It's coming!

There are a lot of steps in the adoption process for a couple hoping to adopt. It starts with a realization that you won't be increasing the number of people in your family without some outside help. Luckily, we got to skip the roller coaster ride that is fertility treatments, since that isn't our problem. We never even tried to have another child, because we knew how bad that would be for my body. We prayed about it, but the Lord knows what is best, and he knows that we are supposed to be taking other avenues besides getting pregnant.

So then there is that first meeting, the introduction to adoption. Our first meeting was the first week in June. It seems like ages ago. Again, we were lucky; we knew right away that adoption was what we wanted. There wasn't a question about it after that first meeting. I think it helped that Jason and I have discussed "when we adopt" since before we had our first child. I've just watched it bless so many people, parents and children alike. I wanted to join this awesome club that I had witnessed from the outside. Not to say it is easy or right for everyone, but I know it's right for me.


Since we are open to adopting a child of any age younger than our oldest (because we still want Seth to be the oldest in the family) we also took the foster care training classes. This meant LOADS of paperwork between LDS Family Services (LDSFS) and Utah Foster Care Foundation (UFCF). Our foster care training classes lasted all of June, but we got them all done in one month. We also did the adoption training if we had a spare second. We finished up all the paperwork for both agencies and, based upon others' timelines and their experience, expected to have our home inspection for foster care around the end of August or beginning of September. We thought the report would be written up by the end of September at the latest and we would be waiting for "that phone call" from UFCF by October. Well we didn't get the inspection until the very end of October because the state licensor was busy, and we are still waiting for that report to be typed up.

Because of extra things we had to do for LDSFS that we hadn't been expecting, and because of having a hard time scheduling the meetings we needed, the adoption process came to a halt for a couple of months. Those months, at a standstill with UFCF and LDSFS, were long months. I quote I heard recently says, "Real happiness comes from growth. As long as you are growing, you are alive." I felt like I had stopped growing. It was hard, especially knowing that it was my body that was keeping us from just giving more siblings to our kids who DEFINITELY want more siblings and don't understand paperwork and training and processes.

While the foster care stuff is still being held up by the report that hasn't been typed yet, I can say that the adoption profile and information is officially done and revamped and resubmitted! We will still tweak it here and there and update the pictures and things, but what we have submitted right now is what will go on the website (itsaboutlove.org) assuming it is approved by the board of LDSFS. :D The homestudy is also done, and we passed the inspection. She's typing up the report for us as I type this! I feel like this is a huge step. The next step is approving us through the board, which will probably happen Wednesday! If they don't find anything they want to change in our profile, they'll throw it up on their website. I can't wait to see it. This means we enter the stage where we could have a chance at being seen and chosen by a potential birthmother! It just feels great to be this close, because it's been 8 months  since we started, and there were times when it didn't feel like we would ever get to this part, the exciting part, the part we have done all this work for. I'm trying not to focus too much on Wednesday, because I understand if the caseworker gets behind, or if the board wants us to change things. Those things happen, and I don't want to get my hopes up too much. But it's coming! It's almost here!