Our Adoption Story: Getting Started

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Our Adoption Story: Getting Started

Well….it’s been a while since I wrote the first post about my family deciding to grow our family. A lot has happened in a small amount of time. I have learned all kinds of new information that was very surprising and got me even more excited about this process. I was able to talk to a friend who was adopted when she was a little girl. And now as an adult, her and her husband have a child of their own, also do foster care in their home and have adopted two of the children they have fostered. Being as she has been through the process as a child and now as an adult, she knows this process well.

The First Thing I learned:

One of the first things my friend asked me was if we had found an agency to go through. I was kind of thrown off by this question because I thought you just went through the state to adopt a child in foster care. Obviously I know there are adoption agencies out there, but I thought you only used one of those if you wanted to adopt a baby. I was surprised to find out that isn’t the case at all. She explained to me that the state processes all children that come in to foster care. They also look after and manage all foster homes and fostering families. That is a lot of work! So…the state contracts with certain private adoption agencies to help match families, provide the training and guide the adoption along. This way more children can be placed with a forever family in a timely manner. You can find which private adoption agencies will help with this kind of adoption on the Department of Family and Protective Services site for your state.

Needless to say, I started looking for an agency right away. I found one that looked good to me and looked to see when their orientation meeting was. Before anyone starts this whole process, you go to an orientation meeting. Whether you go through the state or a private agency, you always attend the meeting first. Unfortunately, we had just missed the meeting for this agency and there wasn’t another one until the end of the month. But….when I contacted to agency just to ask some basic questions, they said they would do a private meeting at our earliest convenience! YEAH!!

Orientation Meeting:

We have already been to our orientation meeting and have officially started this journey. We got a large folder of information that included all of the paperwork we needed to fill out. The paperwork is extensive (as it should be to adopt a child) and our folder included; an application packet, references that we needed to get filled out by friends and family, a required reading list, a list of qualifications, a medical history form, a schedule of what our daily activities are and a few more forms. We also have to do a fire inspection, background check, fingerprints, provide something showing our dog is up to date on his vaccinations and we all have to be tested for TB….even my kids! So needless to say we still have a way to go to get all of this done.

Our Next Step:

So the next thing we will be doing, other than getting through the paperwork, is taking training classes. There are five weeks of classes and we start this Saturday! That was something I had to also look for when I was choosing an agency. My husband travels a lot and his schedule can change at any minute. BUT, I can almost always guarantee that he will be home on Saturday. The agency that we chose, The Settlement Home for Children, has all of their training classes on Saturday. That was a big deal for us because I noticed some other agencies had classes all throughout the week and some of them lasted until 9pm. That schedule would not have worked with us, mainly because of my husbands work schedule and the fact that my kids go to bed at 8! These classes cover a whole range of issues when raising kids. Because we already have kids, some of the training may seem redundant to us. But I have to remember that most people are there because they don’t have kids. The training will also help us learn how to help and bond with a child that may have been through trauma and has now been separated from their family.

Other Cool Things I have Learned:

There are a few other things I have learned since my last post that makes this process even more amazing than it already is! One, even though we are going through a private adoption agency, there is not a huge cost to us. Because we are adopting an older child (or possibly siblings) out of foster care, the state will help pay for most of the costs in the process. This is great because I feel like you should be able to put that money towards raising the child. You shouldn’t have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to help a child that is in great need. Also, children who are adopted out of foster care can get free tuition to any state funded college! So you can give them the love, support and the family that they need to grow and be safe and healthy and they already have help available to further their education. There is also healthcare provided for them and help to get them into their very first apartment! That is a lot of help and support to give these children motivation to make the best of the rest of their lives.

So now we are just a few days away from starting our classes. I will be doing an update soon to let you know how that goes!

If adoption is something you are interested in or maybe your just curious to see what our journey is like, please check back for updates. I will be writing new parts to our story as they happen.

Helpful Websites:

AdoptUSKids

TARE – Texas Adoption Resource Exchange

Childwelfare.gov – Adoption websites listed by state

Things you may not know about adoption:

1. Did you know that Texas has an official Adoption Day? Well, we do and it is the Saturday before Thanksgiving, each year.
2. Did you know that the average age of a child in foster care is 9 years old?
3. Did you know that families who adopt a child from foster care may qualify for a federal tax credit even though they may not have had adoption expenses?
4. Did you know that the average time that a child waits for a forever home is almost 2 years? And the older a child gets, the longer they may wait.
5. Did you know that there are Adoption Assistance Resources on a state and national level?