First Meeting

by Ashley Bronander 

 My vision for this website is to document all of the steps from start to finish (and beyond) in this adoption process. It’s not something either one of us have ever done before (obviously) and I want a record for us and for our future child to look back on and see where we were and where God brought us.

 The adoption agency we are going through was not our first choice. The agency we were wanting to go through had a policy where you had to be married 4 years before adopting. When we first started looking into this, we had been married 3 years and 3 months. We decided to wait until our 4 year anniversary to go through that agency. Unfortunately, when the anniversary rolled around, they were no longer accepting applicants for the Domestic Infant Adoption. This is what led to our current agency. I used Google to find it, and looked up reviews and we liked what we read/heard so we went with it. My interaction over e-mail setting up our first appointment was great! On Wednesday, December 28, Aaron and I drove out to Dallas to meet for an informational meeting/interview. I loved every second of it. We felt at peace, we felt confident, we felt GOOD. We filled out some paperwork and our caseworker asked us some questions. She asked if we had a preference on male/female (no, we don’t). She asked if we had a preference on race (no, we don’t). She asked if we were open to drug/alcohol exposure (while we hope the baby doesn’t have to go through that for their sake, we hope he/she doesn’t have that type of exposure but we’re open to it.) She asked what our support system looks like and who all lives in our home.

She explained what the process would look like and this is where I really got excited. She specified more than once that the process she described is best case scenario. I really don’t mind though if I know what will happen at the end of the process. She said once we left the meeting, she would give the information and interview answers to her director and they would let us know if we were approved. I was thinking it would be several days before we heard anything back but on the way home, I received the e-mail that say we were accepted into the program!

Next steps:

•         Save, save, save.

This agency is different than the first agency we were going to go through. That agency required a 2 year wait time for a baby after trainings and home studies. Our caseworker told us after our trainings and home studies, we could be placed within 2 weeks to a year at the most. This means, all money needed for the adoption needs to be readily available before we even begin the process. I kind of like it better this way. I’m not going to be worried about rocking the home study and making sure there’s $28,000 in the bank.

So this is where we’re at. We’re pinching pennies, getting a yard sale ready, and thinking of other fundraiser ideas. Please continue to pray for us as we wait and save and fundraise. Please pray when things get stressful we remember what the end goal is. We know God is faithful and will provide in His time!