The next steps

Many of you have probably been wondering how our meeting with our attorney went last week and I apologize that I haven't updated you more quickly. The rest of the week was busy and then Elias and I went away over the weekend for an overdue anniversary getaway (our anniversary was in August). We had a wonderful time and it was so nice to have some quality time with each other! But now that I have some free time, I figured that I would catch all of you up to date.

Last Wednesday we travelled to Albany, NY to finally meet with our attorney face to face. I had talked with her a couple of times over the phone and via email, but there was still A LOT to discuss. I have say that she is a wonderful woman and I am so glad that we will be working with her. I had no idea how much more we still need to do and that we still had a few decisions to make regarding which direction we would go. Because we had our homestudy done by a social worker apart from an agency we didn't get any of our clearances done for the adoption. We have all of these in for foster care, but of course we would have to have them done again since agencies are not allowed to share this information. We basically had two options, do our clearances through the state and be allowed to adopt from any state, or see if an agency will review our home study and perform our clearances for less money than the state. In this case we would not be able to adopt outside of NY, but since we are trying to keep costs low, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you adopt from out of state, you are required to stay in that state until parental rights are revoked which means that you not only have travel costs, but you also have hotel costs for the time being and there would be court fees as well. Ultimately adopting from another state usually adds on a few thousand dollars unless you have family or friends to stay with, which we have decided may not be the best option for us. So we have decided to utilize our attorney in conjunction with an agency that she has worked with before. This will allow us to get our clearances done as well as having a more concrete idea of how much total costs with be rather than going private route where costs can vary greatly. Birth mothers can request assistance for living costs, medical costs and counseling. With an agency, depending on the agency, you may have the advantage of having a set fee so that you don't face a bunch of expenses that you may or may not be able to afford. This would be the case with the agency that we are working with.

So now our attorney will send a copy of our homestudy to the agency to be reviewed and we are officially waiting. We could be waiting for 2 weeks or 2 years, it will ultimately depend on whether an expectant parent(s) chooses us or not. We are currently working on putting together our adoption profile so that if we were to be contacted we will have something to provide the expectant parent(s) something that tells about who we are and why we want to adopt. We have also submitted two grant applications that will be awarded in December, so please pray that if we are meant to receive a grant that God will bless us in this way.

While all of this is going on, we are also still taking foster care classes. We are halfway through and they have been very interesting. We have still not made any decisions regarding whether or not we want to pursue fostering right now or not, but the education aspect has been great and there is always a chance that we will be presented with a situation that just feels right. Right now we are just taking it one day at a time and praying for wisdom as we walk this road. The fact that we are making progress and that adoption feels more tangible has definitely lessened the sting of infertility. I feel as though we are really working toward becoming parents and that this is the right path for us at this point. I can't say that it never feels overwhelming or that I don't wish that we could just get pregnant for free and without being fingerprinted or cleared for child abuse like most couples, but I know that this is right and that in the end we will be providing a child with a good home while also receiving the biggest blessing that we could ever imagine. Please keep praying for us as we continue to move forward on this journey. Please pray that we will have wisdom when making decisions about situation that may come up and whether or not they are right for our family. Please pray that God will continue to open doors to make our dream a reality. Thank you again for your love and support and feel free to contact us at any time with questions!