ask, but I was definitely disappointed we hadn’t heard anything.  Then when she showed up at the BBQ we were at tonight, she started to say she had been pulled over.  My first thought was “HA, now we are even.”  (We have a little competition regarding speeding tickets, and I’m winning.  Or losing, depending on how you look at it.)  Then she told me the rest, that we had been approved.  I was completely speechless.  The process has seemed to fly by so far, especially when you hear other stories of how long EVERYTHING can take, but I was very relieved to get this part out of the way.  I know waiting from this point will be very difficult, but this is one big part of it out of the way.  And of course, I have been smiling all night.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us.  It’s so wonderful to have such a great support system.  Please keep praying:

1.    That the Lord would prepare us to be parents,

2.    That the Lord would be preparing the right child for us, and

3.    For wisdom and peace and strength for the birthparents of our future child.

Love,

Jason and Jeannine 

Choices, Choices, Choices

Are you hoping for a boy or girl?  What age child are you hoping to adopt?  Are you adopting from another country or from the US?  Are you open to siblings?  What if the birthmother has a history of mental illness in her family?  What sort of prenatal care will you accept or not accept?  What about transracial adoption?  What about special needs?  Are you open to communicating or meeting with the birthparent?  If so, under what conditions and for how many years?

It’s almost overwhelming to think about all the decisions that need to be made regarding adoption preferences (I just counted them up – 45 decisions about our preferences!).  And all of these decisions feel so unnatural – you never expect to have to decide on your child’s gender or age or origin.  It’s truly a bizarre feeling.

Our first decision had to be whether we wanted to adopt internationally (from another country) or domestically (from the United States).  The answer to this question determined which program we entered at our adoption agency, what documentation was required, what training program we attended, etc.  For us, this was a simple decision – but explaining it hasn’t come so simply. 

We are adopting domestically.  Most likely, our child will be from Maryland, although he or she could be from anywhere in the US.  Why?  We simply didn’t feel called to adopt internationally.  Many of the people we know who have adopted have done so internationally (from China, Russia, and Ethiopia).  We admire them and their reasons for adopting internationally immensely.  For us, though, we didn’t feel any peace about it.  Instead, we really felt compelled to adopt from the US.  So, we entered the domestic program at our agency, and the rest is history!

Stay tuned for more posts about other choices we’ve made about our preferences…   

The WHY...

Lots of folks wonder WHY we are adopting.  Are we not able to have biological children?  If not that, then why are we doing it?  Why go through the long, invasive, frustrating, and expensive process?  Read on to find out...

When we first got married, we thought we would wait two or three years before having kids.

A few years later, we still didn’t feel ready to start a family.  And a few more years later, we were even more convinced that we weren't ready.  Not only was the idea of kids unappealing, but we were truly terrified of being parents.

Oddly enough, though, the subject of adoption started popping up – and kept popping up.  We knew several other couples who had adopted or were in the process of adopting.  Someone posted an article on facebook about adoption.  We learned that several of the kids who attend the school where Jeannine works were adopted.  It seemed like everywhere we turned, we were hearing about adoption.

The more we learned about adoption, and the more we talked about it, the more we became convinced that this was the way that we were meant to build our family.  Along the way, God really worked on our hearts to give us a desire not just to have kids, but to adopt our kids.  We finally decided that we were ready to being the process when we were "ok with being terrified." :) 

Before we close, let us more clearly address the "are you ABLE to have biological children?" question, which is the most common assumption about why someone would adopt.  As far as we know, yes, we are able to conceive.  However, we never really tried to do so, so could be completely wrong about that.  God had a funny way of working so that before we were even ready to think about growing our family, we were convinced to do so via adoption.  Providential?  We think so.

Love,

Jason and Jeannine

Specific prayer requests:

1.  That God would be preparing us to be parents

2.  That God would be preparing the right child for us

3.  For wisdom and strength for the birthparents of our future child

4.  That our homestudy would be approved (we should know sometime in the next week or two!)

Home Visit and Joint Interview

Today, our social worker came to our house for a joint interview and inspection of our home.  This time, we weren't nearly as nervous as we were for the individual interviews.  And, it was a good excuse to thoroughly clean our house! :)

Questions we were asked during the joint interview:

