Friday, April 25, 2014

How the process works!

Here is our blog, just as I promised! I'm making this blog to update you, our friends and family, as we go forward on this amazing adventure called adoption!

So, how did we find our adoption agency? Well, we called a local women's crisis agency to see who they would recommend for adoption. They recommended Catholic Social Services of Montana (CSSMT). I called over to them, and for the first time talked to our future social worker, Becky. She was so encouraging and full of hope that I immediately felt that we should look more into this agency. Joe and I also looked into several other agencies, including the state department, but both felt that CSSMT was the right choice for us, especially after learning that other people we knew had friends and/or family who highly recommended CSSMT. So, after more prayer and thought, we decided to start applying through CSSMT.

The first steps of the process:

The first steps of the process were a preliminary application and various other small pieces of paperwork. We also had to meet with (we ended up doing a conference call) our social worker to better understand how CSSMT works. After doing that, we had to pay to attend adoption workshop in Helena that gave us a better understanding of the process, as well as encouragement as we met with other prospective adoptive couples and got to hear the testimony of an adult adoptee, a birth mother, and two adoptive families. After attending the workshop, we were then directed onto filling out yet more paperwork in the process of getting ready for our homestudy. The homestudy includes a social worker interviewing us at our home and checking that our home is up to date for the mandatory safety features. After that, we have to do more paperwork (oh joy!), and then we will write an introductory letter to prospective birth parents as well as make a picture book for the prospective birth parents to look over.  Once we are fully qualified, then we will have our photo books shown to prospective birth mothers so that they can chose an adoptive family. Once chosen, we would wait for official placement (timing would depend on whether the child was born yet or not), and then we will have to be foster parents to that child for 6 months through CSSMT until we could make the adoption official.

What is open adoption? 

CSSMT perfers open adoption vs closed adoption. Open adoption is not co-parenting, but instead gives open communication to both the birth and adoptive families, so that the birth parents are still able to know the child and the child is given an opportunity to know who their birth parents are and why they were entrusted to their adoptive parents. We have listened to both sides for both closed and open adoption, and we agree that open adoption is best for the child. We know it isn't the easiest way to adopt, but we strongly feel that we must do what is best for our child regardless of whether it is easy or not. After all, nothing that is worthwhile in life is easy, especially when you are a Christ   follower! If any of you have any questions about open adoption, please contact either Joe or myself. We are both happy to talk more about it since it is so hard to sum up how open adoption works in one small blog post. :)

Why did we chose adoption?

After much prayer, we felt that adoption was the best way for us to continue forward in having more children, since medical intervention may have worked, but it wasn't what we felt was best for us. We would rather give a child a home who is already coming into the world than to spend time and money to try proceedures that might or might now work. It was not an easy decision for us, but it was one that we both had agreed was the best option for our family. Some other families choose to pursue medical intervention, and we know how difficult and hard that decision is and know that was the best decision for that particular family!


What do we need?

In one word: prayer. Prayer for both our patience and perseverance through this long process. Prayer that we continue to listen to God's directions and that we do not become discouraged. At this point, sometimes we feel like we are drowning in paperwork, so it is easy to become frustrated or believe that we aren't getting anywhere, which is untrue. Also, prayer for our future child and his/her birth parents is something we greatly need as well. We know that the reasons parents choose adoption vary greatly, and we look to birth parents with a huge amount of respect and amazement that they can be so selfless to make this incredibly hard decision. Financial support is another way we have a need, since this process is fairly expensive. We have a GoFund Me account on Facebook that is set up for anyone who feels led to give that way, and we are going to have a large garage sale in Billings May 17th, which we could use donations of things to sell. We would also love to see any of you at the garage sale, even if you just stop by to say hi!

I'll be posting more about where we are in this process soon, so stay tuned! Thank you for your continued support and prayers!


Love,

Joe, Shiloh, and Lydia