It has been awhile since we have blogged so we want to get everyone up to date on our adoption process. This is a longer post – very fitting with this step of the process that we are completing now. I’ll do my best to give an overview of the steps we have to take to get ourselves ready to bring a child into our home. In January we met with our social worker at Bethany Christian Services. This was a meeting to go over the details once more before we officially started the process. This was a good refresher meeting, and a chance to ask questions. Our social worker has been great for answering our questions and being very honest with us. After the meeting we were excited and ready to get started on the paperwork. ALL. the. paperwork.
I am sure it is really difficult to understand the process we are actually going through. I am going to try to explain it so you can somewhat understand the process. The first step is what they call the pre-application. The pre-application consisted of three parts. The first was a small application about us. This consisted of general information about us – name, employment, and included information about the church we attend. The second part is signing a statement of faith that we agree to. Because Bethany is a Christian Service, they require their applicants to also have a strong Christian faith. This is also important for Tricia and me, which is one of the main reasons we chose Bethany. Finally the third step is answering written questions about our own personal faith. Both Tricia and I completed this. The pre-application took us about 10 days from getting it to completion. Each step is put into a “portal” – or an online program that we access information from. After each step we have to pay for that step in order to move onto the next. After we completed the pre-application all we could do is wait until it was approved.
We were very excited when were informed that our pre-application was approved! It took about two weeks for us to get notified. This meant that we could move on to the formal application. The formal application is much more significant than the pre-application. The first step was very detailed application. This included personal information, employment information, information about our families, financial information, prior employment information, past addresses, criminal history, and more. Let’s just say they want to know everything about us and this was just the first part of the formal application. Tricia and I both had to provide and sign an employment verification form. This gives Bethany permission to contact our employers to verify we have provided correct information on our application. Both of us also had to have our employer sign a document verifying that we have health insurance and that a child could be added to our insurance plan at any time. This wasn’t too difficult but still took some time. One of the steps we had to do was get a background check. This was a fun process (sarcasm). In order to do this we had to get our finger prints taken at the Sherriff’s office. This sounds easy but they only do fingerprinting on Tuesday’s between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM. Real convenient, I know. Fortunately we were both able to take time away from work to get it done. Tricia and I also had to get medical exams from our doctor. This was similar to most medical exams, but it also included a drug test. It was good for both of us to get checked out but it was just another part of the process that took some time to get done. One of the steps that we had to complete was a little easier for us but passed on some of the work to some of our friends and family. We had to provide four names to Bethany that they could contact as references. The only difficult part was deciding whom we wanted to be our references, especially since only one of them could be family. We feel really blessed that we have many people that were willing to help us out with this process – and even more grateful that they did it quickly!
We have finally completed all of the formal application. This means that now we are in a waiting period. We have to wait for the formal application to be approved. After the formal application is approved we will move on to the home studies. The home studies consist of home visits from our social worker. This allows Bethany to learn more about our family and our home environment. These will also consist of interviews of Tricia and me. During this time, the conversations with our social worker are personal and up close. They want to get a good feel for the kind of parents we will be, and beyond that, the kind of extended family and community we live in. We feel the difficulty of the home studies will comes with scheduling them. We have to complete four different home studies and they are typically scheduled on weekdays during the week. Luckily we both have jobs that will allow us to take an afternoon off to get these completed. The home studies can be a little nerve wracking but we are excited to get started.
Once the home studies are completed and approved we have to attend two educational classes. The two educational classes are Whole Family Training and Transracial Adoption. These classes will prepare us to be adoptive parents. There are other classes that Bethany offers. These classes can help us prepare for adopting but are not required. There is so much information about so many different facets of adoption – it is a little overwhelming! We can’t wait to dig in and find out even more. As we get more into that step, we’ll post more about the classes – but in the meantime, just a few of the classes we can choose from: special needs, breastfeeding, baby care, easing the transition, attachment and bonding, AND MORE! After we complete these classes we can start to create our adoption profile. We can be very creative with our adoption profile. The purpose of the profile is to share all about our family. This can consist of personal information, education, employment, our home, family traditions, pets, community involvement, and more. The profile is presented to moms that are thinking about giving up their child for adoption. There is a lot of pressure on this step because we don’t get to meet with the moms to explain ourselves or our lifestyle. They only get a profile to decide if we might be a fit. Depending on the circumstances, there are a lot of scenarios that mothers can be in when they are choosing a family for their child. For us this is just waiting game. There is no guess on time frame, nor is there a guarantee. In order for a child to get placed with us, the mom chooses us. This is why our profile is so important. We have to learn to be patient, open minded and to trust our journey to God. We cannot control it.
You can probably start to gather the theme of adopting: hurry up to get stuff done so you can wait. We knew going into the adoption it was going to be a long process. So far we have moved through it pretty quickly. This is probably because we are so motivated to bring a child into our home and start loving them. We ask for your prayers and support as we continue throughout the process. You have no idea how much it as meant to us. If you have any questions about our adoption process feel free to ask at any time.
