a little about adoption.....

So a lot of people keep asking about the adoption…How it works. The timeline, etc….So I wanted to write a post explaining “how it works”

Basically, Kaz and I are in the “waiting stage”. What exactly does this mean? Well, we have been officially approved to adopt a child in the United States. We’ve gone through pages of paperwork and several back ground checks. We have also put down on the paperwork what we are ok with and what we are not ok with such as color, sex, physical disabilities, etc. It sounds so bad, but we literally had 2 full pages of things such a sex, race, handicaps, mental illnesses, etc that we had to go through and say Yes we are okay with, No we aren’t ok with , or we Will Consider this if it comes up. So up to this point, we’ve done everything we could in this process. Now it’s up to the birth mom.

Basically, we had to create a profile book [To see a copy of the book click here]. We ordered 4 of those books and one will be placed at each Bethany office in SC. There are 3 offices, with the additional book at the Myrtle Beach office [where our social worker is located]. The reasoning for the additional book is this….On Bethany’s website they have online profiles of waiting families. A lot of birth moms before ever stepping foot inside a Bethany office will look on Bethany’s website and go through all the profiles of waiting families in their state. If they don’t see one they like, then they will start looking at other states. If for some reason, a birth mom say from Florida liked us and wanted to see our profile book then Bethany would send the additional profile book to Florida. On the other hand, some birth moms don’t look at the online profiles. Instead they come to a Bethany office and look through all the profile books and make a decision based on that. So it’s important to have both a profile book and an online profile.

So a mom will choose us…..She could come in and choose us while she’s pregnant or she could choose us after the baby is born. So we have no idea what the time frame will be.

One downside COULD be [doesn’t mean this will happen] but if a birth mom picks us while she is pregnant, then she can’t sign relinquishment rights until after the baby is born. So if she picks us, and we go through the pregnancy with her, the baby is born, then she changes her mind then we start all over again. Basically, relinquishments rights can’t be signed until after the baby is born. So, we are praying that if a birth mom chooses us while she’s pregnant, that the Lord would give us clarity as to whether we say yes to move forward.

Our online profile should be up any day now on Bethany’s website under South Carolina. Basically, on the profile we have a letter to the birth mom, 2 pictures and a video. The video is very similar to our profile book but I thought I would share it with you! Kaz worked really hard on it!
Below is the link: It's on YouTube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlTrn7cv9BA

I hope all of this made sense….I know it can be confusing but so many people have asked how everything works I thought I would share!