Adoption #2 Update

Several people have asked us where we are in this process, so here is the update.

As many of you know, we are on the Foster-to-Adopt track with our previous agency, Bethany Christian Services, as the middle man between us and the state. Our plan/desire is to be matched with kids age 0-5 who are legally free or likely to become legally free. We are open to either boys or girls, and will take a sibling pair (2 kids at a time).

There are many steps to the process, including background checks, fingerprinting, Pride training (30 hour class), references (thanks to those of you who are doing references for us!), self-study, questionnaires on what characteristics of kids we would best be able to parent, health checkups from our doctors, bringing our home up to standard to meet the requirements of the home study, making sure our cat is free from sickness or disease, CPR/1st Aid/BBP classes, and lots of other paperwork. We just take it one step at a time and tackle each item at it comes due.

At this point, we have finished all of our classes (Pride training and CPR/1st Aid/BBP), have done one round of background checks and fingerprinting, and have finished over half of our paperwork. Once our paperwork is complete, Bethany will review it and do their part in the filtering/investigation process, and then they will do our home study. That should happen in approximately 3 months (assuming we finish our paperwork within the next month).

Once our homestudy is complete, and our photo album/family profile is complete, we will be able to be matched with kid(s). One of the differences between the domestic infant adoption program (how we got Abby) and the foster-to-adopt program is that we as the adoptive parents have a lot more say over who we will get as kids. We can and have looked at profiles even now, and we could be matched with kids even at this point in the process. We just won't be able to bring them into our home until we have our foster license.

It's a lot scary and a lot exciting to be in this process. But we also have a lot of peace about it. We know that God has just the right kiddos picked out for us (just like He did by bringing us Abby), and so we rest in the confidence that He will bring to pass exactly what should happen at exactly the right time. We have to do our part by meeting the requirements and jumping thru the appropriate hoops, but God is ultimately in control of who we will get to adopt as our next kid(s).

As we said last time we adopted, we very much appreciate the prayers and support from our family and friends. We could not do this without you. There is a lot of faith involved in this process! It certainly is stretching us and will stretch us a whole bunch more before we're done. But God is faithful, and we are trusting in Him.

No post would be complete without a picture, so here's one for you:

This one was taken a few nights ago when Abby and I were up late (she took a late nap and wasn't tired until after 11pm). We had a SPLENDID time together, part of which was spent taking self-photos. :)