And We're Off!

Here it is!  Our notebook ...sigh...  I'm so excited and cannot believe that at the end of all of this paperwork God will bless us with a baby!  A baby you guys!  WaHoo!!!!  :)  So...how did our meeting go today?  I'm so glad you asked because I am dying to tell you!  It went wonderfully.  Here are some bullet points-

• Meet Beth- the head of the domestic adoption program.  She asks us why we are adopting and why we have chosen domestic infant adoption at this time.  We share our hearts and she shares her story.  She adopted a newborn and then went into foster care and adopted 2 more kiddos from the foster system.  Pretty much amazing since this is pretty much how we envision our family growing :)
• We ask a couple of questions.  How do they get in touch with birth moms?  Mainly birth moms are referred to Hope's Promise via pregnancy centers, doctors offices & other birth moms.  What is a disrupted adoption and how often does it occur?  Disruption specifically refers to a baby being taken out of an adoptive family's home after placement.  This does not include any circumstance in which the birth mom decides to parent at any point before she places the baby in the prospective adoptive home.  So, how often does the birth mom decides to parent after given birth & after making an adoption plan?  They don't keep track of that- or at least they don't share those numbers.  They fully support the birth mom's decision to parent at any point should she change her mind.  (To be completely honest, this part is a little scary to me...read: no baby showers until after the baby is home and birth mom has relinquished.)  
• We go page by page through our handy dandy Domestic Adoption Process Manual and the checklist of paperwork required.  All of the expected things like fingerprints, guidelines for writing our bios, financial sheet, request for proof of insurance and employment, medical releases and so much more.  Partially overwhelming, but mostly super exciting.  I don't know if maybe hearing over and over just how much paperwork there is truly prepared me for this or what, but I'm really not as overwhelmed as I thought I would be.  

So what will we be doing for the next couple of months?  Praying for our birth mom, filling out paperwork, gathering letters from required sources, praying for financial provision, fundraising, putting together our profile book, praying for patience and dreaming of someday holding our little one close to our hearts.

There were a couple of exciting details that we learned/confirmed today.

• We will be assigned a case worker once this packet of paperwork is completed.  This creates the swiftest timeline of getting assigned to a case worker who is available to start our interviews asap. 
• If we are quick with our paperwork and financially ready to move forward, we could be in the waiting pool and being considered by birth moms in as little as TWO MONTHS!  
• Typical wait time between being placed in the waiting pool and bringing a baby home from the hospital is EIGHT - ELEVEN MONTHS!  
• It is possible that our baby has been conceived or is going to be conceived this month or in the next couple of months!  That's pretty exciting :)
• Should the most difficult of things actually happen and we have a birth mom change her mind and decide to parent after she has had the baby or even after placement, our profile with go back into the waiting pool to be shown to birth moms at no additional fee.
• At least 6 months after we bring the baby home from the hospital, our adoption will be finalized legally (per Colorado state law).  Until that point, we are by law considered foster parents and the baby is in custody of Hope's Promise.  The birth parents typically relinquish within 3 days of the baby's birth- it is not a matter of the baby going back to birth mom but a matter of assuring we are stable and the baby is healthy in our care. 

I ran across this verse while reading through various adoption blogs recently

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, 
to the woman who diligently seeks. 

It’s a good thing to quietly hope,  
quietly hope for help from God.   

Lamentations 3:25-26

We pray for the grace to passionately wait, diligently seek and quietly hope.
God is so faithful and we entrust this journey to Him entirely.