• How are you similar to each other?
• How are you different from each other?
• What is working well in your marriage?
• What is challenging in your marriage?
• Describe your physical relationship.
• Is your physical relationship a source of conflict?
• What is your understanding of how abuse (physical, sexual, emotional) affect a child?
• How equipped are you to handle a child with special needs (physical or emotional)?
• What is your understanding of how separation and loss affect a child?
• What have your experiences with others who have adopted or been adopted been like?
• What are the values you want to instill in your child?
• What is the primary goal of discipline?
• How will you discipline your child?  Give at least one specific example.
• Describe your partnership.
• Who will be the primary caretaker of the child in day-to-day matters?
• What are your plans for childcare if you continue working?
• What do your day-to-day lives look like now (without children)?
• What do you expect your day-to-day lives to look like with children?
• What do you do together for fun?
• What type of support have you received during this process?
• What supports do you have in place for issues that may arise after adoption?
• What do you think will be most challenging about having children?
• What do you think will be most rewarding about having children?
• Have you views of adoption changed over the course of this process?
• What are you thought regarding nature vs. nurture?  Which is more important - genetics or environment?
• How do you handle privacy and nudity in the home?  What, if anything, will change in that regard once you have a child?

Things our social worker asked and inspected during the home inspection:

• Square footage of our home
• Age of our home
• Safety equipment (fire extinguisher, smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector, child safety locks/supplies for medicine cabinets, washer, cleaning supplies, etc.)
• Neighborhood make-up (ages, races, children, etc.)
• Neighborhood amenities (pool, tennis courts, etc.)
• Describe the social aspect of our neighborhood 
• How close we are to schools
• How close we are to our church
• How close we are to parks and playgrounds 
• She looked in all the rooms and closets, especially noting the locations of medications, cleaning supplies, and tools
• She looked at Jason's firearms and checked the serial numbers against what was recorded on the form we submitted earlier
• She looked at the bag of child safety supplies we purchased

So, what's next?  We have just a few more pieces of paperwork to get in.  Our social worker is meeting one of our references this afternoon for a face-to-face meeting (required of at least one reference).  Then, she'll write up our home study.  Once it is written, it will either be approved or denied by the Executive Director of our agency.  In the meantime, we need to work on our profile book, which will be shown to birthparents.  Once our home study is approved, we enter the waiting phase, which we've been told can be anywhere from four months to five years...

Please pray specifically for:

1. Our dog license to arrive soon (this is one of the pieces of paperwork that is holding things up)
2. For us to have the stamina this weekend to finish all of our required readings and papers analyzing/responding to those readings
3. For our social worker as she begins the process of writing up our home study
4. For the Lord to continue to prepare the right child for us
5. For the Lord to continue to prepare us to be parents

Love,

Jason and Jeannine

The Paper Chase...

Many people have asked us about the paperwork for the adoption process.  It's a long list, but we divided it up into three categories - what we had to submit for/with our application, what paperwork we had to do at our screening interview in April, and the paperwork we've been working on over the past couple of months.  The good news is that we are almost done - just a few more pieces of paperwork to submit!

Here's a list of what we had to submit for/with our application:

• The Application Itself - contact info, education history, marriage information, employment information, information on our parents and siblings, financial information (assets and liabilities), insurance information (health, disability, life, home, etc.), criminal history, why we want to adopt, what type of child we want to adopt (age range, gender, ethnicity/race, physical or mental challenges), experience with special needs children, physical and behavioral health information, home and neighborhood descriptions.
• References/Recommendations - three personal, one from each of our employers, and one from our pastor.  At least one personal reference had to be local because the agency will need to meet them face to face.  All references had to fill out a form and send it directly to the agency - we have no idea what types of questions were asked other than that our employers had to verify our salary information.  The agency also called each of our references to make sure that they were really the ones who submitted the reference/recommendation forms.

At our screening interview in April, we had to sign a bunch of documents:

