A new PATH

After more than a year of waiting we are now starting on the home study process! It is good to feel like we are taking steps forward.

If you have been keeping up, for the past 14 months we have listed our profile with a local attorney and have been networking with anyone we come in contact with. We have been hesitant to work with an adoption agency for several reasons. We won't go into that here, except to say that cost is a factor. But after thoughtfully and tearfully considering a surrogate pregnancy we have again reassessed our plans of how to grow our family.

We are now connected with a local foster-to-adopt agency, Omni Visions, Inc. We have completed the 4-week PATH (Parents as Tender Healers) training class. We are almost, maybe, hopefully, nearly done with a two-inch stack of paperwork. We are collecting references and are scheduling a CPR class. All this will allow us to be approved resource parents in the state of Tennessee. Once approved we can be part of Omni’s foster-to-adopt program.

We are looking to provide a permanent and stable home for child under the age of five. It is a simultaneously exciting and scary process. We just keep reminding ourselves that we are doing this to serve a child, who is probably more scared that we are. We are not sure what to expect but glad to be taking a step forward on this journey.

The home study requires the house to be baby-/child-proofed. We have spent the past 3 weeks collecting a fire extinguisher, rearranging our cleaning supply storage, and developing a system to double lock our medications (prescription and OTC). We were asked to provide pictures of the inside and outside of our house as well as our pets. The house is the cleanest and most organized it has been since we moved in 5 years ago. Here are a couple our those pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Scott's Hero themed office.

Spare 'oom -  this is the future home of our little one. It is a woodland Narnia theme.

We will share more on this process as we learn more.

We found a new podcast on the foster-to-adopt process from a California couple - here. The process will be different state to state, but the feelings are the same no matter where you are.

--KF

An Adventure Begins

Scott and I have been married for 5 years now. We have gathered around ourselves a wonderful network of family and friends. We've settled in our house and we are working hard in our jobs. We are now ready to grow our nuclear family. We have decided to do this through adoption.

Adoption Step 1: Overcome fears and insecurities and call attorney's office to discuss how to get started. Check. Spoke with the attorney's office and they said find a child and then call us to do the legal work. Okay we can do that.

Adoption Step 2: Prepare a "Dear Birth Mother" letter and Family Profile. Almost check. We've spent the past week gathering photos and compiling our profile. We need to revise it into an attractive document and then send it to the attorney with a cover letter specifying our desired child.

Adoption Step 3: Network with EVERYONE to let them know. This is scary. This is where the blog comes in. This is to let everyone we know and everyone they know that we are looking for our baby. Somewhere out there there is, or there will be, our little one who is waiting for us to find him or her. We are looking for an infant under 12 months old who is healthy and needing a home.

Adoption Step 4: Once our little one is found, complete the "home study." This is the state-required assessment on whether we would be acceptable parents. No worries there. Although I hope they don't check to see if I regularly dust the top of my fridge. This includes background checks, interviews, psychological testing and confirmation that we have a roof over our heads and space for a baby. This would be the first expense of the process. Once completed the home study is good for 12 months.

So keep us in your prayers and in your mind as you go about your lives. If you hear of someone who has decided not to parent their infant, please pass on our name and contact information.

-K