Adoption #2

I guess it's true what they say, as a first time mom, I had all the time to write my thoughts down on paper. Here we are halfway through our second adoption and I have yet to write anything. Time has been flying and life has been hectic with the holidays, quarantine, and the home study. 

So here is where we are...

We completed the home study and were officially home study approved on December 24th but we received the home study in the mail on January 2nd. It was a great mail day! Once we received the home study, I contacted the agency and we completed all of the paperwork for them and I also ordered our profile book. On January 8th, we were officially and active waiting family.

We submitted the paperwork and home study to the agency on the 8th around 5:30 pm and by 7:00, the agency had already emailed us two birth mother profiles. This is new territory for us because we never matched with a birth mother for Camden's adoption. Seeing the profiles of these beautiful women and their due dates made it feel VERY real and it was a bit emotional. Craw and I spent all weekend looking at those two profiles and daydreaming of the baby that might be ours.

On Monday, we said "yes" to one of the birth mothers and now we are waiting to hear back from her. It has been an exhausting week and I have tried to keep busy but this whole waiting game is an entirely new emotion for me. To be honest, it is really difficult to see the gender of a baby and the due date and not dream of that baby belonging to us some day. I am trying to focus on all of the good things and not get my hopes up but I would be lying if I said I wasn't anxious.

One night this week, I sat in the recliner around midnight and all I could do was pray for these beautiful women that are choosing life for their baby. I pray that they feel loved and safe and that they can feel empowered when making the best choice for their baby. 

So this is where we are...just waiting...and hoping...and praying! Hopefully, I will have more news to share soon. 

Home Study Approved

Goodness gracious! I've been looking forward to typing out that post title for a while now. We are officially home study approved and our literally just waiting for "the call" saying that we are matched. I feel like I have every single emotion running through my mind 24/7. One minute I'm so excited I could shout to the heavens and the next minute I'm crying. I also feel anxious, fear, and sadness thinking about the choice this mama is about to have to make.

SO MANY EMOTIONS!

From every adoptive mom I've spoken with and every adoption blog I've read, these emotions are all very normal. So much is about to change in such a short amount of time. Even my friends that have given birth say they go through many of these emotions the day they find out they are pregnant. Am I really ready to be a mom? My heart says absolutely but there is always that thought in the back of my mind that says everything that I know right now is about to change and that is a little scary.

The home study process was surprisingly very smooth for us. I LOVE the agency we used for the home study. They were a pleasure to work with and they made everything feel so easy. I'm also a type A person so when given a list of all of the documents we needed, I pretty much had copies of everything within a days time. The background checks were super easy. Again, I cannot say enough good things about how the process worked for us.

The last visit with the social worker was the home visit. We gave her a tour of our home and showed her the baby's room. She needed to know the measurement of that room but other than that, everything was a quick walk through. She didn't look inside cabinets or closets so it was really just like having a friend over.

We received our completed home study in the mail on November 20th. We were so excited and it was the very best mail day. We immediately sent a copy to our agency and began working on our profile book. I made the book from scratch and we received it in the mail this weekend and mailed it to the agency today along with a check for the first payment installment. I can't believe that we are nearing the end and are in the "waiting" phase now. Our part is done! Now we wait to get matched and then wait for the baby to be born.

I messaged our agency this morning and there are currently 2 waiting birth mothers that they plan to match within the next month. This was very exciting news. I'm not sure how many waiting adopting families they may have but I'm just praying that God is going to match us to the birth mama that he has handpicked just for us

Lastly, I posted this photo yesterday on Facebook of our profile book and I want to document what I wrote alongside the picture.


"Tomorrow is the day we mail our profile book to our agency. The profile book is the one shot we get to show a glimpse of our lives to the birth families. Will you join me in prayer over the hands this book will touch? Our prayer is that it will fall in to the hands that God has handpicked for our family. More than anything, we pray for the lives this book may touch as I fully believe this book is a major part of our story AND their story. I pray that the birth family we match to will truly see the love that Jesus has for them."

Homestudy Update

Our adoption journey is really moving and things seem to be happening fast. We just had our second interview with the social worker yesterday and I think it went great. This was the meeting I was most nervous about because our worker told us the questions would be a bit tougher. While they were tough, it was still fun and I think we did a great job sharing our hearts and answering them.

Here were a few of the questions we were asked:

What are our childcare arrangements for when we get the baby?

How long do we plan to stay out of work?

How will our faith/religious background play in to our role as parents?

How do we plan to incorporate our faith/religious background in to our child's life?

How do we plan to discipline our child?

How were we disciplined as children?

Are we open to any gender?

Are we open to any race?

If we get a child that is of a difference race, are we open to learning and teaching our child about their ethnic background?

Are we open to a special needs child?

How many children would we adopt?