• Contract - outlines our agency's services to us and the birthparents, all the definite and possible fees, etc.
• Adoption Subsidy - we had to sign that we are aware that our child could be eligible for an adoption subsidy if he/she was older, has severe physical or mental disabilities, etc.
• Home Safety Form - had to describe where we keep firearms, chemicals, medications, cleaning supplies, tools, a hot tub or swimming pool, pets, etc.
• Post-Adoption Contact with Birth Parents - we had to sign off that we understood the agency's requirements that we send photos and letters to the agency for the first five years of the child's placement so that the birthparents can see those items if they wish.
• Attorney Adoption Agreement - we had to sign that we understand that we will have to hire a lawyer for all of the finalization paperwork and procedures.  We can either use our own lawyer or one recommended by the agency.
• Release of Confidential Information - we had to sign that we authorize our social worker to release information in our adoption record as necessary for adoptive planning and training.
• Adoption Release and Consent Form - this form specifies that we understand and are willing to undertake the risks involved in adoption, including the timing or success of a placement, the conditions (physical, mental, developmental, etc.) of the child, the completeness of a child's medical and social history, etc.
• Authorization for Release of Information - this form gives our county's Child Support Enforcement Office permission to tell our social worker whether or not we have any delinquent child support issues.  Since neither of us have any kids yet, we don't expect this to be an issue. :)
• Changes in Family Status - we agreed that we would let our social worker know immediately about any changes or expected changes to our family composition, marital situation, living situation, employment status, health, etc.
• Birthparent Privacy - we agreed not to seek information regarding the birthparent or the child other than what is given to us by the agency - we need to gain all information through the birthparent him/herself or the agency, not online.  Jason and I jokingly call this the "stalker clause."
• Statement of Discipline - we had to sign that we understood the prohibited punishments for our child, including:  corporal punishment (including spanking and shaking); physical exercise such as running laps or performing pushups; requiring or using force to make the child take an uncomfortable position; verbal ridicule or belittling; denial of emotional response; denial of meals, clothing, bedding, sleep, mail, or visits with birthparents; threatening loss of adoptive placement; and use of mechanical or chemical restraints.

Here's a list of what we had to submit AFTER our initial application and screening interview:

• Medical forms - we each had to go to the doctor for a physical, drug test, and TB test.  The doctor had to fill out a form and send it to our agency.
• Fire Department Inspection - the fire marshall had to come and inspect our house and then send a report to our agency.  She checked for smoke detectors, the size of our windows, our evacuation plan (which we had to draw out on a piece of paper), that our doors and windows all work, etc.
• Code Enforcement Inspection - the code enforcement officer for our county had to come and inspect our house and then send a report to our agency.  She checked for the size of our rooms, appropriate egress from each room, that our house was otherwise up to code (easier for us because we live in a condo), and that our hot water temperature was within the approved range.
• Space Plan/Fire Escape Plan - We had to draw up a map of our house and show at least two escape routes from each room.  In addition to showing this to the fire marshall, we had to submit this to our agency.
• Financial Information Worksheet - this form itemizes all of our financial assets and liabilities.
• Copy of Last Year's 1040 tax form
• Statement of Faith - we each had to answer four questions about our faith - things like how we came to faith, what our involvement is at church, how we plan to pass on our faith to our children, etc.
• Firearm Safety Checklist - we had to fill one of these out for each of the firearms that Jason owns.  This included a checklist of normal safety stuff (e.g. is the trigger clean and in working order, are they locked in a gun safe, etc.), and also a place for us to enter the serial numbers of the firearms so that our agency can track them and make sure that none of them were used in crimes, stolen, etc.
• Copy of Dog's License and Vaccination Record
• Family Health History - this form details any medical/emotional health issues in each of our families.
• Background Check Release - this allows our agency to conduct a full background check on us with Child Protective Services.
• Criminal Clearance - we each had to go get our fingerprints taken.  They do this electronically now, which is great - our agency had the results later the same day!
• CPR Certification - as part of our training with our agency, we each earned our CPR certification - for adult, child, and infant CPR.  A copy of our certification cards had to be included in our file.
• Marriage Certificate
• Birth Certificates 
• Certified Copy of MVA Records - we each had to get a certified copy of our complete driving records from the MVA.  Luckily, you can order these online now, so we didn't have to actually go stand in line at the MVA!
• Affidavit of Health Insurance - we had to have at least one of our employers sign off that we had access to health insurance and that our child could/would be covered under that insurance. 
• Training Records - we each had to record all of the training we did through the agency and submit this to our social worker when we were finished.  
• Openness Worksheet - on this page, we had to specify how open we would like our relationship with the birthparents to be.  More info on this to come in a later blog post...
• Questionnaires 1 and 2 - these focused on our relationships with our parents, extended family, and each other.  The first one we had to fill out and submit a few weeks ago.  The second one we had to fill out at our individual interviews - that one focused a lot more on family history of abuse (drug/alcohol, sexual, physical, verbal, emotional, etc.).
• Adoption Preferences - here we had to list how open we were to all sorts of things - attributes of the child (e.g. gender, race, medical or emotional conditions), social and medical history of the birthparents (e.g. victim of rape or incest, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, drug/alcohol use or abuse during pregnancy, criminal history, etc.), birthmother's prenatal care, and openness between our family and the birthparents.
• Support System - we have to list the names and contact information for three individuals and/or families who will be there to support us following placement (meals, child care, etc.).  We also have to list a physician or mental health professional that will be available to treat us for depression or anxiety if needed.  Lastly, we need to identify both a personal and organizational adoption support group with whom we can connect.
• Guardianship - we have to name who will be the guardian(s) of our child should something happen to both of us.  The guardian(s) have to sign a form in the presence of a witness.  This technically isn't a legally binding document - we still have to update our will accordingly, but it gives the agency something to work with and some peace of mind that we have made the appropriate plans.
• Book Reports/Analysis - we each have to read three books and write a 1-2 page paper on each book.  The papers are supposed to analyze the books and provide our responses to the books.  The three books are:  Labor of the Heart, Dear Birthmother, and Raising Adopted Children.  

