We are ADOPTING!!!

A few posts ago, I blogged that we thought we made a decision regarding adoption. But, still at the time it was still a maybe.

Well, that maybe has turned into a full and total YES!!!!!

We will be adopting from the foster care system in our state. As I said before, my neighbor works for the Dept of Children Services and was able to really answer lots of my questions.

We spoke to her last week about everything and anything regarding adoption. When we spoke, she said she would leave me an app that week. Nothing happened, I just assumed she was busy (she was). I saw her yesterday and we started chatting again about random things (not adoption). She then told me that she did not forget about me and will be getting the apps to me this week. She then said that there is a training class (required) that is starting on Nov 3rd. And she could put us in that class if we had our apps in before the end of the month. Last time we spoke, I told her we were not sure if we were going to do it right away or wait.

They only offer the class 3-4 times a year. If we did not do it now, we would either have to wait a few months for training, or go to another county.

I went inside and spoke to my husband about the classes and he said, "well, let's do it now then"

I went back and told my neighbor that we are ready. She promised that she would give me an app this week.

We can start training before we are an approved family - but the app needs to be at least submitted before the training.

What is great is that we can do our home evaluation, references, fingerprinting, background checks, medical stuff, etc all at the same time as classes.

The classes are requied (and a good idea) and last 9 weeks.

Once approved, it is possible that it would be quick. Right now, my area does not have enough families for the children in the area. They have to usually go to another county and ask families from other areas to take children.

So, there is a definate need in my area - which of course does work in our favor.

Of course being a little more open to the type of child (age, sex, etc) will make the process quicker. We are also open to a sibling group, which sometimes makes it quicker.

At this point, we will accept a child from 0-5 yrs old, boy or girl, or a silbing group of 2. I know there are other children out there that do not fall into the above, but those I listed are a better fit for our family.

According to my neighbor, it is totally possible that we have a child(ren) in 4-6 months, maybe less!!!!!

We are not totally giving up on IVF w/PGD, but like everyone knows, this does not guarantee a pregnancy and does not guarantee that I will not have yet another m/c.

Plus, it is a lot more expensive than any other treatments that we have done to date, money that we do not have.

We are not totally saying we are not EVER going to do ivf, but right now and this second, that answer is "maybe, maybe not"

I have started a new blog - it is totally blank right now. It will detail the process and everything we go through to make our family complete. It is going to be:

Punky Powers - I need all the powers I can get :)