As you can see, most of these were straight forward questions with straight forward answers. However, some were in depth questions that required a much deeper discussion. We LOVE our social worker so it was actually fun answering the questions because she was able to share some of her own experiences as a mother which was fun to hear.

We have one visit left with the social worker and the last one will be at our house. She will be doing a walk through and checking out the space in which our child will live.  After that, she will be typing up the report and submitting it.  We are hoping to have the homestudy approved by the end of November. At that point, we will be able to start the matching process with our agency.

This process has truly blown my expectations out of the water. I was so scared to start this journey and it has been such a positive experience so far. I'm sure we will have some stressful days/weeks ahead but I am so thankful with how far God has brought us. Each and every single day, we are one step close to Baby Bolton.

Adoption Homestudy

Source

The homestudy is something that I had no clue what to expect. I knew from my research that there would be an in-home interview. However, everything I read stated that the social workers would NOT be going around giving our house a white glove lookdown. Even with the research I did on my own, I still was unsure what I was going to need to properly prepare for a homestudy because there were so many contradictions.

Some articles stated that a bedroom with a crib already set up would be required. Others stated we would need fire extinguishers, outlet covers, smoke detectors in every room, and cabinet safety mounts installed. While some of that we already have, I had no clue what to expect and it made me so nervous to start the process

Let me just say, it has been SOOOOOOOOO much easier than I thought. While there is a lot of paperwork preparation involved, I am very organized when it comes to stuff like that so it has actually been fun getting everything in place. I contacted an agency in Charlotte that specializes in homestudies and we were immediately paired with a social worker out of Wake Forest. I was provided a list of all of the documents that I needed to gather up front and was able to talk with my social worker the day after we signed our contract. Our social worker is SUPER nice and I just feel like God has guided us to the perfect agency and perfect social worker.

The homestudy will require 3 sit down meetings, two at her office and the last one will be in our home. We have our first meeting this Friday so we already have the ball rolling. For those interested, I am going to post all of the homestudy required documents below. The first thing I asked the social worker was what she was expecting to see for the in-home visit. She immediately reassured us that all she is looking for is a structurally safe home and a room for our baby. Obviously they don't want us bringing a baby home to a house that could cave in at any moment. She said some of the horror stories I had read about are more for foster care homestudies as they have stricter requirements because they could be bringing home any age child. Most couples do not child proof their entire house when bringing an infant home from the hospital so they do not expect couples adopting an infant to do that either.

I'm telling you, this has surpassed all of my expectations and I actually find myself excited about the sit down meetings with our social worker. We will be diving in to our lives growing up, how we met, the things we are involved with, how we intend to discipline our child, how we were disciplined as children, etc. If we had any past issues, those things would also be discussed. These discussions will give the social worker a glimpse of our lives so that she can write up a proposal for us as parents. One source that Craw and I found when researching adoption was a website called Fund Your Adoption. They even provide a spreadsheet where all I have to do is plug in information and finances and it does all of the math for me. It has been so incredibly helpful in keeping everything organized as well as keeping up with every dollar we spend. There is an adoption tax credit that we will be eligible for once we get our child and saving receipts and keeping up with costs is the number one requirement. I highly recommend using this website if you are thinking of adopting.

Homestudy Required Documents

Copies of Birth Certificates

Copy of Marriage Certificate

Copy of Divorce Decrees (Not Applicable)

Copy of the first two pages of most recent 1040 tax form

Pay stub or letter from employer(s) verifying employment

Medical Clearances for each member of the household

Three letters of reference from non-family members (must be signed and notarized)

Child Abuse Clearances

Federal (FBI) Criminal Clearance

State Criminal Clearance

Must disclose any criminal history (Not Applicable- exclude minor traffic violations)

Financial worksheet detailing assets and liabilities

Hopefully this will give you an idea of what we are currently working on and a little more insight in to the adoption homestudy process. If you have any specific questions, please message me as I will be more than happy to answer.

Adoption Update: Application Approved

Photo cred: Taylor Dail Photography

The last few weeks have been busy and quite a lot has happened on the adoption front. We officially have an agency and have been approved for their infant adoption program. We submitted the application on September 6th and received an email on September 8th stating the board approved us. We weren't too worried about not being approved but getting that official email made it so surreal and Craw and I were super excited. I can't wait to share more about the agency once we get the baby but we are keeping it hush hush for now.

We also officially started the homestudy process. I was very nervous going in to the homestudy process as I had no clue where to begin but the agency we are using has been so helpful and has provided us clear directions on everything we need. I will do a post tomorrow specifically in regards to the homestudy and what it entails but I at least wanted to mention it in todays post.

Things are getting very very real for us. The homestudy should take about 8-10 weeks so we are hoping to have an approved homestudy in hand by December. Once we have an approved homestudy, we will start the matching process with our agency.