Adoption Update...

I thought this deserved it's own post and should be separate from the long update post below.
Chris and I spent Thursday evening with Ann, Mike, and Vicky at Children's Home Society at their Openness in Adoption seminar. We were able to bring a couple of people with us and were so happy that the three of them spent their evening with us learning about Open Adoption and what kind of relationship we may someday have with the birth mother of our child. It was so great to hear what they thought of it and to increase our knowledge as well. They had a great panel of two adoptive families, the birthmom of one of the families and her mother. The idea of being able to have an ongoing relationship with the birth mom or even birth family of our child, has become a pretty exciting part of our adoption journey. At first we were a little hesitant about that part and had all kinds of unwarrented fears of what "birthmom's" are. We've since come to the realiztion that it takes an incredible person to create an adoption plan for their child. It's the most selfless loving act that can be done. That birthmom has many choices that would be far less painful for herself than letting someone else raise her child as their own, but she puts her own needs aside and considers the interests of her child first.

When we got home from our Friday class about doing our profile Chris found an e-mail from our social worker with a copy of our homestudy attached for us to review!!!! She has a full 30 days to finish it and she sent it to us within a week of our homestudy. I think we've become Kendra's biggest fans!!!

Our next and final steps before going in the book to officially wait are....
*Review the homestudy and let Kendra (our social worker) know of anything that needs to be updated.
and...
*CREATE OUR PROFILE!!!! This is the part we've been waiting for! When it's done we can submit it to Kendra and we'll go in the book to officially WAIT!!! So much work to just get to the point of waiting, but it's worth it as we dream of the little one who is also waiting to meet us and become a part of our family!

We have no idea how the rest of our story will play out. Some families are in the book for just a few short weeks before they are chosen by a birth mom. Other's have a longer wait. Some are chosen out of the book while others find their child through friends. We even heard of one family who was approached at Sam's Club by the birth mom who chose them to parent her child!

We do know that God is good and He has a plan for us. He loves us and He loves the little one He has meant for our family. (We just can't wait to meet them!) :)

Please feel free to pass on our name and contact information if you hear of someone who is wanting to create an adoption plan for their child. We were told to use our friends and family to network as who knows what God has up His sleeve! I think I'm going to be spending some extra time at Sam's Club!!!! ;)

Have a blessed rest of your weekend!