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