Before I go into details about how we picked an agency I wanted to post about where we are right now in the adoption process. We have completed all our home study requirements and oodles of paperwork. It will be any day and we will be "live." That means birth mothers will have the opportunity to see our family bio and we are listed on the website.
(Enter picture here) I had a great picture to help explain the process we went through to select our adoption agency. To post this picture it requires me to download an app and use technology. That would be mean by tomorrow I would have that accomplished. So blog failure! No visual!!
We came to a decision that a domestic (United States only) infant adoption was our calling. In the U.S. most agencies consider infant 0-12 months. With the agency we have selected we are personally considering 0-6 months as infant. Selecting an agency is like UNO. You have a handful of options, literally a whole deck, and you have to get to UNO. Through talking, lots of talking, we started to collect names of different agencies. We talked to friends that had friends who adopted. People we knew that had adopted. Co-workers who were willing to share any type of information that they knew about adoption. I think there was only UNO agency that was repeated in all these conversations. So that still left us with a full hand. Grrrrr! I had asked a client, who was a volunteer at Life Center, if she could share with me the list they handed out at their office. Life Center is today's version of Another Way Pregnancy Center. When we got the list we were excited to see that some of the recommendations we had collected during conversations were also on this list! Score! So we picked four to begin to research. By research I mean Big J using google & then I listened to what he read. Immediately one of the agencies was a NO! Score! Get rid of another card. We read through their website and we were totally uncomfortable with their philosophy. It felt like we were at a Used Car Dealership for children. Yuck! This left us with three agencies. We liked all three on their websites and all had come with some type of recommendation. From there we contacted each agency to attend their informational meeting.
Round #1: Our first agency we were so EXCITED!!!!! We really thought this was the one. We had heard great recommendations and felt comfortable with everything that was presented to us thus far. They had a portal we were already connected into so we had been reading articles and looking over fees, procedures, timeline, etc. I remember when we got into our parking spot we prayed and it felt like, "Oh my! We're going to have a baby!" The informational session was arranged to just be one-on-one so we were very excited about the privacy of the session. After about an hour and a half this informational meeting felt like- YOU Lose! Draw 2. We were totally defeated. This agency didn't feel like a fit at all. There were so many things that were expressed as needed in the process we felt that adoption was obviously not for us. Where did we go wrong? How had we not thought about this before? We literally left and felt like we couldn't really talk. We were ready to throw in the towel. We both knew we had to be willing to be stretched but not into a giant pretzel! After processing, Big J and I were able to gather our thoughts and discuss how we felt. We knew we had two more agencies to go with so we needed to keep our head in the game.
Round #2: This agency we selected was much different than the first. They had absolutely no religious affiliation, would place you with a child from anywhere in the U.S., and had no pre-qualifications to adopt. They strictly only placed infants and were networked across about 40 states. Alright! We were finally onto something! Although round #1 was a huge bust we were much more educated & prepared. We had gone and done some more research which helped follow the informational session. This session was not private. There were about seven other couples present. For us, this wasn't really an issue. The meeting was extremely informative. We felt we had a good picture of what the process looked like. On our way home we both agreed that we could go with this agency. Still two cards left.
Round #3: First off, in January 2015 Big J and I put adoption on our New Year's to do list. It was now December 2015 and we were bound and determined to have an agency picked by the 31st. Can you say procrastination! So we jammed in one more agency visit before we headed to Florida for Christmas. This agency's information meeting was also a group setting. I would say that there were about 10 couples. The founder of the agency lead the session. For the most part we were up to speed with the laws, payment fees, and majority of the things that were presented. This was our third information meeting so we were getting the hang of things. The big difference was it was so personal! We both instantly felt connected and like this was the place for us to be! Why? First off they handled a lot more of the process then the second agency we had looked into. This agency, ASC, collected all your information but then put it into polished form. They have a huge network across the state. Knowing our adoption would be in the state where we live answered a lot of unknown questions. It also gave us a much clearer financial picture. The staff is complied of amazing women! They all have unique stories about adoption. UNO! We have won!!!! Right after the meeting we wrote our check, scheduled our first interview, and picked up our packet. Florida had some homework to get done!
Not listed in this story. Insert "And we prayed" after every sentence. There was no other way to use discernment and make decisions then through prayer. We had felt the Lord lead us to this point so we greatly needed His voice in which one to choose!
So that's the rest of this story! Stay tuned for more..
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