Baby Steps

           We believed God wanted us to adopt. We had no idea what to do next. We had no idea what kind of adventure we would be going on. We didn’t know who to turn to. So, we turned to the One who gave us the idea. We didn’t know what to do, but we did know how to pray. As only He would have it, one of our neighbors opened a Christian adoption agency out of her house. Our first baby step was to call her.

            She explained the procedure and was encouraging and positive the whole time.
First, there was a myriad of paperwork to fill out.

    *Fingerprinting            *Background checks                 *Insurance            *Medical history

*Taxes                        *Income             *Job history                  *Current family members           

    *Family of origin            *Our beliefs                       *Hobbies            *Discipline philosophy

*Our house               *Pets                   *Alcohol and drug use            *Our health

             A Social Worker came to our house and interviewed all four of us. He also looked around and wrote a detailed report about our family and our house. On one hand it felt intrusive, as if they were judging or grading us. On the other hand, I was glad for all adoptive children that there was such a thorough investigation before placing children in families.

            She explained that we were not buying children, in fact that is illegal. What we were doing was creating a family. No money was to go directly to the birth mother. But, there were expenses. All monies would go through the adoption agency, and some of that went toward taking care of the birth mothers, whether that meant providing a place for them to live, food, clothing or medical expenses.

            After all the paperwork was complete, the background checks were done and the pre-placement study was filed, we put together a photo album telling birth mothers about ourselves.
Birth mothers would then look through couple’s albums and decide who they wanted to meet to talk about placing their child with. Again, it felt a bit like a contest or being put on display.
           
What if our album was never chosen? What if birth mothers didn’t want families who had other children? We could drive ourselves crazy with all the ‘what ifs?’ We continually went back to God and gave our worries to Him. We knew there was nothing we could do and that He was in control.

We made an album with cute photos of our kids and our family having fun on vacation.

          We wrote a letter to the potential birth mom telling her why we wanted to adopt. I was torn because it felt selfish. There were a dozen other couple’s albums waiting to be chosen also. Everyone who wants children should have the opportunity to have them. We already had two sweet kiddos, maybe we were being selfish to want to adopt two more. I prayed for the other couples that everyone who had been waiting would be chosen to adopt.

           "Lord, you know just the right parents for each of these sweet little ones. You care about the parents and the children equally. Work all these things out for good."

            This is where trust came it. We trusted God had a plan. We trusted he had just the right child or children for our family.

            “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He is the One who will keep you on track.”             Proverbs 3:5-6 (The Message)

            We were told it could take up to two years before we would have a child. Imagine our surprise when six weeks after our paper work was complete we got our first call!

**Come back tomorrow or bookmark this to hear about meeting our first birth mother.**

This is Day 2 of 31 Days of Our Adoption Adventure. If you missed Day 1, click here.