While all of this definitely is a lot, it actually hasn't been as bad as we expected.  We kept it all organized using an excel spreadsheet and kept copies s of everything we submitted.  Our social worker has been great about answering questions and helping us through the process.  We're almost done with the paperwork - just a few more things left to submit!

Love,

Jason and Jeannine

Individual Interviews

Jason and I are starting this blog mid-stream in our adoption process.  We'll write some posts later to catch up on why we are adopting, what the process has been like so far, how we've grown and changed already, etc.  But for now, we'll pick up with current events - our individual interviews!  


The interviews were two hours each, and scheduled back-to-back so that we couldn't "compare note" with each other between interviews.  The most nerve-wracking part was that we weren't sure what types of questions to expect.  Would they be hard questions?  Would we be put on the defensive?  Would our answers line up?

Afterward, we both agreed that it wasn't too bad.  As best as we can remember, the questions were regarding the following:

• our parent's personalities and our relationships with them as children, teenagers, and now, including how often we see them and communicate with them
• what growing up was like for us (family lifestyle, interaction with extended family, how we were disciplined, how faith played a role in our family, family values, etc.)
• what we were like as kids and in high school and college, including interests and activities, experimentation with drugs and alcohol, etc.
• family medical history and our own medical histories, including physical and mental/emotional 
• our strengths and weaknesses
• our marriage, including how we each act when mad or upset, any especially trying times in our marriage, etc.
• how we came to faith, how we are involved in our church, etc.
• how we plan to discipline our children
• our values 
• our close friends and our support system 
• employment history - first job, other jobs, professional life, main responsibilities in current job, what we like/don't like about current job, etc.
• exposure to diversity (racial and lifestyle) and thoughts on it
• political views
• how we handle stereotypes 
• our communication and problem solving skills 

So, what's next?  We have a few more pieces of paperwork to get in, including some more "book reports" (we have to read several adoption books and write up our analysis of each book).  Next Thursday (6/27), our social worker is coming to our home for our joint interview and home inspection.  The joint interview will be with both of us and is expected to last approximately two hours.  The home inspection is expected to last approximately an hour.  At that visit, we need to have all of our hazardous materials (cleaning supplies, tools, guns, etc.) child-proofed.  We also need to have purchased other child safety equipment (plugs for outlets, etc.).  Other than that, we're not quite sure what to expect during the visit - we've already had our house inspected by the fire marshall and the county code enforcement officer.  We suspect she'll look at the size of the child's room, for any safety issues, and generally whether or not our place is habitable.  Guess we'd better get cleaning! :)

Once we complete next week's joint interview and visit, and get our paperwork in, we'll be officially finished with the home-study process.  Then, our social worker takes approximately two weeks to write up our home-study report.  The report goes to the Executive Director of the agency, who has to approve it.  After that, it comes to us for our approval.  We have the chance to make any changes that are necessary (misspellings, errors in dates or ages, etc.).  Once it looks good, we sign it and then we are officially approved to be adoptive parents!

In the meantime, we'll be working on our "profile."  Our profile is basically a little book that, in words and pictures, tells the birthmother about us.  If a birthmother likes what she sees in the profile, she can either select us or choose to meet us before making a decision.  More about that later - but for now, we need to focus on getting our profile done because once it is done and we have our home-study approval, the agency can start showing our profile to birthmothers.

I think that's enough for now - we'll try to update over the next week or two to catch up on everything we've experienced up until now!  In the meantime, please be praying:

1. For the Lord to be creating the right child for our family
2. For the birthmother of our child
3. For us, as we are preparing to be parents, that the Lord would be molding us and shaping us into the right kind of parents for our child 

Love,
Jason and Jeannine