Recently, Elias and I have made some big decisions regarding how we are going to proceed with adoption. Before I get into that I want to mention our puzzle fundraiser one more time. We purchased a child's floor puzzle. There are 48 pieces to this puzzle. We are now looking for individuals to sponsor pieces of the puzzle for only $10. If you sponsor a piece of the puzzle then you will have your name written on the back of a piece and our child will be able to read the names of all of the people that helped bring him/her home. Ten of the pieces have already been sponsored, so we are only looking for 38 more people to complete the puzzle. We really want every piece to have a name so that our child will know how much he or she was loved even before we knew that he/she would be coming to live with us. Now, we understand that $10 is a lot for some people and if that is you, we completely understand if you can't donate. However, we also want to challenge the rest of you to think about how easily you spend $10. If you go out to eat that will pay for roughly one person's meal at a sit down restaurant. Have you gone to the movies lately? One ticket can cost most than $10! I could go on, but I won't. Every time I post an update to Facebook roughly 50 people view that update (yes I can see how many people view our blog, but I don't see specific names so you can breath easy). This doesn't include the views in between posts. So if each person that viewed our blog could spare $10 we would have our puzzle completely funded plus some. Please consider this as you follow our story and if you can't donate please continue supporting us in prayer. Also, please keep in mind that if you have donated more than $10 to us in the past you already have a piece of the puzzle.
Okay, now onto what you really want to read about. About 2 weeks ago I received the name of a social worker that I contacted to ask a few questions regarding the homestudy process. During my conversation with her I learned that rather than paying $2,000 for a homestudy through an agency we can have her do our homestudy for $600. The catch here is that not all agencies will accept that homestudy or as one told me, they would have to review the homestudy for $500. Umm, $1100 is still less than $2,000....The kicker is that this agency uses this same social worker to complete their homestudies! She also recommended possibly using an adoption attorney since we are open to a child of any race. After our conversation I proceeded to research adoption attorney's in New York State and found one that only practices adoption law. We liked this due to the fact that just because an attorney can practice adoption law, doesn't mean that they are good at it. She basically said that since we are open to a child of any race, it may not be worth using an agency at all because of all of the networking that occurs between attorneys and between attorney and adoption agencies. For example, an attorney or an agency may have a family list of families that are only will to accept children of 1-2 specific races. If they have a baby come to them that is not of those races then they will contact other attorney's or agencies to see if they have a family that is open to that race. This isn't limited to race, it could also be special needs, medical history etc. Race is just more applicable to our situation.
We also learned from the social worker that we really needed to decide if we wanted to go domestic or international. At this point we feel that a baby is best suited for our family. It is very unlikely that a baby will become available from Ghana, so we have decided to pursue domestic infant adoption. We have started the homestudy process with this social worker which will allow us to apply for grants and we will begin working with the adoption attorney that we spoke to earlier. We are hoping this this will be a faster and less expensive route, but in the world of adoption nothing is guaranteed. We feel excited and nervous about this new path, but we feel as though it is right and we can't wait to see what God has in store of us!
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