1st Adoption Meeting

We met with an agency yesterday and learned a boat load of information!  It was good to learn about the home study process and the placement process directly from the source.  The agency we met with is out of Peoria and they have a small infant adoption program with only two caseworkers in this agency program.  We see this as both a benefit and a disadvantage.  Since they are a small agency they are very personal and quick to carry things out with the home study process. Also they have more time to meet personally and answer questions because they are usually only working with maybe 10 families at a time.  The disadvantage of them being small is that they only do an average of 4 infant adoptions a year and the average wait time can be up to 2 years depending on if you are picked by a birth mother or not.  We are not sure yet if we want to use this agency or maybe a different one in the area.  We are looking into an adoption agency in Bloomington as well.  The process, probably for any agency we would decide to go with, goes something like this... We would begin by filling out an application for their home study.  The applications are almost always immediately accepted.  Next we would begin the home study.  It consists of visits with the caseworker at the adoption agency, visits to our home to be sure we have the right environment for a baby, lots of paperwork and information about all aspects of our lives, background checks, physicals, CPR training, TB tests, online adoption classes, and much more!  Once all this is completed (this usually takes 3-4 months) there will be a written paper by the agency that will be a compilation of all this information and that will be our home study.  With all this is done we will be certified as an adoption family by the State.  Next we will make a profile of our lives.  This could be in the form of a book like creative memories or a scrapbook or someway to show our lives in a nutshell.  We would begin with a letter to the birth mother then include pictures and information about family and hobbies, jobs and just our life in general.  This book would then be given to the adoption agency to use in connecting us to a birth mother.  If the agency feels that our family and the birth mother have similar desires or goals for the baby our book along with a few others will be shown to the birth mother.  They will then pick one family to set up an adoption plan with.  If we would be picked we would then be able to meet the birth mother before birth at the adoption agency.  Then we would possibly be invited to the hospital for the birth and be able to take the baby home right from the hospital.  A birth mothers rights to the baby will be considered terminated and irrevocable after 72 hours of the birth or 3 days.  Then after 3 visits from the agency in the first 6 months of the babies life, they will determine that all is going well with the baby in our home.  Usually at 6 months the adoption is finalized through court and the birth certificate changed to make us the babies legal parents.  So that is the a summary of everything that takes place from start to finish!  We would also have the opportunity to do outreach to connect with birth mothers using lawyers or adoption agencies from another state that would be willing to work with the adoption agency through which we would do our home study.  At this point we are hoping to gather information and statistics from the agency we know of in Bloomington and then make a decision of where we want to begin the home study process.
We are praying fro God's direction and peace that we can know just where He would like us to begin.  A verse that we have opened to twice now as we have been praying for Gods direction is Romans 8:28


For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose.

We really feel God speaking to us telling us to simply trust.  We do not have all the answers but we are called by Him and if we love and trust Him He will lead us.