Archive for June, 2008

Follow-up: Our Adoption Agency

June 22, 2008 at 4:13 pm · Filed under Adoption ·Tagged ,

Follow-up to previous post: I want to note something about the agency we’re working with and their heart for helping babies as well as birth mothers. We’ve taken considerable time to choose this organization, we believe in their mission and their methods. We also believe that they have the utmost integrity.

Adoption is only a small part of what they do. In fact their primary mission is to work with women in crisis pregnancies to help them keep and raise their own child. They provide counseling, services and assistance to these women and this is the largest part of their organization. For a Mom to keep her child is always preferred. However, it is not always practical. The first alternative when a Mom is unable or unwilling to raise her child is to find family members who are. When that avenue is also exhausted, adoption is considered. Adoption is really the last resort of sorts, but not always the end of the birth mother’s involvement (see post on open adoption).

The agency is a State licensed charitable organization with strong ties to a local Christian church denomination and has been highly regarded as a service to our community since 1960.

JPM

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Private Adoption

June 21, 2008 at 3:58 pm · Filed under Adoption ·Tagged

After careful consideration and much prayer we’ve decided to pursue a private adoption.

What does this mean? Well, private adoption in our case means most likely the adoption of an infant or very small child.  Our adoption will be handled by a private adoption agency which we are working with. The birth Mom will likely be someone in a crisis pregnancy situation who has made the courageous decision to carry her baby to full term and place the child in a loving home to be raised.

We decided not to adopt a DES (Department of Economic Security) ward. That was a hard decision, but we got some very good information from an agency that does nothing but DES adoptions and foster care. In most cases a child that is taken from the home by CPS, placed with a foster family and later is available for adoption, is adopted by the foster family. Children on the list of DES wards who are available to be adopted and are currently in a foster home are in most all cases between the ages of 8-13. With two girls of our own at home, ages 8 and 6, we had to make a tough choice. We decided that our family is best to adopt a child under two, and not go through the ups and downs of foster care (God bless those angels that do).

The process for us now is waiting. Our agency works with birth mothers in crisis situations. Those that choose adoption will look through a book of adoptive families that will include a profile of our family. If she feels comfortable that our family would be a good place for her child to be placed, the agency will take steps to facilitate the adoption. There are obviously a lot of steps in between, but this is basically how it will work.

So we continue to wait.

JPM

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About Time & Class Tonight

June 17, 2008 at 4:08 pm · Filed under Adoption ·Tagged , ,

About time that I updated my blog. My apologies. Life’s busy schedule stepped up the fire a notch and at the same time there has been very little to report on our adoption. Well, I’ll make some updates and get you all caught up on the latest new here in coming posts.

Tonight we start our first adoption class. The agency we are working with has a series of classes that are for adopting parents. Pretty much every Tuesday for the next couple of months we’ll be attending (there are a few we are allowed to skip out on).

The topic tonight:

Losses and Gains:

The Need to Be a Loss Expert

We’ll let you know how it goes.

JPM

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