During infertility, there is this phenomena that happens with waiting, especially when seeking treatment. You go to all the doctors appointments, have all the blood work, and have any necessary procedures done. You are very excited/nervous during this whole process, but you are super focused on hearing good numbers for a successful procedure. Then, the treatment is done, and you’re left to wait. Waiting to see if you’ll be a Mommy and Daddy. We call this the “hurry up and wait” feeling. You can’t wait for X to happen, but you have to wait to see if it’ll all work out. With adoption, it’s not all that different.
We were so excited to start and finish our home study. We filled out all the paperwork, took all the classes, had our home inspection, and met with our adoption social worker. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. Now, we are approved. And, that’s really exciting! But, now comes the wait. We have compared this part to a pregnancy. There will be a period of waiting. We just don’t know how long it will be. Some in the adoption community even refer to this time period as “paper pregnant”. We aren’t too sure how we feel about this phrase, but we are glad that we are finally approved. We even get an official certificate and everything.
In our posts, we usually highlight what questions seem to be popping up in conversation the most. Now that our home study is completed, the most common question recently has been, “When are you getting your baby?” Well…we don’t know. Unlike 50 years ago, there are no waiting lists for prospective adoptive parents. The best the adoption community can do is give us averages. It takes on average 2 years for a family to be chosen. Of course, that means that some people are chosen in a matter of weeks, but others wait much longer. In today’s world, expectant parents play a huge role in placing their child for adoption in that they decide what family they would like their child to have. Their criteria might include a Christian home or a close knit family or something that might seem irrelevant like pets in the home. It just goes to show you that you never know what someone will connect with. While we aren’t on any official waiting lists, we have various ways of sharing our profile. This website being one. You may have noticed we have added a tab with our Expectant Parent Letter. We have a profile at our adoption agency and few of their contacts. We signed up with Adoptimist (We mentioned we were signing up with ParentProfiles.com previously, but decided to go with Adoptimist.com.) and few other websites meant to connect expectant and prospective adoptive parents. We have business cards with our website that we hand out. We might even have shirts with our website. It seems crazy…even to us, but making connections with expectant families is how it’s done nowadays. If we kept quiet about our desire to adopt, we may never be parents. Each website, profile, and page is another avenue for someone considering adoption for their child to find us.
We know many of you have been sharing our story, and as always, we thank you so much. Keep it up! You might be the very connection we need. If you would like us to mail you a few business cards or email you digital copies of our profile, email us at Recipe4Family@gmail.com. As always, feel free to ask any questions you may have about the adoption process or our desire to adopt. We love hearing from you!
Recipe for Family 