November is National Adoption Month...........The Beginning of Our Adoption Story

I thought since November is National Adoption Month I would share our adoption story over the next few days.

Part 1

     It all began in February 2007.  Amelia was 9 months old and one morning on my way to the tax office I started crying because she was my last baby and the pain of not being able to carry another baby came over me in an unexpected way.  I prayed for God to give me peace and I felt selfish because I had been able to carry two beautiful daughters and that there are many women who never get that chance.  I knew I was blessed, I had a wonderful husband, 3 wonderful daughters, and a great family.  What more could I need or want?  I kept my feelings quite for a few weeks and one day I was flipping channels on the radio in the car on my way to work again and someone was talking about adoption.  It was a light bulb moment, God had given me peace in the form of another chance to be a Mom.  I got to work and started searching the internet for information.  I found a lot.  I researched for a few days before talking to Daniel.  Mind you; that all this time Daniel had no idea what was going on in my heart and mind.   One night I told him that I wanted another baby and that I wanted to look into adopting, he said, "OK" and that was it, we were officially on our journey.
      I found several agencies through my research that I wanted to find out more about.  One agency(CAS) in fact had an Information Meeting scheduled for the next Friday night, March 30 at a church in Raleigh.  We asked my parents to watch the girls so that we could finish up our Easter Bunny shopping, so they kept the girls and we really went to the meeting.  The meeting was filled with lots of information and lots of emotion.  There were about 10 other couples there that night.  Before we left we got all the paperwork and spoke one on one with one of the agency's workers.  We were so excited when we left that meeting ,we could hardly contain ourselves.  We decided on the agency, Christian Adoption Services and started the paperwork without telling anyone what we were doing.
     The preliminary application took a couple of weeks to complete and then another few weeks for approval.  We then started the official application which is a huge amount of paperwork and information that you have to collect and compile.  We had to get background checks and health physicals.  We completed it in early July and by August we were on our way to the Home Study part.  We had to have 3 meetings with a social worker/case worker and then she had to write a large report about us to turn into the agency.  By the end of October our caseworker had completed her write up and we had to then schedule a meeting with Doris one of the directors of the agency.  CAS is located in Matthews, NC near Charlotte, in early October we had our first of 2 workshops required by the agency. The workshops are very informative and help you in deciding the boundaries for your adoption.  There were lots of couples at the workshop and everyone was in different phases on the process.  We decided that we would do a domestic adoption and that we would ask for a Caucasian male infant up to 3 months old through a open, semi-open, or closed adoption.  There was a lot of back and forth about our decision, but in the end we knew in our hearts and through our research and workshops that the decision we made was going to be the best one for our family.  We had our meeting with Doris the week after Thanksgiving in Matthews and on December 4th, 2007 we began the official waiting game.
  
Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.  I will try and post it earlier in the day.